It's more commonly-known these days, but in the early years after the release of Ghostbusters, few people knew that Hook and Ladder 8, and Fire Station 23 in Los Angeles were two separate locations despite playing the exterior and interior of Ghostbusters HQ.

Whilst dozens of us have had the pleasure to visit Hook & Ladder 8, and chow down with the station's crew, only a select few fans have had the chance to visit LA23, and reference material (that weren't screenshots) was scant. That changed on Friday when the SoCal Ghostbusters, Denver Ghostbusters, and a few others teamed up to take a rare tour of the century-old Firehouse:


-Photo by Brent Kling

For those not familiar with the structure, although it was built at a similar time to the New York Firehouse, one of the most notable design elements was it's layout. Whereas New York once boasted a engine bay wide enough to house two engines side-by-side, Los Angeles was built to house two engines, one behind the other… calling for an extremely long station:


- Plans (incomplete) by myself.

During the tour, GBFans and Southern California Ghostbusters member Vince Nordone recorded a video walkthrough, not only giving us a perfect idea of the sheer size of the place, but also recording factoids of the the station's history, compliments of current caretaker Daniel Taylor, who is hoping to convert the station into a community center:

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For someone who has been saving every scrap of material I could find to understand the size of this place, the videos have helped answer many of the lingering mysteries I've had… the photos that will eventually be released will be the final piece to the puzzle, and it's for these efforts I'd like to thank Vince and co.

There's also good news for those who missed the opportunity to visit the station, on October 23rd LA23 will be opening up again to the public to un-officially celebrate it's centenniary.

Wow, the engine bay really changed after Ghostbusters II was filmed. Nice to see that the lockers are still there. Also the basement area is pretty neat to see sans the containment unit. Who would have guessed that their was a corridor l down there.

Be nice if some arrangement could be come to with Sony to add this to the BD via BD-Live, so it could reach the audience in HD easier.

Last I heard, there was an artist living there?

So if it's revamped into a community centre, that would obviosuly mean difficulties for filming a third movie there?

Not really, if Ghostbusters III does get made, the film crew could always film after the community center had closed for the evening or prior to its opening in the morning. When filming in the reading room of the New York public library for the first movie, the crew was allowed permission to film prior to the opening of the the public.

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Not really, if Ghostbusters III does get made, the film crew could always film after the community center had closed for the evening or prior to its opening in the morning. When filming in the reading room of the New York public library for the first movie, the crew was allowed permission to film prior to the opening of the the public.

it takes a long time to prep for filming, with removing existing furniture, lighting and dressing the set and then putting it all back afterwards. Circumstances were different at the library, it was being used ‘as is’.

That is true, I had not considered that they would have to move all the furniture back in.

Still I don't think it would be to much trouble to to pull off, thought if needed Columbia could probably recreate the engine bay of the firehouse on a soundstage if they had too. Somewhere they have to have the measurements and photographs taken by the production designers for both movies on record.

theres no way filming will occur in that fire house ever again. A set would be so easy to make. No ones gonna touch it with a 10 foot cattle prod. To much work to be done and us the fans would know they were filming

It being run down didn't exactly stop them back in 84 and 89, where things were presumkably worse in that neighbourhood.

That being said, given the way things have been moving with the station over the last year, the city will probably have evicted Daniel Taylor by the time any Ghostbusters 3 production came to the point of needing it for filming it.

As there's precedent for a set replica of the engine bay (Days of Wrath, due out this autumn) it wouldn't be too surprising if they went for that.