A modest Art Deco film lot on Sunset Boulevard grew into one of American television’s busiest engine rooms, then vanished within a generation.
At a glance
Metromedia Square stood at 5746 Sunset Boulevard, on the southeast corner of Sunset and Van Ness. Built in 1946, it began life as Nassour Studios and ended as the technical nerve center for Fox Broadcasting. For twenty years its roofline was defined by a lattice steel sculpture called “Starsteps.” No trace of the site survives today; the Los Angeles Unified School District acquired the land in 2000.
History
Brothers William and Edward Nassour opened the lot on January 1, 1947. Four sound stages served over a hundred independent films; one, Africa Screams, used a hidden water tank on the largest stage for its river scenes. Times Mirror bought the property in 1950 to house KTTV, its new television station. Metromedia acquired both the studio and KTTV in 1963. A 1967 renovation added an office tower and renamed the complex Metromedia Square. Norman Lear moved his Tandem Productions there in 1973, taping All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons and Good Times on video starting that fall. Expansion continued through the 1970s and early 1980s, adding a sixth soundstage, editing bays and, in 1981, the Starsteps sculpture above the Hollywood Freeway. When Metromedia sold most of its television holdings to News Corporation in 1986, the site became the Fox Television Center, though Metromedia kept the land itself.
What you see
Little of the original design survives in photographs beyond fragments. The Nassour-era buildings fronting Sunset held Art Deco projection rooms and offices, a stylistic flourish unusual for a working studio lot. Behind them sprawled a cramped four-acre site, so tight that an underground storage facility and freight elevator were needed just to keep production moving. The defining feature, though, was never architectural in the traditional sense. Starsteps, a white truss-like ladder sculpture, sat atop the roof and became the building’s public signature for two decades, visible to freeway traffic below.
Cultural significance
Few buildings condensed so much broadcast history into so small a footprint. Fox launched its network here in 1986, with The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers airing live from the property. In Living Color, the first season of MAD TV, Married… with Children and Fox NFL Sunday all passed through its stages. Ironically, the site rarely aired its own network’s dramas; instead it functioned as Fox’s satellite uplink and technical hub for nearly all prime-time and sports programming. Its landmark status rested almost entirely on the Starsteps sculpture, recognized locally through the 1980s and 1990s before disappearing with the building.
Key facts
- Location: 5746 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles
- Built: 1946, opened January 1, 1947, as Nassour Studios
- Later names: KTTV Studios, Metromedia Square, Fox Television Center (1986–1996)
- Architectural style: Art Deco (front offices and projection room)
- Landmark feature: “Starsteps” roof sculpture, added 1981, dismantled 2000
- Owners: Nassour brothers, Times Mirror Company, Metromedia, later Los Angeles Unified School District
Practical information & getting there
Nothing of Metromedia Square remains standing; the site was demolished in the early 2000s after LAUSD purchased the land in 2000. There is no building to visit and no public access point tied to the studio itself. You can still locate the former corner of Sunset Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue in Hollywood, near the Hollywood Freeway, where the lot once stood. Researchers interested in its television history are best served by archival footage and the sources below rather than a site visit.
Sources & resources
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →📷 Become a Cultural Heritage Online photographer
Share your photos of places: they stay published under your name as the author. The more they're seen, the more you get noticed — and soon a contest will reward the most appreciated photos.
Log in or sign up free to add a photoIs this page about you?
This page is read by travellers and heritage enthusiasts who find it on Google. Tell us how you are connected to this place and we will take it from there.