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Old Posted Nov 17, 2012, 11:59 PM
tovangar2 tovangar2 is offline
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Location: West Los Angeles
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MGM's Washington Row

Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post

below: An extremely early view of the colonnaded gate in 1918 (yes, 1918!)


http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...=1353038492210

below: Looking east along Washington Boulevard in 1935.


http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...chs-m1922.html

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I wanted to add a note about Washington Row (the north side of which is shown in both photos above), the extremely narrow building that runs west from MGM's old main gate for two blocks . It was built in 1918 1916, at the same time as the main gate by Thomas Ince for his Triangle Studios. Washington Row contains 200 rooms, each with an outside door and a couple of windows on the south front. Those on the ground floor open to a covered walkway while the rooms on the upper deck open onto a balcony, also under cover.

The rooms have, at various times, been used for offices, dressing rooms and rooms for screenwriters. During Lorimar's time on the lot, many were in use as editing rooms. We used to feed the motley collection of semi-wild studio cats at the west end of Washington Row between it and the Garland Building.

There's a nifty tracking shot of the south side of Washington Row, when the whole building was used as dressing rooms, at the beginning of The MGM Studio Tour, 1925, Part 3 (0:34 - 1:12) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE-LdSXTaYY It's no longer possible to see the full sweep of the south side of Washington Row as the Tracy, Crawford, Hepburn and Loy Buildings were built to the south of it subsequent to 1925.

Last edited by tovangar2; Nov 30, 2012 at 6:04 AM.
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