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 the Hotel Clark is still there.
Speaking of which, this fine 1920s vintage image of the 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. Lotta Crabtree’s fountain is seen in the foreground surrounded by gawkers.
Then … This shot looking east down Market Street gives us a closer look at Lotta’s Fountain with a good view of the Palace Hotel on the right, built in 1909 on the site of its 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. The column of the original fountain was much shorter in height; it was extended in 1916.
… 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 in 1999 back to its design as originally built in 1875. The survivors have all gone but the landmark Palace Hotel is still there, minus the external balconies.
Then … Teddy is the Director of Information for the San Francisco Municipal Railway which operates the city’s famed cable cars. Here he rounds the corner of his office building where a large sign references the city’s campaign to save its aging cable car system (director Wilder’s nod to the real citizen’s revolt that saved the cable cars in 1947 - read all about that here).
… and Now, But this (as were several of the movie’s locations) was filmed in Los Angeles. The building is the art deco beauty at 601 W. 5th Street built by the Southern California Edison Company in 1931 on the corner of Grand Avenue, also known as One Bunker Hill or the CalEdison Building. It’s now home to a number of businesses including Torrey Pines Bank. Note the structure and steps that have since been added on the 5th Street side.
… during filming … while the film crew was filming in San Francisco in the fall of 1983 the cable car system really was once again in the midst of a major upgrade. Here’s an example of how 69 city blocks along the cable car routes were affected by the rebuilding. This is Powell Street viewed from the corner of Jackson Street, shared by the north-bound Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde lines.
… and Now, Those two lines continue to operate along Powell Street today. That’s the Fairmont Hotel Tower in both images atop Nob Hill.
As Teddy parks in his office building basement garage he sees a beautiful woman (Kelly Le Brock) in a flaming red dress crossing in front of him …
… they both get a surprise as she steps over an air vent …
… Thinking she’s alone she sways to the background strains of Little Stevie Wonder’s song ‘The Woman In Red’. Teddy sits there, agape, smitten. The chance meeting is about to turn his world upside down.
Not for the only time in this movie Gene Wilder has referenced a well-known scene from an earlier film, this one inspired by Marilyn Monroe’s famous frolic above a New York City subway grate 29 years earlier in the 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch.
Up in his office Teddy spots the mystery woman visiting an adjacent office. He calls the desk she’s sitting at to ask her out that evening. But unseen by him a co-worker, Ms. Milner (Gilda Radner), picks up the phone. As it happens she has a crush on him; she recognizes his voice and agrees to meet. (Trivia time - Wilder and Radner were engaged at the time and were married one month after the movie was released).
From a location point of view this post could have been titled ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’…
Then … Clarence gets word that Sam Blotz is at San Francisco’s City Hall; he parks outside, intent on following him.
… and Now, the imposing Beaux-Arts structure was built as a replacement for its predecessor that was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake; more than a century later it hasn’t changed at all, viewed both Then and Now from Larkin Street. (The three tall cylinders in the foreground in this recent view are ventilation units for Brooks Hall, an underground exhibition space built in the the late 1950s but unused since 1993). At far left beyond City Hall is a glimpse of the War Memorial Opera House on Van Ness Avenue, not yet built in the Then image above.
On a historical note, here’s the older City Hall after the dust settled and the fire burned out. Located across the Civic Center Plaza where the main library and U.N. Plaza are today, it was destroyed a mere nine years after it was completed.
Then … Clarence, parked in front of classically styled columns, spots Blotz …
A 1922 vintage photo reveals where this was filmed. But this isn’t San Francisco, it’s the Masonic Temple at 6840 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles (map).
… and Now, The Greek Revival building with Ionic columns is still there today, the home of the Jimmy Kimmel late night television show. Clarence’s car in the Then image above was parked exactly where the black sedan is, below. This block is part of Hollywood’s Walk Of Fame - note the embedded stars arrayed along the sidewalk - at this address they honor artists as diverse as Jimmy Kimmel, Rod Serling, Little Richard and Donald Duck.
Then … Clarence sees Blotz exit the building and climb into a swanky Pierce/Arrow town car. The number above the doorway that looks like it was written by a 2nd-grader reveals where this shot was filmed - still in Los Angeles, this was the Hotel Regent at 6162 Hollywood Boulevard (incidentally, for the picky amongst us, this is several blocks from where Clarence was parked).
… and Now, over the decades this block has changed drastically - right here is where the hotel used to be.
... a late 1920s photo captured it back in its heyday, between N. El Centro and Argyll Avenues.
… from this newspaper ad it’s clear that the hotel had newly opened when the scene was filmed there (The Last Edition was released in November 1925 ). Note the proud boast … “A Radio In Every Room”! (TV was not yet invented).
Then … But as Blotz’s car takes off we are transported back to City Hall in San Francisco. Note the continuity goof; Blotz is sitting behind the driver but in the Then image above he’s behind the front passenger seat. Note too the car is right hand drive which means it was a 1920 or earlier Pierce/Arrow model.
… and Now, This is the Grove Street side of City Hall, the same one seen in the first photo in this post. The long balcony in the center is shared by the Mayor’s office and that of the adjoining office staff.
Then … For this next shot as Clarence follows Blotz we jump back to Los Angeles to the southwest part of Downtown. The camera looks east along 12th Street with Trenton Street crossing just ahead.
… and Now, in the late 1960s this block and several others aound it were demolished to create a site for the Los Angeles Convention Center which opened in 1971. The Staples Center indoor arena was built there in the late 1990s - this recent photo of the south edge of the arena shows where the two blocks of 12th Street, above, used to be.
CitySleuth thanks reader Notcom for tracking down the 12th Street location and unearthing this 1917 newspaper photo of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company building at 1265 Figeroa, the large building at the end of the block in the movie’s Then image above. Compare the building’s left side, on 12th Street, with that image - they match.
Angelenos have at least one thing in common with San Franciscans: a nostalgic preference for beloved stadium names. Staples Center was renamed Crypto.com Arena in December 2021 but continues to be referred to by most as Staples Center, aka ‘The House That Kobe Built’. In much the same way, San Franciscans still fondly remember Giants ballpark Candlestick Park, eschewing subsequent renames 3Com Park and later, Monster Park.
Then and Now aerial view … Click or tap the 1928 image below to see the dramatic urban transformation of the blocks containing 12th and Trenton Streets. ‘X’ marks the spot where the camera was set up to film the 12th Street shot.
