A sad day here in New York City, if you're A Fleischer fan.

[Nelson]

One of the biggest animation studios is this close to being torn down right in the heart of Times Sqaure.The building I'm talking about, is the landmark Fleischer Studios at 1600 Broadway from 1923 to 1938.1600 Broadway gave birth to some of the most famous cartoon characters in screen history and included some Fleischer favorites, including, Koko The Clown, Screen Songs, Bimbo, Betty Boop and the one eyed sailor man, Popeye.The building has been standing in the heart of Times Sqaure since the early 1900's and some thought that the building should be made into a city landmark, but those ideas never came to be.A few months ago, Jerry did post about the demise of 1600 Broadway and this past weekend, I was by the site of the original Fleischer Studios and it saddend me, when I saw the construction workers have already put up a huge tarp completely over the entire building, to the point you can't even the see the Fleischer building anymore.The building should start to be torned down by either this month or next month,as it will be a sad day for Fleischer fans.


BTW:This means that the only two animation studios from animation's "golden years" (if I'm correct) is Famous Studios and the old Hearst/Van Bueren Studios are still standing.

[J Lee]

I guess there's a certain irony that at the same time they're talking about bringing a Betty Boop play to Broadway (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/magazine/13ABAIRE.html?pagewanted=1), Betty's birthplace is falling victim to the demolition crews.

Sadly, 1600 Broadway became a victim of New York's success at redeveloping Times Square over the past decade -- when the place was down on its heels from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, it took millions of dollars in subsidies to get anything new built in the area, as with the Mariott hotel back in the 1970s. Now that there's been all kinds of development at the southern end of the square, long-surviving buildings at the northern end are being eyed for replacement with bigger (and more profitable) structures.

[Ray Pointer]

I was fortunate enough to go to the 1600 Broadway site in June of 2000. It was on a Sunday, and the watchman there told me all about the building's history, being that it was originally built as a Studebaker showroom around 1905.
It was converted into an office building in 1920, and became the center of the grwoing film industry, with most of the film companies and distributors having offices there.

Max Fleischer moved in there in 1923, and stayed until 1929, when his oriignal company, Out of the Inkwell Films, Inc. declaired bankruptcy. For nearly a year, Fleischer operated out of the Carpenter-Goldman Lab facilities in Queens, and moved back to 1600 Broadway, having reorganized as Fleischer Studios. It was there that the major milestones of Fleischer Studios came about, as they remained there until 1938 when they moved to Miami.:betty:

[Barb Herholzer]

This is all very interesting, and of course, very sad. What else has the building housed since 1938 (I think I may have read that, ironically, a Popeye's Chicken was once there at street level)? Who were the most recent tenants? Has it been vacant very long?

[Cartman]

I am so sad to hear about that. The Fleischer Studio made some excellent cartoons in its golden age. There really should be a law made against this. Maybe a petition to the mayor of New York would help.

[RetroMan]

Cartman brings up a point. Hadn't there been any attempts to save it? That building should not only be preserved, but I think it would be a good idea to convert it into an animation museum, but then that might be just wishful thinking. Sad news indeed.

(by the way, what happened to the old Hyperion Disney studios?)

[JDWeil]

Cartman brings up a point. Hadn't there been any attempts to save it? That building should not only be preserved, but I think it would be a good idea to convert it into an animation museum, but then that might be just wishful thinking. Sad news indeed.

(by the way, what happened to the old Hyperion Disney studios?)
There's a supermarket on that site now.

[Ray Pointer]

I was about to add about the Hyperion Studio not being commorated as well. Since I live near the site, I can tell you that 3/4 of the lot is now a Gelsen's Market, and the rest is a mini-mall with an interesting independent video rental store, Video Journeys. Across the street is a Trader Joe's and in the hallway near the restrooms are aerial photographs of the block across the street as it looked in 1936. With all the add-ons and satellite buildings on both sides of the street, it was inevitiable that had to move. They ran out of space!

The ORIGINAL and first Disney Studio site was at Kingswell and Vermont. That is the place where Disney started out, and it housed the studio for seven years, from 1923 to 1931. It has been divided into smaller units. but one, which is now a copy shop has a little bulletin board display announcing that this was the original site of the first Disney Studio. So the first Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies were done there utnil they moved to the corner of Hyperion Avenue and Griffith Park Boulevard, where they were for the next nine years.

Incidentally, Robert Disney's house is still there, five blocks east of the commercial building just described. The one car garage where Walt started the ALICE COMEDIES was taken away 30 years ago, leaving only the cement slab where it once stood.:mickey:

[GeorgeC]

You know,

I'd be in favor of a plaque on the Fleischer Studios site after the building gets razed, but honestly, do we have to get up in arms everytime something like this gets demolished???

There are times people want to save structures that just frankly aren't worth saving IMHO. Take the old H-B building, the old EYESORE. I frankly didn't think that was such a great architectural marvel but a zillion people wanted it protected. It really wasn't being used for anything and was a gaudy roadside attraction. That building was out-of-date, just doesn't fit in today, and I question why anybody would want to save something that looks like it fits in with a cheap old strip mall. It's an attraction that frankly fits in better with the world's largest ball of twine in the middle of nowhere rather than as a sad reminder of a production facility.

And yeah, I pretty much feel the same way about the Disney Hyperion Studio and don't think it was such a great loss that it was razed, either...

This mentality that everything has to be saved can go overboard for purely sentimental reasons that have nothing to do with historical and practicality purposes. For instance, there are efforts ongoing to save several retired aircraft carriers now by past crewmembers. Never mind the fact that these ships are architecturally related (all Forrestal-Class) and frankly just about any one ship will do as a representative for ALL of them, but people want to save all 4!

Who's going to pay for these ships if they ALL make the preservation list? Seriously, they have to find homeports for these super carriers (remember, even empty they OVER 50,000 tons displacement!) and most cities with harbors just can't accomodate ships that size or afford them.