Edendale is a historical name for a district in Los Angeles, California, northwest of downtown, in what is known today as Echo Park and the eastern edge of Silver Lake. In the opening decades of the 20th century, in the era of silent film, Edendale was widely known as the home of most major film studios on the West Coast. Among its many claims, it was home to the Keystone Cops, and the site of many film firsts, including Charlie Chaplin’s first f...
more
Edendale is a historical name for a district in Los Angeles, California, northwest of downtown, in what is known today as Echo Park and the eastern edge of Silver Lake. In the opening decades of the 20th century, in the era of silent film, Edendale was widely known as the home of most major film studios on the West Coast. Among its many claims, it was home to the Keystone Cops, and the site of many film firsts, including Charlie Chaplin’s first film, the first feature-length comedy, and the first pie-in-the-face. The Edendale film studios were mostly concentrated in a four-block stretch of Allesandro Street, between Berkeley Avenue and Duane Street. Allesandro Street was later renamed to Glendale Boulevard (and a smaller nearby street took on the name Allesandro). Edendale’s hilly streets and nearby lake lent themselves to many silent film gags. The district’s heyday as the center of the film industry was in the 1910s. By the 1920s, the studios had moved elsewhere, mostly to Hollywood...
less