The Last Edition - Call The Fire Brigade (continued)
Yet another fire truck responds to the alarm, this one with a dog chasing after it. We saw the same distinctively liveried pooch in an earlier post, playing the role of Tom McDonald’s dog.
Then … The truck was heading south on Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles. On the left side of the block behind it is the Schools And Colleges building at 625 Hope and beyond that the Hotel Acacia on the corner of Hope and 6th Street.
… and Now, this stretch of Hope Street has become a canyon of steel and glass. Facing us at the cul-de-sac across 6th Street is the Los Angeles Central Library which opened in 1924, the year before the movie was released. So, what then is that turreted building at the same location in the movie shot above?
Here it is … it was the State Normal School (the precursor college to UCLA), seen here at the end of the Hope Street cul-de-sac photographed from 6th Street. Built in 1898, the college was leveled in 1922 to make way for the new Central Library, predating when the movie was filmed so archival footage must have been used for the fire truck scene in the Then image above.
Then … Still in downtown Los Angeles we cut to what’s probably a different truck, traveling east along 5th Street with Pershing Square on the left. The firemen on board are from two different LAFD stations: Truck 2 and Truck 7. The building with the vertical ‘FIREPROOF’ sign right of center in the background is the Hotel Clark at 426 Hill Street.
… and Now, here’s the same view today; most of the buildings have been replaced over the last hundred years but the Hotel Clark is still there.
Speaking of which, this fine 1920s vintage image of Hotel Clark reveals all of the signs partially visible in the Then image above.
Then … As the truck takes a right around the corner of Pershing Square into 6th Street we see Sid Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre on the corner of 6th and Hill. When it opened in 1923 it was the largest in Los Angeles with 3,600 seats.
… and Now, The theatre was renamed the Paramount Downtown Theater in 1929, closed in 1960 and demolished in 1962 to make way for an office project that never materialized. The 16-floor International Jewelry Center was built on the site in 1981; it’s still there today.
This is the theatre when the The Last Edition was filmed. Fans of old cinema can read all about it here.
Then … Now it’s the turn of yet another fire engine, smaller but fully laden, to careen through the streets …
But this was filmed on a studio backlot … the same set appeared 2 years earlier in the 1922 Buster Keaton film Cops featuring Buster performing a stunt on a ladder.
… in the 1920s … The set, circled in the aerial view below, was on the United Studios’ backlot at 5341 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. (Credit goes to John Bengston’s silent movie location blog for revealing this). The park area beyond it is the Forever Hollywood Cemetery.
… and Now, The Paramount Studios complex occupies the studio site today. The lot has been reconfigured continuously over the decades but the cemetery layout unsurprisingly has not. Melrose Avenue runs across the foreground, Gower Street is on the left side and Van Ness Avenue on the right.
The responders converge on Market and Kearny and waste no time dousing the Chronicle headquarters. In the foreground Lotta Crabtree’s fountain is surrounded by gawkers.
Then … From this angle looking east down Market past Lotta’s Fountain there’s a good view of the Palace Hotel on the right, built in 1909 on the site of its 1875 predecessor after it burned down in the 1906 fire.
… a vintage photo … the fountain was captured in this matching 1920s photograph taken from the same vantage point.
… and Now, over the last century the fountain has been used as an annual gathering place of remembrance for survivors of the 1906 earthquake. The last survivor, 3 months old when the earthquake hit, died in 2016 at the age of 109. Note that the fountain’s column has been significantly foreshortened compared to when the movie was filmed, reverting back to its original design in 1875. The survivors have all gone but the landmark Palace Hotel is still there, minus the external balconies.