For decades, visitors to Los Angeles have tried their best to go see the famous Hollywood sign up close. It’s not easy to get to, involves quite a bit of walking, and the view isn’t great when you get there. But they keep coming, and the people who live there keep trying to stop them.
By 2011 the anti-tourist rhetoric reached a fever pitch, with homeowners mounting a vicious campaign threatening visitors, who, unsurprisingly, just kept coming. Some neighbors painted their curbs red (illegally) to discourage parking and tacked up more signs (illegally) warning against trespassing. In a vacant lot, someone took the time to build a full-on piece of land art that seemed to echo the large white letters in the distance: TOURISTS GO AWAY.
And now, although the location is correct on maps, if you request directions to the Hollywood sign from Google Maps (or several other services), you get directions to one of two “observation points” that are not near the sign. You can’t really blame the neighbors for being tired of tourists parking on and blocking their streets constantly, but the idea that a small number of homeowners have the clout to dictate policy to Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing, and the GPS service Garmin is a little unsettling. Get a rundown of how it happened in an article at Gizmodo. -via Metafilter