Historic Hollywood motel where rock icons stayed, movies were filmed goes up in flames

"It's a gut punch for Hollywood preservation,"

"The real tragedy is that this building had been left vacant and it no longer had any kind of purpose, so it became a magnet for transients,"

"If you go look at it now, it is essentially a pile of crushed wood that has been sprayed with fire retardant."

A 120-year-old Craftsman-style house in the middle of the Hollywood Center Motel burned in the early hours, with people sheltering illegally fleeing the blaze. The house had survived earthquakes, flooding, riots, a murder investigation and decades of rock-and-roll history, and had been frequented by Neil Young and Crazy Horse and featured in L.A. Confidential and The Rockford Files. The city Cultural Heritage Commission had voted to consider the house for historic designation and planned a site visit. The boarded-up, vacant property had attracted transients and experienced two smaller fires before the destructive blaze; firefighters rescued at least one person.

Read at Los Angeles Times