Fox's
21cf blog recently posted a good survey of the old Fox Studio at Sunset and Western. That got me interested in that location again.
William Fox (1879-1952) started the Fox Film Corporation in New York in 1915; the first studios were in Ft Lee, NJ. Moving west he leased the tiny (3/4 acre)
Selig Studio in Edendale at Allesandro (now Glendale Blvd) and Clifford in 1916.
Wm Selig (1864-1968) and director
Francis Boggs (1870-1911) had established the studio in 1909, the very first permanent movie studio in Los Angeles (Francis Boggs was murdered there in 1911, LA's first incident of Hollywood
noir):
lapl
The Edendale Studio is memorialized with a
wall mural in front of a new apartment complex there
In 1917, needing more room, Fox took over the 1915 Dixon Studio (AKA The National Drama Corporation) at Sunset and Western and expanded his holdings there.
The studio was divided into two lots, on either side of Western, the East Lot and the West Lot. The East Lot, including space for Deluxe film labs, extended south to Fernwood Ave except for a small hold-out farm on the NW corner of Fernwood and Serrano and some low-rise commercial buildings. The West Lot only reached as far as DeLongpre. This aerial is from about 1918. Sunset runs east/west along the bottom of the image and Western stretches away to the south between the East and West lots:
usc dl (detail)
A close-up of the West Lot:
That rather splendid-looking house in the image above was preexisting. The 1914 Baist map shows the site the year before novelist (he authored "The Clansman")
Rev Thomas Dixon, Jr (1864-1946) established a "studio, lab and press" here and three years before William Fox came on the scene. The house belonged to William C Fry (1860-1941) and was addressed 1417 N Western Ave. Mr Fry sold up the year after his father, William C Fry, Sr (1826-1914) died:
baist 1914 plate 41 (detail)
The Fry home, before the movies came, stood in 32 acres of fruit orchards which Mr Fry had established there in 1887:
lat july 1941 via find a grave
The Fry home's address became the address for the studio. There are many interesting
building permits, going back to 1914 when Mr Fry had some plumbing work done. Many more cover the various studio buildings put up by, first Rev Dixon, then William Fox and later, 20th-Century Fox. The Fry home was demolished in 1925.
Until recently the site looked like this. The East Lot is soon to be
redeveloped and the West Lot is the home of that Target which has been stalled for three years:
google maps
I'm sure we've seen this circa 1923 image before here, but I couldn't find it in a thread search. It shows the East Lot, between Sunset and Fernwood, looking across the NE corner of Western and Fernwood:
Some of the old studio buildings still stood here until 2014. They were occupied by Deluxe Film Processing ("Color by Deluxe"), a company that was founded in tandem with Fox in 1915 in New York and moved west with them (Deluxe expanded into the corner shops shown in the image above) :
google maps
Deluxe shut down its Hollywood lab in 2014 and, after 99 years, the last of the old studio buildings was cleared. Another company is in the modern building that's left. More info at the
listing. The parcel is being offered for redevelopment, so the newer building will probably fall too, wiping out any connection this site had to Deluxe or the movies:
google maps
The backdoor of the Administration Bldg let into the West Lot:
lapl
Another photo of the West Lot, shows a group of bungalows:
Some of these were eventually moved to the SW corner of the "new" West LA lot and they're still there:
google maps
The East Lot's main gate on Western, with a liveried attendant:
The same gate in 1971:
lapl/guy goodenow
The main entrance to the West Lot faced on Western, between Sunset and Delongpre. The gable end of the great mill building (shown in the second and third images above) looms above the Administration Bldg:
Another view with a familiar-looking bench:
thestudiotour
A slightly different shot with the bench in use. Notice the "Hollywoodland" sign on Mt Lee in the distance:
lapl
"Courtesy of Fox Film Corp":
usc dl (detail)
It's the same, or a similar bench, as the one
Flyingwedge pointed out to us in front of Russell's Studio Cafe at Fox Hills Drive and Pico Blvd next to the Fox West LA lot:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyingwedge
|
via Flyingwedge (detail)
In 1926 Fox bought the West LA site for a new studio. Although they moved in in 1928, the Sunset/Western lot continued to be used until the early 70s for B-movies and TV.
Sol Wurtzel (1890-1958), who had worked for Fox since the New York days, was in charge of the Sunset-Western studio for many years. Deluxe also stayed behind, but, as noted above, is gone now too.
A 70s view from the derelict-looking East Lot across Western to the sadly diminished Administration Bldg:
The shot above must have been quite near the end. in the late 70s I remember an Alpha Beta grocery on the West Lot (IIRC) and a Zody's on the East Lot.
And now, the in-limbo Target awaits its fate on the West Lot:
gsv
These days Twentieth-Century Fox has
big plans in West LA
• Video Link
(for a history of the logo intro, see
here)
All historic pix from
21cf Blog, unless otherwise noted