A COUPLE OF BLOCKS WEST OF THE BUSTLE OF Broadway, where that street passes through Little Saigon, a low-slung yet imposing two-story red brick structure hugs the south side of Argyle, between Magnolia and Glenwood. Surrounded by quiet apartments and standalone homes, the factory-like building with large multipaned windows, their trim painted green, bears little trace of its epoch-making past, offering few justifications for its landmark status save a peak-roofed entryway tiled in creamy white with verdigris lanterns on either side. This is the former Essanay Studios, at 1345 West Argyle Street in Uptown. Today the building contains an auditorium named after Charlie Chaplin, but over a hundred years ago — for an ephemeral span — it contained the man himself.
The plaque on its façade, hung in 1996 at the city’s granting of the landmark status, explains: “The terra-cotta Indian heads
