The four-story building, which has been standing empty for over a decade, burned for nearly two hours on Thursday morning before a hundred firefighters from the Los Angeles fire department got the flames under control.
It was music photographer Henry Diltz who took the cover photo in 1969 and has later told that it required some cunning to get it done. The hotel had forbidden the band to take pictures inside, but when the staff were busy with something else, the group sneaked into the lobby and placed themselves by the window with the legendary frontman Jim Morrison in the middle.
Diltz could thus secure the picture from the outside.
It was a fantastic old wooden building with many small rooms on the upper floor where travelers and drinkers could sleep off their intoxication in a cell for 2.50 dollars per night, he says to AP.
I think the beautiful window with "Morrison Hotel" in red letters was the best thing about the hotel. The Doors thought so too.
