The Doors' Morrison Hotel album cover location

In early 1970, photographer Henry Diltz brought The Doors to a run-down transient hotel on South Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles to shoot the cover of their fifth album, Morrison Hotel. The hotel manager refused permission, so the band waited until the desk clerk stepped away and sprinted in to pose behind the grimy front window while Diltz fired off shots from the pavement outside. The resulting image — Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore staring out through smudged glass at the street — became one of rock's most instantly recognisable album covers, and one of its most deliberately unglamorous.

The choice of location was pointed. The Doors were pushing back against the psychedelic excess of the late 1960s and wanted something rawer, more direct. A skid-row hotel in downtown LA — the kind of place that charged by the week and asked no questions — matched the blues-soaked sound of the album perfectly. Jim Morrison's surname on the marquee was either pure coincidence or too good to pass up. Henry Diltz, who had been shooting the LA rock scene for years, understood the value of the image immediately.

The building at 1246 South Hope Street stood for more than fifty years after the shoot, becoming a minor pilgrimage site for Doors fans. In December 2024, a severe fire caused major structural damage and partial roof collapse. As of early 2025 the building was closed and its future uncertain — the latest in a long list of significant Los Angeles music sites lost or threatened by the city's indifference to its own cultural history.