Moving to Buena Vista

Brother Tom Sito informs us:

Dec 26, 1939 - Over the holiday break, Walt Disney Animation moved from Hyperion to their new air-conditioned Burbank Studio lot. The buildings are designed like hospital wards, so in case he hit economic trouble, Disney could sell them to the planned St. Joseph's Hospital across the street. Animator Ward Kimball said it was the first time he worked in a studio where all the furniture matched. The old Hyperion Studio was bulldozed in 1966, the year of Walt Disney’s death.

Camera was among the first department to travel to Burbank, after which other departments followed. Animator Don Lusk's future wife was the person in coordinating and choreographic the move from Hyperion to Buena Vista Street. Almost two years later, the soon-to-be Mrs. Lusk found out from Walt Disney that Don, one of the strikers in the 1941 job action at WDP, was on Walt's naughty list and destined for eventual layoff. That layoff took another twenty years to happen due to a World War and repeated interventions by Don's friend Eric Larson, but finally, after the completion of 101 Dalmations, Don was dismissed from Disney. There is, however, a happy ending. After his separation separation from the House of Mouse, Mr. Lusk spent twenty contented years at Hanna-Barbera, working as a director. Today he's the last of the pre-war Disney animators, age 103.