L.A.’S STAIRWAYS : Forget traffic jams and parking hassles. Get off the freeway and enjoy the cardiovascular benefits of these historic steps.

1. HOLLYWOODLAND

* 2795 Woodshire Drive

to 2872 Belden Drive

At the foot of the Hollywood sign, which was erected in 1923 to advertise the Hollywoodland subdivision, visitors and residents climb the six tucked-away stairways in the cozy community of Beachwood Canyon. From the shaded granite steps, climbers get glimpses of terraced cactus gardens, morning glories, fig trees and vistas of canyon homes. More than 124 steps between Woodshire and Belden drives await the urban hiker. Other stairways can be found between the 2800 and 3000 blocks of Beachwood Drive.

2. “MUSIC BOX” STAIRWAY

* 900 block Vendome Street, Silver Lake

One of the cinema’s most famous staircases was used in the 1932 Academy Award-winning short film “The Music Box,” in which Laurel and Hardy portray bumbling piano delivery men. The vacant lot that was next to the stairway in the movie is now filled with buildings, but a commemorative plaque at the foot of the steps makes it unmistakable. Modern lamps and a metal handrail have been installed, but many of the surrounding houses remain unchanged.

Near Earl Street and Bancroft Avenue are the gigantic zigzagging Earl Street steps, which, like many in the neighborhood, were built as shortcuts to streetcar lines.

Rising from the Silver Lake reservoir to Apex Avenue are the Cove Avenue steps, offering a dizzying view of the water and hills. From here, climbers connect with the nearby Loma Vista Place steps and the Ayr Street steps. Along the Ayr steps are small bungalows called “step houses” that are reachable only by steps.

3. L.A.’S LONGEST STAIRWAY

* Baxter Place and Avon Street

Elysian Heights

In this nearly hidden canyon northeast of Elysian Park is a lofty, steep concrete stairway about a quarter-block from the intersection. Its 230 steps, at places overgrown with vegetation, are believed to make up the longest stairway in Los Angeles. As it zigzags up, climbers pass a grassy hillside spotted with jade plant and ice plant. At the top, a reward of breathtaking views of the Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory is yours.

4. BUNKER HILL STEPS

* Between 4th and 5th streets,

west of Grand Avenue

In the heart of Downtown, the sound of a cascading waterfall soothes the nerves on Bunker Hill along 103 steps known locally as Cardiac Hill. This five-story climb, built in imitation of the Spanish Steps in Rome, links the new L.A. on the hill to the old Los Angeles along 5th Street. The city’s newest and grandest public stairway, built at a cost of $12 million, is scented with cafe au lait and terraced with bistros. Some who are not so energetic navigate labyrinthine routes just to avoid it.

5. GRIMKE STAIRWAY

* Grimke Way near York Boulevard and

Figueroa Street, Highland Park

Explore this small, charming hillside neighborhood of Mt. Angelus, with its lush gardens and well-maintained homes. This quiet refuge of shady streets and houses from different eras and architectural styles looks like a layer cake put together by six bakers. It is traversed by nine city-owned staircases, pedestrian-only thoroughfares that were built more than 70 years ago as alternatives to the winding roads. Here the stairways tunnel through a profusion of wild vegetation. Beware: stairway gates are sometimes locked.

6. JANSS STAIRWAY

* Sunset Boulevard and Hilgard Avenue,

West Los Angeles

When Edwin and Harold Janss, the developers of Westwood Village, bestowed a $50,000 gift on UCLA in 1930, the brothers had in mind the building of a gateway from their village to the university. UCLA instead opted to gussy up its eastern flank with a 195-foot-long, 18-foot-wide, red-brick stairway that rises gracefully from the gymnasiums to Royce and Murphy halls. The Janss Steps have since racked up quite a bit of history. JFK, Adlai Stevenson and Martin Luther King Jr. gave speeches there. The stairs provide a tough workout for dedicated walkers and joggers.

7. ULTIMATE STAIRWAY

* 300 block Adelaide Drive, Santa Monica

The E-ticket Stairmaster of nearly 200 steps brings exercise devotees in droves to this idyllic spot. So, too, do its ocean view, abundance of greenery and a breeze on hot days. These outdoor steps, with a grassy expanse that divides 4th Street at the north end, plunge down Santa Monica Canyon to the intersection of Entrada Drive and Ocean Avenue. Local TV news shows and magazines have portrayed the steps as the hippest thing to happen to exercise since Spandex. Some of the unwritten rules of step etiquette here are: no perfume or spitting (they provoke nausea), no clanging bracelets, let faster steppers pass by, no fooling with people’s makeshift counters (rocks and leaves that fitness fanatics use to keep track of repetitions). So dedicated are these stair folk that when an ambulance once came to fetch a fallen runner, they kept running past the paramedic team until firefighters had to close down the stairway.

About a dozen other, less-crowded public staircases and walkways are found in Santa Monica Canyon, including a brick-lined one about 100 feet west of the 4th Street stairway.

8. CASTELLAMMARE

STAIRWAYS

* Sunset Boulevard and Castellammare

Drive, Pacific Palisades

Castellammare, a steep hillside enclave of million-dollar homes, was named for a region in Sicily. It is noted for its mudslides, dead-end stairways and the former home of actress and comedienne Thelma Todd, known as the “Vamping Venus,” whose death here in 1935 has been linked by some authors to the Mob.

There are seven public stairways in Pacific Palisades, including a 1927 concrete stairway off Posetano Road near Castellammare that ascends to Revello Drive, and another where Breve Way joins Porto Marina Way. For a map of the Palisades public walkway systems, write to P.O. Box 617, Pacific Palisades, Calif. 90272.

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Note: Other areas with picturesque stairs include Los Feliz, Mt. Washington, Franklin Heights, Whitley Heights and El Sereno.

Source: “Stairway Walks in Los Angeles,” by Adah Bakalinsky and Larry Gordon and published by Wilderness Press in Berkeley.