Who knows what "TMZ" stands for?

The news organization that focuses on celebrity gossip is named after the "thirty-mile zone," an area centered on the southeast corner of Beverly Blvd. and La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles, California. The reason this exists is because of movie studio unions, whose contracts require per diem when workers are "out of town." Since movies are shot all over Southern California, and workers can be employed by production companies that work for different studios, it became necessary to specify exactly what constituted "in town" and "out of town." This corner was chosen as the geographic center of the major Hollywood studios, and a thirty-mile radius around this point is the dividing line.


Here is the corner, not looking as glamorous as people might expect.