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Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
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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.