The former Morrison Hotel, made famous by The Doors and their 1970 album of the same name, was significantly damaged by a fire that broke out in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday.
The four-story building, which has been vacant for more than a decade, burned for nearly two hours before more than 100 firefighters brought the flames under control, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The Morrison Hotel appeared on the cover of The Doors’ fifth album. Famed music photographer Henry Diltz took the image in 1969 and years later said it took a bit of craftsmanship to achieve it.
FILE – Vehicles pass by the Morrison Hotel on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 in Los Angeles.
AP Photo/Ric Francis, File
A hotel employee told the band they weren’t allowed to take photos inside, but when the employee walked away, the group ran into the lobby and Diltz quickly snapped the photo looking out the window, with legendary frontman Jim Morrison in the middle. .
“It was a big old wooden building with many small rooms upstairs where transients and drinkers could sleep on a cot for $2.50 a night!” Diltz said The Associated Press on Friday. “I think the beautiful front window with “Morrison Hotel” in red letters was the best part! And The Doors too!
Get daily national news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic and current affairs headlines delivered to your inbox once a day.
The album was seen as a return to their roots for The Doors, immediately following Morrison’s onstage arrest at a concert in Miami that saw him convicted of indecent exposure and blasphemy.
Morrison and The Doors would release one last album, Los Angeles Womanbefore being found dead in a Paris bathtub on July 3, 1971.
Los Angeles firefighters who first arrived at the fire on Thursday found heavy flames on the top floor of the building.
Several people who were in the building escaped unharmed, including three people rescued by firefighters from the third floor, according to the department. The roof of the building collapsed, leaving its structural integrity in question, the department said.
In recent years, the building had been used as a training site for firefighters.
A worker walks past the entrance to the remains of the former Morrison Hotel after a fire in the 1200 block of South Hope Street in Los Angeles on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024.
AP Photo/Richard Vogel
© 2024 The Canadian Press
