2025 Aug 29, Los Feliz Neighborhood Council celebrating first anniversary of Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio Square
Walt Disney's Los Angeles; Daniel Djang, Discover LA Newsletter Oct 12, 2023
Site of the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio on Kingswell Ave | Instagram: @robertskran
Walt & Roy Disney's Economical Apartment (1923-1925)
4647 Kingswell, currently Extra Copy
By DANIEL MILLER, STAFF WRITER; MARCH 25, 2016 3 AM
Marine Ter-Pogosyan often senses the presence of a Hollywood legend in her Los Feliz photocopy shop. "My customers, they ask me, 'Do you see the ghost of Walt Disney?' And I say, 'Yeah, every day I feel it,'" Ter-Pogosyan said. "He is always here. And he is very happy." If the Walt Disney Co. founder's spirit were to surface in any locale, this spot makes sense: Ter-Pogosyan's Extra Copy and a neighboring tattoo parlor and skateboard shop are housed in space that once served as the original offices of Disney's fledgling animation company. From 1923 to 1926, the Disney Bros. Studio was headquartered at the Kingswell Building at Vermont and Kingswell avenues. These modest storefronts, adjacent to a commercial strip lined with vintage clothing boutiques and ethnic restaurants, lay claim to being the birthplace of the world's largest entertainment company. "You figure, if Walt was alive today, he might say, 'The neighborhood has changed,'" said Jim Ferraro, who owns the building. "When Walt was here, they had just paved Vermont. It was a whole different ballgame." The roughly 16,000-square-foot building's past has largely gone unnoticed in a city long known for not appreciating the history of its built landscape. The Kingswell Building is not protected by any historical designation, which means that it could one day suffer the fate of countless other notable L.A. buildings - the wrecking ball. And the neighborhood's Disney history already is fraught: The much larger studio that Walt Disney built on Hyperion Avenue after leaving the Kingswell Building was torn down decades ago. That site now houses a shopping center and a Gelson's supermarket. The Kingswell Building's history could make it worthy of preservation, experts said. "These are the not obvious landmarks, but it doesn't mean they are any less important," said Linda Dishman, president of the Los Angeles Conservancy. "For the preservation community, it is important to make sure all stories get told. Certainly, the creation of a company like Disney is very much an L.A. story."