You’d be forgiven for thinking that you had seen this building somewhere before.
This is because for eight years (1967-75) it was the attic home of Robert T. Ironside. The wheelchair-bound detective played by Raymond Burr.
Despite seeing the building every week throughout its eight season run, and viewing him looking out of its windows, the actual building was demolished in 1968 and by the time the series was halfway through its run a brand-new ‘Chinatown Holiday Inn’ hotel stood on the site.
The rooftop swimming pool of that hotel featured in the opening scene of ‘Dirty Harry’ in the same year that Raymond Burr was still living on the top floor of a building that no longer existed.
Nowadays even the ‘Holiday Inn’ and rooftop swimming pool has gone. It having been replaced by a much more flashier and far more expensive hotel.
Of course, the SFPD with whom ‘Ironside’ once worked should not be confused with the LAPD with whom TJ Hooker (the carpet-topped copper played by William Shatner) served.
The LAPD motto on its vehicles has since 1963 been; ‘To Protect And To Serve’.
Whereas the Johannesburg Police Department’s vehicles must carry the motto: ‘To Drag You Behind This Until You Are Dead!’
