Fire destroys historic LA building featured on The Doors' 'Morrison Hotel' album cover
A fire in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday destroyed a historic building that had been immortalized on the cover of the 1970 album "Morrison Hotel," by rock band The Doors.
More than 100 firefighters responded to the blaze about 11 a.m. Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Firefighters rescued three people from the third floor and no injuries were reported, the department said in a video report.
The four-story building, which was built in 1914, had been vacant for about 15 years and the fire department had used it as a training site, the LAFD said in a press release.
Located in the 1200 block of S Hope Street, near the intersection with Pico Boulevard, the former Morrison Hotel may most recently have been home to squatters, the Los Angeles Times reported. As firefighters arrived on the scene, several dozen people "self-evacuated the structure," the fire department said.
It took about 1½ hours to get the fire under control and firefighters prevented the fire from spreading to any other nearby structures, according to the LAFD. Part of the roof collapsed, which made it unsafe for firefighters to fully extinguish "the remaining pockets of fire," the department said.
Crews remained on fire watch Thursday night in case of flare-ups, the LAFD said. The cause of the fire is under investigation by the arson section.
Iconic 'Morrison Hotel' Doors cover image was a rush job, photographer says
The iconic photo of the Morrison Hotel was taken by music photographer Henry Diltz in 1969. The band and its frontman Jim Morrison had been told they couldn't take a photo inside the hotel, Diltz recalled in a 2020 Facebook post.
While they were posing outside, Diltz noticed that the clerk had gotten into the elevator. "Quick, run in there you guys," Diltz said he told The Doors. "We took one roll of film and we got out of there. And that became the cover of the 'Morrison Hotel' album."
Before becoming vacant, the building served as low-income housing, the Times reported. After a 2016 plan to renovate the building into a luxury hotel failed to happen, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation purchased the building in 2022 and had planned to convert it into low-income housing, L.A. CBS station KCAL reported in December 2023.
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