If the bulldozers don’t get you, the taggers will… Not to beat a dead horse, but the EPHS News reports that Edendale’s Mack Sennett Marker will not only be preserved, but relocated to a more suitable site.
A lot has been made about the monument’s “misplacement.” The official address of Sennett’s old Keystone Studios was 1712 Glendale Blvd., a few blocks south of the marker’s 1830-1835 location. However, the studios weren’t confined to a single block. In reality they occupied a total of five acres fronting both sides of the Glendale corridor, then known as Allesandro. If the obelisk doesn’t pinpoint actual Sennett land, it’s probably not all that far off from the fringes of his former studio.
Plus, Keystone crews often filmed their hijinks throughout the immediate neighborhood (frequently to the annoyance of residents), as did several other studios up and down the street. Thus the marker’s inscription isn’t that much of a stretch: American movie comedy was indeed born here along Glendale Blvd.
Still, it would be interesting to do a title search on the 1830-1835 Glendale Blvd. tract — or uncover some other documentation about why this site was chosen for Sennett’s monument. The plaque was presented to him during an episode of the famous This Is Your Life television show. The location of his original studio was well known. I can’t imagine the marker landed here haphazardly.
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The story doesn’t end here. Peter Svidler has written me to say that the commemorative plaque has been pried off the monument. No telling whether it was vandalized or removed for safe keeping. You can view his photos at http://www.svidler.com/SennettMarker/
– mi
The site of the recently demo’d BertCo Graphics building was the location of the Selig-Polyscope Studios, and later the William Fox Studios. A succession of other lesser known studios occupied the lot thru the 1920s, until it was ultimately abandoned, and then demo’d after it was the scene of a notorious rape. Look up “Edendale” on Wikipedia, and you’ll find all the details. Or if you’re really curious, you should go do that title search. I’ve done it, and it was a neat experience. Those old property records, in oversize folios in the basement archives downtown are way cool!
Thanks, Tom. Do you have any info as to how the marker ended up on that particular site? Like I said, the original location of the Keystone Studios was well-known. I can’t imagine the obelisk was placed in its current location completely by accident, especially considering Sennett was alive and presumably able to point out the error. Was it the closest they could get to the original site given the new buildings and/or changes in property ownership by that time? Or was it that Sennett had some tangental connection with one of the many studios that later occupied the lot? There must be some clue to the rationale behind the monument’s “misplacement.” — mi