New York, New Look!

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Last year, for my mom’s birthday, my dad, boyfriend, grandma, and I all chipped in to purchase her a haircut with Nick Arrojo, the celebrity hair stylist from TLC reality show What Not To Wear. My mom absolutely loves Nick, so her haircut was the present to end all presents. And, as my dad likes to say, we opened up a whole can of worms with that gift because now my mom expects an appointment with Nick every year during our annual New York vacation. 🙂 LOL So this year, on our first night in the Big Apple, we headed over to Arrojo Studio once again for a little extreme makeover, New York edition. 🙂

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I was SUPER excited to visit Nick’s studio this year as I was dying to talk to Shear Genius star and Arrojo Studio stylist Nicole Obert. Nicole had assisted Nick during my mom’s haircut last year and we both absolutely loved her. So when she competed on Shear Genius this past season my mom and I watched religiously and were absolutely floored when she came in second runner up! Even though I seriously doubted Nicole would remember me at all from last year’s appointment, when we arrived at the studio I asked the receptionist if he would have her come out so that I could say hi. Imagine my surprise when Nicole said she knew who I was AND that she had read the blog I wrote about her while she was competing on Shear Genius !!!!! How cool is that?????

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Nicole ended up assisting Nick during my mom’s haircut this year, too. (Nicole is currently an Arrojo Studio Stylist -cutting hair three days a week and assisting once a week.) We all had a blast chatting with her during my mom’s haircut . . . AND while chatting she happened to mention that she needed a hair model for her class the following morning and asked me if I wanted to do it!

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IF I wanted to do it???? Get my hair cut by Nicole from Shear Genius??? LOL Of course I did!!!! At first I felt kind of bad as I couldn’t let Nicole change my hair very drastically – I have to stick pretty close to how I appear in my acting headshots. So, unfortunately, she wasn’t given a lot of freedom to experiement with my hair. But I was SUPER EXCITED to get my hair cut by her, anyway! So, bright and early the next morning, I showed up at Arrojo Studio for a little Shear Genius! And I was literally pinching myself the whole time! 🙂

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Nicole was SO MUCH FUN to talk to and hang out with during my haircut. She is absolutely hilarious in person and had me cracking up the whole time. We discussed everything from styling hair to what it was like to be on reality TV to celebrity gossip. I was floored to find out that Jo De La Rosa (of The Real Housewives of Orange County and Date My Ex: Jo & Slade fame) comes to Nicole for a haircut whenever she is in New York. 🙂 So cool!

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My hair turned out INCREDIBLE!!!! Even though Nicole couldn’t really change my hair very much, I feel like she gave me a completely new look! She gave me a razor cut ala Katie Holmes’ bob (the one Katie had before she got all chop happy and hacked off all of her hair). I must say that I absolutely love my new ‘do and sometimes I can’t even believe it’s me when I look in the mirror. 🙂 I literally don’t recognize myself – but in a good way. 🙂 I look so very sophisticated, so very modern, so very “New York”! Nicole took me from “soccer mom” to “city gal” with several small swipes of her razor. I cannot wait to go back next year!!! Now if only I could style it as well as she did!!! 🙂 OH and I forgot to mention the cost of my haircut. Because Nicole was cutting my hair for an Arrojo Studio class, it only cost me $20!!! Yes, you read that right – $20!

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Before . . .

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. . . and after.

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Oh, and, of course, my mom’s hair turned out great, too! 🙂

I HIGHLY recommend stalking Nick and Nicole at Arrojo Studio. While Nick’s haircuts are pricey ($500), they are worth every penny. Last year my mom got stopped constantly by random strangers complimenting her on her hair. 🙂 A haircut with Nicole is considerably less – only $68. BUT on weekday mornings, if you volunteer to be a hair model, you can get a “shear genius” haircut for only $20!!!!! That’s less than Supercuts!!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Arrojo Studio is located at 180 Varick Street in New York City. You can make an appointment with either Nick or Nicole by calling (212)242-7786 or by visiting the Arrojo Studio website. You can also check out Nicole’s website here. To inquire about being a hair model, and getting a cut for only $20 by one of Arrojo’s many talented stylists, you can call the studio directly.

No Trespassing and the City!

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Every December, while in New York, I make a pilgrimage to Carrie’s brownstone from fave television show Sex and the City. Even though I have visited this location quite a few times over the years, I never, ever get tired of it. To me, it is the quintessential New York location. I was especially excited to stalk Carrie’s brownstone this year because I had read that the real life owners, tired of stalkers taking pictures on their famous stoop, had installed a large metal chain blocking access to their home. I was dying to see if it was true. And sure enough, it was!

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My boyfriend and I were cracking up as we walked up to the house and saw the thick metal chain stretched across the entrance complete with a plastic “No Trespassing” sign. I think it is absolutely hilarious that the owners did this because, for one, the chain and sign are a complete eyesore on what is otherwise an ADORABLE townhouse. I mean, the whole thing is just so un-Carrie! The least they could have done would be to put up a cute little wrought iron gate to match the stair railing. Come on, owners! Carrie can’t live in a house with a sign like that – she’s a fashion icon for pete’s sake! And secondly, I think the big ol’ sign only draws attention to the house rather than distracting from it. LOL I just don’t understand people! I mean, if it were my townhouse I’d be standing out there all day, everyday shouting “Yes, this is Carrie’s apartment building and I live here! I am the real-life Carrie Bradshaw! Would you want to take a picture with me? And I’d be happy to sign an autograph for you, too!” It could be like a full time job! 🙂 LOL I really hope that the owners aren’t so completely bent out of shape that they are not going to allow filming to take place there for the much-rumored SATC sequel.

On an ironic side note, for the months leading up to my New York trip I had been jokingly suggesting to my boyfriend that he should propose to me on the top of Carrie’s stoop. It’s a good thing he didn’t take my advice to heart, as his plans would have been seriously thwarted if he had. LOL

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Hopefully all of you SATC stalkers out there were able to snap a pic on Carrie’s stoop before the ugly “No Trespassing” chain went up. I am very thankful that I was able to! 🙂 But I couldn’t help but wonder . . .

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. . . do you think this could be why such a sign went up? 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It (but don’t trespass!): Carrie’s brownstone is located at 66 Perry Street in the West Village in New York.

"Welcome Home, Baby"

Got home from New York on Tuesday afternoon and was already so homesick for my favorite city in the world that I had to immediately sit down and watch the Sex and the City movie in its two and a half hour entirety to make myself feel better. So today I thought I’d blog about one of the SATC locations I visited while in the Big Apple.

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While in New York I just had to make a pilgrimage to the Fifth Avenue building where Carrie and Big purchase their dream apartment in the SATC movie. The building shows up at the very beginning of the movie, in the scene when Carrie and Big go apartment hunting and discover “real estate heaven” in the building’s stunning penthouse apartment. While Carrie walks around the space, musing about what it would be like to live in such an incredible apartment, Big says “Welcome home, baby.” Oh how I wish I was being welcomed home at New York apartment, too! 🙂

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The apartment building looks exactly the same as it did in the movie and while I was standing there I could almost picture Carrie running across the street to meet Big under the front awning. 🙂 I found the location of this building in the Sex and the City: The Movie book, which features an entire chapter devoted to locations featured in the movie. LOVE IT! 🙂 According to the book only the exterior of the Fifth Avenue building was used in the filming of Sex and the City. The interiors were shot at a Spanish Style four story walk-up located on 62nd street. You can actually tell in the above screenshots that the front doors of the interior shots do not match up with the real apartment’s front doors. (The Fifth avenue building has a single exterior door, while the building used for the interior shots has a double door. The iron work on both sets of doors does not match up, either. LOL!) Looks like I am going to have to stalk the building used for the interiors the next time I am in New York. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

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Stalk It: Carrie and Big’s dream apartment is located at 1010 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street.

"He Tied Me to a Chair and Stole My Car!"

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On Thanksgiving my mom and I did a little stalking in South Pasadena – we aren’t much for football games or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. 🙂 Anyway, one of the places we stalked was John Voight’s home from the movies National Treasure and National Treasure : Book of Secrets. Mike, from MovieShotsLA , had found the house long ago, but I had yet to go out and stalk it.

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In the first National Treasure, Nicolas Cage, along with his cohorts Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha (LOVE him!!), show up at this house, which is supposedly located in Philadelphia, carrying a stolen copy of the Declaration of Independence. After using lemon juice and heat to uncover a code located on the back of the historical document, the trio tie John Voight to a chair and steal his car. LOL The house also shows up a few times in the second National Treasure movie.

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When I first saw National Treasure, I remember thinking that John Voight’s house looked like a Pasadena house, despite the writing that appears onscreen which says otherwise (pictured above). LOL Sure enough, I was right. The white clapboard residence does have an East Coast feel to it, though, which is probably why the producers chose it. Pasadena is chock full of Colonial style homes like this one, and many of them have made appearances in movies, such as the Father of the Bride house, the Mr. and Mrs. Smith house, and the Catch Me If You Can house.

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Seeing so many similar Pasadena houses appearing in movies really makes me wonder what makes producers choose one over another. While the National Treasure house is very cute in person, for some reason the two octagon shaped windows located above the front door kind of creep me out. I guess someone on the location team liked them, though. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The National Treasure house is located at 1030 Buena Vista Avenue in South Pasadena, just down the street from Lady Heather’s house.

Fill ‘Er Up!

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In the film-friendly city of Altadena, where pretty much every other house has been featured in a movie or television show, it seems that even the gas stations are famous! 🙂 Last week, while doing some Altadena stalking with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, he drove me by Ronnie’s Automotive, a gas and service station that has been used in countless movies and television shows. Mike had stalked the location a while back after recognizing it while watching Transformers where it was used as Bernie Mac’s car lot (pictured above and below).

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While we were there snapping photographs, the owner of the garage happened to step outside. He really could not have been nicer and ended up chatting with us for a good 15 minutes. He told us all sorts of stories about different productions that had filmed there over the years. He said that Clint Eastwood, who directed Million Dollar Baby which was also filmed at the station, was by far the nicest and most professional director he had ever seen. Apparently Clint is so prepared and focused that he is able to complete each shot in just a few takes and his days are usually wrapped very quickly. He also told us that Clint is extremely nice and does not tolertate any sort of yelling on his sets.

All in all Ronnie’s Automotive has been featured in over 200 productions – so many, in fact, that the owner George could not remember most of them! Besides Transformers and Million Dollar Baby and countless commercials, it was also used in the Vince Vaughn flick Dodgeball and in Pamela Anderson’s July 1992 Playboy pictorial. I was also convinced that Ronnie’s was used as Dan Akroyd’s garage in the Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads. Back when I was an extra in Crossroads, one of the crew members told me that the garage used in the movie was located in Altadena, so I just assumed that it was Ronnie’s. However, when I recently re-watched the movie, I could see that the two stations didn’t match up. So it looks like Mike and I have a new location to find! 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Ronnie’s Automotive Service is located at 2012 Lake Avenue in Altadena. You can visit their website here.

The Dakota

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Today is the 28th anniversay of John Lennon’s death, so I thought I would devote today’s blog to him. I have never really been much into music (my idea of a music icon is Britney Spears, if that tells you anything!) so I was never a fan of John Lennon or the Beatles. My mom, however, loved The Beatles (especially Ringo Starr) and during her teenage years even climbed up the side of a Japanese hotel where the Beatles were staying to try to catch a glimpse of him. She also snuck backstage during a Beach Boys concert, ran up to Dennis Wilson, kissed him on the lips, then ran back out, but that’s a whole other story. Now at least you know where I get it from. 🙂 Anyway, since my family always takes a New York vacation during the first week of December, I often find myself in Manhattan on the anniversary of John’s murder. Last December 8th my boyfriend and I decided to stop by both John’s former apartment building and his memorial to see if anything was going on. And boy was there!

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Johns’ memorial, which is called Strawberry Fields, is a 2.5 acre tear-dropped shaped section of Central Park that was commissioned by Yoko Ono and designed by landscape architect Bruce Kelly. The memorial, which is considered an international peace garden, was opened to the public on October 9, 1985 (John’s birthday). The garden consists of 161 different varieties of flowers and plants, one representing each country of the world. Each year, on the anniversary of his death, countless fans make a pilgrimage to the memorial to honor his memory. Last year there were so many people there I couldn’t even get a picture of the famous “Imagine” plaque which was donated to the memorial by the Italian city of Naples. It’s amazing to me that 28 years after his death John can still draw such a huge crowd. On the anniversary of his death, most mourners pretty much camp out at the memorial for the entire day, singing Beatles songs, sharing John Lennon stories, and grieving the death of the legendary musician. It is really a site to behold. Last year, amid news crews conducting interviews, musicians singing tributes, and tourists taking photographs, I just had to snap a photo of the “Designated Quiet Zone” sign which sits at the entrance to the memorial. LOL

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After visiting Strawberry Fields, I dragged my boyfriend across the street to John Lennon’s former residence, the Dakota apartment building. It was at the entrance to this building that John was killed 28 years ago today. On December 8, 1980, after finishing a session at a recording studio, John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were driven by limo to their Upper West Side apartment just a few minutes before 11pm. As they made their way to the entrance of the building, deranged fan Mark David Chapman shot Lennon four times in the back. John collapsed in the entryway of the Dakota and was pronounced dead a short time later while on an operating table at Roosevelt Hospital.

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The beautiful and unique Dakota apartment building has long been a celebrity haven. John and Yoko weren’t the only stars to call it home. Lauren Bacall, Judy Holliday, Jack Palance, John Madden, Judy Garland, Rosemary Clooney, Gilda Radner, Paul Simon, Connie Chung and Boris Karloff have all lived at the building at one time or another. The Dakota is also a popular filming location! It was featured in Vanilla Sky (as Tom Cruise’s apartment), Rosemary’s Baby (as Mia Farrow’s pad), and House of Strangers.

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Construction was completed on the famous Dakota Apartment building in the year 1884. It was built by architect Harry J. Hardenbergh, who also designed the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Carnegie Hall and, my favorite building in all of New York, the famed Plaza Hotel. The Dakota is very similar in looks to the Plaza, actually, with the same peaked slate and copper roofs, corner turrets, and French chateau accents. The Dakota is absolutely stunning in person and I highly recommend stalking it – even if you aren’t a Lennon fan!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Dakota is located at 1 West 72nd Street on the Upper West Side of New York. Strawberry Fields memorial is located just across the street from the Dakota in Central Park. The entrance to the 2.5 acre memorial begins at Central Park West and 72nd Street.

Donna Martin, Rose Princess

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When I first moved to Los Angeles about eight years ago, one of the very first items on my stalking agenda was to visit the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Headquarters. I wanted to sign up for their annual Rose Court Pageant just like Donna Martin did in the Season 6 episode of 90210 entitled “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”. 🙂 I was absolutely flabbergasted when after asking for an application the receptionist explained to me that in order to apply for the Rose Court I had to currently be in high school or in my first year of college (at the time I had just graduated from college). I calmly told him that that simply wasn’t true as Donna was in her third year of college when she entered the pageant on 90210, to which he replied “Yes, but that was a TV show!” LOL I cannot believe 90210 decieved me like that!! Anyway, even though my attempts at becoming Rose Queen were thwarted even before they began, I still loved being at the Tournament House and seeing where 90210 had filmed. 🙂

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The Tournament House was originally built for the Wrigley Family – yes, Wrigley as in the spearmint gum. Construction on the home took over eight years and was finally completed in 1914. At the time Orange Grove Boulevard was known as “Millionaires’ Row” due to the countless opulent mansions lining both sides of the street. Sadly, most of those mansions are now long gone, torn down many years ago to make room for apartment complexes and smaller homes. But the Tournament House remains. When Mrs. Wrigley passed away in 1958, she deeded the home to the City of Pasadena with the specific instruction that it was to be used as the Tournament of Roses Headquarters, which it has remained ever since.

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The Tournament House, which sits on over 4 1/2 acres of beautifully manicured rose gardens, is absolutely beautiful in person. The interior of the mansion is supposedly incredibly beautiful, as well, although I have never seen it. Free tours of the House are offered every Thursday between 2pm and 4pm during the months of February through August and I think I am definitely going to have to partake in one soon. 🙂

The Rose Queen tradition began in 1905 and continues to this day. It is so named because the Rose Queen reigns over Pasadena’s Annual Tournament of Roses Parade each New Years, riding on a special float. Each year over 1,000 girls compete for the Rose Queen title, in a process that takes a month to complete. Out of those thousand, one girl will become the Rose Queen and six others will become Rose Princesses in her Royal Court. An interesting side note – actress Sophia Bush (of One Tree Hill fame) won the Rose Queen title in the year 2000. 🙂 You can see a photograph of Sophia with her Court here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Tournament of Roses House is located at 391 South Orange Grove Blvd. in Pasadena.

90210’s Baby Mama’s House

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While stalking the 90210 house last week, the owner, Jack, told Mike [of MovieShotsLA – as if you didn’t already know by now :)] and me about a few Beverly Hills, 90210 filming locations that we had yet to locate. One location was the home of Brandon’s love interest from the Season 1 episode entitled “One Man and a Baby”. In the episode Brandon dates an Ivy League hopeful named Melissa whom he later finds out is also a single, teenage mother. The house used as Melissa’s in the episode just happens to be located directly across the street from the Walsh home in Altadena. While re-watching the episode last night, I was cracking up at the scene when Brandon drives up to Melissa’s house to pick her up for their date, because in reality her home is located a hop, skip and a jump away from his home on the show. LOL

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According to Jack, Melissa’s house looks very different today than it did when 90210 was filmed there back in 1990. Today there is a large stucco wall surrounding the front of the home, which hides most of the property. Sadly, the front door is the area of the home that was featured most prominently on 90210 and it is no longer visible from the street. 🙁

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Jack also told us that the same home’s pool area was also used in a few different 90210 episodes and I found one of those episodes yesterday. In the Season 1 episode entitled “Every Dream Has Its Price”, the pool belonged to Brenda’s shoplifting friend Tiffany. A short scene takes place there where Brenda confronts her sticky-fingered friend and gives her a lesson in good old Midwestern values.

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The very same pool, diving board, and bikini clad actress from that scene were also featured each week in 90210’s opening credits. 🙂

The house was also featured in the 2008 film Finding Amanda where it was used as Matthew Broderick’s home and in the Eva Longoria flick Over Her Dead Body where the backyard was used for a wedding scene. The home is currently for sale and for a mere $2,850,000 you can own a piece of 90210 history! You can visit the home’s real estate website, which has interior pics of the house, here. Ironically, the stairwell in the home looks very similar to the stairwell from the set of the Walsh house. The real estate website also features some clips of movies featuring the home. LOVE IT!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Melissa’s house is located at 1690 Altadena Drive, right across the street from the Walsh house.

I Heart New York!

Tonight I am taking the red eye to New York City, leaving behind the land of tank tops and cutoff shorts for the land of down parkas and thermal underwear. My family and I are taking our annual winter vacation to my favorite city in the world – the Big Apple! So today, before my flight, I thought I’d blog about a location I stalked on my last trip to NYC.

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I have long been a fan of a series of mystery novels that take place in and around the island of Manhattan. The series is written by former New York District Attorney Linda Fairstein, who worked in the Manhattan D.A.’s office for over thirty years before retiring in 2002. Linda first served as assistant district attorney for four years before being promoted to the head of the Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit where she spent twenty-six years prosecuting perpetrators of sexual assault and trying numerous high profile cases. In 1996 Linda began writing mystery novels based on her experiences in the D.A.’s office. Her first novel was entitled Final Jeopardy and it centers around heroine Alexandra Cooper, who, like Linda herself, is head of the Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit. Mark Twain did say to “Write what you know.” 🙂 Since her writing debut, Linda has gone on to publish nine other mysteries in the series, each one better than the last. I absolutely love Linda’s novels, not only because they are great reads, but also because Alexandra visits real life New York locations in the course of her travels. Not wanting to restrict my stalking solely to movie locations, on my last trip to NYC, I set out to stalk some of the sites featured in Linda’s books.

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The first location I set out to stalk was PJ Bernstein’s Delicatessen and Restaurant, a favorite stomping ground of Alex Cooper’s. In the series, Alex lives just upstairs from the deli and visits it in each and every novel. Apparently they make fabulous matzo ball soup. So, last December, I just had to drag my boyfriend there. I was absolutely floored to see that the Upper East Side deli was exactly as Linda had described it in her books. The owner was extremely nice, although somewhat baffled at the fact that I was taking photographs out front. When I explained to him why I was doing so, a lightbulb went off in his head and he started laughing. He couldn’t believe I was actually stalking a location from a fictional book. LOL He told me that he knew Linda very well and that she visits his deli almost daily, but sadly we did not see her during our visit.

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The next location I dragged my boyfriend to was Alex Cooper’s swanky Upper East Side apartment building. I was happy to see that the building was also exactly as described in the books – long curving driveway with a drop-off area, two doormen out front, and a little gated garden. I didn’t get very good pics of the building, though, as the doormen looked a bit unhappy at the fact that I was posing for pictures out front. LOL

I must say that it was very cool stalking these locations from Linda’s mysteries; almost as much fun as stalking movie locations. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend checking out the Alex Cooper mystery series, you won’t be disappointed!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: PJ Bernstein is located at 1215 3rd Avenue in Manhattan. Alexandra Cooper’s apartment building is located just around the corner at 211 East 70th Street.

The Family House

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My good friend and fellow stalker Kerry is a huge fan of the 1976 television show Family and I just found out that while she has stalked the home used in the series several times, she doesn’t have any photographs of it. So I just had to go out and stalk the house for her this past weekend. Kerry, this one’s for you! 🙂

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Sadly, I have never seen an episode of Family, so when I set out to stalk the house this weekend, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was floored to see that in person the house is absolutely adorable and very picturesque. It’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use this home for a television series about a typical American family, as it looks like a house everyone would want to live in. In fact, the entire street is so cute that it looks like it belongs on a postcard or in a movie. The street is pretty much the real life equivalent of Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives. Many homes on the Family street have actually been used in various televison and movie productions, but I’ll blog about those later. 🙂

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When I got home from stalking the Family house, I found the opening credits of the show on YouTube and was extremely excited to see that the house looks pretty much the same today as it did back in 1976. You can watch the opening credits of the show, in which the house is featured prominently, here.

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In an ironic side note, one of my fave stalking books states that the home used in Family is the very same home used as the Walsh’s house in Beverly Hills, 90210. I really had to laugh when I saw that, as aside from the arched front doorways, the two homes could really not look more different. LOL

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Family house is located at 1230 Milan Avenue in South Pasadena.