Avalon Hollywood

The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made on September 23, 1952, by California Senator Richard Nixon, six weeks before the 1952 United States presidential election, in which he was the Republican candidate for Vice President. Nixon had been accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his backers to reimburse him for his political expenses. His place was in doubt on the Republican ticket, so he flew to Los Angeles and delivered a half-hour television address in which he defended himself, attacked his opponents, and urged the audience to contact the Republican National Committee (RNC) to tell it whether he should remain on the ticket. During the speech, he stated that he intended to keep one gift, regardless of the outcome: a black-and-white Cocker Spaniel that his children had named Checkers, thus giving the address its popular name. Nixon came from a family of modest means, as he related in the address, and he had spent his time after law school in the military, campaigning for office, and serving in Congress. After his successful 1950 Senate campaign, his backers continued to raise money to finance his political activities. These contributions went to reimburse him for travel costs, postage for political mailings which he did not have franked, and similar expenses. Such a fund was not illegal at the time, but Nixon had made a point of attacking government corruption which exposed him to charges that he might be giving special favors to the contributors. The press became aware of the fund in September 1952, two months after Nixon's selection as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's running mate, and the story quickly grew until it threatened his place on the ticket. In an attempt to turn the tide of public opinion, Nixon broke off a whistle-stop tour of the West Coast to fly to Los Angeles and make a television and radio broadcast to the nation; the RNC raised the $75,000 to buy the television time. The idea for the Checkers reference came from Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fala speech, given eight years to the day before Nixon's address, in which Roosevelt mocked Republican claims that he had sent a destroyer to fetch his dog Fala, when the dog was supposedly left behind in the Aleutian Islands. Nixon's speech was seen and heard by about 60 million Americans, including the largest television audience to that time, and it led to an outpouring of public support. The RNC and other political offices received millions of telegrams and phone calls supporting Nixon. He was retained on the ticket, which swept to victory weeks later in November 1952. The Checkers speech was an early example of a politician using television to appeal directly to the electorate, but it has sometimes been mocked or denigrated. The term Checkers speech has come more generally to mean any emotional speech by a politician.

Vine Theatre, formerly Admiral Theatre and Rector’s Admiral Theatre, also known as Vine Street Theatre, Dolby @ Vine, and Dolby Screening Room Hollywood Vine, is a historic movie theater located at 6321 W. Hollywood Boulevard, near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, in Hollywood, California.

The Laemmle Building was a historic building located at 6301 W. Hollywood Boulevard, on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, in Hollywood, California. Built in 1932, it was destroyed in a fire in 2008.

The Hollywood Post Office, also known as Old Post Office, was a historic building located at 1717 N. Vine Street in Hollywood, California.

Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note in the United States in 1942 by Johnny Mercer, Buddy DeSylva, and Glenn E. Wallichs. Capitol was acquired by British music conglomerate EMI as its North American subsidiary in 1955. EMI was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012, and was merged with the company a year later, making Capitol and the Capitol Music Group both distributed by UMG. The label's circular headquarters building is a recognized landmark of Hollywood, California. Capitol is well known as the U.S. record label of the Beatles, especially during the years of Beatlemania in America from 1964 to 1967.

The Hollywood Knickerbocker Apartments, formerly the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel, is a historic former hotel, now a retirement home, located at 1714 Ivar Avenue in Los Angeles, California.

The 3rd Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best achievements in 1945 filmmaking, were announced 6 March and held 30 March 1946 at the Knickerbocker Hotel (Los Angeles) in Los Angeles, California.

Capitol Studios are recording studios located at the landmark Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood, California. Established in 1956, the studios were initially the primary recording studios for American record label Capitol Records. While they are still regularly used by Capitol recording artists, the studios began making the facility available to artists outside the label during the late 1960s to early 1970s. The studios are owned by Universal Music Group, the parent company of Capitol Music Group. For over 60 years, Capitol Studios has hosted some of the most celebrated artists, from Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Michael Jackson, and Dean Martin to Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, and the Beach Boys. Along with traditional recording sessions, the studios have been the location for numerous iTunes, Sirius/XM sessions, CMG Productions, such as the Top of the Tower concerts and the 1 Mic 1 Take Series. The Studios have also hosted music video shoots (Justin Timberlake's "Suit & Tie"), TV/Documentaries Behind the Music, Classic Albums, PBS Specials, Showtime Original Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued and HBO feature If You're Not In The Obit, Eat Breakfast as well as feature shoots (Ray, Sandy Wexler). The studio has hosted "The Oscars" for the past two decades for the orchestra pre-records and hosts dozens of branded experiential and playback events each year.

The Capitol Records Building, also known as the Capitol Records Tower, is a 13-story tower building in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Designed by Louis Naidorf of Welton Becket Associates, it is one of the city's landmarks. Construction began soon after British music company EMI acquired Capitol Records in 1955, and was completed in April 1956. Located just north of the Hollywood and Vine intersection, the Capitol Records Tower houses the consolidation of Capitol Records' West Coast operations and is home to the recording studios and echo chambers of Capitol Studios. The building is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and sits in the Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District. It has been described as the "world's first circular office building."The building is known as "The House That Nat Built" due to the vast numbers of records and amounts of merchandise Nat King Cole sold for the company.

Equitable Building of Hollywood, also known as the Bank of Hollywood Building, was the second high-rise office building built at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood, California. It is rendered in a late Gothic Revival and Art Deco style and is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1088. It is also a contributor to the Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hollywood/Vine station is an underground rapid transit (known locally as a subway) station on the B Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located under below the iconic Hollywood and Vine intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, after which the station is named, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood. The central station of the three subway stops in Hollywood, within walking distance of many important Hollywood landmarks including the Capitol Records Building, CBS Columbia Square, The Fonda Theatre, Hollywood Palladium and Pantages Theatre. The station is also below the Hollywood Walk of Fame and close to the Gower Gulch.

The Hollywood fault is an active fault of approximately 9 miles (14 km) in length located along the northern edge of the Los Angeles basin. It is part of a system of seismically active folds and faults that constitute the complex transition zone between the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges. The Malibu Coast—Santa Monica—Hollywood fault system is the result of transtension and transpression associated with rotation of the Transverse Ranges in the Cenozoic Era. It has an established dip angle of between 70° and 90° based on surface and subsurface observations, and has experienced significant left-slip movement since the late Miocene. Its minimum and maximum dip-slip displacement rates are estimated at 0.3 mm and 0.5 mm per year, with a strike-slip displacement rate of 0.3–0.6 mm per year which together suggest an annual oblique slip rate of between 0.5 mm and 0.6 mm.Although it has never produced a significant earthquake in recorded history, if the fault eventually ruptures by itself its size and geology could produce a quake with a magnitude of between 5.8 and 6.5 every 1,600 years or so. However, if the Hollywood fault is, in fact, a continuation of the somewhat larger nearby Raymond Fault, the combined strength of a rupture along both faults could produce a quake with a magnitude of as much as 7.0, though such an event would likely happen only once every 3,000 to 5,000 years.