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Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
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Never quite understood why this building's address has been listed as both odd and even, e.g., 1421 and 1424. Reasonably sure that Joseph Schenk and his wife, Norma Talmadge had something to do with the construction and/or ownership of the building, formerly known as the Voltaire Apts. Apparently, it is no stranger to fires.
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Photo [below] shows flames and smoke raging atop the fashionable seven-story Voltaire apartments in Hollywood as a fie gutted the luxurious top stories and sent scores of film tenants hurrying to the street. One fireman, E. W. Wood, died of injuries received when he fell 100 feet from the blazing roof. Two other firemen were injured. The fire, which is said to have followed a mysterious explosion, resulted in $150,000 damage to the structure.
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Fire in Voltaire Apartments Kill One and Injures Six. In the early hours of February 20, 1935, when L.A. Times delivery boy Gordon Harter, 21, of 1326 N. Stanley Ave., was delivering the L. A. Times in the hills above Hollywood, he noticed smoke coming from the Voltaire Apartments at 1424 Crescent Heights Blvd. He didn't hear fire or police sirens, so he drove down to investigate. He found the the front door locked, so he went around to the back and broke into the hall and ran all the bells in the apartments from the buttons at the front desk. Then he ran down all the halls and pounded on doors and told people to get out. Smoke on the upper two floors was very thick.
Scantily clad tenants, many of whom were actors or worked in the movie colony, rushed from the building just before the elevator crashed down when the cables melted from the fire on top of the building. Among screen notables who fled the building were: actress Kathlyn Williams, Margaret Ettinger and her husband, Russ Shattuck, actor's agents and Marcella Knapp, casting director at MGM. Others who were attracted to the fire were actor Alan Hale, who lived next door with his family, actor Ralph Graves, writer John Farrow and actress Maureen O'Sullivan. Farrow kept his car in the Voltaire garage. The fire started shortly before 6 a.m. in the elevator shaft from a carelessly tossed cigarette, and spread rapidly to the sixth and seventh floor.
One county fireman was killed and six others injured in the fire. D.W. Woods, 35, of Company No. 6 died from a crushed chest when he fell from the sloping slate roof into a clump of bushes, 100 feet below. Woods lived at 7500 Fountain Ave. The Voltaire, a beautifully landscaped property of French Norman architecture, was built in 1928 at a cost of about $400,000. It housed about 150 tenants.
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February, 1935
http://www.lafire.com/stations/archi...ltaireFire.htm
On the tangentially related subject of Norma Talmadge, I don't recall seeing this aerial image of her then, 1-year-old namesake, at 3278 Wilshire Blvd., circa 1924. Hard to say with certainty, but it looks as much Wilshire frontage shows evidence of clearing. That is to say, missing buildings. Absent from image is Immanuel Presbyterian Church 3300 Wilshire, as it was not completed until '28.
1924
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no date
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1/29/1931 - Willard H. George Co. Furriers, 3330 Wilshire Boulevard west of Immanuel Presbyterian. Seen in above shot.
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1937
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