My story .. I Heart Hollywood –

I love this neighborhood. My goal is to help improve it for all of us.

I grew up in Manhattan in the 70’s. My parents both worked and I was an extremely independent 5 year old walking myself to and from elementary school. I was part of a special generation of latch key kids, we were children left to our own devices, allowed to be raised by the city itself. A key to the front door hung around my neck by a leather strap as to not lose it, hence the term “latch key Kids”. 

I was told to always come right home after school, let myself in, and make myself a snack. I‘d open Chef Boyardee ravioli and eat it cold right out of the can, sitting cross-legged in front of the 13” black and white television until my folks or siblings would come home. I was literally raised by Norman Lear and Gary Marshall. I learned about life and family through syndicated sitcoms, and realized at a very young age that my favorite moving images were the ones from California. I also was keenly aware that although some shows claimed to be located elsewhere they were all made in Hollywood.

Love Boat always docked in L.A. Three’s Company proved that hers and hers and his was so much better in Santa Monica. The Brady Bunch told a story of a lovely lady and a man named Brady who would somehow form a family in a tiny house in Van Nuys. A sunny cul de sac become, the iconic location of Knots Landing, filled with intrigue and drama possibly the best of the prime-time soaps. Even cops were cooler! Riding motorcycles in skintight beige pants. No matter what the premise the location always shone brighter if the setting was L.A.
 
Television was my babysitter and mentor; I was enthralled with all of it!! Good Times, All in the Family, I Love Lucy, The Carol Burnett Show, The Jefferson’s, The Muppets, Battlestar Gallactica, Dallas, The Incredible Hulk, but it was the women of the 70’s and especially the ones from the west coast that became my obsession. Charlie’s Angeles with their feathered hair solved crimes under palm trees and Jill Monroe’s (Farrah Fawcett) White Cobra with the blue middle stripe remains to this day my ultimate dream car. To me Jamie (Lyndsay Wagner) was worth every cent of the six million and clearly the greater of the Bionic duo. But one gorgeous female 70’s icon rose to become supreme! She above all others captured my total attention, fixated, star struck. A Wonder Woman if you will. 

California was beautiful. It was where the beautiful superheroes came from. At the age of 6 I knew that’s where I needed to be. I had a Hollywood Sign poster above my bed and at night my mom would sit at the edge tell me that one-day I would live there.  I moved to my Hollyridge home in 2015. Her promise and my dreams came true.