An iconic Los Angeles rock-and-roll landmark went up in flames Thursday.
The former Morrison Hotel was made famous by The Doors‘ fifth album, 1970’s Morrison Hotel. In addition to sharing the album’s name, the cover art showed the band with lead singer Jim Morrison perched in the lobby’s window.
The four-story landmark, built in 1914, was heavily damaged in a fire that took more than 100 firefighters to get under control, according to The Associated Press.
The building has officially been considered vacant for at least 10 years, according to the Los Angeles Times, though several people were evacuated from the property without injury during the blaze. The building was purchased in 2022 by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which intended to convert the structure into affordable housing. The organization had been struggling to prevent squatters from occupying the former hotel.
“In the fire department, we say there are no vacant buildings in the City of Los Angeles,” said David Ortiz from the Los Angeles Fire Department to Fox 11. “A lot of the large, unhoused community uses these vacant buildings as their temporary residences. Several dozen [today] were seen self-evacuating at the time of the fire.” The LAFD has not determined the cause of the fire.
Morrison Hotel cover photographer Henry Diltz says the “run down” location was spotted by Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek. “It was the kind of place where you could start a religion or plan a murder,” he was once quoted saying about the hotel. When Diltz asked permission to shoot the cover inside the lobby, a clerk said he’d need to get permission from the owner first. Instead, Diltz and the band waited until the clerk left his post and rushed inside to get the shot, he told Louder Sound.
The band “hit their markers, none of it was planned,” Diltz said. “Jim was in the middle like that. Bang-bang-bang. One roll of film, and they were out of there.”
English (US) ·