LOOKING BACK
The Original Location
Circa 1903
Southern California may have supplanted northern New Jersey as a filmmaking hub, but our area holds a distinct
position in motion picture history. It was in 1893 that West Orange resident Thomas Edison, whose laboratory is now
part of a national historical park on Main Street, patented a motion picture camera. He also had the world’s first
motion picture studio, a crude tarpaper building nicknamed the Black Maria—a popular term for a police wagon —
constructed there. Built on a pivot, the building could rotate to follow the sun as it moved across the sky.
Ten years later, Edison cameraman Edwin S. Porter filmed The Great Train Robbery, partly on location in what is now
South Mountain Reservation, and it became the most famous, popular and imitated movie of the early era.
At 10-plus minutes long, the movie introduced the world to intercutting scenes, close-ups, and classic
Western themes such as the chase on horseback, and the use of the six-shooter.
– Cindy Schweich Handler
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE THOMAS EDISON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
Do you have a great photo for Looking Back? Send your suggestions to [email protected].
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MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE MAY 2016