Outdoor Advertising Billboards for Rent in North Hollywood, CA

Transportation

The North Hollywood Metro Subway station opened in June 2000. Close to half a million people took advantage of free rides on the 17.4-mile Red Line subway in its first weekend in operation. The station is the starting point for the Red Line Metro system, which cost $4.5 billion to construct.

The L.A. county Transportation Commission took four years but finally in 1990 approved the subway station connecting North Hollywood to the Metro Rail from downtown. That followed the Los Angeles City Council unanimously endorsing the Valley Metro Rail extension plan. The subway features a route from Union Station to North Hollywood.

The tunnel to connect the Metro Red Car's Hollywood leg to the San Fernando Valley extension cost $136 million. It included the cost of digging a tunnel under the Santa Monica Mountains. The tunneling work was done by a Traylor Brothers/Frontier-Kemper joint venture. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Sierra Club had fought to prevent the tunneling but ultimately lost. Environmentalists were concerned that the removal of billions of gallons of ground water might affect springs, wildlife and vegetation.

Tunneling from North Hollywood for the subway started in 1995. Workers dug 70 feet deep using tunneling machines. Work progressed an average of 50 to 200 feet daily, performed by work crews round-the-clock six days a week. The machines used bore through soil that once lined the bottoms of ancient oceans.

The two tunnels between the North Hollywood and Universal City stations were a total of 10,541 feet. The cost of building the two tunnels was $65.4 million and involved 250 workers.

Libraries

Los Angeles Public Library operates the North Hollywood Regional Branch.

The North Hollywood (Amelia M. Earhart) Regional Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library is located at 5211 Tujunga Avenue. The one-story, mission-style brick building with Spanish tile work was opened in 1929 to replace a storefront operation known as the Sepulveda Library, which could not meet the demand caused by the area's rapid population growth. In 1981, at the suggestion of a local resident, officials renamed the library for Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Earhart, who disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on an attempted around-the-world flight in 1937, lived in nearby Toluca Lake for several years when she was in her 20s.

Notable residents

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• Amelia Earhart was a resident but was born in Atchison, Kansas, and probably died somewhere near Howland Island in the Central Pacific Ocean).
• Norma Jean Baker (Marilyn Monroe) was a student at Lankershim Elementary School.

• Tom Selleck and Gilbert Arenas were both students at Grant High School.

• Yoshiki's private recording studio is located in North Hollywood on Lankershim Boulevard.

• Curly Howard of The Three Stooges.

• North Hollywood is the birthplace of Jan Smithers and Hip Hip Model Bria Myles.

• Comedian and radio talk show host Adam Carolla hails from North Hollywood

• Writer/comedian Sean Kent lives there.

• Andrea Lambert, the author of "Jet Set Desolate," lives there.

• Yo Momma Season 1 Champion "Harp" advanced out of North Hollywood and won the title for Los Angeles's best trash talker.

• Rabbi Simcha Wasserman headed a yeshiva in North Hollywood between 1955 and 1980.

• Karo Parisyan, a UFC welterweight fighter, resides there, training and teaching at a local gym.

• Alyson Hannigan (American Pie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, How I Met Your Mother) attended North Hollywood High School, as did Mayim Bialik (Blossom).

• Stephen Christian, Lead Singer of Platinum Selling Alternative Rock Band Anberlin recently moved to North Hollywood.

• Rob Dyrdek also resides in North Hollywood.

• Writer, historian and director Frank Thompson lives in North Hollywood.