Mulholland Drive Overlook, Los Angeles
Views from the Mulholland Drive overlook across the Los Angeles basin, the Hollywood Sign, and Griffith Observatory
Mulholland Drive Overlook — Los Angeles, CA
The Mulholland Drive Overlook sits high in the Santa Monica Mountains along a road completed in 1924 as a scenic parkway, designed to give motorists sweeping views across the Los Angeles basin toward downtown and, on clear days, the Pacific Ocean. It remains one of the city's best-known vantage points for taking in the full spread of the metropolitan area below.
Mulholland Drive was named for William Mulholland, the engineer who oversaw construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and the road itself became a defining feature of the car-centric culture that shaped mid-century Los Angeles. The overlook draws attention to how the city grew outward from a downtown core that began developing in the late nineteenth century and expanded rapidly through the mid-twentieth.
From this elevation, both the Hollywood Sign and Griffith Observatory are visible to the east in the Hollywood Hills. The sign was erected in 1923 as "HOLLYWOODLAND" to market a hillside real estate development before it was shortened to its present form and adopted as a civic landmark. The Griffith Observatory, completed in 1935, functions as a public astronomy center and remains open today, sitting just below the ridgeline that Mulholland Drive follows westward across the hills.
