self guided haunted hollywood tour

This website uses cookies to improve your browsing experience and analyze the use of the website. Learn More

Which Hollywood City Tour is Best?

This post covers a variety of popular walking tours of Hollywood, including excursions to the Hollywood Hills, haunted theaters, club crawls, and GPS-led audio tours.

Not all tours cover the same area or topics and we explain.

• Hollywood Sightseeing Tours
• Hollywood Hills Hikes
• Haunted Hollywood Tours
• Hollywood Club Crawls
• Self-Guided Option

Directions to Hollywood

FREE TOURS BY FOOT | Hollywood Walking Tour

In the early 1900s, a group of independent movie producers wishing to escape the eastern movie establishment made their way west to California.

These producers called themselves the United Artists, and by 1910 they found themselves in the tiny village of Hollywood.

Join us on our name your own price Hollywood tour as we uncover the local lore of the vibrant community of Hollywood. 

In addition to our public walking tour of Hollywood, we also offer a GPS-led audio option , which you could take any time that you wish.

For even more things to do in the area, make sure to read the following articles:

• Studio Tours
• Things To Do in Hollywood
• Things to Do in Los Angeles

Starline Hollywood Walking Tour

In addition to their hop-on hop-off bus tours , this historic company also offers a walking tour which covers some of the most notable sites in Hollywood.

Visitors can expect to see and learn about several filming locations, the Walk of Fame, noteworthy theaters, and more. You'll also receive a complimentary set of earbuds to help you hear your guide better.

• Admission prices: $25 per person
• Availability: Saturday and Sunday
• Hours: 10:30 am, 12:30 pm, and 3:30 pm
• Duration: 1 hour
• Purchase admission or learn more .

Hollywood Walk of Fame Walking Tour

If you're especially interested in seeing the Walk of Fame, this company offers an outing that covers the historic landmark in great detail.

In addition to seeing some of the most notable names on this Hollywood stars tour, you'll also hear some of the most interesting tales from the past century of film production.

Guests can also expect to see sites such as the Hollywood Roosevelt, the Magic Castle, and the El Capitan theater while hearing tales of legendary filmmakers and actors such as Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe.

• Admission prices: $32 per person
• Availability: Daily at 11 am
• Duration: 2 hours

The Real Los Angeles Tours

The Real Los Angeles Tours is a sightseeing tour company and never rely on buses or vehicles to lead their tours, as they feel the best way to learn about a city is to experience it by foot, which we agree with! 

On their Heart of Hollywood Tour, you will go back in time to when the name first appeared on maps in the late nineteenth century.

Then, they’ll tell you how and why the movie industry first moved here in the early twentieth century (at which time the town itself didn’t even have a bar or movie-theater of its own).

They’ll also show you the many iconic buildings on the famous Walk of Fame, including the Capitol Records Building, the oldest house in Hollywood (where Charlie Chaplin’s kids went to school), the Egyptian Theater, the Dolby Theater and the TCL Chinese Theater, where your Hollywood tour finishes – in the heart of Hollywood.

• Ticket Prices: $50
• Availability: Multiple dates at 10 am
• Purchase your tickets .

Hollywood Behind the Scenes Tour

This tour starts right in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre and covers a lot of ground.

See notable stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as you discover some of the most historic movie palaces in the area.

In addition to seeing beautiful and luxurious theatres, you'll also discover some of the most significant landmarks in Tinseltown.

At only 75 minutes in length, this trek should be fairly easy for almost any audience to complete.

• Ticket Prices: $27 for Adults | $15 for Children
• Availability: Daily @ 10 AM, 12 PM, 2 PM & 4 PM
• Duration: 75 minutes
• Live guides use an audio system to help you hear the tour.
• Click here for more information .

With an average score of 4.8 out of 5 stars , it's safe to say that ratings for this service are very positive ( read reviews here ).

HOLLYWOOD HILLS HIKING TOURS

The Hollywood Sign draws a lot of tourists each year, but it's not always easy to see from Hollywood Boulevard.

If you want a good look at the landmark, it'll be important to make your way up the Hollywood hills.

Although most people prefer to drive closer to the sign, there are actually a few Hollywood hiking tours that will take you to one of the best viewing locations.

Each hike will take around 2-3 hours, so prepare to get a good workout.

Bikes and Hikes LA

With the help of an expert hiking guide, you'll learn a lot about the history of Los Angeles while walking through the hills to find one of the best views of the Hollywood Sign.

Your tour guide will also provide interactive videos revealing the significance of specific locations.

Once you reach the highest point in the Hollywood Hills, you'll also have the opportunity to look down and see the magnificent skyscrapers of Downtown Los Angeles off in the distance. 

• Ticket Prices: $35 per person
• Availability: Daily @ 10 AM
• Duration: 2 ½ hours
• Reusable water bottle included

Customers have enjoyed their experience enough to give this company 4.9 out of 5 stars ( read reviews here ).

A majority of guests were impressed with the incredible views from the Hollywood Hills, indicating that this trip was the highlight of their vacation in Los Angeles. 

In addition to other services in the area, LA Tour 1 also provides a hike through the Hollywood Hills.

During this trek, you'll ascend the equivalent of 12 flights of stairs, taking frequent breaks to enjoy the incredible views.

Your final destination will be Griffith Observatory, one of the best locations to see the Hollywood Sign. After the trip, you can either stay and enter the Observatory or walk back down with your tour guide.

• Ticket Prices: $39 for Adults | $35 for Children
• Availability: Daily @ 9:30 AM
• Griffith Observatory Entry Included

This outing has received an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars ( read reviews here ).

The tour guides were described as both informative and friendly, providing a lot of interesting details along the way.

Some visitors warn that the inclines can be quite steep, indicating that this hike isn't necessarily going to be easy for everyone.

Hollywood Tourz

If you're looking for a more extensive tour through Hollywood, this may be your best bet.

In addition to providing a traditional trek down Hollywood Boulevard, this service also includes a hike to the Griffith Observatory for incredible photo opportunities.

Discover the history behind Tinseltown with the help of a professional tour guide and finish your journey at one of the best viewing locations for the Hollywood Sign.

• Ticket Prices: $25 for Adults | $15 for Children
• Availability: Daily @ 9 AM & 4 PM
• Includes both walking and hiking tour

Although there aren't many reviews for this specific trip, it's worth noting that Hollywood Tourz has received an overall rating of 4 out of 5 stars on TripAdvisor and Viator ( read the reviews ). 

HAUNTED HOLLYWOOD WALKING TOURS

You might not immediately think about Hollywood as a location that could be haunted, but there have indeed been many reports of strange happenings in and around the area.

If you're interested in learning about some of the darker and even supernatural tales from the 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams,' consider one of the following tours.

ExperienceFirst California | Hollywood Haunted Walking Tour

There have been reports of supernatural activity in Hollywood for decades, and many of the locations that are supposedly haunted are either restaurants, hotels, or entertainment venues such as movie theaters.

This company offers a tour covering creepy true crime stories and some of the more noteworthy sites where hauntings have been reported.

Guests can expect to visit landmarks such as the Pantages Theatre, the Roosevelt Hotel, and many others as they learn about subjects as varies as the Manson murders and Houdini's attempt to rise from the grave.

• Admission prices: $39/Adults | $35/Youth
• Availability: Daily at 6 pm

American Ghost Walks | Downtown Hollywood Ghost Tour

Much like their competitors, this company also offers a haunted Hollywood tour which covers a lot of the same ground, including tales of Houdini, reported hauntings at the Roosevelt Hotel, and more.

In addition to those sites, you can also expect to see and hear about disturbing legends from landmarks such as the TCL Chinese Theater, Musso & Frank Grill, the Stella Adler Theater, the Vogue Theater and more.

• Admission prices: $30.74 per person
• Availability: Daily at 7 pm

Questo | Haunted Hollywood Exploration Game

If you can't manage to make it out for a guided tour, this is an excellent alternative that you can enjoy on any smartphone.

All you have to do is download the app onto your phone and use it to find some of the most eerie locations in Hollywood, including a variety of historical information about the area.

While enjoying this exploration game, you can expect to visit sites such as the TCL Chinese Theatre and the El Capitan Theatre.

• Price: $5.50
• Availability: 24/7
• Duration: 1-2 hours
• Purchase this app or learn more .

HOLLYWOOD CLUB CRAWL

In addition to all the other interesting Hollywood city tours that are currently available, there is also a walking tour that covers some of the best nightclubs in Los Angeles.

Guests can expect free entry at all venues and drink specials allowing them to save some money while partying in the entertainment capital of the world.

Who knows? You might even see a few celebrities!

• Admission prices: $29 per person
• Availability: Friday and Saturday at 9 pm
• Duration: 4 hours

Self Guided Walking Tour of Hollywood

This self-guided tour will take you through some the legendary spots of Hollywood and past some of the new and exciting revitalized buildings along Hollywood Boulevard.

In addition to the GPS-led audio guide, we also have a written tour that you can download to your phone or simply read from this page.

Here is how it works:

• Purchase an audio tour.
• Get a confirmation email with .mp3, .pdf and embeddable Google Map
• Enjoy the tour(s).

Even if you don't download any tours, you will still have access to valuable information on sightseeing.

Available Tours:

• Hollywood ($2.99)

Listen to a sample of our Hollywood tour (Intro)

How to get there : take the Metro red line to the Hollywood/Vine exit.

If using GPS, plug in 6233 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028 to get to the starting point.

The Pantages Theatre (6233 Hollywood Blvd)

Across the street from the Hollywood/Vine Metro stop, you’ll find the last movie palace built in Hollywood; the Pantages Theater, designed by architect Marcus Priteca and completed in 1930.

Alexander Pantages originally built the theater to host Vaudeville performances.

Eventually, performances of this type became too expensive as the depression wore on and it was converted to an all movie venue.

Howard Hughes purchased the building in 1941, and under his ownership, it began hosting the Academy Awards from 1950-1960.

The first-ever telecast of the Academy Awards took place here in 1953.

In 1977, the Pantages converted exclusively to live stage productions.

In 2000, it underwent a massive rehabilitation uncovering all of its original Art Deco features.

The Pantages is now one of the most popular spots in LA to see Broadway-style productions. Great hits such as The Lion King , Wicked and The Book of Mormon have all staged productions here.

The Capitol Records Building (1750 Vine St)

The Capitol Records building was the world’s first circular office building when Welton Becket’s design was completed in 1956.

Inside the building, unforgettable acts such as The Beach Boys, Nat “King” Cole, Sir Paul McCartney and Frank Sinatra have recorded some of the world’s greatest musical gems.

Thirty feet below the building is an underground concrete bunker designed by guitarist Les Paul.

In the quiet of this chamber, musicians can record with a reverb that lasts up to five seconds, an effect that was most famously heard on the Beach Boy’s ‘Good Vibrations.'

If you pass the building at night, you’ll see a red flashing light on top of the needle.

Most assume it’s a signal for a passing plane, but it was created to blink the word “Hollywood” in Morse code.

In 1956, Leila Morse, daughter of Samuel Morse, was invited to flip the switch for the very first time.

In November 2016, the signal was changed momentarily to blink “Capitol 75” in honor of Capitol Records 75 year anniversary.

On the south side of the Capitol Records building, you will find an impressive mural titled Hollywood Jazz: 1945-1972.

Painted in 1990 by Richard Wyatt, the mural depicts Jazz greats Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker, Tito Puente, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Shelly Manne, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington.

The mural was originally funded by the Los Angeles Jazz Society, but its restoration was made possible by Capitol records in 2011.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame

It’s roughly a 10-minute walk till your next stop so take time to enjoy and appreciate the Hollywood Walk of Fame underneath your feet.

The Walk of Fame extends 1.3 miles east to west on Hollywood Blvd, with some stars on Gower Street, Marshfield Way, and Vine Street.

The idea for the walk of fame originated inside the original Hollywood Hotel, where gold stars with the names of celebrities used to grace the ceiling.

When the hotel was torn down, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce decided to create a permanent installation along Hollywood Blvd by continuously awarding stars to celebrities of great achievement.

Today, celebrities are chosen through a nominating process that is usually initiated by a fan club, studio or record company. Roughly 200 people are nominated every year and only 10% of those nominated ever receive a star.

The 2017 honorees include Rita Wilson, Goldie Hawn, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Eva Longoria, Sarah Silverman, John Legend and Selena Quintanilla.

You will find the stars for all four Beatles and Neil Diamond outside the Capitol Record Building.

Dolores Del Rio Mural (Hollywood & Hudson Street)

Just off Hollywood Blvd is a Mural celebrating the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most legendary ladies, Dolores Del Rio.

She was one of the first Latina stars in Hollywood, making her break into the silent films in the 1920s and then the talkies of the 1930s.

She starred in over 30 movies in the United States, after which she returned to her native Mexico, where she launched a career in Mexican cinema.

She has appeared in films with the likes of Fred Astaire and Elvis Presley.

George Bernard Shaw once said of her: "The two most beautiful things in the world are the Taj Mahal and Dolores del Río."

This mural was painted by Alfredo de Batuc in 1990 and can be found on the east side of Hudson Street near Hollywood Blvd.

Janes House (6541 Hollywood Blvd)

The oldest home on Hollywood Blvd is the Janes House, built-in 1902 as part of a parcel of fine Victorian homes.

Herman and Mary Jane of Aurora, IL bought the home for $10,000 in 1903 and lived there with their four children.

In 1911, the women of the household opened a kindergarten on site entitled Misses Janes School of Hollywood ; later, the school would expand to K-8 services.

The school folded up in 1926, and for a time the front yard took on many uses – including a gas pump, parking lot, and tourist business.

The last of the Janes children died in 1982, and despite it being declared a landmark, the land was sold to developers in 1984.

They moved the house to the back lot and built a 14,000-sq. ft. mini-mall in front.

It has served many purposes through the years and today it is the home of the ’20s themed speakeasy, “No Vacancy at Hotel Juniper.”

The house and the Janes sisters were said to be an inspiration for the famous novel Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? by Henry Farrell.

The book was later adapted into a movie with Bette Davis playing a character named Jane Hudson. This may be a nod to the fact that the Janes House is adjacent to Hudson Street.

Musso and Frank’s Grill (6667 Hollywood Blvd)

Frank Musso’s grill is the oldest in Hollywood and the last of the famed celebrity dining establishments of old Hollywood.

The restaurant opened its doors in 1919 with some of their earliest customers arriving on horseback.

Legend has it that Charlie Chaplin and John Barrymore challenged one another to a horse race down Hollywood Boulevard right in front of the restaurant.

Not only is the restaurant ancient, but so are the menu options.

Charlie Chaplin loved to sit in the front window eating his grilled lamb kidney and Irish stew, Rudolph Valentino preferred a plate of spaghetti, and Ginger Rogers ordered steak followed by a rum cake for dessert.

The management has thought to modernize the menu, but whenever the customers are asked the response is “don’t change anything.”

In addition to their old-time menu, you’ll also get old-time service from Bartenders and waiters who have worked at Frank Musso’s for up to 50 years.

Celebrities are still regulars here and the waitstaff is superb at keeping the paparazzi away.

The Egyptian Theater/American Cinematheque (6712 Hollywood Blvd)

The Egyptian theater originally boasted beautiful murals of hieroglyphics, a sunburst ceiling, and a forecourt with middle eastern shops lined with guards in Egyptian costumes.

King Tut’s tomb had just been discovered and showman Sid Grauman thought to capitalize on its popularity by building the elaborate movie palace in 1922.

That same year, the first movie premiere in Hollywood’s history took place here with the showing of Robin Hood starring Douglass Fairbanks.

The theater would then serve as the perfect backdrop for the 1923 premiere of Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments .

By the 1980s, the theater was in terrible shape and fell victim to remodeling.

Its salvation came about when a local non-profit organization called American Cinematheque purchased the theater in 1998.

There is the main theater inside which holds up to 650 people along with a smaller theater which was financed by Steven Spielberg.

In addition to its regular classic film showings, there are various film festivals that often headline celebrities.

The festivals are held on various topics that range from the showing of movies with a specific director or actor to themes such as the developing world or LGBT productions.

Tours of the theater are also available, and they include the showing of a 55-minute documentary called Forever Hollywood .

To find out more about the American Cinematique’s events, check out their calendar .

Hollywood Wax Museum (6767 Hollywood Blvd)

The Hollywood Wax Museum was the first in Hollywood, founded by Indian-Canadian lumber worker Spoony Singh.

Mr. Singh was a man full of ideas and always wanted to tap into the next big thing.

While working in Canada, the idea struck him that everyone travels to Los Angeles to see all the stars, but they can never find them.

Why not create wax figures of them and allow people to see them all under one roof?

Mr. Singh opened his museum in 1965 with a half-mile long line of people excited to see his work.

To attract the attention of the average passerby, he had his employees dress as characters such as London bobbies or gorillas riding on skateboards.

Additionally, visitors sometimes found that the most exciting experience was inside the museum, as live actors would stand among the wax figures and start to move/speak to intentionally spook the guests.

Inside the museum, you'll find a plethora of wax figures including John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Leonardo Di Caprio, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The museum has transitioned somewhat from highlighting individual stars to depicting entire movie scenes.

Later, Mr. Singh opened the Hollywood Guinness Museum, another mainstay attraction on Hollywood Blvd.

The Hollywood Museum/Former Max Factor Headquarters (660 N Highland Ave)

Among the various museums lined up along Hollywood Boulevard, this is a must-see.

The Hollywood Museum has the largest collection of Hollywood memorabilia in the entire world.

You will find movie scripts, props, posters, costumes, photographs and more. You will also get a closer look at the history of Hollywood and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Inside you’ll see Marilyn Monroe’s million-dollar dress, items from Michael Jackson, I Love Lucy , Harry Potter , and Miley Cyrus just to name a few.

As the museum is in the historic Max Factor Building, you can also visit the makeup rooms where Judy Garland and Bettie Davis got their look and the location where Marilyn Monroe became blond.

The Dolby Theater (6801 Hollywood Blvd)

Designed by David Rockwell, the Dolby Theater has been the home of the Academy Awards since 2002.

This state of the art theater is perfect for televised theatrical performances and is also the home of America’s Got Talent .

The stage is one of the largest in the United States at 113 feet wide and 60 feet deep. It can showcase a large variety of acts and was once the home of Cirque du Soleil.

The entrance leads to a grand stairway and is flanked by Art Deco columns with the names of past recipients of the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The theater also showcases the great musical talent and past performances include Adele, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Elvis Costello and much more.

TCL Chinese Theater/Grauman’s (6925 Hollywood Boulevard)

Built by Sid Grauman, the Chinese Theater has undergone a few name changes since it was constructed. Grauman was also responsible for creating the Egyptian Theater down the street.

The theater opened in 1927 with the premiere of Cecil B. De Mille’s The King of Kings , the grandest opening Hollywood has ever seen.

Since then, it has hosted more premiers than any other theater in Hollywood history and was the site of the 1977 premiere of Star Wars .

The exterior is meant to resemble a Chinese pagoda with a Chinese dragon across the façade and two guard lions at the entrance.

The interior is equally impressive, and for those who don’t have time to catch a movie, the theater offers daily tours.

The Chinese Theater is also famous for the celebrity handprints and footprints in the concrete out front.

Handprints of Hollywood stars include those of Mary Pickford, Shirley Temple, John Wayne, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg.

Additionally, you'll also find an imprint of the cigar of Groucho Marx and the wands used by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in Harry Potter .

El Capitan Theater (6838 Hollywood Blvd)

Across from Grauman’s Chinese theater sits another gem of Hollywood’s glory days, the El Capitan Theater.

In 1926, the El Capitan fulfilled Hollywood’s need for its first spoken drama theater with a capacity of 1550 seats.

It brought some of the top names of the day to grace the stage including Clark Gable, Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Joan Fontaine, Henry Fonda and Will Rogers.

The El Capitan was designed in the Spanish Colonial Style by Architectural firm Morgan Walls, with a contrasting East-Indian interior which was designed by Albert Lansburgh.

In 1941, the El Capitan converted to a movie theater. That same year, the theater was rented by Orson Wells to premiere his first feature film, Citizen Kane .

It was also the location of the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille’s Reap the Wild Wind .

In the following decades, the El Capitan changed ownership (and its name along with it) many times, and in the process suffered a series of unfortunate changes to its decor.

Disney (in Partnership with Pacific Theaters) bought the venue in 1989 and conducted a full restoration back to its 1920’s grandeur.

Today the theater often showcases premiers of Disney Films as well as exclusive first runs, stage shows, and other special events.

Movie viewings are usually preceded by exhibits and entertainment which may include a performance of old Disney tunes on a grand 1926 Wurlitzer organ.

Visit the El Capitan website for showtimes.

The Roosevelt Hotel (7000 Hollywood Blvd)

Built in 1926, the Roosevelt Hotel was named after President Theodore Roosevelt and known for its beautiful Spanish Colonial Revival Interior.

Famous rooms in the hotel include the Gable-Lombard penthouse where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard used to stay and the Marilyn Monroe suite where the actress lived for the first two years of her acting career.

The first Academy Awards ceremony ever held took place here on May 16, 1929. The ceremony, hosted by Douglas Fairbanks, was not televised and had only 270 persons in attendance.

Winners were already announced three months prior and the award would not be called the “Oscar” for another four years.

The pool at the Roosevelt was featured in a 1955 episode of  I Love Lucy when the Ricardos and Mertzes came to Hollywood.

Inside the hotel’s nightclub called the Cinegrill , a scene from The Fabulous Baker Boys was filmed featuring Jeff Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Other films shot on this location include Beverly Hills Cop II , Catch Me If You Can and The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story .

The Magic Castle (7001 Franklin Avenue)

This beautiful 1909 Châteauesque building was once the residence of two Hollywood notables: Rollin and Katherine Lane.

Rollin was a banker and real estate investor and Katherine an author, teacher, and philanthropist.

Both played vital roles in the development of Los Angeles by promoting agriculture in the region and launching vital programs for the betterment of its citizens.

The couple named their home “Holly Chateau” and it became a meeting point for the local elite and philanthropic events.

After the couple passed away in the 1940s, the building fell into disrepair and took on multiple uses.

In the 1950s, Milt Larsen – an NBC writer for the show Truth or Consequences – had a great view of the Lane mansion from his office window.

Milt’s father, Bill, was an accomplished magician and he taught these skills to his family.

Milt’s father even founded the Academy of Magical Arts and Sciences and Milt dreamed of turning the Lane Mansion into its headquarters.

Milt’s dream came true in 1961 when he, his brother and a group of volunteers began restoring the mansion to its Victorian grandeur.

The Magic Castle opened its doors in 1963 and has been entertaining audiences ever since.  

Today, visitors to the Magic Castle are delighted to enter the building, which is shrouded in mystique as only members or their guests can enter.

Visitors wishing to get in on short notice have the option of booking a hotel room for the night which is one way to be granted entry.

Once you enter the Magic Castle’s doors and make it through the secret, you’ll be greeted by a wonderful musician named Irma the ghost. Irma will delight you by playing any song you request.

There are a variety of bars, a dining area, magicians doing table tricks, and a major headlining show where audience members are volunteered to become part of the magic.

Guests also have the option to spend time in the lower level lounge where wonderful artifacts from the history of magic can be found, including some of Houdini’s original instruments.

The Magic Castle was designated as a world heritage site in 1989.

The Four Ladies of Hollywood (7083 Hollywood Blvd)

This stainless-steel monument by artist Catherine Hardwick depicts four leading ladies who broke barriers and represented diversity in the movie industry.

First is Mae West, who not only made her mark as an actress, writer, and comedian but even went to jail for her defiance of censorship. She is known as one of the top 15 movie actresses of all time.

Next to her is Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie actress who made her break in the silent movie era.

Wong was often cast in stereotypical supporting roles which she reluctantly played.

As a result, Wong sought work in Europe and was cast in the notable feature movie Picadilly in 1929.

Breakthrough Mexican actress Dolores Del Rio is also featured on the monument, as is Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award.

The monument is topped with a weather vane statue of Marilyn Monroe.

Charlie Chaplin Studios/ Jim Henson Company (1416 N La Brea Ave)

From the Four Ladies of Hollywood monument, it’s an 8-minute walk to your next stop: the Jim Henson Company Studios.

The studio was originally built by Charlie Chaplin in 1917 in the English Village style, blending in well with the early Hollywood rural scenery.

The grounds were a little world unto itself, complete with a swimming pool, tennis courts and even a home where Charlie Chaplin was meant to live.

It was here that Chaplin produced films such as The Kid , The Gold Rush , City Lights , Modern Times and The Great Dictator . Such notables as Winston Churchill and Hellen Keller were also filmed here.

When Chaplin left the US in 1952, the studio was sold to Webb and Knapp and became the 1955 filming location for the television series Adventures of Superman .  

From 1966 it 1999 it became the headquarters for A&M Records and was the location for the filming of Soul Train from 1981 to 1985.

The list of those who have recorded at the studios includes The Carpenters , The Moody Blues , The Offspring , Oingo Boingo , The Police , Soundgarden , Styx , Van Morrison,  and Van Halen .

The studio was also the location for the recording of the famous 1985 single “ We Are the World .”

In 2000, the studio was bought by the Jim Henson Company, who thought the quirky layout from the silent movie era would be a perfect location for its puppet empire.

After it was purchased, the studio unveiled a 12-foot statue of Kermit the Frog dressed as Charlie Chaplin’s The Tramp . Today, the studio a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

Unfortunately, the studio does not offer tours, but the grounds are rented out to the public on weekends for special events.

Hollywood High School Mural (521 N Highland Ave)

It’s about a ten-minute walk to your next stop, where you’ll find a mural painted on the side of the Hollywood High School auditorium which is well worth seeing.

The Mural is titled “ Portrait of Hollywood ” and it depicts a diversity of popular entertainers.

Shown are Dorothy Dandridge, Dolores del Río, Brandy Norwood, Selena, Lana Turner, Laurence Fishburne, Cantinflas, Carol Burnett, Cher, Ricky Nelson, Bruce Lee, Rudolph Valentino, and Judy Garland.

All of these stars attended Hollywood High School with the exception of Cantinflas, Bruce Lee, Selena, and Rudy Valentino.

The mural was completed in 2002 by artist Eloy Torrez and in 2007 he added a thirty-foot mural of another Hollywood High Alumni: comedian John Ritter.

The Crossroads of the World (6671 Sunset Blvd)

This set of buildings on Sunset Boulevard has been capturing the imagination of visitors for decades and was even replicated at Disney's MGM Studios Theme Park in Orlando, Florida.

The Crossroads of the World was built in 1936 by Architect Robert V. Derrah, and it would be the first outdoor shopping mall in Los Angeles.

What made the design so unique is how various architectural styles were used for each individual building, giving locals a glimpse of various locations around the world.

Styles include California Mediterranean, Cape Cod, French, Italian, Moorish and Spanish.

The original shopping center was said to be glamorous, with an Oriental Art shop, a French parfumerie, a Spanish Cigar maker and a high fashion woman’s dress shop.  

Crossroads of the World was eventually phased out and turned into office space which has served the entertainment industry for decades.

It has been the home base for casting agencies, scriptwriters, costume designers, producers, publicists and much more.

Films such as L.A. Confidential , Dragnet,  and Remington Steele have all been shot on location here.

In addition, musicians such as Jackson Brown, Crosby Stills and Nash, and the band America have enjoyed the quiet peace of The Crossroads.

Even now, visitors are welcome to walk through the Crossroads of the World to enjoy the lovely architecture and quiet space.

The Hollywood Athletic Club (6525 Sunset Blvd)

The Hollywood Athletic Club opened its doors on New Year’s Eve in 1924, and it would become the premier meeting place for the stars of early Hollywood.

In addition to the grand parties thrown there, the H.A.C. served as a hotel, a gymnasium, restaurant, sauna, library and cigar lounge alongside an Olympic sized swimming pool.

Its founding members were Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, and Cecil B. DeMille.

Other original members included John Wayne, Mary Pickford, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Walt Disney, Mae West, John Barrymore, and Groucho Marx.

A number of top-notch events have been hosted here over the years, including the first Emmy Awards in 1949.  

As time went on, the H.A.C. went into decline and was bought by the University of Judaism. In the seventies, the building was put back on the market and was purchased by concert promoter Gary Berwin.

The Berwin Entertainment Complex brought in a long list of celebrities who partied there, including members of the Jackson Family, Steven Spielberg, Muhammad Ali, Dudley Moore, Michael J. Fox, Madonna, Melanie Griffith, George Lucas, Jane Fonda, Stevie Wonder, Alice Cooper, Billy Crystal, and many others.

In 1986, the club was acquired by the Nourmand family and now serves as an event venue and night club called Boulevard 3 .

Amoeba Music (6400 Sunset Blvd)

Amoeba Music opened its first location in Berkeley, CA in 1990.

This is especially interesting to note because independent records stores were being eaten up by corporate chain stores at the time.

Amoeba records had a mission to bring customers more music outside of what the giant retailers wanted them to hear.

Eventually, a store was added in San Francisco, and in 2001 Amoeba opened its doors in Los Angeles anticipating a stock of 250,000 titles, which makes it one of the largest independent music stores in the world.  

Today, Amoeba Music is a Hollywood landmark and meeting place for creative minds.

The store stocks music from both the top 40 and the best underground rock, hip-hop, electronica, jazz, world, and experimental music.

Additionally, Amoeba is also a popular music venue for live performance.

In June 2007, Amoeba Music hosted an unannounced live performance by Paul McCartney at their Hollywood location.

The performance was recorded and released as an EP titled Amoeba’s Secret .

If you look around inside, you might even spot a few celebrities.

As a matter of fact, the documentary Lemmy shows the late rock musician Lemmy Kilmister (of the band Motörhead ) visiting this store.

Arc Light Hollywood/ Cinerama (6360 Sunset Blvd)

Included in Pacific Theater’s Arc Light Theater complex is the prominent Cinerama dome.

The structure was completed in 1963 by Welton Becket & Associates and it is based on Buckminster Fuller’s patented geodesic dome design.

This architectural style made it easier to build for half the cost of standard theaters and in half the time.  

In the 1960s, Cinerama Inc. had its sights on building 600 of the same geodesic dome theaters within two years, although only a few were ever completed.

Since its construction, Cinerama has been a frequent location for movie premiers with the first being It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in November of 1963.

In Ron Howard’s 2008 film Frost/Nixon, a scene was shot on location outside the Cinerama dome, recreating the 1976 premiere of The Slipper and the Rose .

Today, the Cinerama dome is an icon of modern architecture and a Los Angeles Historic/Cultural monument.

Hollywood Palladium (6215 Sunset Blvd)

When the Palladium opened in 1940, it became a top destination for WWII generation youth who danced the jitterbug to the tunes of top big bands.

The working folks lined up for the $1 cover charge, and stars such as Rita Hayworth and Tyrone Power were drawn to its dance floors.

The first performance featured Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra with Frank Sinatra on vocals.

The Palladium didn't just host dance events, it was also the location of several notable political rallies including a political luncheon hosted by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and a speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964.  

In the 70s and 80s, The Palladium brought in popular rock acts which could still be enjoyed under the roof of a Moderne style building. I

n 1980, it was the filming location for the final scene of The Blues Brothers . Artists such as Richard Pryor, Keith Richards, Bad Religion and Megadeth have all recorded live performances here.

Even to this day, The Palladium still serves as an active music venue. It is also currently the largest and oldest dance venue in the city.

RELATED POSTS:

• Things to Do in Hollywood
• Universal Studios Hollywood Tickets and Deals
• Where to Store Your Luggage

Choose a Destination... I want them all PLUS general travel tips. Amsterdam Berlin Boston Charleston Chicago Dubai Lisbon London Los Angeles Miami Nashville New York City New Orleans Paris Philadelphia Prague Rome San Francisco Washington DC

About The Author

North America

United kingdom & ireland, middle east & india, asia & oceania.

Haunted Hollywood Self-guided Tour

Walking tour to explore Hollywood's history and ghost stories at your own pace

On this self-guided walking tour, you will seek out the history and the hauntings of Hollywood.

Strolling along Hollywood Boulevard, you’ll learn about the neighbourhood’s early history and infamous ghost stories. Along the way, you will pass by landmark buildings – including the TCL Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel – and learn about their connections to legendary stars. Other highlights include the Dolby Theatre and the Magic Castle Hotel as well as tips on where to eat and drink in Hollywood.

What's included

• Downloadable audio app on your mobile device
• Offline access to audio, maps and geodata

What's not included

• Food and drinks
• Smartphone and audio headset
• Admission to attractions
• Transportation

Accessibility

• Accessible to pushchairs/prams
• Public transport links nearby
• Infants must sit on an adult's lap

Health & safety

• Suitable for all fitness levels

Audio supported languages

Additional information.

Please bring your own headphones, unless you have booked a driving tour.

Please bring your ticket with you to the attraction.

Be aware that operators may cancel for unforeseen reasons.

You need to be 18 years or older to book or be accompanied by an adult.

Operated by VoiceMap

Itinerary information

User ratings, frequently asked questions, how do i book a ticket.

Select a date and time.

Choose the number of tickets.

Click through to the next page and enter your personal details.

After entering your personal details, select your payment method and enter your payment details.

Once you’ve entered your payment details successfully, you will be redirected to your ticket page, where you can check the status and details of your reservations.

You'll receive a confirmation email once the reservation is confirmed with the attraction operator. This could take some time based on the supplier.

You can view your tickets in your confirmation email, or in the Booking & Trips section of your account.

When do I pay?

Booking.com collects payment on behalf of the attraction operator when you book your ticket.

How do digital tickets work?

Each digital ticket contains a unique code. This is usually a QR or numerical code, but could be something else and can be found on your ticket or the PDF sent to you.

If your digital ticket contains a barcode or QR code, give it to the staff at the attraction's entrance or ticket collection point so they can scan it.

For those with numerical codes, just show your ticket to staff for verification.

Can I cancel or modify my tickets?

Once you book your tickets for this attraction, you won’t be able to modify or cancel the reservation.

Tickets and prices

Real experiences of the real Los Angeles

See the real la, tripadvisor.

Did a full day walking tour of LA. Our tour guide Damien was very knowledgeable & passionate about giving us all the information in a clear & concise way. The tour was very well planned & organised & was not tiring.

Lisa Montesanti

We did The Real Hollywood tour & loved it! The tour was at a great pace & the guide (Vicky) was very knowledgeable & made the tour fun. Thank you!

Stuart was so knowledgeable & was worth the day with him. I had been to LA multiple times before but this is the first time I had taken a tour – so thrilled to have this experience with my mom & sister. I would recommend this tour again & again.

Lucrezia Scamarcio

We had an amazing DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost tour with Damien & Dante… thank you very much from the Italian girls… very interesting & funny… absolutely recommended!

Passport17369220499

This tour was awesome! Stuart is very knowledgeable, likeable & fun. The stops on the tour were very interesting & I learned a lot. I’ve been on quite a few tours of this nature & this was one of my favorites – highly recommend!

Did a walking tour of LA (LA in a Day). Vicky started us off with the Hollywood tour & Damien (who is also the owner) was our guide for the rest of the day. The entire day was awesome, I suggest this tour. There isn’t that much walking, to be honest. It’s very fun!

Michelle B.

My boyfriend & I took the DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost tour with Stuart as our guide & had the most amazing time! We had experiences we will never forget! We were able to see parts & people of Los Angeles that we never would have without Stuart. I give this 10/10. If we visit again, this will be at the top of our to do list!

Sara Pozueta

Absolutely amazing! Highly recommend taking both The Real Hollywood Tour & the Central Downtown LA tour! Our time in LA wouldn’t have been the same. Great way to learn about the city, see it from a different angle, explore the local life & learn about its history & filming industry. Damien our guide was fantastic!

Sylvie was our host & was fantastic. She had a lot of local knowledge & gave her unique perspective as someone who had moved to the area many years ago, so she had an outsider’s as well as an insider’s perspective. The tour gave us a great overview of Santa Monica & Venice & set us up for a great rest of the day.

Paula Lindgren

We took 2 tours, the Santa Monica & Venice Bike tour (with Sylvie) & the Real Hollywood tour (with Damien). Both were great & highly recommended. Sylvie & Damien were informative, knowledgeable & easy to talk to. They were like you were with friends. We were traveling as a family of 4 with 2 boys (15 & 12). We all enjoyed the tours.

DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost Tour

$50 / pp Free / ghost (any age)

2 miles An easy walking distance

6pm – 9pm (3 hours) Saturday

On our DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost tour we go on an investigation of the noir underbelly of Los Angeles – and enjoy cocktails in a couple of haunted bars.

First we visit the Biltmore Hotel, the last place the tragic Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, was seen alive. Next we stop at Clifton’s and learn about the anti-corruption drive of its Christian founder (who had a few secrets of his own). After that we move to the dreaded Hotel Cecil, which has a hellish history of murders, suicides and killers (including the Night Stalker). From there our DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost tour moves to the once grand Alexandria Hotel, where Rudolph Valentino’s ghost still haunts his old penthouse, then the Barclay Hotel, home to two serial killers – and also the scene of some of their most brutal murders. We visit the site of the Chinatown Massacre of 1871 (still the largest mass lynching in US history), before the tour finishes at the Halls of Justice, the site of many dramatic trials, including those of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (twice) and the infamous Charles Manson. Join our DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost tour and have sleepless nights for weeks!

Our tours can sell out. If you can't make a booking email us at  [email protected] , telling us when you want to do the tour and how many guests are in your party, and if we can squeeze you in we’ll let you know.

Logistics & Details

*Cost: $50 pp.

*Walking distance: 2 miles.

*Tour starts 6 pm, Historic Broadway Metro station , corner of 2nd Street and Broadway ( photo of meeting point ).

*Tour finishes 9 pm, Angels Flight .

*We can go into 2 different bars for cocktails on this tour, each for about 15 minutes. You do have to be over 21 y.o. to order an alcoholic drink – but you don’t have to be over 21 y.o. to do this tour.

*We donate $1 for every guest to Climate Cents, a climate change organization.

You can book this as a private tour starting at just $325 for up to 10 guests

Private tours can be booked for any day and any time between 9am-6pm

Disclaimers

This tour is in English. If your English isn’t fluent this may not be the best option for you. Tour available in Spanish and German as private tour ONLY.  Email  [email protected]  to arrange.

Drinks/cocktails are not included.

This is a walking tour and we move at a reasonable pace. If you have mobility issues please book a private tour.

This tour is not recommended for children under 15 y.o.

We never cancel tours in advance due to the weather conditions.

Aim to get to the meeting point 10-15 minutes early. If you’re late you may miss the tour.

Contactless payment for gratuities available, please allow 15-20%.

Full refund or exchange available up to 48 hours before tour start time.

You must book in advance.

Subject to change at our discretion

Haunted Hollywood Walking Tour

Tickets 🎫 Small-Group Tour for one adult Highlights 🎥 See Hollywood in a totally different way 👨 A professional tour guide with you throughout the tour 👻 The perfect scare fest! General Info 📅 Dates and times: various dates at 8pm and 10pm (select a date during purchase) ⏳ Duration: 60 minutes 📍 Location: El Capitan Theatre 👤 Age requirement: All ages ♿ Accessibility: This tour is wheelchair accessible ❓ For this event, all sales are final and tickets can’t be refunded, changed or modified. For more information, please refer to our T&Cs

Description This Haunted Hollywood Walking Tour will give you a historical look behind the scenes of the flashy facades of Hollywood and will explore the well-researched stories of crimes, accidents, and traumas that echo through to the modern day. You will have an opportunity to learn about documents accounts of hauntings and paranormal activity, and you might even contact spirits... Participate if you dare!

El Capitan Theatre

El Capitan Theatre is a historic movie palace owned by The Walt Disney Company, located on Hollywood Boulevard. It has been restored to its original glory and features a mix of East Indian, English Tu...

Getting there

6838 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90028-6102

Select date and session

No booking fees

Similar Experiences

Ghosts of hollywood night-time walking tour, old and new downtown los angeles walking tour, haunted tales of downtown los angeles, authentic 3-hour hollywood to beverly hills tour, getty center and griffith observatory with city highlights tour, pasadena mystery picnic: self-guided foodie adventure, santa barbara mystery picnic: self-guided foodie adventure, la ghosts ultimate dead of night haunted ghost tour, mulholland trail horseback tour, the heart of los angeles’ dreamland: a self-guide tour in culver city.

Sorry, JavaScript must be enabled to use this web app

Watch CBS News

Most Morbid Hollywood Tours

October 23, 2012 / 9:00 AM PDT / KCAL News

Superstition is rife among those who work in show business, which means that Angelenos living in the shadow of the entertainment industry have heard their share of ghost tales. And some of the spooky looking houses you see are familiar because you saw them in a movie.

For adults, who like Halloween thrills with a touch of reality:

Tragical History Tour

Meet on Sunset Blvd, between N Shrader Blvd & Cassil Place (exact location given after ticket purchase) (800) 979-3370 More Info

You've got to love a business with a dark sense of humor. Dearly Departed Tours co-owner Scott Michaels was an operator at the original "Grave Line Tour" back in the 1980's, where guests piled into a hearse and embarked on a darkly humorous trip to sites of Hollywood's most lurid crimes and scandals: See where Hugh Grant and George Michael had their run-ins with the law... visit the sites of the Menendez murders and the infamous Black Dahlia case... and see the homes where so many famous people died too young (including Michael Jackson's).

Today's guests ride in comfortable vans (dubbed "Tomb Buggies"), but still get to enjoy campy patter by knowledgeable tour guides as they meander through the dark and seamy side of Los Angeles.

Price: $45 per person/approximately 2.5 hours

Special Halloween Horror Film Location Tour

Sunset Blvd, between N Shrader Blvd & Cassil Place (exact location given after ticket purchase) (800) 979-3370 More Info

Fans of the original 1978 movie "Halloween" and the 2007 Rob Zombie remake may be surprised to learn that both were filmed in South Pasadena. This tour will take you there, plus the locations featured in "Zombieland," "Scream 2," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street." You'll even see the neighborhood that was the setting for Michael Jackson's "Thriller." As the films will be playing while you ride, you can see just how much the locations have changed (or not). Just watch out for the tour guide: He'll be dressed just like Michael Myers.

Hours: Oct 27: 1:00 PM

Price: $55 per person/ Approximately 4 hours

Haunted Hollywood Tours

Depart from: Grauman's Chinese Theater 6925 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA (818) 415-9269 More Info

The operators of this tour promise to take you to the "darkest parts of Hollywood," beginning with the Chinese Theater itself. and spots at the Roosevelt Hotel where the ghosts Montgomery Clift and of Marilyn Monroe is said to reside. The tour also visits the sites of famous murders (like the Cielo Drive property where the Manson family killed Sharon Tate) and a visit to the Comedy Store, which owner Brian Sapir claims is haunted. Tickets range from $40 - $60.

Blood & Dumplings: A Crime Bus Tour of the San Gabriel Valley

Pickup at the Daily Dose 1820 Industrial Street Los Angeles, CA 90021 Information: 213-915-8687 More Info

You can file this tour under "weirdest juxtaposition of topics in a tour," because first you drive around looking at the locations of grisly deaths, and then you enjoy the best dumplings on offer in the San Gabriel Valley. Having a tour guide for the latter experience is the best way for a newbie to eat dumplings, in our opinion, so the crime tour is a bonus.

Hours: Sunday: 12:00 PM

Price: $63 per person/Approximately 3 hours

Museum of Death

6031 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028 (323) 466-8011 More Info

The guided tours can only show you the spots where murders occurred, and they don't look all that frightening in daylight. Satisfy your grisly Halloween needs with the country's largest collection of artifacts from some of the same crimes described on the tours.

The curators at the Museum of Death have assembled "the world's largest collection of Serial Murderer Artwork, Photos of the Charles Manson Crime Scenes, the Guillotined Severed Head of the Blue Beard of Paris, Henri Landru, Original Crime Scene and Morgue Photos from the Grisly BLACK DAHLIA MURDERS, a Body Bag and Coffin collection, replicas of Full Size Execution Devices, Mortician and Autopsy Instruments, Pet Death Taxidermy, and much much more!"

Self-guided tours take about 45 minutes to complete, and while all ages are welcome, visitors are urged to use a little discretion and leave the children at home.

Price: Admission: $15

Donna Schwartz Mills enjoys learning the idiosyncracies of her city and blogs at SoCal Mom .

• Marilyn Monroe

Featured Local Savings

More from cbs news.

Probe continues into cause of structure fire at vacant Hollywood home

LAPD searching for man who repeatedly punched restaurant worker over order taking too long

Water warning issued for five LA County beaches

Probe underway into two robberies at 7-Eleven locations in Long Beach

Experience Los Angeles’s Most Haunted Ghost Tour

Home of Hollywood, heartbreak, and tragedy. Find out why Los Angeles is the city where dreams are made until they become nightmares.

LA Ghosts offers a remorseless look at Tinsel Town’s dark past. Our unique collection of captivating and unnerving historical stories reveals what makes this city one of the most compelling haunted locations in the country.

Ghost Tour Meeting Location : Outside of the El Capitan Theatre at 6838 Hollywood Blvd

Tour Duration : 1hr. across 1 mile

To Order : Press "Get Tickets" for availability.

Ghost tours are held nightly, rain or shine!

The Experiences You've Heard About

LA Ghosts : Terrors of Tinseltown Tour

Find out why Los Angeles is full of dead dreams that turned into nightmares from the lost souls who didn't quite make the final cut.

LA Ghosts Boos and Brews Haunted Pub Crawl

Visit the most historic haunts and drinking hotspots in Tinseltown. They are often one in the same, and filled with both dejected, and delicious, spirits.

Hollywood Sign Adventure Hike and Tour

Challenge yourself on an interactive hike on the way to the Hollywood Sign. Trek along the open trail and see the most breathtaking vistas in LA.

Walk of Fame: 100 Years of Hollywood

See the most iconic spots on Hollywood Boulevard including; Musso & Frank Grill, the Egyptian Theater, and TCL Chinese Theater.

LA Ghosts Ultimate Dead of Night Haunted Ghost Tour

Hear haunted stories from the City of Angels late in the night when the spirits are most active, and itching for companionship from the living.

Flavors of Venice Beach Food Tour

Discover some of the best eats Venice Beach has to offer. From tacos to acai bowls, the iconic beach town is an enclave of delicious Southern California's cuisine just waiting to be discovered.

Rock N’ Roll Superstars: Legends of the Sunset Strip

Take a look at the grittier side of Hollywood that stands in stark contrast to the glitz and glamor so many sought on the infamous Sunset Strip.

Visit the Most Haunted Places in Los Angeles

Soak up some fascinating history on our Los Angeles ghost tour and hear about the deplorable side of the City of Angels. In a town where everyone’s got a story, sticking to the facts takes dedication and perseverance. Our tour is painstakingly researched and based on facts from the history books, as well as recorded first-person accounts of hauntings and ghostly sightings.

Take a walk with us down Hollywood Boulevard and the surrounding streets to see historical locations like the TCL Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood Roosevelt, and The Magic Castle. Learn about several unexplained and downright creepy encounters that have taken place here over these last one hundred years.

The Hollywood Roosevelt

Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, this hotel has seen its fair share of celebrities, both living…and dead. This popular location is a hot spot for ghost hunters, as it’s said that the spirit of Marilyn Monroe still frequents the building.

The Hollywood Wax Museum

Behind the chillingly accurate wax figurines depicting everyone from Michael Jackson to Dale Earnhart is something far more devious. Spirits haunt the old Wax Museum, and numerous visitors have captured them on video and reported them.

The Hollywood Sign

Ablaze in the night sky, The Hollywood Sign has become a beacon of hope and amusement in American society. But in 1932, the Hollywood Sign represented something far more sinister for the thousands of Angelenos basking in its shadow.

Test your bravery, and join us!

What to expect on your los angeles ghost tour.

LA Ghosts takes you through 8 to 12 different sites around the Hollywood Boulevard area, each one ratcheting up the tension. Meet your experienced tour guide outside of El Captian Theatre at least 15 minutes before your tour’s scheduled departure time. The standard tour takes about an hour and walks you through several landmark locations in the area. If you select the extended tour, you will get another 40 minutes of chilling stories and historical locations!

The LA Ghosts walking tour is a great way to see the amazing sites of Hollywood Boulevard while also getting your fill of the ghostly atmosphere of the city’s most haunted locations. This tour is perfect for first-time visitors to Los Angeles and seasoned locals alike!

Our Los Angeles ghost tour is a family-friendly attraction suitable for everyone, so bring your kids, friends, or a date! We’ll make sure that you have an informative, memorable, and slightly terrifying night. Keep in mind that tours fill up quickly, so reserve your spot early!

Discover the Horrors That Haunt Los Angeles

Learn where Marilyn Monroe still makes an appearance or two years after her untimely, mysterious death.

Visit The Magic Castle, where the biggest trick is uncovering the various spirits that reside there.

Discover the history behind the Hollywood Sign and why it’s one of the most tragic spots in Los Angeles.

Check out the theater that was hit so hard by the Great Depression that one manager took their life right in the building.

Take a walk with us to hear the true Hollywood tragedies and the ghosts they left behind.

Why You Should Book Your Los Angeles Ghost Tour Tonight!

You want to immerse yourself in the spooky history of Tinsel Town

Soak up some fascinating history on your tour as well as hearing about the deplorable side of the City of Angels.  In a town where everyone’s got a story, sticking to the facts takes dedication and perseverance. Our tour is painstakingly researched and based on facts from the history books and recorded first person accounts of hauntings and ghostly sightings.

Los Angeles, like so much of southern California, was initially settled by Spanish Mexico, later absorbed into the United States after the Mexican War. The small city of Los Angeles struggled initially and focused on selling the sunshine of California as a health tonic to the pale, sickly workers of the East Coast (or so they were depicted).  The movie industry came later, and really got going with the arrival of Cecil B. DeMille. Weak Unions and plentiful labor with cheap space for studios made it a small rival for the established studios in the North East US.

The 40s and 50s with the Hollywood Red Scare, and the Golden age of the studio system established Hollywood’s reputation and opened the floodgates of people seeking fame and fortune, but the ghosts were already here.

The Hollywood sign even has its own hauntings and spooky stories. In 1930 the sign was still in its original form, reading ‘HOLLYWOODLAND’ it promoted a new housing development. Aspiring actress Peg Entwistle tasted fame, following the time-honored tradition of an ‘and’ career Actress ‘and’ stage bit player, she also went to parties with Hollywood’s royalty hoping to be noticed. The strategy worked, she appeared in one film, Thirteen Women (1932), but then she hit a dead end. Drinking, drugs, and depression ensued, and after one heavy night of drinking, she scaled all 50 feet of the first ‘H’ and plunged to her death.

Since then several sightings by hikers and even motorists have kept the story of Peg Entwistle alive and her spirit haunting the H in Hollywood.

You are looking to get to know the LA story

LA has the movies, but it’s still a city like any other, and even LA felt the effects of the Great Depression. The beautiful Hollywood First National building opened as a mixed-use building as high as was possible at the time, with ‘ultra-modern fixtures’ it was, for a while, a desirable location.

Then disaster struck, the Great Depression affected the owners. The building ran into trouble and became run down with the economic difficulties affecting many of the tenants, this led to one tense showdown where a tenant on the upper floors kidnapped his secretary and threatened her with a gun. The police attempted a daring raid, but it backfired and the gunman was tackled just after he had killed the secretary, and in the struggle he tried to shoot himself, maiming his face.

To this day a mutilated ghost patrols the building, which is perhaps why it remains empty and haunted.

Our tour is full of detailed insights into the lives, loves, and losses of the characters who helped build Hollywood and its storied legend.

You need something to do with the whole family

Hollywood is a family-friendly area today, our tour of LA’s Ghosts continues in this vein. We welcome people of all ages on the tour and offer entertainment and history for everyone. Our stories are scary, but we aim just short of terrifying, leaving most of the gore and guts to the imagination.

Some of the stories we tell are of benevolent hauntings, some might even be downright cute! Ghosts come in as many guises are there are living spirits to create them.

For example, the ghost that hoovers up the popcorn littered rows of The Egyptian Theatre has never been seen, but rumor has it the creature snuffles a lot like a pig, and if you drop your glasses and come face to face with it, you’ll only hear it, and see the seats move as it scurries away, startled. But bear in mind this has been going on for years…

You are looking for a new angle on the same old Hollywood Stories

Everyone knows the one in a million Hollywood stories that end in fame and fortune, with a career on the silver screen being adored by millions. But Hollywood has a different side. A darker side. Some stories don’t have a happy ever after, these are the Hollywood that most people experience, and we proudly present their stories for your entertainment, shock and awe!

Let us tell you about the misdeeds, mishaps, and miscreants that haunt Tinsel Town today and are, in our opinion better stories than most of what you will see at the movies today.

Take for instance the intrepid reporter convinced that the infamous Hollywood Wax Museum ® was not haunted despite all the tales and first-hand accounts to the contrary.

He decided to sleep inside the museum one night, with the agreement of the staff. The next morning the staff opened the doors, the journalist was in one piece, but pale and visibly shaken by what he saw. But what did he see?

Well, join the tour and we will tell you everything he saw that night.  You won’t find it in any newspaper though, he said he could not explain what he saw, and would not write about it until he could explain it.

You don’t care where today's celebrities live!

The ghost stories on LA Ghosts features the stars of every era of the silver screen. But you won’t see any celebrity houses on our tour. You’ll see the theatres that have seen the grandest openings, the glitziest premiers, and more collective Oscars than Katherine Hepburn (with a lifetime total of four, still the most ever!). What you will see is the struggle, the desire, and the passion that has made this town a mecca for the spirits that just can’t let go and haunt the places they remain attached to.

Hollywood has a special feel, we will reveal a new layer to the story for you, for your family, for your date, even for your next staycation. Everyone on an LA Ghosts tour will learn something new about the ghosts of LA.

Get the scariest offers and stay current on sales and events.

• Virtual Tours
• Store at OSR
• Connect with the Reformatory
• Buy Tickets
• Scofield Cafe
• Hancock Heights at OSR
• Local Food & Lodging
• Visitor FAQs
• Events Calendar
• Memberships
• Things to Do
• Blood Prison Shakedown Podcast
• Escape to Blood Prison
• INKCarceration
• Shawshank Hustle
• Central Guard Room
• East Diagonal
• Warden’s Dining Room
• Reformatory Lawn
• Our History
• Inside Shawshank
• Apply for IWScholarship
• OSR Online Store
• Family Memberships
• Individual Memberships

Jump to Tour:

Hollywood meets history tour, beyond the bars tour, shawshank bus tour, fall guided tour.

• Beyond the Haunt

American Sign Language (ASL) Tour

Self-guided tours, private guided tours, get inspired and intrigued (and maybe a little freaked out) when you tour the ohio state reformatory..

Whether you’re here to explore history, Hollywood, horror — or all three — you‘ll be captivated by each of our guided tours.

With the purchase of one or more of the guided tour options below, we’ll give you a complimentary self-guided tour. You get to explore the Reformatory’s 250,000 square feet at your own pace with a personal audio device, too.

Interested in Self-guided Tours?

All online ticket purchases are final and non-refundable. If you are unable to attend, we can reschedule your tour. No strollers, carts, or wagons of any kind allowed on our guided tours. For safety reasons, we strongly recommend that all children be at least 42″ tall. Children must not be unattended at any point in time.

— The Experience — Step into the storied world of the reformatory and experience its history both as a prison and the shooting location for 1994’s acclaimed film, The Shawshank Redemption . Serving as our most comprehensive tour, you’ll learn about the Reformatory’s architecture, the warden’s living quarters, and discover what films and music videos have been shot onsite. — Ticket Price — $40 per person — Dates Available — Year-round with the exception of Labor Day — Nov. 17th due to “Blood Prison” scheduling. — Appropriate For — Everyone! This tour is family-friendly and highly recommended for first-time guests. — Keep in mind — We do not offer free guided tours to children age 6 and under. All children must have a student ticket to be on a guided tour. — Discounts — $5 off for Military, Seniors, & Students

 — The Experience — Take a deep dive beyond and behind bars with this physically challenging tour exploring the inner workings of the prison and its inmates’ punishments. Get access to areas normally off-limits to the general public while you explore the West Attic, the sub-basement, the “Jesus Room”. And if weather permits, you’ll be led up to the imposing guard tower. This tour requires 439 stairs total. — Ticket Price — $40 per person — Dates Available — Year-round, with the exception of Labor Day-Nov. 17th due to “Blood Prison” scheduling. — Appropriate For — Ages 8+ only. — Keep In Mind — Participants must be 8 years of age or older due to the mature topics discussed and physical strain of the tour. — Discounts — $5 off for Military, Seniors, & Students

Old Sparky: Electric Chair History & Ohio Executions

— The Experience — Our most “shocking” tour explores the personal stories of inmates who were executed. Starting with a 1-hour sit-down presentation, guests will learn about the history, development, and design of the electric chair, concluding with a guided walking tour of the Reformatory that includes visiting its electric chair. — Ticket Price — $40 per person — Dates Available — Subject to guide availability. To learn more please contact us by selecting Book Tour or by calling our office. — Appropriate For — Ages 13+ only. — Keep In Mind — Participants must be 13 years of age or older due to this tour’s sensitive subject matter. — Discounts — $5 off for Military, Seniors, & Students

— The Experience — Let us do the driving! This fascinating tour will allow you to stop at a variety of filming locations you’re sure to recognize from The Shawshank Redemption . Included in your ticket price is the popular “Hollywood Meets History” tour inside the Reformatory. — Ticket Price — $99 per person — Dates Available — Apr. — Oct. (rain or shine) — Appropriate For — Ages 13+ only. — Keep In Mind — Only certified service animals are permitted on the bus tour. Alcohol is not permitted on the bus. Due to tour length, there will be opportunities to use the restroom and to hydrate. Photo opportunities are also available, so make sure to bring your camera/phone along for the ride. — No Discounts —

 — The Experience — This seasonal tour offers our popular “Hollywood Meets History” experience along with the bonus of unique access spots featured in our “Beyond the Bars” tour. Guests will still visit the cell blocks at a higher tier and get the added experience of walking through the West Attic. — Ticket Price — $40 per person — Dates Available — Offered Labor Day — Nov. 17th only. — Appropriate For — Everyone! This is our comprehensive tour, great for first time guests! — Keep In Mind — Due to our “Blood Prison” experience that runs from Labor Day to Nov. 17th, features such as solitary confinement, the ground levels of the cell blocks, the showers, and the bullpen are not included in this tour. — Discounts — $5 off for Military, Seniors, & Students

Beyond the Scare Tour

— The Experience — Want to know what “Blood Prison” looks like with the lights on? See it for yourself on our newest guided tour. You’ll learn the history of the Reformatory and see some of our “Beyond the Bars” tour locations, including the sub-basement, the “Jesus Room,” and the Guard Tower (weather permitting). — Ticket Price — $40 per person — Dates Available — Offered Sept. 30th — Oct. 29th only. — Appropriate For — Our guests who would like to explore “Blood Prison” but have sensitivity to light and/or sound will enjoy this tour experience. Ages 8+ only. — Keep In Mind — Content Warning: There will be blood, gore, mannequin nudity, and disturbing scenes. Participants must be 8 years of age or older due to this tour’s sensitive subject matter.  — Discounts — $5 off for Military, Seniors, & Students

— The Experience — Presented in American Sign Language (ASL), our “Hollywood Meets History” tour experience allows you to step into the storied world of the reformatory and delve into its history both as a prison and the shooting location for 1994’s acclaimed film, The Shawshank Redemption. — Ticket Price — $40 per person — Dates Available — The 1st and 3rd weekends of most months throughout the year with the exception of Labor Day — Nov. 17th due to “Blood Prison” scheduling. — Appropriate For — Our guests who communicate through sign language. All ages. — Keep in mind — There is no audibly spoken component for this tour. It is presented in ASL only. If you are not fluent in ASL, please plan to take the Hollywood Meets History tour to receive the same information verbally. — Discounts — $5 off for Military, Seniors, & Students

• Explore the Reformatory independently at your own pace.
• Learn about the history of the facility and its many Hollywood and paranormal connections through a personal audio guide, which works in conjunction with our self-guided tours.
• Visit the North Central Ohio Industrial Museum, included as part of the self-guided tour. (For more information about NCOIM, please visit their webpage at ncoim.org)
• Audio can be added to any self-guided tour for $5 per person.
• Reservations not required for the self-guided tour.
• Tickets are always available at our front desk and never sell out.
• Ghost hunting and ghost hunting equipment are prohibited during the daytime. Please click our site’s Paranormal tab to learn when they are permitted.
• Tour Duration: Approximately 1.5 hours
• The self-guided tour route is modified and the North Central Ohio Industrial Museum is completely closed from Labor Day through November 17th because of our Blood Prison Haunted House setup. A $6 discount will be offered on self-guided tickets during this time.
• From Labor Day through November 17th, guided tours remain 90-minutes long, but there is no access to solitary confinement, the ground floor of the cell blocks, the showers, or the bullpen. If you want full access to the tour route, please plan to visit the Reformatory outside of this window.
• $30 per person.
• $5 discount for students, seniors, and military.

• Starting at $500 per group of up to 10 guests.
• Requires two weeks of advance notice to book.
• November-March private guided tours can be scheduled for 11:30 AM or 2:30 PM, Thursday-Sunday.
• April-October private guided tours can be scheduled for 11:30 AM or 2:30 PM, Monday-Friday. We do not offer private guided tours on the weekends during our summer months.
• Call or email Derek Wilson to schedule or for more information at (419) 522-2644 or [email protected].

Tour Season

TOUR SEASON: Spring, Summer, Fall*, Winter

April 1st – October 31st 11AM – 4PM Open: 7 Days a Week 

November 1st – March 31st  11AM – 4PM Open:  Thursday – Sunday 

CLOSED FOR TOURS No tours will be offered on the following dates in 2024: March 31st, May 27th, July 4th, July 15th-22nd, September 2nd, November 28th, and December 23rd-January 2nd.

*Subject to change*

STUDENT, SENIOR, AND MILITARY DISCOUNTS A $5.00 discount will be given to students, senior citizens ages 55-or-older, and any member of the military or military veteran. Children 6-and-under receive free self-guided tours. Note: This discount is only valid on full-price tickets and does not apply to seasonal pricing (i.e. from September through November) .*

SAME DAY DISCOUNT We offer same day discounts for multiple tours. A second tour on the same day is only $20 per person! 

PURCHASE A GUIDED TOUR, GET A COMPLIMENTARY SELF-GUIDED TOUR Admission to our guided tour also includes complimentary access to the self-guided tour route.

PRESERVATION SOCIETY DISCOUNT Members of the Preservation Society receive a discount on guided tours and free self-guided tours.

*Adjusted tours only from Labor Day through November 17th. Due to the Blood Prison Haunted House setup, which is in place during this time, several areas of the building will be unavailable for touring, including solitary confinement, the bullpen, the ground level of the cell blocks, and the showers. During this time there is a $6 discount on self-guided tours, while guided tours remain full price and include tours of additional areas.

• About Hollywood Cemetery
• Merchandise
• Photo Gallery

Tour Options

• Things To See
• Girl Scout Guide
• The Virginia Mysteries Guide
• Virtual Tours
• Natural Treasure Guides
• Burial Options
• Search Burial Records

Friends / Give

• About Friends
• Planned Giving
• Annual Report
• Newsletters

There are several tour options available at Hollywood Cemetery, each filled with a wealth of knowledge about the historic site and the famous personalities buried there. Tours are held regularly, beginning in April and ending in November. Specialty tours are also available through The Valentine. If you are planning a group tour, please be sure to contact the cemetery at least a week in advanced of the scheduled tour to receive necessary information to help prepare your tour. Skateboards and one-wheels are not allowed in the cemetery.

Tour by Car or Foot

Historical Walking Tours

Gem Car Tours

Segway Tours

Trolley Tours

Tuk Tuk Tours

• ARTS & MUSEUMS
• EDUCATIONAL
• Share / Invite
• Download PDF
• Email Collection

Error report has been sent successfully.

We will review your submission and make any necessary updates.

If you're a band, promotor, venue, or artist representative,

Consider becoming one of our verified users!

- speed up the creation process

- Add multiple events and artist at once

- Skip the holding period and publish automatically

Ghosts Of New Orleans: Self-Guided Haunted Audio/App Walking Tour

Similar events.

Advertisement

Idaho Ghost Tours

SRD's Haunt

Located in Pocatello 208-705-8978-->

We are bringing back the haunt for the 8th year and going bigger and better. ALL indoors! One group at a time. No touching. No guides this year. There is also an escape room feature in the main haunt. Come choose your level of fear at the doors of the Haunted Fairgrounds... Spook Ally... Bring Read More

Lost Souls Attractions

Located in Shelley 208-390-1455-->

The Theatre of the Lost Souls: The Virginia Theatre was built 100 years ago by a fan of picture films. It’s modern equipment and elaborate scale seemed out of place in a small town like Shelley, but it never seemed out of place to the community. Many people remember seeing older movies there with Read More

Visit Website

Categories: Haunted Houses | Paranormal Events | Halloween Festivals & Parades | Ghost Tours | Halloween Parties & Nightlife | Escape Games | Not-So-Scary Haunted Houses (Kid Friendly) | Safe Trick or Treating

Categories: Haunted Houses | Ghost Tours | Other Events

The Best Self Guided Moscow Metro tour

Due to the current situation, I advice against travel to Moscow and Russia at the moment. All affiliated links related to Russia have been removed. But I have decided to keep my posts about Russia as it remains a beautiful country. I hope that circumstances change and that travel is possible again in the near future.

One of the top things to do in Moscow is a Moscow metro tour. Once you go underground you enter a different world. A Soviet world of grandiosity and beauty, because in Stalin’s vision the Moscow’s metro stations were to become the palaces of the people.

The Moscow metro is not only one of the busiest and most effective metro systems in the world, it is also the most beautiful. It is in fact a work of art and more like a museum. And a very cheap museum as well, because all you need is one metro token that will cost you less than one dollar. 

There are lots of Moscow metro tours out there, but you can perfectly explore it on your own. All you need to know is where to go. The Moscow Metro has a total of 232 stations. Of course not all of them are as grandiose and opulent. This self guided Moscow Metro tour brings you along the most beautiful metro stations in Moscow.

The Moscow Metro 

Ideas to open a metro system in Moscow emerged in the early thirties. There was a need to transport labourers in a cheap and efficient way and as the traffic in Moscow was already congested it was logical to go underground.  

The only problem was that the Soviets had never done such a thing before. Thereby Stalin wanted the Moscow Metro to be extravagant. The palaces of the people had to celebrate the Soviet regime and had to inspire awe among its visitors. 

It was a monumental plan that was carefully designed and although all stations had to fit within the ideas of Soviet architecture, they also had their own personalities. The beauty in Moscow’s metro lies both in its grand looks as well as in its details. 

The lofty ceilings, crystal chandeliers and white marble were to give the Moscow Metro stations a feeling of luxury, but each station also has unique mosaics, bas reliefs and statues that represent different Soviet symbols. They served as a reminder to the people of the Soviet ideology. 

The Moscow Metro was the first metro to open in the Soviet Union in 1935. Later the St Petersburg metro followed and then in Tashkent , Kiev, Tbilisi, Yerevan and Baku .

A self guided Moscow Metro Tour

Like I said before, there is no need for a paid Moscow Metro tour. Moscow is already expensive enough and therefore it is a good thing that one of its top attractions is at the same time one of the cheapest things to do in Moscow . 

With this self guided Moscow Metro tour I explain everything you need to know about how to do this on your own. I will also guide you along the best metro stations in Moscow. If you are interested I also have a self guided free walking tour of Moscow through the Kitay Gorod, the Red square and the Kremlin.

The Moscow Metro currently has 15 lines and over 200 stations. The most beautiful sations are on the number 5 Koltsevaya line, the number 3 Arbatsko Pokrovskaya line and the number 2 Zamoskvoretskaya line

Moscow Metro Tour: Koltsevaya Line (Brown line)

The number 5 Koltsevaya line is a circle line that was built as a reminder of the power of the Soviet Union and therefore almost all metro stations on this line are worth a visit. All are in Stalinist style and several have won prizes for its design. 

Start your Moscow metro tour at Taganskaya on the number 5 Koltsevaya line. This modest, but beautiful station has light blue panels with bas-reliefs. It might surprise you that this station is actually about World War 2 and the men on the bas-reliefs represent Red Army men serving in the war such as pilots, sailors and tank crews. 

After Taganskaya comes Kurskaya. Compared to other stations on this line it has a simple design with columns and chandeliers, but very little artwork. It won the Stalin prize for its beauty anyways. 

At the entrance you will find quotes from the national anthem of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s statue that was once there was removed in the period of destalinization. However, after restoration works in 2008 a certain verse of the anthem was controversially reinstated. It said:”Stalin brought us up on loyalty to the people and inspired us to labor and to heroism”. 

Komsomolskaya

Komsomolskaya is among the most opulent metro stations on this Moscow Metro tour and a personal favourite that is sure to impress you. A baroque yellow ceiling adorned with huge chandeliers and incredible mosaics. 

The mosaics represent historic events and military leaders that fought for Russia’s independence. Stalin himself was in two of the mosaics depicting the victory in the Great Patriotic war, but he was removed in the period of Destalinization. Komsomolskaya is also the busiest station, because it is located and connected to 3 railway stations (Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky and Kazansky station).  

Prospekt Mira

The third stop on this Moscow Metro tour is Prospekt Mira. It’s very modest compared to Komsomolskaya, but worth a short stop for its elegant white marble bas-reliefs that focus on the agricultural development of the Soviet Union. 

Novoslobodskaya

The next stop on this Moscow Metro Tour is Novoslobodskaya. This station is quite colourful with its 32 decorative glass panels and pink marble from the Ural mountains. The biggest attraction in this station though is the huge mosaic in the end, called Peace through the World.  It’s of a mother holding her child as a symbol of peace.

Belorusskaya

After Novoslobodskaya we head to Belorusskaya, named after the BeloRusskaya train station above. The metro station focused on the Belarus Soviet Socialist republic and their strong relationship with the Soviet Union that they gladly joined. It’s a friendship that still exists today and President Lukashenko keeps close ties with President Putin.

The snow white ceiling has several mosaics that are made from natural stone rather than painted glass. They represent daily life in the Belarus Soviet republic that is shown by most people wearing the traditional clothes of the country. The statue at the end are Belarussian Partisans that fought in Belarus against Nazi Germany.  

Moscow Metro Tour: Zamoskvoretskaya line (Green Line)

Mayakovskaya.

At Belorusskaya we leave the circular brown line behind us and move to the Green line where we take the metro in the direction of Alma-Atinskaya. On our Moscow metro tour we get out at the next station.

Mayakovskaya is another personal favourite and the elegant hall strikes you immediately. The walls are of white marble, the columns of pink rhodonite and the arches are polished in stainless steel. At first look it is already a beauty, but there is more. When you look up there are 34 ceiling mosaics depicting “24 Hours in the Land of the Soviets.” When it finished in 1938 it won the Grand Prix at the World Fair of New York.

During World War 2 the metro station that is more than 33 meters deep was used as a bomb shelter, where even Stalin himself took residence. At the anniversary of the October revolution in 1941 it was at the Mayakovskaya metro station that he gave a speech to party leaders and civilians. 

Teatralnaya

On this Moscow metro tour we are only for a short time on the green line. Get out at Teatralnaya to change to the blue line. This station is often not on the list of most beautiful train stations in Moscow. I also used it mainly to change to Ploschad Revolutsii, but actually liked this station as well. 

There are small and nice porcelain bas reliefs representing music and dance from various nationalities of the Soviet Union. The white marble comes from the Cathedral of Christ the saviour that was destroyed by the Soviets. 

Moscow Metro Tour: Arbatsko Pokrovskaya line (blue line)

Ploschad revolutsii.

At Teatralnaya you can change to the blue line by going up the escalators to ploschad revolutsii station. This station is famous for its bronze sculpture pairs representing Soviet professions such as soldiers, peasants, engineers and students. 

Muscovites believe that rubbing some of the sculptures brings good luck such as the nose of the dogs that belong to the soldiers and the hens that belong to the farmer girls. You will see many passersby rubbing the statues.    

The next station on the blue line we visit on this Moscow metro tour is Arbatskaya. This was one of the first stations to be built, but after it was damaged by the Nazis in 1941 the Soviets reconstructed it even deeper underground. 

The newer station was 41 meters deep and 250 meters wide so that it could serve as a bomb shelter. The reinforced metal doors that can shut down completely are still there. For a bomb shelter it is pretty beautiful too. The arched ceilings are nicely decorated with chandeliers and floral patterns. 

Like Belorusskaya, Kievskaya is named after the Kievskaya train station above. This station also highlights the friendship between the Soviet Union and the Ukraine Soviet Socialist republic as well as the unity of Russian and Ukrainian people. A relationship that is much more tense today.

The station also connects with the Koltsevaya brown line and therefore has two platforms that are both worth checking out. One has richly decorated panels with one of the only remaining images of Stalin in the Moscow metro and the other platform has beautiful mosaics depicting daily life in Ukraine. The panel at the end of the hall is particularly impressive.  

Park Pobedy

The next station at the blue line after Kievskaya is the newer Park Pobedi station. It opened in 2003 and became the deepest metro station in Moscow at 84 meters deep. Park Pobedi is not a particularly beautiful station, but not seeing the end once you stand on the escalators is quite an experience. 

It is not the deepest metro station in Russia by the way. That is Admiralteskaya in St Petersburg.  

Other beautiful Moscow Metro stations

Novokuznetskaya.

Novokuznetskaya on the Zamoskvoretskaya line is only a small detour from this Moscow Metro tour and one that is certainly worth it. For your information, it comes after Teatralnaya station.

The station is dedicated to the heroism of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. The station with marble arches and columns has seven beautiful mosaics on its ceiling showing the achievements of the war time industry and a band of bas reliefs with Red Army soldiers and military insignia. 

The mosaics were made in St Petersburg (Leningrad) when the city was still under siege. It was a risky undertaking to bring them to Moscow and they had to be transported over a frozen Lake Ladoga. Vladimir Frolov, who made them, unfortunately died shortly after that from starvation.  

Elektrozavodskaya

Elektrozavodskaya on the Arbatsko Pokrovskaya blue line is another station worth the detour from this Moscow metro tour. It is 2 stations after Ploschad Revolutsii station.

It was located near a light bulb factory and therefore its theme is industry and science. Most striking is the ceiling with its 6 rows of circular inset lights. The pinkish marble comes from Georgia. There are also bas-reliefs with famous scientists together with their inventions. 

Park Kultury

Park Kultury on the Koltsevaya line was one of the first metro stations to be built. It was situated next to Gorki Park and therefore its theme was recreation and sports. There are 26 bas-reliefs with leisure activities popular among Soviet youth such as tennis, dancing and music. 

Moscow Metro tour travel tips

You can follow this self guided Moscow metro tour or make your own itinerary if you like. The Moscow metro has a very useful interactive map of the metro to help you plan your route.

Below are some more practical tips that will help you plan your own Moscow Metro tour.

Opening hours

The Moscow Metro is open between 6 AM till midnight. 

Costs and Payment

There are no zones in the Moscow Metro, so one ride starts when you enter the station platform and ends when you leave the station through the exit. In between that time you can stop at as many stations as you like and change between lines. A Moscow metro tour can therefore be as cheap as a single ride that costs you less than one dollar. 

In recent years the paper tickets and metal tokens have disappeared from the scene to make space for more modern ticket and payment options. 

Ediny ticket

It is still possible to buy a simple one way ticket. In that case you need to buy a ediny ticket for one ride. This red paper card can have 1, 2, 20, 40, or 60 rides on any kind of Moscow public transport. The more rides, the cheaper the price per ride. From 57 rubles for one ride to 40 rubles if you buy 60 rides. 

Day tickets

A better option for tourists are the day tickets that are available for 1 day (230 rubles) or 3 days (440 rubles). You can then use an unlimited number of rides during these days. This is a useful option for this Moscow Metro Tour as this would allow you to enter and leave the stations on your way. The entrance and exits are often just as beautiful as the inside of the stations. 

Troika card

My preferred option if you are in Moscow for a couple of days and plan to use public transport is the Troika card . You can get the card at any Moscow Metro kiosk. You need to pay a 50 ruble deposit and then you can top it up with your desired amount of rubles. Good news is that one ride with the troika card is only 40 rubles compared to 57 rubles with a one way ediny ticket.  You can check the balance of your Troika card with an app or at the metro kiosks. 

If you think a card is outdated you can also buy a troika bracelet, ring or keychain. Obviously you pay a higher deposit for these and they are only available at the moscow metro souvenir kiosks.

At last there is a 90 minute ticket (65 rubles) that allows you to take multiple rides on any public transport type within 90 minutes. 

Once you have your desired ticket you can use it to tap the entrance portals to gain entry to the platforms.   

Moscow Metro Tour Tips

The Moscow metro is also one of the busiest metro’s in the world. Try to plan your Moscow Metro Tour outside of the rush hours in the morning (08:00 – 10:00 AM) and the afternoon (16:00 – 18:00). The brown circular Koltsevaya line is the most busy. 

There can be long lines in front of the Moscow Metro kiosks. If you are in a hurry make sure you have enough balance on your Troika card. 

Getting from the entrance to the actual platforms can take some time. There are security checks and some stations are very deep with long escalators.

Watch your belongings as the Moscow Metro is also very popular among pickpockets.  

It can get pretty warm in the Moscow Metro. I was there in winter and while it was freezing outside it was uncomfortably hot inside the metro. 

Moscow Metro curiosities

In 1931 the Soviets destroyed the Cathedral of Christ the saviour during its anti religious campaigns. Some of its marble and benches were used in the construction of the Moscow Metro

There are persistent rumours that there is a deeper Moscow Metro 2 that goes from the Kremlin to the red square and beyond. Some even believe it connects to an underground city near the Moscow State University that can hold up to 15,000 people.

Where to eat in Moscow

There are lots of places to eat in Moscow. Because Moscow can be an expensive city I wrote a specific post about the best cheap eats in Moscow .

Where to sleep in Moscow

Hostels Rus : Hostels Rus stand for clean and professional hostels with a mix of dormitories and a limited number of double rooms for good prices. They are often located close to one of the Moscow metro stations making travel in Moscow easy. There is one near Kurskaya and one near Paveletskaya (dorms only).

Vinegret hostel : Vinegret hostel is a clean and nice budget hostel with an excellent location in the heart of Moscow. It is right near Arbatskaya metro station on the famous arbat street. From there you can walk to the red square in only 30 minutes.

Axel hostel : Axel hostel has great budget dormitories with lots of privacy. It has a central location within walking distanc of Kitay Gorod.

Disclaimer : This post w ith a Moscow metro tour contains affiliate links. If you buy any service through any of my links, I will get a small commission at no extra cost to you. These earnings help me to keep Backpack Adventures alive! Thanks for your support!

Due to the current situation in Ukraine all affiliated links related to Russia have been removed

2 thoughts on “The Best Self Guided Moscow Metro tour”

I’ll admit, Russia hasn’t been on my list, but the more I read about it, the more intrigued I get. Great post!

This is so interesting! I never would’ve thought that a metro tour would be such a big attraction (but I’ll admit I haven’t done too much research on Russia)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

• Kale by LyraThemes.com.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Master of Make-Believe

By Evan Osnos

Anyone who visited Zach and Mallory Horwitz in 2019 would have said that they had made it in Hollywood. They lived in a six-million-dollar home on Bolton Road, within walking distance of Beverly Hills; there was a screening room, a thousand-bottle wine cellar, and a cabana laced with flowering vines by the pool. The Horwitzes had hired a celebrity decorator and installed a baby grand piano and framed photographs of Brigitte Bardot and Jack Nicholson. On social media, Zach posted pictures of himself courtside at Lakers games; Mallory shared images of their toddler playing in the California sun. For Mallory’s thirtieth birthday, Zach paid the R. & B. artist Miguel to perform for friends at the Nice Guy, a voguish restaurant in West Hollywood.

The couple, college sweethearts from Indiana University, had arrived in California seven years earlier, in search of a new life. They had started the cross-country drive with their dog, Lucy, on New Year’s Eve. In L.A., Mallory trained to be a hair stylist, like her mother and grandmother back home in Santa Claus, Indiana. Zach, who had secretly wanted to act ever since he saw his first Broadway play as a child, landed a few tiny parts: he played Demon 3 in one film, an unnamed basketball player in another. He was not quite movie-star handsome, but he had gleaming teeth, an aquiline nose, imposing biceps, and turquoise eyes. For a stage name, he chose Zach Avery.

Although Zach was not an overnight success, bigger roles came soon enough. In 2017, he flew to Serbia for a film directed by Ralph Fiennes, then he was off to Virginia to shoot a movie with the Hollywood veteran Bruce Dern, in which he played opposite Olivia Munn. Before long, he starred in a thriller featuring Brian Cox, who played the patriarch Logan Roy on “Succession.” In an interview after the production, Zach praised Cox for “taking me under his wing,” and marvelled, with self-flattering deference, “When you’re sitting across the table from him, doing scenes, you almost have to pinch yourself and say, ‘How is this real?’ ”

Like many young stars, Zach dabbled in tech investments and started companies to produce and distribute films; he named his enterprises 1inMM, after his favorite saying, “When odds are one in a million, be that one.” Eventually, he encouraged Mallory to stop working at the salon. They had forty million dollars in the bank, he told her. Why go to work? All the while, Zach kept in touch with the friends who’d been with him during his rise. He took them to parties by private plane and always paid their way; he even made some of them rich, by dealing them into his businesses. In 2018, during a dinner in Montreal with three old friends from Indiana, one of them proposed a toast to Zach: “You’ve changed my life, my wife’s life, my children’s lives.”

But even in Hollywood, where professional envy is as ubiquitous as dental veneers, people around Zach were unusually puzzled by the divide between his success and his talent. “He is the worst actor I’ve ever worked with,” a former colleague told me. Sharing a scene with Zach, he said, was like interacting with a banana. The director Michele Civetta, who worked with Zach, told me that he was forced to invent ways to help him unlock emotion; otherwise, it was like “dealing with a dead horse.” Audiences reached a similar conclusion. After Zach appeared with Cox, in “Last Moment of Clarity,” one reviewer wrote that he delivered “such a dull, unappealing performance that the movie has a void at the center.” A viewer of another of his films declared, “Zach Avery’s acting was like a cancer to this movie. Every time he was on screen it died a little more. Good god, how did he make it past the auditions?”

Still, many people who encountered Zach thought that he seemed like just another lucky beneficiary of the capricious entertainment business. Gina Dickerson, a real-estate agent who met with him and Mallory, said, “In L.A. more than anywhere else, nobody really ever knows where the money is coming from.” Her colleague Tracy Tutor told me, “In Hollywood, the more you fake it, the more people actually buy it. You have the right car? You’re wearing the right suit? You know the right people? No one does the diligence.”

If anything, Zach struck people as too blandly genial to be anything other than what he appeared. Civetta, the director, noticed that he seemed determined to project wholesome simplicity—“milk and apple pie, his wife, his kids.” Tutor, the real-estate agent, who often appears with her clients on a reality show called “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles,” considered casting Zach but concluded that he was too undistinguished to put on TV: “I said to the show, ‘This is the most boring, vanilla person.’ ”

As a teen-ager on the outskirts of Fort Wayne, where subdivisions give way to farmland, Zach Horwitz was an athlete, not a theatre kid. The Carroll High School yearbook featured a picture of him shirtless in the gym, under the headline “Best Bodies.” He was popular, but prone to telling fanciful stories that seemed engineered to draw attention. According to a classmate named Steve Clark, Horwitz once told peers that he had met the baseball star Derek Jeter at a mall in Florida, and that Jeter had invited him to dinner. The story seemed ludicrous, but Horwitz was beyond reproach. “He was handsome, and he was a football player, which is to say he was high-school royalty,” Clark said.

Horwitz’s parents, Susan and Howard, had divorced when he was young. For a time, he lived with his mother and sister in Tampa. During a visit to New York City when he was in grade school, he thrilled to a performance of “Annie Get Your Gun.” He asked his mother about the actors, and she explained that they were professionals, paid to entertain the crowd. Back home, he took to memorizing lines from movies like “Forrest Gump” and “Jerry Maguire,” and he talked of quitting school to become an actor, but his mother insisted that he get an education. By his sophomore year of high school, they had moved to Indiana; his mother had married Robert Kozlowski, a prosperous manufacturing executive. The family lived comfortably, with a vacation house on a lake.

In 2005, Horwitz started college in Bloomington, majoring in psychology. One day at the gym, he met Jake Wunderlin, who, like him, was a brawny former athlete from Fort Wayne. Unlike Horwitz, though, Wunderlin did not come from money. He was a scholarship kid—a tall, reserved honors student in finance who worked at the campus food court to help pay expenses. They grew close, and Wunderlin joined him on visits to his mother and stepfather, who had a big house near Zionsville, the richest town in Indiana. Horwitz gained a reputation for spending freely on friends, covering late-night drinks and pizza. “He was the one that would pay for everything,” Wunderlin told me recently. “He loved it. He never was mad about it, like, ‘Are you going to pitch in?’ ” Joe deAlteris, a business student who had been friends with Wunderlin since kindergarten, grew close with Horwitz, too. “I knew him as the guy who had a ton of family money,” he told me. “It felt like every semester he came back with a new car.”

Link copied

Horwitz also had a knack for identifying a need in another person, a point of emotional access. DeAlteris was outgoing, a wide receiver on the Indiana team and a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, but in 2009 his stepfather died, and he was overwhelmed with grief. It was not a subject that he discussed easily with the college-gym crowd, but Horwitz lost his own stepfather around the same time, and the two bonded. At social occasions, Horwitz liked to pose questions that generated moments of self-revelation. He once asked a circle of friends, “How much money is enough? How much would it take in your life to do whatever you want?”

Mallory met Zach at a tailgate party in 2008, just before her twentieth birthday, and was taken with his attentive manner. “Everyone loved him,” she recalled. “If there was a homeless person on the street, he’d say, ‘Let’s give some money.’ I felt like I had an extremely deep, rare connection with this person.” After graduating, she followed Zach to Chicago. She walked him to classes at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology; when he told her that he was dropping out, after less than a year, she strove to be supportive. He harbored fantasies of getting into the Chicago improv scene, but kept them to himself. Instead, he talked enthusiastically about a job as a salesman, providing accounting software to small businesses.

Wunderlin was working in the Indianapolis office of the wealth-management division at J. P. Morgan, and Horwitz called periodically to compare notes. Among friends, he let it be known that he had inherited money—as much as ten million dollars, some said—and Wunderlin got used to hearing him talk about the “crazy returns” that his mother’s financial team had achieved. In fact, the family’s money was contested. Horwitz’s stepbrother Steven had filed suit against several relatives, alleging that they had shortchanged him on his inheritance. He accused Horwitz’s mother, Susan, of fraud and manipulation, suggesting that she may have forged his father’s signature on a will while he was sick, in order to secure most of an estate that totalled more than eleven million dollars. Lawyers for Susan called the allegations “false and distorted” and fought the case; in 2011, they reached a confidential settlement.

As the case was nearing resolution, Horwitz called Wunderlin and told him about an enticing opportunity: he had attended a small-business convention, where he’d pitched a chain of fast-casual healthy restaurants—in effect, juice bars with supplements. He said that he’d caught the attention of venture capitalists backed by Howard Schultz, the founder and C.E.O. of Starbucks, who had a sideline as an investor in food startups. (Not long before, a V.C. firm that Schultz co-founded had put almost thirty million dollars into Pinkberry frozen yogurt.) Schultz himself had expressed interest, Horwitz told him. “He said, ‘I have a meeting with Howard,’ ” Wunderlin recalled.

Days later, Horwitz reported back that the meeting had gone well; if he could get a restaurant built, Schultz would consider an investment. Horwitz invited his friend to join the venture, saying, “I need to build a team.” Wunderlin wasn’t about to leave J. P. Morgan for a juice bar, but then Horwitz put him in contact with Schultz directly. In March, 2011, Wunderlin got a long e-mail from Schultz’s account, reflecting on the lessons of building Starbucks and declaring, “I have faith in you. Your team has faith in you.” It ended on a note of inspiration: “Be the person that you have always dreamed of becoming, Jake, and all the rest will fall into place.” Elated, Wunderlin showed the e-mail to his parents, quit his job, and moved to Chicago.

The restaurant, called FÜL, opened that summer. Mallory, who got her own galvanizing e-mail from Schultz, had signed on, and Horwitz recruited other friends. In the next six weeks, he shared exciting news: undercover test shoppers had visited and approved the restaurant; Schultz was preparing a thirty-million-dollar offer. Better yet, they had received a rival offer from a private-equity firm in Florida.

Though the business consisted of a single storefront, Horwitz gave out grandiose titles, naming himself the C.E.O. and Wunderlin the C.F.O., with a starting salary of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He leased an office capacious enough for each of them to have a suite. While Mallory ran the restaurant and Wunderlin plotted its growth, Horwitz spent most days in his office, with the door closed. One afternoon, he invited Wunderlin to join him at the bank, but had him wait in the lobby while he signed documents to prepare for a deal.

Then, all of a sudden, it was gone. The private-equity offer had collapsed, Horwitz said, for complex reasons involving his inheritance, his private investments, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Worse, he added, when FÜL looked unavailable, Schultz had moved on to another health-food chain. Wunderlin was devastated. Without new investments, the restaurant would be finished by the end of the year. “We were left to fend for ourselves,” he said. He began looking for other work.

The only good news, Horwitz said, was that Schultz had offered him a job at Maveron, his venture-capital firm. Mallory later recalled that he showed her a contract for a position at the firm’s “Entrepreneur Outreach Program,” based in Los Angeles. It would be perfect, he told her: he would visit campuses and small-business conventions, cultivating young strivers. He did not mention that the move would also allow him to pursue his dream of being a star.

Acting is a discouraging business, but Hollywood aspirants have sustained themselves for decades with tales of predecessors who outhustled the competition. Dick Van Dyke danced to stardom in “Bye Bye Birdie” despite having never before taken a class. Eddie Redmayne got cast in “Les Misérables” by claiming that he was a seasoned equestrian, even though he hadn’t been on a horse since childhood. Making it through an audition often requires bluffing not just the casting director but also yourself. It’s a mentality that Ryan Gosling once called “self-mythologizing”—the ability to face a “hundred other people that are better-looking and more talented and somehow think that you should get the job.”

When Horwitz got to Los Angeles, he set about bluffing two audiences: his old friends at home and his potential new friends in Hollywood. Soon after arriving, he wrote on Twitter, “I normally wouldn’t name drop BUT I asked H. Schultz this AM what his goal is for me in my role, he simply says, ‘Just be good. Don’t stink.’ ” Before long, though, he started telling Mallory that he was bored with his job and talking about shifting his attention to acting. “I’m, like, ‘O.K., if this is going to make you happy, do what you want to do—as a hobby,’ ” she recalled. He tried acting classes and auditions. Then, when he struggled to get parts, he changed tack. Ever since Warren Beatty produced “Bonnie and Clyde,” it has been common for accomplished actors to develop movies and then star in them. Horwitz wondered, Why can’t I produce, too? He befriended two brothers, Julio and Diego Hallivis, who were looking to establish themselves in the film industry. Diego, who wore his hair in a tall black pompadour, was a fledgling director. Julio, wiry and intense, ran the business side. Horwitz recruited them for 1inMM Productions to make low-budget independent films—essentially B movies in which he might star. He leased office space in Culver City and three black Mercedes coupes for them to drive to meetings. When Horwitz wasn’t around, Julio spoke scathingly about him. An associate recalled that he often said, “He’s such a terrible actor. But he’s the money guy. He has family money, and he knows rich people.”

Horwitz had arrived in L.A. at a time of unusual opportunity. Five years before, Netflix had started streaming films and television shows, and, as Amazon worked to keep up, the two companies competed for talent and content. By 2019, Netflix would be spending more than twelve billion dollars a year on programming. Disney launched Disney+, and WarnerMedia created HBO Max. All told, there were more than two hundred and fifty online video services in America, feeding a seemingly inexhaustible demand. Money was coursing through the industry, the Times reported: “Florists, caterers, set decorators, chauffeurs, hair stylists, headhunters—it’s gravy train time.”

In March, 2013, Horwitz announced a partnership to buy the rights to cheap movies and distribute them to the Latin American divisions of Netflix, HBO, and other platforms. His new partner, Gustavo Montaudon, was well suited to the endeavor: he had spent decades at Twentieth Century Fox, distributing content across Latin America. The deal was covered in the trade press, helping to secure a transformation of Horwitz’s image. The struggling actor with a failed juice bar was identified, in Variety , as “the entrepreneur behind fitness-driven lifestyle brand FÜL.” (Some of his marketing materials went further, describing FÜL as a “multi-million dollar, multi-pronged fitness brand” with “seven locations” and “apparel sold in Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Sports Authority.”)

One of the first people Horwitz approached with his venture was Jake Wunderlin. By the spring of 2014, Wunderlin was in Chicago, working as a trader. He had just received a bonus of thirty-five thousand dollars, and he was engaged to be married. He and Horwitz remained friends, but they rarely talked business anymore, until Horwitz started dropping hints that Schultz was backing his work in the movie business. “Zach said, ‘I can let you in on a deal,’ ” Wunderlin told me. It was small by his usual standards, Horwitz said, but, if Wunderlin could put up thirty-seven thousand dollars, he could make nine thousand dollars in ninety days. The contract showed that Horwitz was selling Sony the rights to a Mexican rom-com called “Deseo,” described in the official summary as “A succession of erotic encounters weaved into a daisy chain of delightful sensuality.”

Wunderlin had recovered from the failure of the juice bar, but he was still wary: “I said, ‘I can’t lose this money. This is everything that I’ve ever saved.’ ” Horwitz persuaded him by pledging his own assets in case anything went wrong. The deal went through as promised; Wunderlin got his money, which he put toward a down payment on a house. He was hooked.

That fall, he flew to Los Angeles to be a groomsman at Zach and Mallory’s wedding, at the Four Seasons. Wunderlin was awed by his friend’s new life: “He was doing three-hundred-thousand-dollar deals.”

Back in Chicago, Wunderlin sat on a roof deck one night with some of their other college friends, including deAlteris, who was working in private equity. He asked if they wanted to pool their money on a larger film deal. “None of us had the gift of inheritance or anything like that,” he told me. “All of us were focussed on what’s next in banking or private wealth or sales and trading. We were all trying to figure out how to be successful.” They agreed to buy into a series of deals, and got lucrative returns, often twenty per cent or higher. Soon, they started taking out loans to fund more of Horwitz’s investments, and thought of quitting their jobs to do it full time. DeAlteris said, “We’re getting paid on time. Real cash. Without fail.”

Before long, they were encouraging their parents to put money in. DeAlteris’s mother, a widow and a retired physician’s assistant, invested forty thousand dollars. Wunderlin’s parents put up half their retirement savings. Within two years, the college friends had profited on twenty-seven of Horwitz’s movie deals. To handle the business, four of them formed a company—called JJMT Capital, for the initials of their first names—and started bringing in money from outsiders, including wealthy investors on Chicago’s North Shore. “People were banging down our door—‘I hear you guys have this great opportunity. Do you have any room for me?’ ” deAlteris said.

When Horwitz visited Chicago, he resumed his old conspicuous generosity. At a pizza parlor, he tipped the server two thousand dollars. “She came back out in tears,” Wunderlin recalled. At night clubs, Horwitz might pick up a forty-thousand-dollar check and leave another thirty thousand for a tip. As the party swirled around him, he would lean back in silence, with a blissfully satisfied look.

His friends felt a tinge of satisfaction, too; they were proud of the money that they made for their parents and friends. None of them knew much about the entertainment business, but they thought they knew due diligence. “I would pepper him with questions, and he would come back with answers to everything,” deAlteris said. They showed the contracts to industry experts, and Horwitz arranged for a member of their team to speak by phone with his main contact at HBO. Horwitz was always available to answer questions, but he told investors never to contact the streaming platforms directly, because he had signed nondisclosure agreements. “I’ve got basically three relationships—HBO, Netflix, and Sony,” he’d say. “If you guys go around me, you’re going to blow up my business.”

In fact, there was no business. Horwitz was not buying or selling movie rights. He had got his hands on a few distribution contracts, then copy-and-pasted them in Microsoft Word to make hundreds of fakes, forging signatures of executives that he found on LinkedIn. As new investors bought in, he paid off earlier investors with the proceeds—a Ponzi scheme. (Montaudon, his partner, has not been charged with any wrongdoing.) He sent out fake bank statements and ginned up bogus e-mails and text messages from HBO and Netflix, often using apps to send fake messages to himself at predetermined times. He arranged for a female accomplice, who has never been identified, to impersonate the contact at HBO. This kind of deception requires relentless discipline; Bernie Madoff insisted that every screw he might see on his yacht have its head turned in the same direction. Horwitz, too, had a fastidious streak. He held to a rigid schedule, growing upset if he couldn’t fit in a workout before noon, and he calmed himself by insuring that everything around him was in the proper place. He never went more than two weeks between haircuts.

His fraud rested on perceptions of Hollywood as a money factory—an idea that reached back to the nineteen-thirties, when Louis Mayer, the co-founder of M-G-M, was the highest-paid executive in the country. (Nineteen of the next twenty-five highest-paid execs also ran Hollywood studios.) The reality is that hits are unpredictable and the business is clannish and opaque—“a closed world,” as one longtime industry executive told me recently, “with its own language, own rules, own economics and caste system.” The finances are obscured by “Hollywood accounting,” invented by studios to shield revenues from inspection by stars, writers, and others who want a cut. (The screenwriter for “Men in Black” has said that the film earned more than half a billion dollars, but that the studio refuses to declare it profitable.) And yet, for all that volatility, movies have a charismatic appeal for the distant investor—the proverbial dentist from Omaha, lured by the unspoken prospect that he will somehow end up clinking glasses with Tom Hanks. “People try to buy their way in,” the executive said, “and what happens is they lose a lot of money and still get kicked to the curb.”

It’s tempting to wonder why Horwitz’s friends in Chicago thought they had found a vast source of revenue that people in Hollywood had somehow overlooked. But they didn’t think they had beaten the insiders; they thought their friend had become an insider. DeAlteris said, “It’s an old boys’ club, and it seemed like we just so happened to be old boys with somebody who knew some of the old boys.”

As their partnership flourished, their personal lives became more entwined; they attended one another’s weddings and took joint vacations. In 2016, Horwitz flew Wunderlin by chartered jet to Miami for a mutual friend’s bachelor party that stretched for a week. Late one night, the two set off from shore on paddleboards, pausing in the water to reflect on their good fortune. Wunderlin recalls that Horwitz said, “I have more money than I know what to do with. It’s like Monopoly money.”

By funnelling cash into his production company, Horwitz had provided himself with a string of minor roles, including that of a murderous psychopath in a short film made in homage to the Joker, and that of a victim of a home invasion in a movie called “Trespassers.” But, after five years in Hollywood, he seemed to be confined to B movies, until he devised a way to get closer to real stardom.

In June, 2017, Horwitz co-founded a company called Rogue Black, with Andrew Levitas, a filmmaker and a sculptor who had directed Amy Adams, Jennifer Hudson, and other prominent actors. (Levitas, who is not alleged to have been aware of Horwitz’s scheme, declined to comment.) In the next four years, according to court documents, Horwitz poured about twenty million dollars into Rogue Black, and Levitas arranged investments in eight movies, including “The White Crow,” directed by Ralph Fiennes, and “Last Moment of Clarity,” with Brian Cox. Horwitz received parts in four of them.

Some were so small that he was barely visible onscreen, but still he could claim proximity to famous actors. In 2018, he hired a publicist, Nedda Soltani, who had represented cast members of “Breaking Bad” and the “Real Housewives” franchise. He gave her pictures of himself on the red carpet at the Golden Globes. (He had never attended the awards ceremony, but a photo outside an after-party made it appear that he had. Soltani told me, “No one talks about that, but you could get a hotel room and wear your tux and just sort of be in the mix.”) When she asked for a biography, he conjured a story of humble Midwestern roots: an injury had kept him out of the N.F.L., so he supported himself as a door-to-door salesman before making his way to Hollywood. (In truth, Horwitz had played intramural football in college.) Soltani’s boyfriend was from Indiana, so Horwitz felt instantly relatable. “There was something about his eyes. He smelled good, his haircut was nice, he had a nice watch. He made you believe,” she said. “We built this little bio on him, and that became my pitch: Johnny Football turns to acting, rags to riches.”

The outlets that Soltani persuaded to feature her client were mostly obscure online venues—the kind, she said, that people solicit articles in “just to post them on their Instagram stories and say, ‘Look at me.’ ” But investors researching Horwitz could now find unquestioning recitations of his story. In an interview on AfterBuzz TV, a YouTube channel focussed on “Hollywood’s rising talent,” the host mentioned his “burgeoning career in football, which was derailed,” and asked about his association with Fiennes. Horwitz warmly recalled showing up for filming in Belgrade. “Walk on set, he’s in the back of this auditorium, and he says, ‘Zach!’ ” He described Fiennes’s avuncular instructions: “I loved what you did there. Bring exactly the same thing, but, if you turn just a little bit to the right, the light is going to hit you in a way that’s going to look amazing.” (Fiennes’s publicist said that she was unable to reach her client for comment.)

Hollywood has long had an ambivalent relationship with facts. The screenwriter William Goldman once described overhearing a producer tout so many bogus figures while working the phone that he finally had to cover the mouthpiece and ask, “Which lie did I tell?” In time, Horwitz had deceived so many friends and investors that he had to discourage them from talking to one another; he was always “building moats,” as one put it. He told an associate that he had sold FÜL for eleven million dollars but warned him not to mention it to Mallory, claiming that she had a small-town discomfort with people knowing their business.

Yet Horwitz never stopped stoking belief. Late one night at a club, he showed an investor named Craig Cole a string of text messages, telling him that Ted Sarandos, the C.E.O. of Netflix, was seeking long-term rights to the full library of films that he distributed. When the fake Sarandos asked what would secure the deal, Horwitz replied, “The zeros.” Moments later, a text came back with an offer in the hundreds of millions. Horwitz slumped to the floor, in a pantomime of triumph and gratitude. In “Bad Actor,” a forthcoming documentary about the case, Cole recalls that Horwitz started crying: “He says, ‘Craig, we made it! We did it!’ ” Cole wept, too; when he got home that night, he told his girlfriend that they were set for life.

Like other accomplished swindlers, Horwitz excelled by knowing his audience. In Chicago, he was a wealthy heir who flew private jets to movie shoots. In L.A., he was a plucky football talent selling door-to-door. (A surprising number of people he dealt with in California mentioned how good he smelled.) His difficulty showing emotion, a detriment onscreen, turned out to be useful in pitch meetings. Edgar Allan Poe, in an essay on swindling, noted the power of nonchalance—the kind of take-it-or-leave-it indifference that conveys credibility—and Horwitz often succeeded by convincing investors that he didn’t much care whether they bought in. “Remember Zach does not need any money from us,” one wrote to another in 2017.

That June, Horwitz met investors at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Over dinner, he sat beside Jim Russell, a Las Vegas steel executive, and, according to court documents, said that he had made some twenty million dollars the previous year. Russell was concerned when Horwitz insisted that his business records were too confidential to share, and later sent an e-mail to one of his partners describing the evasion as a “Red Flag!!” But the partner dismissed the concern, writing, “This is the goose that lays the golden egg.” Russell relented, and his group put in another five million.

By 2019, Horwitz even seemed to be improving his acting. In May, he showed up in Norfolk, Virginia, to shoot a movie called “The Gateway.” It was understood that his financial support guaranteed him a place onscreen. “This is truly not uncommon,” Civetta, the director, told me. “I’ve heard countless stories from friends who’ve made films. It’s, like, ‘Oh, yeah, if you want half a million dollars, this wealthy industrialist’s daughter has to have a secondary role.’ ”

Horwitz was assigned the role of a volatile ex-con named Mike, but in rehearsals he got timid and self-conscious; his voice went high and his mannerisms grew labored. So Civetta contacted a nearby jail and arranged for Horwitz to spend the night, talking to inmates and being searched and fingerprinted. When he returned, he showed a new ability to “change tonalities,” Civetta said. “He could go places relatively quickly in terms of diabolical rage.” When the movie came out, Variety observed, “Probably the best turn is by Avery,” who “makes potentially cardboard villain Mike into a frighteningly credible sociopath.”

As the end of 2019 approached, Horwitz had raised three hundred and fifty-eight million dollars in the past year. He was running what scholars of confidence games call an “affinity fraud,” built around trust and personal connections. He found wealthy investors—in Napa Valley, Orange County, Las Vegas, and Chicago—who then spread the word on the tennis court and the charity circuit. But every network has limits, and the arithmetic of a Ponzi scheme is unforgiving. When you run out of new investors, the mechanism begins to collapse. After Thanksgiving, Horwitz fell behind on his payments for the first time.

To fend off concerns, Horwitz blamed the delay on the big media platforms and promised a speedy resolution. On January 4th, though, Wunderlin and deAlteris arrived at his house on Bolton Road to figure out what was happening. For three days, Horwitz walked them through documents; he had thousands of pages of fake contracts and e-mails and bank statements, which he presented calmly. “Cool as a cucumber,” deAlteris recalled. The possibility of fraud never occurred to him, deAlteris said: “I thought it was wild disorganization that he had so much money coming into his bank account.” The friends went back to Chicago feeling relieved.

But Horwitz fell further behind, and he gave more excuses. Covid -19 was disrupting business; HBO was reorganizing its operation; Netflix was auditing its distribution deals. He needed time with his family, he said—Mallory had recently given birth to their second child. All the while, he kept up his patter. In October, he texted an investor, “just heard from HBO,” and then passed along a fake e-mail from executives asking for a “week grace period.” He commiserated: “always something w them.”

Near the end of 2020, Horwitz bought one last bit of time by saying that money was piling up at Freeway Entertainment, an account-management firm, and would soon be distributed. But the delays were becoming untenable for his friends in Chicago. People who had given them money to invest were threatening to sue. One was Marty Kaplan, a financier who, along with partners and family members, had ten million dollars at risk. According to Kaplan’s lawyer, deAlteris had reassured him by citing his friendship with Horwitz, adding, “I wouldn’t be able to pay rent if something went wrong.”

In all, Horwitz owed the Chicago group a hundred and sixty-five million dollars. He had got his lawyer at the prominent firm K&L Gates to send a letter warning them that the details of the deals were “strictly confidential,” but on February 23rd Wunderlin and deAlteris decided to call Freeway to check the account balance. Wunderlin made the call from his home in Chicago; he patched in deAlteris, at his kitchen table across town. Horwitz had given them a copy of his contract with Freeway, as well as statements showing a growing balance. DeAlteris flipped through the paperwork to find the account number, then read it aloud. The representative paused and asked to hear the name again. The firm had no record of a Zach Horwitz, he said. DeAlteris grew impatient: “I’m looking at the fucking bank statement! You clearly misheard me.”

By the time they hung up, they could see an impending catastrophe. “All the dominoes fell after that one,” deAlteris said. Wunderlin, who had been pacing during the call, dropped to his knees. He had been the first of the friends to put money into Horwitz’s scheme, followed by his family and then by outsiders who contributed a harrowing sum. When I asked him about it more than two years later, he fell silent and struggled not to cry. “I still can’t really talk about it without doing this,” he said.

That afternoon, their lawyer contacted the F.B.I. to report a suspected fraud. Other investors were reaching similar conclusions. On March 15th, F.B.I. agents came to deAlteris’s house to record a call with Horwitz. Wunderlin was there, too. On the phone, Horwitz ran through his usual reassurances, until Wunderlin cut in: “Here’s the problem with that. That’s not fucking true. We spoke to Freeway. There’s no money in that account. Where in the fuck is our money?”

There was a long pause—long enough that they had to ask Horwitz if he was still on the line. Finally, he said, “I think the lawyers should do the talking.” Wunderlin couldn’t restrain himself: “You’re not going to tell me where any of the money is? What did you do with it?” He talked about his mother’s savings, his father’s savings, but Horwitz stayed silent. Wunderlin sensed that he might have realized he was being recorded. “It was like talking to the wall,” he said.

In L.A., Horwitz’s friends noticed that he seemed paranoid, worrying that he was being monitored through their phones. When they asked what was going on, he evaded the question, saying that he didn’t want to expose them to trouble.

According to court documents, Horwitz had been using Adderall and Xanax and drinking heavily, sometimes staying up most of the night. Mallory was worried about his behavior, but she believed that he had just been having trouble recouping money that HBO and Netflix owed him. They had begun to talk about a simpler life—maybe somewhere quieter, like Nashville or Austin. By spring, they had put their house on the market and found a buyer. The offer was set to be officially accepted on April 6th.

That morning, before dawn, Mallory was asleep beside Zach and their three-year-old when she awoke to banging on the front door. From down the hall, she could hear their baby crying, and she ran to soothe him. Looking through the window, she saw F.B.I. agents, guns drawn, and heard them shouting Zach’s name. Mallory rushed downstairs with the baby in her arms and opened the door. Agents streamed in. Zach, now on the stairs, asked if he could put on a shirt. The agents refused, and walked him out onto Bolton Road. John Verrastro, the agent in charge, was startled by Horwitz’s behavior. He had come to expect defendants in white-collar cases to express something during their arrests—bewilderment, outrage, despair—but Horwitz showed none of that. “He didn’t seem surprised,” Verrastro said.

Mallory quickly filed for divorce. According to her filings, their joint accounts had been frozen by the authorities; the only money in her name was a checking account with a balance of $100.75. Horwitz was charged with thirteen counts of fraud, in the service of what prosecutors called an “intricate illusion”—the largest Ponzi scheme in Hollywood history. He had raised more than six hundred and ninety million dollars by deceiving hundreds of investors, beginning with his closest friends. A woeful actor onscreen turned out to have been an astonishingly convincing performer in life.

The extent of the lie was almost too great for Mallory to grasp. Her husband never had any deals with HBO or Netflix. He had never even met Howard Schultz. When Zach left for late-night meetings, there were no meetings. The only thing real was his slender imprint on the screen. In her filings, she wrote, “I loved him. I idolized him. Zach is a masterful manipulator and liar and brainwashed and gaslit me into believing he was this perfect man, something he made everyone around him feel. Only a sociopath can live the sort of deceptive life Zach lived for nearly ten years.” Mallory’s father bought her and the children one-way tickets to Indiana. On May 1st, she flew home.

Horwitz got out on bail: a million dollars, posted by his mother. For a week or two, the case made headlines worldwide, but he stayed out of sight, telling his kids that he was working as a dog-walker. Among people who knew him, the reaction that I encountered most often was disbelief that he was bright enough to manage such a scheme. “I don’t know how the fuck he was capable of it,” one of his closest friends told me. Another associate said, “If you had asked me if this man even had Photoshop downloaded to his computer, I would’ve told you, ‘Absolutely not.’ ” More than a few surmised that his Latin American distribution network must have been a front for a drug cartel.

The government didn’t agree. The S.E.C. named him as the sole defendant, noting that he alone had controlled the bank accounts at 1inMM. When I told Verrastro, the F.B.I. agent, that many people were perplexed nobody else was charged, he said he couldn’t go into detail about that decision. But he hastened to add, “The one thing that’s clear in this case is there was no one above him. He is the main guy.”

As with many frauds, the prosecution triggered a series of lawsuits, as investors fought over the remaining assets and accused one another, as well as various banks and law firms, of failing to spot the crime. Alexander Loftus, a lawyer representing some of the investors, filed suits against Horwitz’s friends in Chicago. “When you’re acting like a broker, it’s your job to see if this is good or not before you sell it,” he told me. Ultimately, Loftus said, the friends in Chicago agreed to give up more than nine million dollars—though they maintain that they acted in good faith. “My family members who trusted me, they’re not savvy,” deAlteris said. “I thought that I was being fairly objective with how I approached it. My family members weren’t. One chip became two chips, which became all their chips.” Their lawyer, Brian Michael, told me, “It’s inconceivable that they would’ve questioned a fraud that was rooted in a friendship long before Zach went to Hollywood, that they allowed their own families to participate in.”

In the end, there was surprisingly little money to recoup. A receiver, appointed by the court to hunt for assets, reported that an “unknown” sum might be “hidden.” But lawyers involved in the case told me that Horwitz expended most of the money keeping the scheme going. The rest he used to pay for jets and yachts and the pursuit of stardom: prosecutors listed $605,000 to Mercedes-Benz and Audi, $174,000 to party planners, $54,600 for a “luxury watch subscription” service. Six months after his arrest, confronted by extensive evidence of his deceptions, Horwitz pleaded guilty.

On the afternoon of February 14, 2022, I attended the sentencing in a federal courtroom in L.A. Horwitz arrived early, in a tailored blue suit and brown wingtips. His mother and other relatives filled the rows behind the defense table. Prosecutors declared, in a written argument to the judge, “It is difficult to conceive a white-collar crime more egregious.” They noted that Horwitz had begun his scheme by “betraying the trust of his own friends, people who lowered their guard because they could not possibly imagine that someone they had known for years would unflinchingly swindle them and their families out of their life savings.”

Victims had been invited to submit descriptions of the impact on their lives. One investor, identified as a sixty-four-year-old who lost $1.4 million, described coming out of retirement to pay for food and shelter: “I cry every day and have stopped seeing friends or family because of the shame of this financial loss and have a now severe distrust of other human beings. If it was not for my spiritual beliefs, I would have committed suicide.” Another wrote, “I am the mother of a 46-year-old special needs daughter. . . . I will never be able to earn what has been taken from me and my daughter but the emotional damage . . . is even greater.”

Some victims chose to speak in person. Robert Henny, a lanky screenwriter with two young children, stepped to the microphone. “I don’t live an extravagant life style,” he said. “My career could hit bumps and we’d be O.K. Even after my wife’s cancer diagnosis, we were O.K. For fifteen years, we lived frugally.” They had lost $1.8 million in the scheme. “For the first time, we are not O.K. I don’t know if we ever will be,” he said.

When it was Horwitz’s turn to speak, he stood before the judge, his shoulders hunched and hands clasped. “I became the exact opposite person from who I wanted to be,” he said. He wept and paused to collect himself. “I am destroyed and haunted every day and night by the harm that I have caused others.” He asked the judge for a lenient sentence, one that would allow him to “return to my young boys when they are still boys.”

The judge, Mark C. Scarsi, was unmoved. He applied the maximum sentence that prosecutors had requested: twenty years in prison. (Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the disgraced biotech startup Theranos, was sentenced to eleven years; Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire founder of FTX, is serving twenty-five.) As the sentence was announced, Horwitz stared into the distance and then up at the ceiling.

After the courtroom emptied out, Henny stopped at the bathroom. As he was preparing to leave, the door opened and Horwitz walked in. “We look at each other,” Henny recalled. “And he goes, ‘Hey, I just want to tell you, I’m so sorry.’ ” Henny, who is six feet four, towered over him. “You took everything from us,” he said.

One of Horwitz’s relatives poked his head in the door and said, “Hey, are we all good here?”

Horwitz reassured him, “Yeah, we’re O.K.,” and the door closed again.

Henny could have asked him why he did it, or how he lived with himself. But, as a writer, he was interested in only one thing: “How did you think you were going to get out of this? What was your endgame?”

Horwitz paused, and then said, “I didn’t have one.”

Until the end, Horwitz seemed to have believed that one of his identities was going to save him—actor, producer, investor. Something had to work. Fake it till you make it.

One morning last November, I took a cab out to the Federal Correctional Institute at Terminal Island. It sits on a peninsula at the far end of an industrial strip, south of Los Angeles, jutting into the waters of the harbor. The facility is surrounded by barbed wire and gun towers, but tauntingly close to the city. Walking inside, I could hear seagulls and the distant rumble of cranes on the docks.

I had exchanged letters and e-mails with Horwitz since his sentencing, in which he agreed to keep the “lines of communication open” but wouldn’t say “anything specific.” He seemed more interested in projecting a narrative of rehabilitation. He described a shift in his mind-set and said, “I am healthier for it every single day.” He imagined teaching a class to fellow-inmates, called “Emotional Intelligence Through Acting,” that would give them a “safe space to express vulnerability.”

I had stopped by the prison hoping to get Horwitz to speak more frankly about his crimes. In the visiting room, he wore a khaki shirt tucked into khaki pants, his hair cropped. He was relaxed and unfailingly polite. But, for all his talk of expressing vulnerability, he was still unwilling to answer questions on the record. In an e-mail later, he told me that publicity doesn’t help, because “all the wounds keep getting ripped open and additional salt being poured on top.”

I was wary of whatever he might tell me, in any case. He had always been conscious of his ability to persuade. At family Thanksgivings, when relatives went around the table saying what made them grateful, he treated it as a “performance,” he wrote later, prepping an answer and “artificially manufacturing it in order to get the sought after result.”

In prison, Horwitz had access to a computer for fifteen minutes at a time. He used it to start a blog, which he called Be That 1, a new variation on his favorite slogan about beating the odds. He offered occasional glimpses of his thinking during the scam—how he’d been “obsessed with belief in a superior life that existed just beyond my grasp”; how he had “put on the smile” despite “living an absolute hell,” with the knowledge that his life was “all bullsh*t ”; how he had portrayed “utmost confidence to everyone” to mask “deep, unresolved internal insecurities.” He recalled the feeling of living a “fabricated life that I had forced myself to believe was reality.” To sustain the delusion, he developed self-protective habits—“avoiding phone calls . . . avoid opening mail . . . avoid checking e-mails”—even though “on some level it was simply denial of what was inevitably coming.”

He also indulged in the language of self-help. Prison, he wrote, was a “journey” of “mending the wounds” and finding “genuine emotion.” People he had tricked were infuriated by the blog; it seemed glib or, perhaps, strategic—a way of assembling material for a relaunch of his life after prison. “I think he wants to be the next version of that guy from ‘Wolf of Wall Street,’ ” Mallory told me. “He loved that movie and watched it over and over again.”

Even from prison, Horwitz couldn’t seem to control his instinct for imposture and assimilation. Reading his blog, the producers of the documentary “Bad Actor” came upon lines that sounded out of place; they turned out to be copied from “Never Finished,” a self-help book by David Goggins, a former Navy SEAL . Goggins wrote that “humility is the antidote to self-pity. It keeps you rooted in reality and your emotions in check.” Horwitz had published that passage in his own voice, changing only “you” and “your” to “me” and “my.”

In Horwitz’s fantasies, you hear echoes of the long tradition of American artifice: of Napoleon Hill, who wrote in “Think and Grow Rich” that “whatever the mind of men can conceive and believe, it can achieve,” and of the clergyman Norman Vincent Peale, who declared, “As you act and persevere in acting, so you tend to become”—a principle impressed on a young real-estate scion named Donald Trump when his family attended Peale’s sermons. At times, this tendency still seems strong enough to overwhelm the systems that we’ve developed to punish it. Even after Elizabeth Holmes was convicted, she voiced a belief that lies are just a stop on the way to truth. Asked what she thought would’ve happened if she had not courted so much attention, she told an interviewer, “We would’ve seen through our vision.”

In my conversations with people who knew Horwitz, many wondered why he risked so much. If it was all for money and fame, why not get out before it became so destructive? I concluded that he was seeking something harder to attain. He spent years performing the parts of a life he desired—the chosen protégé, the coveted talent, the loyal friend. He needed applause, from the server at a pizza restaurant and from his friends toasting him at dinner.

In the end, Horwitz got fame only where most people would want it least: from the true-crime audience. After his arrest, a commenter on Reddit wrote, “This is 100% going to be a movie.” Another agreed: “I’d watch the shit out of this.” Before long, Horwitz’s scheme was the focus of podcasts with names like “Scamfluencers,” “Crime and Wine,” and “Oh My Fraud.” His story was re-created for episodes of “The Con,” on ABC, and “American Greed,” on CNBC.

But most of the people who had worked with him were eager to forget him. When I wrote to a Hollywood veteran, asking about the experience, the response was “Your e-mail is something that I have dreaded in the back of my head for a long time.” The traces of his Hollywood life have been scattered or effaced. The house on Bolton Road was sold and the contents auctioned off. A poster with the slogan that inspired the name of his scheme went for forty-five dollars. And, despite all that Horwitz risked to make it on the big screen, his acting is hard to find. In “The White Crow,” his appearance was edited down to half a second. When “The Gateway” came out, in 2021, he was nowhere on the posters, and Olivia Munn never mentioned him on the press tour. When Brian Cox published a memoir, the movie he made with Zach Avery did not even make the index.

Looking back through his hours of effortful acting, there is one scene that stands out. It’s in “Trespassers,” the home-invasion movie, when his character admits to his wife that he has cheated on her. On set, the director, frustrated with his attempts to get Horwitz to perform, finally told him to ignore the script and let himself go: “Just strip it away. Throw away the line. Just tell her.” After a pause, Horwitz gave himself over to a few seconds of unconcealed feeling. “I fucked up,” he said. “I’m a piece of shit!” He sounded present and broken and strangely relieved. For a moment, you could almost forget that Horwitz was acting. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

They thought that they’d found the perfect apartment. They weren’t alone .

After high-school football stars were accused of rape, online vigilantes demanded that justice be served .

The world’s oldest temple and the dawn of civilization .

What happened to the whale from “Free Willy.”

It was one of the oldest buildings left downtown. Why not try to save it ?

The religious right’s leading ghostwriter .

A comic strip by Alison Bechdel: the seven-minute semi-sadistic workout .

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Mike Sacks

By Sinéad O’Sullivan

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

By Casey Cep