Gower Street, Hollywood

Gower Street is a street in Los Angeles, California that has played an important role in the ongoing evolution of Hollywood, particularly as the home to several prominent Poverty Row studios during the area's Golden Age. It marks the eastern terminus of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Gower Street begins at the corner of 1st Street in the Hancock Park district as a residential street, becomes primarily industrial, and then commercial as it bisects the Hollywood district, becomes residential again north of Franklin Avenue, and terminates in Beachwood Canyon at Beachwood Drive near the Hollywood Sign. Gower Street marks the western boundary of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery just south of Santa Monica Boulevard.

A farmer from Hawaii named John T. Gower brought in the area's first harvesting equipment and built his home near this street before his death in 1880, a time when Hollywood was an independent city. Upon Hollywood's annexation by the city of Los Angeles in 1910, this street was named in his honor.

Many of the original Hollywood movie studios were located on or near Gower Street. The Paramount Pictures lot sits on the corner of Gower Street and Melrose Avenue; further north, the Sunset Gower Studios (formerly the Columbia Pictures lot) sit on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower.

Gower Street was the location of the first motion picture studio built in Hollywood. Nestor Studios, founded by David and William Horsley and operated by Al Christie in 1911, the Christie Studios occupied a building at the northwest corner of Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard. Later, this same location was home to the Columbia Drugstore, famous for a soda fountain, frequented by many young movie stars. The drugstore was also home to an outdoor magazine and newspaper vendor where many celebrities bought their hometown newspapers.

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