A mischief-minded man scaled the iconic Hollywood sign early on New Year's Day in an apparent prank, changing two of the towering letters to read "Hollyweed."
Los Angeles police Lt. Guy Juneau told KABC the sign was vandalized by a man seen around 3 a.m. in surveillance video, dressed all in black. He scaled Mount Lee, the peak where the Hollywood sign rests, and draped the "O"s in the sign with black tarps, transforming them into lowercase "e"s.
One of the tarps featured a peace sign and another had a heart on it, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The vandal was not identified.
Park rangers worked Sunday to right the sign.
"I thought we came to see the Hollywood sign, not the 'Hollyweed' sign," visitor Bruce Quinn told KABC. "But hey, it's OK with me."
It's not the first time the sign, which first read "Hollywoodland" and served as an advertisement for a housing development in 1923, has been vandalized, according to the Times. More than two decades after it was erected, a storm knocked the first letter off the sign and officials decided to remove "land" from it.
The sign became "Hollyweed" for the first time more than 40 years ago, on New Year's Day 1976, the Times reported. An art student edited the sign with $50 worth of curtains.
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