Edison Arms

Recently, I was reading about my area of the Bronx, and I came across an interesting historical tidbit. It turns out that Thomas Edison's largest movie studio, which was built in 1907, was located on the corner of Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place, only a few blocks from my apartment.

In 1910, the Edison company filmed the first Frankenstein movie in this studio. Later, they used it to film the first serial movie. In 1915, Raoul Barre produced some of the first animated movies there. He was later followed by Walt Disney, who filmed Steamboat Willie in the building, and the Terry brothers, who made the first full-color cartoons, "Terrytoons," on the site.

According to McNamara's Old Bronx, the studio hosted some of the most famous Broadway stars of the day, and residents of the area would often be surprised by the famous people strolling down their streets. One of Ethel Merman's earliest films was made here, and Milton Berle used to hang around the place looking for a job.

By 1972, the studio had been razed. Since then, the building that replaced it, the Gramercy Boys Club, has also been destroyed. Today, the only reference to the landmark studios that once occupied this site is the "Edison Arms" Apartment building. Here's what it looks like (the studio site is on the left):



And here's what it looked like in its heyday:


Here's the interior:


And here's Steamboat Willie: