The Oscars a trip? They hope not

Workers are racing to fix a buckling section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the Kodak Theatre, where cracked terrazzo and broken sidewalk stars could be a major Manolo Blahnik hazard for starlets arriving for the Oscars.

The emergency work was underway Thursday as Hollywood announced that it is boosting the price of new stars along the famous boulevard by more than 40% in order to pay for future Walk of Fame repairs -- to $25,000 per celebrity.

Hollywood officials believe the buckling is the fault of the Metro Red Line subway, which has a station beneath the Hollywood & Highland shopping center that houses the Kodak Theatre. The subway's tunneling was blamed for the 1994 crumbling of the Walk of Fame that left Tinseltown in turmoil.

But Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials contend that the sun is at fault for the buckling. They suggested that damaging "thermo-expansion" occurs when sunlight heats the black terrazzo.

The repair work, along a 60-foot stretch of the Walk of Fame on the north side of Hollywood Boulevard west of Highland Avenue, is viewed as a test project that could determine once and for all what is causing the buckling.

Its $80,000 cost is being divvied up among the nonprofit Hollywood Historic Trust -- which operates the Walk of Fame -- the city, the Hollywood & Highland center and the MTA.

About 121 damaged terrazzo squares, plus 16 others with stars in them, are being replaced. Workers are experimenting with a concrete base up to 8 inches thick to hold the new squares in place. The buckling sidewalk's base is about 3 inches thick.

"We wanted it to look good for the Academy Awards" on Feb. 25, said Hollywood honorary mayor Johnny Grant, who leads the trust.

Finding a permanent solution to the sidewalk cracking is important to the trust. Under an agreement with Los Angeles, it is responsible for ongoing maintenance of the Walk of Fame.

"The MTA has been stalling me for years," Grant said. "We've had a lot of damage there. We think it's earth movement with the subway under there."

Hollywood activists who have monitored Hollywood Boulevard since the subway construction began suggest that poor grouting has led to the sidewalk subsidence. They say "voids" formed outside the tunnel and the subterranean station when excess dirt was removed, and that they should have been permanently filled by pumped-in grout.