Hal Roach Studios-original footprint (historical site) (Culver City, California)

USA / California / Culver City / Culver City, California / West Washington Boulevard, 8822
 place with historical importance, interesting place, film/video production studio/facility, historical layer / disappeared object

8822 Washington Blvd. at the corner of Washington and National in Culver City.

Built in 1919 on land given to Roach by Harry Culver, this represents the original footprint of the studio. This is the pre 1929 location. Some time around 1929, Roach purchase the neighboring studio, Lehrman Studios.

Studio where Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang comedies were made, as well as Will Rogers, Harry Langdon, Charlie Chase.

The 14.5 acre studio once known as "Laugh Factory," containing 55 buildings, was torn down in 1963 and replaced by light industrial buildings, businesses, and an automobile dealership, where a plaque marks the studio's location.

Dimensions are approximate pending verification.

Update: A recent field trip to Culver City revealed that his location is no longer recognizable. It is flanked on the north by an overhead railroad, and consists of a mass of dilapidated and graffitied buildings. It is a shame that you cannot tell where this piece of history once stood. I wish I had the money to buy the whole works and rebuild the studio. Anyone want to make a donation?
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   34°1'37"N   118°23'10"W

Comments

  • I lived in north San Diego County when the studio was razed. That would have made me about 11 years old. There was a popular morning broadcast in LA that had cameras live on location showing equipment tearing down the buildings. One comment stuck in my mind was that it was to be replaced by a large shopping center. It turns out that was not the case. The same sort of thing happened with MGM studios and parts of Twentieth Century Fox Studios (when the studio had to sell some of its real estate also in the early 1960s due to box office flops, which was regretted later as the studio became profitable). It would have been great if the Hal Roach and MGM studios could have been saved as historical sites.
  • Oppos. the little plaque on the grass is where the Roach administration bldg. stood. They were building the pillars for elevated train tracks when I last saw it. Walk south (?) along Washington Blvd and turn left onto Landmark Street. The second bldg. you pass on your left was the site of Lak L&H. Continue walking along the street. The first 4 stages were where I last saw two large garages on the left. About 1/2 way up Landmark Street, that part of it sits right over the old backlot street set! It may end at a ten foot high wall, I'm not sure if it still does. That would be just before the school playground. That playground is where most of the claasic bits in some of the old silent L&H movies were filmed, and where "The Battle of the Century" pie fight took place! I havent been there in about ywo years now, so I don't know how much has changed, with the construction of the train station and tracks. When you walk back to Washington Blvd. turn left. The next low bldg. you come to on yur left stands on the site of the "Our Gang" Cafe, which was at one time the studio commissary!
  • It is a shame that Culver City did not realize what this studio would have meant in terms of history and profit in the years to come. It would have certainly been a major tourist stop. Just imagine the historical significance today. George Vreeland Hill
  • Are you related to Vreeland who worked at the studio until its demise? He told Stan laurel he wa going to get the Lake Laurel & Hardy plaque, but it didn;t happen, and Vreeland never even had the courtesy to write back and explain what had happened. Do you know what happened?
  • My parents bought the last house on the end of Hubbard Street in 1957 just before I was born. There was just a big lot next door. When I was about six or seven, the property was going to become an "industrial business park". They came and paved the area and put up the pink concrete block wall that separated the lot from all the residences and dead-end streets that bordered it. In the late sixties or early seventies, the warehouse across the parking lot from our house was an Hare Krishna incense factory or storage. It really stunk the place up. It was kind of sad having a bunch of barren-feeling industrial lots next door. In Jr. High, I saw an old film (with a young Mickey Rooney I think) where a boy is lying in the grass while a train crosses the field diagonally. It was a Hal Roach film and I figured by the angle that it must have been shot practically in my back yard! As a kid, I was used to hearing the train go across by Robertson Blvd and on through Culver City. When I was small, my older lady neighbor told me that before the studio, there had been bean-fields there! And I knew that two blocks away--where Hubbard Street ran into another studio--was the Culver Studios, which had gone through several names, including Desilu Studios, owned by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
  • No, actually the plaque is off the lot. The plaque is at the corner of Washington and National, just outside the lot border. The edge of the lot ran where the railroad tracks now run. The admin building and the two original sound stages were immediately south of the tracks.
  • I met michael oshea on the lot in 1955 he had a 55 mersedes gullwing i was 18 years old what a nice person never forgot him.
  • I agree with you 100%!
  • Nasa Vlachou (Athens Greece) The demolition of the Hal Roach studios in 1963 has always been, in my opinion, such a sad affair. I'm so sorry that this had to be the end of them and, at the same time, I feel deeply disappointed, because I believe that no efforts were made to preserve at least the administration building, which could have been turned into a museum as a tribute to all the personnel (actors/actresses, technicians etc) who worked there and gave us so much joy and pleasure.
  • Interesting comment about keeping a building as a Museum. I worked at Roach for 12 years,in the 50s. it was a booming factory of TV. I was in the military in 1963 during the demolition, but my father, "Bones" Vreeland was the CEO and I kept up on the demise of the Studio, which he tried to slow down, but Hal Roach Jr. had financially ruined the Company and there was nothing left at the end to do but walk away from the wonderful place. Nobody was interested in any Remembrances of it. There were just the vultures ready to turn it into a car lot. bvreeland@roadrunner.com
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This article was last modified 5 years ago