Michael Who doesn't know those widely visible "Hollywood" letters on that hill down there near Los Angeles? Ah, that reminds me of the old Lindenberg song "Norma Jean" (actually a German adaptation of the American original): "Those Hollywood letters, high above the film city, have already crushed many who were stronger than you, schallalalong ...

Well, in San Francisco we have (almost) something similar, namely the so called sign hill park with the letters South San Francisco The Industrial City You can see them well when you drive towards San Francisco from the airport on Freeway 101 heading north (Figure 1). I have often wondered what these letters look like up close and if there is a story behind them. And since my guiding principle these days is to simply carry out every silly idea that pops into my head in the morning, I recently drove there as a roving newsletter reporter and explored the situation.

To understand this, one must know that "South San Francisco" and "San Francisco" are two completely different cities, each with its own administration. Yes, the smaller sister city located 10 miles south of the original is not even located in San Francisco County, but belongs to San Mateo County, which extends further down into Silicon Valley.

To the history: The letters were carved into the hill in 1929 (after a temporary installation in 1923) at the urging of the Chamber of Commerce of the then-bustling small city of South San Francisco, which was thriving with steel industry, meat processing plants, and shipyards. The goal was likely to encourage the influx of additional business. Nowadays, the pharmaceutical giant Genentech is the most active employer there. The hill with the letters is part of the San Bruno Mountains, although "Mountains" is relative here, as the tiny hill is only 400 feet high.

The outlines of the letters were carved into the hill in 1929 and filled with white cement. The construction costs amounted to 5,000 dollars at the time. To ensure that the lettering could be easily read from a great distance, despite the slope of the hill, the project's engineer employed all sorts of geometric tricks. The letters are enormous, with the third row alone stretching almost 200 meters in width.

On Wikipedia you can find still more interesting details about the installation, for example, that in 1932 an additional electrically operated luminous beacon was installed, but it was turned off due to fear of air strikes during the then-raging Second World War--and it was never turned on again.

With Google Maps, you can easily find out exactly where the entrance to the "Sign Hill Park" is located. It's off a hidden residential street in South San Francisco. A circular trail about two miles long leads up the steep slope via stairs and to the summit plateau with a weather station, from where you can enjoy an impressive panoramic view in good weather, overlooking the San Francisco Bay and the suburbs of Silicon Valley.

Hikers can get very close to the letters if they deviate slightly from the marked path, but the slope is estimated to be 45 degrees steep and there is little to hold onto. Additionally, coyotes are prowling around. The whole thing is a rewarding excursion, especially for curious people like me.

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Our Apartment Building Is Up For Sale
  	Costco Business Center
  	Gerrymandering
  	Spezi in America
  	Top Product: Bring Your Own Hook
  	Bitters for Whiskey
  	San Francisco City Guides: Noe Valley