 After filming wrapped, the Los Angeles Fire Department cited the  Babylonian set as a fire hazard and ordered it to be torn down.  D.W. Griffith (qv) discovered that he had run out of money and was  therefore unable to finance its demolition. The set stood derelict  and crumbling for nearly four years until it was finally taken down  in 1919. By then it had fallen apart enough for it to be dismantled  at a sufficiently low cost.