Street Stories - A Ringside Seat To Over 4 Decades Of Taking Jesus To The Streets Of The World

rundown Rexall Drug Store, an office building, and a few scuffed up bronze stars in the sidewalk – Katherine Hepburn, Kirk Douglas, Jonathan Winters. That’s it, apart from the usual tangle of streetlights and storm of city traffic. It’s an almost depressingly normal spot. But on the fourth floor of the building above the Rexall Drug Store, somewhere between Bertrand Advertising Agency and Lee Miller Talent Agency, there is a door with a neat little sign that is startingly unexpected. The Holy Ghost Repair Service. Inside, Bobby Chance, the Associate Director, explains why so many kids come to this spot and end up in prostitution. From the wall facing his desk, a white ceramic mask stares at him. It shows a pouting starlet gazing through mirrored sunglasses. You can tell what she’s looking at, because, reflected back on her lenses are those famous hills with the magic letters propped upon them: H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O D. A golden glow shines behind the mountains. She is looking at the promised land. In a sense, Hollywood is a paradigm of the big city magnet. In the peak months of summer, perhaps 500 youngsters a week leave their broken homes or uncaring parents to come to be a star. For the vast majority of these unskilled, unattached children, the city that twinkles and dazzles from a distance feels rough and ugly as concrete up close. They become easy prey. They enter, gazing down at a star or craning back to look at a skyscraper, and sooner or later, like any starving mouse, they jump at the trap.

In Hollywood, there aren’t many options. According to the Hollywood Police Department, 80 per cent of the

275