It’s right up the road from where I live, a beautiful spot – historic for many reasons, mainly Revolutionary War reasons – you can’t walk two steps without seeing George Washington this, George Washington that – but the movie business started in Fort Lee, the first movie studio was built in Fort Lee in 1910, something many people don’t know. Here’s a really interesting article about it.
But then in 1918, a series of calamities, like something out of a disaster movie, struck Fort Lee: a wartime coal shortage and the coldest winter in memory hit, as did the influenza epidemic, closing the studios for what producers thought would be just a few weeks, Mr. Meyers said.
With the Hudson River frozen, and ferry service suspended, studio crews were moved to California that winter, and never returned. Though the Selznicks controlled much of the studio space in Fort Lee through 1925, and independent filmmakers continued to shoot through the 1930s, the industry never recovered. Because of highly flammable nitrate film, several of the old studios went up in flames.
It’s also the home of a Mr. Richard Feder.