Discuss all things Ghostbusters here, unless they would be better suited in one of the few forums below.
#4910246
Hopefully this will help provide a better idea of just how big Firestation 23 is:

Image

- I originally drafted these plans a number of years back, I tweaked them a little earlier today to better reflect the layout as I now understand it, following the video tour from a handful of years ago. They're in need of refinement and there's an issue with the placement of the elevator on Third Floor, and how corridor 3C connects to the Captain's Lounge at the front of the building... But it should give you a good understanding.

This is my understanding of the various rooms (some are confirmed, others are educated guesses):

First Floor

1A: Pedestrian street access/Elevator lobby
1B: Watch Desk
1D: Fire Hose Tower
1F: Exterior Storage
1G: Hoist/Elevator for station Hay Loft


Second Floor

2B: Storage
2C: Administration Office
2D: Rear Courtyard (for providing natural light into the rear of the main Engine Bay, Administration Office and Bathroom)
2E: Bathroom
2F: Dining Room/Kitchen


Second Floor

3A: Chief's Bathroom
3B: Chief's Bedroom
3C: Third Floor Corridor
3D: Forward Courtyard (for providing natural light into The Chief's Bedroom, Corridor and Chief's Dining Room)
3E: Chief's Kitchen
3F: Storage
3G: Anteroom
3H: Secondary Bedroom
3I: Rear Courtyard (for providing natural light into Secondary Bedroom, Staircase Landing and Tertiary Bedroom/Secondary Bathroom.
3J: Tertiary Bedroom & Secondary Bathroom
3K: Anteroom/Shower Room
3L: Hay Loft/Roof Access
3M: Hoist/Elevator for station Hay Loft
#4910253
One time wrote: October 20th, 2018, 7:33 pm I was about to say, the real floors are a lot longer than I imagined. It doesn't end by the stairs but goes on.
I should clarify what I mean. I thought the common area itself was a much bigger space. I had figured that since I was a kid so it either stems from the HQ toy having just an open space for the second floor, the cartoon firehouse having a large common area or the fact that so little of the building is seen I just pieced together (incorrectly) that there wasn't much other space so what we saw had to be the entire floor.

I am surprised by how many windows, doorways, offices and staircases there are.
#4979661
Been a while since I last had some fresh material to post here, but some new film appearances by Fire Station №23 have come to light that I wasn't aware of before - thanks to IMDB.

The Wild Pair (1987) (AKA Devil's Odds)
Starring Beau Bridges, Police Academy's Bubba Smith (creating another 23/Police Academy connection, as the station appeared in 1985's Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment) and Lloyd Bridges playing the villain of the piece. Old 23 makes a few appearances; the exterior, apparatus bay, crew dormitory, hay loft and roof all appear as a single business, a mixed casino/massage parlor/roof terrace cafe.
The third floor staircase and landing, Chief Fire Officer's apartment (sitting room, bathroom and bedroom) appears as Smith's apartment.

What's great about this film is that it gives a rare glimpse of the CFO's private bathroom/washroom... One of the rooms in the station that until now I had almost no reference of, even after the SoCal team visited it 13 years ago. Sadly the film seems to have never graduated beyond VHS/Betamax/Laserdisc, so what copies have been uploaded online aren't amazing quality... But as detailed above, do contain some kernels of great reference material.

Pyrates (1991)
Kevin Bacon stars with his real-life wife Kyra Sedgwick as a couple whose lovemaking ends up causing fires. Old 23 makes a brief appearance as a Chicago firehouse as the rumors about their lovemaking and the fires begin to circulate.

While the scene is largely forgettable, it's revealed that it was around this time when some of the street-level facade of the station got some TLC, and appears to be the first time the station appeared as "Engine 23 Truck Co.", instead of "Engine 23 Truck 5), the "5" section having fallen away some time between 1987 and 1988.

Screenshots to follow soon.
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#4979673
mrmichaelt wrote: March 7th, 2023, 7:18 pm
Kingpin wrote:What's great about this film is that it gives a rare glimpse of the CFO's private bathroom/washroom...
Ooh, got a time stamp on that (or could you please post that when you post the screenshots). That's a pretty cool find.
At the 1:09:30 mark in the YouTube upload, though it gets gory towards the end as a couple of murders have taken place in the room.
#4987275
edspengler wrote: November 1st, 2023, 11:24 amIt is in rough shape.
Sadly it's had over 60 years of neglect and abuse by some of the local population. At least it will hopefully be rehabilitated, even if it will see some major changes to the interior.

Thanks for the photo update. :)
#4990845
A new video glimpse into Fire Station №23 care of Tampa Jay on youtube (starting roughly 3:20 into the video):



Good to see work is progressing. Below are a few observations and factual notations:

•Fire Station №23 was constructed in 1909 and was dedicated in 1910. Hook & Ladder №8 was constructed in 1904, and then cut in half in 1914.

•The large pit that had been dug into the forward ⅙th of the apparatus bay's concrete floor has been filled in, and the attachments for the new I-beams have been set into sections of the new concrete. The digging took place back in September 2022 and is part of the effort to make the fire station compliant with L.A.'s current construction codes for earthquake reinforcement.
A 3D render of what these new supports will potentially look like was released by Brooks + Scarpa back in 2018.

The corresponding holes in the ceiling remain open while the refurbishment crew wait on the installation of the I-beams.

The drain located in this part of the apparatus bay (visible in this video has now been removed.

•The doorway leading into the vestibule for the fire chief's private elevator, noted as 1A on my old plans appears to have been expanded with the partial-demolition of the partition wall.
-While it's sad to see a chunk of the wall has been taken out, it's helped answer a question for me as to whether it was reinforced concrete, like the external walls, or achieved with hollow tile brick, like some of the walls on the upper storeys.

•The stringer for the new staircase (required to meet California's accesibility guidelines) has been installed onto the fall wall of the elevator vestibule, towards the 5th Street-end of the room.

•All of Fire Station №23's surviving period fittings have been temporarily removed to a location at 7th Street (per the man Jay is talking to. This location might be Fire Station №11.

•One of the large plywood boxes in the apparatus bay appears to store some of the remnants of the station's old horse stalls (likely the metal side panels).

•While Jay remarks that the doors at the front of Fire Station №23 are originals, I believe these are full-scale replicas that were constructed for Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
On the street-facing side they appear to largely blank, missing ornamentation details that mirror the inside faces of the doors. Also the smaller person-sized door that Winston didn't step through in Afterlife appears to be a sealed panel, lacking any apparatus to open... While photos taken of the station prior to it being borded up, showed locking mechanisms on this door - suggesting it could be opened at one point.

•The man Jay is talking to mentions the new elevator that's going to be put into the rear right-hand corner of the building, roughly where the door

•The pit that was dug into the concrete floor at the rear end of the station's apparatus bay, visible when Extraplasm visited in November 2022 has appears to have been mostly-filled in with new concrete (the one section that hasn't is the vertical access for the new elevator).

•According to the man Jay is talking to, the end goal of Brooks + Scarpa is to keep most of Fire Station №23 historic.

•According to the man Jay is talking to, the refurbishment project has been running for four years, suggesting it began in earnest in 2020 (and was then understandably delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic).
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