Mack Sennett Comedies (Keystone Comedies) (Los Angeles, California)

 place with historical importance, film/video production studio/facility, historical layer / disappeared object

1712-1719 Allesandro St. (now Glendale Blvd..) the studio sat three corners of intersection of Effie and Allesandro Streets.

Note the big building in the background was Sennett's large enclosed stage and is all that survives of film making in Edendale.

Built at 1712 Allesandro in 1909 by the New York Motion Picture Company (a name that obviously couldn't last), it was branded as Bison 101 by Fred Balshoffer, then came under the control of Thomas Ince. In 1912 Sennett's Keystone unit of the NYMPC took control and Ince moved his operation to Santa Ynez canyon where he built his famous Inceville. Both producers eventually shed their employee status and bought their respective lots.

Sennett expanded his "Laugh Factory" to both sides of the street (to include 1719 Allesandro) where it served as home of the Keystone Kops and where Charles Chaplin and Mable Normand first gained fame. Other famous stars at the studio included Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Gloria Swanson, and W.C. Fields. Originally called Keystone Comedies, he dropped that name when he ended his association with the NYMPC.

Mack Sennett's story is one of expansion, more expansion, and finally, over expansion and bankruptcy. After buying and building on property across the street, Sennett leased the old Selig/Fox lot up the street, using it for production and leasing it out to others, including his one time employee Roscoe Arbuckle for his Comique brand. Sennett also leased the old Balboa Studios in Long Beach from time to time for production he could not accommodate here in Edendale.

Sennett abandoned the site in 1928 when he built a new studio in Studio City. For a while things went well but he was a victim of his own power. He bought too much and built too fast, losing the studio to creditors when he filed for bankruptcy, but he was also victimized by the 1929 stock market crash, which broke him, and went bust on a real estate development venture known as Hollywoodland, of which the only thing remaining is the famous Hollywood sign. Sennett built that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Sennett

** Might also be 1723 Allesandro, the location of Pacific Studios (1911), Comique Film Corp (Roscoe Arbuckle, Joseph M. Schenck, Lou Anger, M.S. Epstein, Eddie Cline) (1919), Marshall Neilan Productions (1920)