OT: The Vitagraph Studios
 

If you want to see the history of Vitagraph Studios check out these links:

Smokestack of Dreams (From Forgotten NY)

The History of Vitagraph Studios

Musicradio77,

You might be interested in this picture. I took it today. I had to lower the resolution so it would fit.

The address is 94 Fourth Avenue in Bay Shore, N.Y., about two and a half miles from my house. Long Island was a center of moviemaking in the silent era, and this building was used as a studio by Vitagraph starting in 1915. "Keystone Kops" movies were made there.

Today the building is called the "General Keystone" building. It is vacant and has a real estate sign and a sign promising luxury townhouses on it. There are vacant lots on either side. I don't think there are plans to demolish the building but rather to refurbish it.

A recent post lamented the loss of the building in New York City that once housed Fleischer Studios. While I believe that you can't stop progress, it's good to see new uses made of old historic buildings. A refurbished building in this area, which is undergoing a revitalization, is a win-win situation for everybody.

Although The Studebaker Building is gone, the site of the Miami Fleischer Studio still exists, and is being used as the Dade County Child Development Center in Miami.:sailor:

Thanks for the picture, frizfrelengfan.:) I am trying to explain that the Vitagraph building is being used today at Avenue M in Brooklyn, NY. Forgotten NY's Kevin Walsh explains on his website:

South Greenfield had the distinction of being the heart of the motion picture industry in the days of the silent screen. Vitagraph Studios moved here in 1906 from lower Manhattan, where it was founded in the late 1890s; Cecil DeMille, Rudy Valentino, Moe Howard, and Leon Trotsky (who spent time in NYC in 1917 after being ousted from Spain for fomenting revolution there; failing as an actor, he soon started fomenting anew) made films here. When the studios arrived in 1906, Midwood was still indeed in the middle of the woods and was considered ideal for outdoor shoots. Vitagraph moved to Hollywood in 1925, was sold to Warner Brothers and became Vitaphone (which name appears at the end of Warner Brothers' classic cartoons in the 1930s and 1940s.) The old studios were used intermittently by NBC until 1959. The site is now a girls' school. Its smokestack still stands.

Here is the picture.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%2...gvitagraph.jpg