The Hollywood Pedestrian

By Geoff Nicholson

I swear this really happened. I was walking north on Wilton Place where it crosses the 101, right before Sunset Boulevard, in sight of The Home Depot. The day was hot, I wasn’t moving very fast, and I’d slowed even more to look at the traffic on the freeway below when a car pulled up and the driver got out and ran round the car to face me. Now I’ve been in situations similar to this before and generally it hasn’t been the prelude to anything good, but this guy looked benign enough. He said he needed directions. He pointed at his wife, who was sitting in the car, and said she had some crazy idea that there was a place in Los Angeles where you could walk along and see the names of Hollywood stars set in concrete in the sidewalk. Was there really such a place? He himself seriously doubted it…

This is an excerpt of an article originally published in Slake No. 1. To read the entire story, purchase or subscribe at shop.slake.la.