Early morning on the Walk of Fame, and a woman with matted hair lets her black duffel bag slump off her shoulder and onto Phil Collins' star. She eyes a couple in the distance, lifts her shirt, pulls down her bra and waits.
The young man and woman sip large drinks in Starbucks cups and whisper in French. Then they gasp. The exhibitionist pulls down her top, smirks slightly and continues down Hollywood Boulevard.
Nearby, replica Oscar statuettes peer out from the window of a souvenir shop, and a teenage girl proclaims her wish list for the day: two movie star sightings and a purse from the Louis Vuitton store.
A new day has dawned at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, where A-list stars coexist with people who dress up like stars — and with the masses who want their pictures taken with both.
"Hollywood will always have that seediness. You'll never remove that," says 43-year-old native Alex Cook, who works at a city tour company near the intersection's southwest corner, across from the retail hub whose sand-colored archway frames the iconic Hollywood sign.
But he's quick to tout the area's revitalization over the last decade or so and the tourists it has lured.
"It's cleaned up a lot," he says. "It's more what Hollywood should be."
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Zorro and Mr. Incredible show up around 9 a.m. — the first of several dozen costumed characters who roam the Walk of Fame throughout the day. Nearby, a man with a stack of CDs in red cases slouches against a light pole until he spots a frazzled woman with a large camera around her neck and hands her a disc. She lets go of her toddler's hand to take it, then smiles and starts to walk off.
"Come on, now," he says, following her. "I'm feeling lucky today." She caves in to his charming aggression and hands over a $5 bill.
Just down the street last month, a 23-year-old woman refused to pay a dollar for the photo she snapped of a transient's humorous sign. She ended up stabbed and bleeding on the sidewalk in front of the American Eagle Outfitters clothing store, not far from where the red carpet is unfurled every year for the Academy Awards.
Her death, followed a few weeks later by a "bash mob" rampage to the east, offered a reminder that even as trendier stores crowd out tired souvenir shops, the boulevard resists attempts to scrub it completely clean.
Across the street from the CD hawker, up a narrow carpeted stairway and down the hallway of Hollywood International Hostel, a painting of a curvaceous silhouette, a disco ball and the words "free beer" adorn the walls of the dining hall.
A woman from England curses at her burned bagel, and Rafael Soares opens a document on his iPad Mini to review the day's itinerary. It reads: "07/08 Hollywood. Sunset Boulevard. LA Center."
The Brazilian had ridden a bus through the night from San Francisco. He and his younger brother — wearing a white T-shirt with gray letters reading "CALI" — have their three-day trip planned. First the city, then the beach, then, finally, Six Flags Magic Mountain.
Back outside, a jam-packed crowd spills over the white crosswalk lines, trailing the scents of cologne and sunscreen. In textbook how-not-to-get-pickpocketed-on-vacation style, many tourists wrap their arms around their backpacks and purses — which they wear on their chests.
At the end of the crosswalk, a young boy pays to pose with two albino Burmese pythons, and a round-faced girl spots two familiar faces.
"I didn't know Tom and Jerry lived here!" she screams, teetering on tiptoes to get a better look. Her mom snaps a cellphone photo of the girl, thanks the characters and walks off.
Tourists don't have to tip the actors — and some don't, says Darth Vader impersonator Christopher Mitchell, who has worked at the intersection for eight years.
Things got hard after the summer of 2010, Mitchell says, when the LAPD did a sweep and arrested characters on various charges — including blocking a public sidewalk.
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