Hotel Californian, 1961–1994. Flames engulfed the upper two floors of the five-story Hotel Californian at 1907 West Sixth Street on August 2, 1961. Firemen were threatened with injury when a water hydrant burst and a hose flailed about viciously before water was turned off. Scores of television aerials on the roof of the hotel hampered the men before the flames were brought under control. The hotel reopened, but became "a classic slum building where a changing cast of owners suck out profits, fail to make repairs and leve tenants in miserable conditions." City officials closed its entrances with plywood and metal bars, but homeless people broke through and made it their home. On November 21, 1994, it took 186 firefighters from three companies to quell a massive blaze that all but destroyed the place. Finally, the City Council ordered the old hotel razed as an irreparable hazard.