And the Oscar for the most creative adaptation of a Hollywood tourist attraction goes to ... the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
That's the award that the Romeo family of Old Lyme, Conn., was ready to bestow Tuesday as their stroll along the Hollywood Walk of Fame came to an abrupt halt half a block from Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
The sidewalk was barricaded. Arrows directed the Romeos through a small door and into a dark, twisting hallway normally used for back-door deliveries to retail shops in the Hollywood & Highland shopping center. More arrows detoured them into the mall and then through a record store so they could get back to the Walk of Fame.
Tinseltown's annual rite of passage, the Academy Awards, was having its yearly effect on the public's right of passage along Hollywood Boulevard.
The boulevard itself was closed to traffic between Highland Avenue and Orange Drive as crews began erecting bleachers and tents for Sunday's 79th Annual Academy Awards. The sidewalk in front of the Kodak Theatre, where the ceremony will be held, was also shut.
"It's kind of taking away from our visit," Alex Romeo said. "We're just trying to get our bearings here."
His wife, Patrice, surveyed the back side of bleachers placed atop the terrazzo sidewalk's bronze stars.
"It doesn't look all that glamorous," she said. "I think they've covered up the two stars we're looking for, Anthony Quinn and Sophia Loren."
The couple wanted to show those stars to their children, Sophie, 8; Lauren, 10; Anthony, 12; and Quinn, 6.
Along the busy block, visitors and merchants alike were grumbling about the six-day closure. Academy officials, meantime, were apologetic.
"If there were a quicker way, we'd have latched onto it a long time ago," academy spokesman John Pavlik said. "We don't want to offend drivers and the public any more than we have to. We realize it's an inconvenience."
The $30-million ceremony's setup has to be completed by Friday so pre-show rehearsals can take place, he said. Even so, "I can't imagine you could do everything overnight if you threw all the money in the world at it."
Traffic control officers were diverting westbound Hollywood Boulevard motorists at Highland. Eastbound traffic was rerouted to Orange. Foot traffic on the south side of the boulevard was restricted by barricades to a narrow portion of the sidewalk. Metro Red Line subway service to the Hollywood-Highland station is scheduled to be shut down all day Sunday.
