Finally, A Return to the Stars

After nearly five years, the Griffith Observatory is finally set to reopen on Nov. 3. The L.A. landmark now sports a $93 million makeover -- including a new addition that totals more than 40,000 square feet.

According to the press release, the revitalized Observatory -- sporting its first makeover since its 1935 opening, includes a large, multi-level exhibit gallery (Richard and Lois Gunther Depths of Space), a 200-seat presentation theater (Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon) and a new exhibit program featuring more than 60 new exhibits, plus a classroom, Wolfgang Puck café, bookstore, and new entrances, elevators and ramps to improve access to/in the building.

The Observatory has been closed since January 6, 2002. Wow, in the meantime, I got married, started this blog and had a kid. Guess we've both been busy.

It's not going to be easy to get inside just yet -- you'll have to make a reservation, then plunk down some bucks (unless you walk/ride a bike) to bus it up to the Observatory. More info from the L.A. Times:

Fearing traffic jams, the city has closed the 199-space lot at the observatory and will instead require that visitors make time-certain advance reservations and, in most cases, use shuttle buses based at the Hollywood-Highland mall and Los Angeles Zoo parking lots. The shuttles are expected to charge $8 per adult, $4 for children ages 5 to 12.

Observatory admission will remain free — as donor Griffith J. Griffith stipulated in his will nine decades ago — for those who walk or bicycle to the site, up to 1,320 per day.

Built in 1935, the observatory building was prominently featured in the 1955 James Dean film "Rebel Without a Cause," and turns up again in 1984's "Terminator" as the spot where California's governor-to-be, portraying a killer cyborg, first materializes on Earth. Until it closed for upgrades in January 2002, the site was drawing nearly 2 million visitors a year.

In defiance of Hollywood tradition, the landmark's keepers have labored mightily to keep improvements invisible from a distance; to add bulk to the building's slim figure wherever possible; and in the planetarium that is the building's central venue, to cut seating in half.