Iconic Morrison Hotel burned down, known from The Doors album cover

The iconic Morrison Hotel in downtown Los Angeles was badly damaged by a fire. Flames were shooting out of the four-story building for about two hours before a team of about a hundred firefighters managed to get the fire under control.

The Morrison Hotel is world famous for the album cover of the eponymous 1970 album by The Doors. Music photographer Henry Diltz took the photo for the psychedelic rock band’s fifth album a year earlier, but it didn’t go smoothly.

The receptionist forbade the group to take photos inside, but when he disappeared from behind the counter for a moment, the band members saw their chance. They ran into the lobby, after which Diltz quickly took the photo through the window, with frontman Jim Morrison in the middle.

“It was a great old wooden building with lots of small rooms on the upper floors,” photographer Diltz recalls. “Travelers and drunks could sleep it off there for only $2.50 a night,” he told the American news agency AP. “That beautiful window in the facade with the red letters ‘Morrison Hotel’ was my favorite part and The Doors agreed with me.”

The album was seen as a return to the early years of The Doors. The band would release one more album, L.A. Woman in 1971, before frontman Morrison was found dead in a bathtub in Paris on July 3 of that year. He was 27.

A few people were rescued from the building during today’s fire, but no one was injured. The roof has collapsed, so it is unclear whether the building can still be saved. It used to be a hotel, but in recent years it has been used as a training ground for firefighters.