Pete’s Tavern

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Yet another Sex and the City location that I stalked while in New York last month was a spot that touts itself as New York’s oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant.  And while there are actually quite a few watering holes claiming to be New York’s most long-established, Pete’s distinguishes itself thanks to the fact that it first opened up in 1864 – when Abraham Lincoln was in office! – and has never closed since.  Like not ever!  Not in the 30’s during Prohibition – when it was disguised as a flower shop – nor more recently during the city-wide blackout of 2003.  No, the small tavern on the corner of East 18th Street and Irving Place has been in existence as a drinking establishment of some sort or another for over 145 years!  And because it’s also a frequent filming location, I just had to stalk the place! 

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Beginning in 1852, the space which Pete’s now occupies contained a small grocery store, so while it’s entirely possible that liquor was sold on the premises as far back as that year, the place didn’t officially become a tavern until 1864.  The original bar was named the Portman Hotel and it enjoyed a 35 year run, until 1899 when brothers Tom and John Healy purchased the establishment and re-named it Healy’s Cafe.  In 1932, a man named Pete Belles came on the scene and changed the bar’s name to Pete’s Tavern, as it has remained to this day.  And, thankfully, despite a high rate of ownership turnover, aside from the name, little else at the establishment has been altered since 1864.  Even the decor and the original rosewood bar have been left largely untouched since the drinkery’s opening almost a century and a half ago!   And I’d say chances are pretty good that a hundred and fifty years from now, Pete’s will still look very much the same as it does today.  Love it!

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Pete’s Tavern has long been something of a celebrity hotspot.  In fact, the watering hole’s walls are absolutely covered in photographs of its many rich and famous clients. I so love it, by the way, when restaurants display pictures of their celebrity patrons on the walls!  🙂   Just a few of the celebs who have dined at the tavern include Ben Stiller, Mike Meyers, Bruce Willis, Natalie Portman, James Gandolfini, Zack Braff, Ed Burns, Harvey Keitel, Jeremy Sisto, Julia Stiles, Johnny Depp, and Tom Cruise (pictured above).  The Kennedy family has also long had ties to the tavern. Joe Kennedy was the one who provided the place liquor during Prohibition, JFK dined there with Jackie on more than one occasion during his presidency, and their son, JFK, Jr., also became a regular patron years later. 

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Pete’s has also appeared in countless film and television productions over the years.  Robert Mitchum grabbed a drink there in the 1962 movie Two for the Seesaw and it was also at Pete’s that Kramer set up a sting operation involving Jerry’s nasally accountant in the Season 5 episode of Seinfeld entitled “The Sniffing Accountant” (pictured above).  

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And while the real Pete’s was used for the establishing shots shown in that episode, the bar’s interior (pictured above) was actually a set that was built on the CBS Radford lot in Los Angeles where Seinfeld was filmed.  You can watch Seinfeld’s Pete’s Tavern scene here.  Pete’s also popped up in the movies Ragtime, Endless Love, Across the Sea of Time, The Guru, and in an episode of Law and Order

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Pete’s Tavern is probably most famous for its significance in literary history, though. Not only did legendary author O. Henry set his short story “The Lost Blend” at the bar, which he called “Kenealy’s” in the tale, but in 1904 he wrote the “The Gift of the Magi” while sitting in one of the eatery’s booths.  That very booth is still in existence to this day and even boasts a plaque commemorating the occasion.  Children’s author Ludwig Bemelmans also penned the first Madeline book at Pete’s – on the back of one of their menus, no less!  🙂

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Aside from the celebrity patrons and historical significance of the place, I actually wanted to stalk Pete’s Tavern for one reason and one reason alone – because it was there, on the restaurant’s front patio and over $3 beers, that Miranda Hobbs proposed to longtime boyfriend Steve Brady in one of my very favorite Sex and the City  episodes of all time – the one entitled “The Ick Factor”.  I honestly cannot say enough about that particular episode!  It’s just simply one of the series’ best!  In fact, I just got sucked into watching the entire thing AGAIN while making screen captures for this post.  LOL  Sadly, though, because Pete’s front patio was absolutely jam packed while we were stalking the place, we weren’t able to sit in the exact spot where Sex and the City  was filmed.  But even though I had to settle for indoor seating, I still could NOT have been more excited to finally be dining at Pete’s! 

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I honestly cannot recommend stalking Pete’s Tavern enough!  The food was excellent, the staff was super-friendly and also quite knowledgeable about the bar’s filming history, and the ambience was one hundred percent old New York!  I absolutely loved the place!  My only beef with the establishment is the fact that their chicken fingers meal is only made available to those patrons sitting at the bar, which I, unfortunately, wasn’t.  🙁  Being that chicken strips are my favorite food, I was pretty bummed out that I couldn’t order them from where I was seated.  So much so, in fact, that I almost made our entire group of seven move over to the bar.  LOL  Memo to Pete’s staff –chicken fingers are not just a bar food.  I mean heck, I’m even serving them at my wedding, for Pete’s sake (and yes that pun was intended LOL)!   So, do us all a favor and please, please, please put the chicken fingers on your regular menu for all of us lowbrow foodies to enjoy.  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Pete’s Tavern is located at 129 East 18th Street, near Gramercy Park, in Manhattan.  You can visit their website here.

Richard Wright’s Rooftop Pool from “Sex and the City”

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Another Sex and the City  locale that I stalked while in New York last month was the Greenwich Village building where Samantha’s Season 4 boyfriend, hotel magnate Richard Wright, lived on the series.  I found this location thanks to fave book Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, and since fellow stalker Owen, my fiancé, and I were already doing some stalking in the area, I just had to run by to see it.  Ironically enough, though, the exterior of Richard’s building was never actually shown on Sex and the City.  So, why would I want to stalk the place, you ask?  Because a scene from the Season 4 episode entitled “The Good Fight”, in which Samantha and Richard enjoy a little midnight swim, took place at a spectacular pool located on the building’s roof.  And while even I will admit to the fact that it is a little silly to want to stalk a filming location of which the only area that appeared onscreen is not visible to the public, because said location was featured on fave show Sex and the City, I just couldn’t resist!  🙂  And, besides, isn’t that what aerial images are for?  🙂

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Richard Wright’s building, which in real life is known as “The Dandy”, was originally constructed in the early 1900’s and at the time consisted of just ten floors.  In 1997, Israeli venture capitalist Jonathan Leitersdorf purchased the entire structure and completely renovated it, converting the interior into nine different full-floor condominiums.  He kept the top level for himself and transformed it into a spectacular penthouse, which was originally composed of just one level.  In later years, Leitersdorf added two additional stories to the space creating a massive five bedroom, five bathroom, 11,000 square foot penthouse consisting of 13 to 17 foot ceilings, two separate kitchens, more than 50 windows!, a panic room, a “forest”, and of course, a remarkable rooftop pool boasting stunning 360 degree views of Manhattan.  For a time, the penthouse also doubled as an events venue named Sky Studios which hosted such fêtes as the wedding of Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld, a birthday party for Chelsea Clinton, and numerous photo shoots for Ralph Lauren’s clothing line.  In 2002, Leitersdorf decided it was time to move on and put his apartment on the market for $27.5 million, where it sat for the next five years.  In September of 2007, the property was finally sold for a cool $17.5 million to supermarket mogul Ron Burkle.   Don’t go thinking Ron got the place for a bargain, though, as his monthly maintenance fees are $7,836.  LOL LOL LOL  In an ironic twist of fate, my dad actually knows Ron Burkle, so I almost fell out of my chair today when I found out that he owned the penthouse!  I so have to get my dad to set up a tour of the pool for me during next year’s New York vacation!  🙂

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In “The Good Fight”, it is at the penthouse’s amazing rooftop pool, with Sade playing in the background, that Samantha finally lets go of her fears and insecurities and allows herself to fall in love with Richard, only to have him break her heart just five episodes later.  That’s Sex and the City for you, though!  

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And, as you can see in the penthouse’s MLS listing photographs which are pictured above, the pool truly is quite remarkable in real life.  Can you even imagine owning something like that???

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And, while the interior of Richard’s penthouse existed only on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios where Sex and the City  was filmed, as you can see in the above screen captures and photograph from the MLS listing, the design was based on that of the real life penthouse.  So cool!  🙂

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On a very sad side note, at the time that “The Good Fight” episode was shot, the Twin Towers were still standing and were visible in the background behind Samantha and Richard in the scene pictured above.  But by the time the episode was set to air, the towers had already been destroyed and the producers had to digitally remove them from the scene.  🙁  According to executive producer Michael Patrick King, that was the only time in Sex and the City’s six year history that something had to be digitally removed from the background of a scene.  

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And in an ironic side note, the kitchen of Richard’s penthouse was also used – long before Richard came on the scene – in the Season 2 episode of Sex and the City  entitled “Evolution”.  In that episode, the kitchen belonged to Charlotte’s gay/straight pastry chef boyfriend Stephen.  Executive producer Michael Patrick King first saw the penthouse’s rooftop pool while filming “Evolution” and thought it was so spectacular that he made a mental note to write it into a future episode, which he did about a season and a half later.  🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Richard Wright’s Building and rooftop pool, aka The Dandy, is located at 704 Broadway in New York’s Greenwich Village.  You can read more about Ron Burkle’s purchase of the property here.

Commerce Restaurant

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One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in New York this past month was a little restaurant named Commerce which appeared in the very last episode of fave show Sex and the City.  Well, truth be told, at the time SATC was filmed, the restaurant was known as Grange Hall, but that space closed its doors back in 2004, shortly after filming took place.   A few years later, a nouveau American cuisine restaurant named Commerce opened in the same spot and it is that eatery that I set out to stalk last month.  I found this location thanks to favorite stalking book New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, which featured a brief blurb about the fact that Grange Hall was used in SATC’s  series finale.  Unfortunately, though, it failed to point out what specific scene took place there.  So, being the anal stalker that I am, before leaving on my New York vacation, I made it my mission to figure out which part of the episode, which was entitled “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux”, was filmed at the restaurant.   And, let me tell you, I really had my work cut out for me on this one!  Because several different eateries were actually featured in the finale, I found it virtually impossible to discern which one was Grange Hall.  After watching the entire sixty minute finale all the way through, I came up completely empty-handed.  But then an idea struck me!  I thought that listening to executive producer Michael Patrick King’s DVD commentary about the finale might provide some insight.  And, sure enough, it did! 

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As it turns out, Grange Hall was not actually portrayed as a New York restaurant in Sex and the City ,which explains why I had such a hard time locating it in the episode.  In “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux”, Grange Hall stood in for the Paris eatery where Carrie’s French fans threw her a party towards the end of the episode.  It is after Carrie shows up late to this party, only to find that her new friends have already left, that she realizes that Paris isn’t turning out quite how she had expected.  

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I was shocked to discover that both the interior and the exterior of Grange Hall were used in the filming of “An American Girl in Paris”.  I had incorrectly assumed that the exterior shown in the episode was actually that of a real French restaurant.  In reality, though, producers dressed up the entire street in front of Grange Hall to make it look Parisian, even going so far as to add French street signs and French street lamps (as you can see in the above screen captures).  Why they didn’t just film this particular scene at an actual restaurant in Paris is beyond me, especially being that the majority of the finale was actually shot on location there.  But that’s Hollywood for you!  🙂  

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I am VERY happy to report that even though the Grange Hall space has gone through a succession of ownership changes since the SATC series finale was filmed, both the interior and the exterior of the restaurant still look EXACTLY the same as they did onscreen.  🙂   The decor, the booths and tables, and even the wood and glass partition that separates the entryway from the rest of the restaurant are all still very recognizable from the episode.  YAY!  I can’t tell you how happy I am that Commerce restaurant kept the Grange Hall interior intact for all of us Sex and the City fans to appreciate!  🙂

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Commerce restaurant’s name was derived from the fact that it is located on Commerce Street in Greenwich Village.  The building that houses the restaurant is actually quite famous in and of itself, aside from the fact that Sex and the City  once filmed there.  The property has been in existence since the early 1930’s, at which time it housed a speakeasy.  In the 1940’s, the Blue Mill Tavern took over the space and quickly became something of a New York landmark.  Blue Mill enjoyed a successful run for over half a century, serving such famed customers as Eugene O’Neill and Ethel and Julius Roseberg. In 1992, Blue Mill Tavern closed its doors and Grange Hall opened in its place.  Grange Hall quickly became a celebrity hotspot, with regular patrons such as Brad Pitt, Jennifer Esposito, Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler (who hosted her 16th birthday party at the restaurant), and Bill Clinton.  Grange Hall also appeared quite a few times on the silver screen.  According to New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, besides the SATC  finale, the restaurant was also featured in the movies The Brothers McMullen and Anything Else and a commercial for a French cell phone company starring Martin Scorsese.  In 2004, due to an increase in rent, Grange Hall was forced to close its doors and, after a few unsuccessful turnovers, Commerce restaurant was opened.  Commerce is an absolutely adorable little place and I so, so, so wanted to grab a bite there during this year’s New York vacation, but unfortunately ran out of time.  🙁  It is DEFINITELY on my list of places to dine during next year’s trip, though.  🙂 

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Commerce restaurant is located at 50 Commerce Street in New York’s Greenwich Village.  You can visit their website here.  You can read a great article about the former Grange Hall here.

The “30 Rock” Building

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One of the locales at the very top of this year’s New York vacation’s must-stalk list was the main building featured on my new favorite television show 30 Rock.  For some reason, until we rented the series earlier this past summer, neither my fiancé nor I had ever seen even a single episode of the NBC comedy.   For years we had both heard how great the show was, but, for some odd reason, had never tuned in.  So, when we finally sat down to watch Seasons 1, 2, and 3 in early June, I must say I had some pretty high hopes.  And, to be honest, I really didn’t get what all the hoopla was about . . . until we watched the fifth episode of the series which was entitled “Jack-Tor”.!  In the episode, GE Microwave Division executive Jack Donaghy (aka Alec Baldwin) tries to film an informational video about product placement for his staff to watch and, I swear, I don’t think I stopped laughing once during the show’s entire 22 minute duration!  It was ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.   From that moment on not only did I completely love the show, but also one of its main actors – Alec Baldwin – which is something I NEVER before would have thought possible.  Who knew Alec Baldwin was so funny??  Anyway, for those of you out there who have yet to see an episode of the series, I offer this piece of advice – you simply must tune in!!!!  🙂  Every episode is laugh-out-loud HILARIOUS – and, let me tell you, there is nothing I like to do more than laugh out loud!  🙂  So, while in New York last month, I, of course, just HAD to stalk the GE Building where Jack Donaghy, Liz Lemon, and the rest of the 30 Rock  gang work on the series.

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Because the GE Building (pictured above) is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza it has been dubbed “30 Rock”, which is, of course, how the show got its name.  And while the GE Building is, of course, famous in and of itself and has appeared in countless movie and television productions over the years, for today’s post I thought I would focus solely on its role in 30 Rock.  The series, which was conceived and created by comedienne Tina Fey, centers around a group of writers and actors and their weekly struggles in putting together the fictional television show TGS with Tracy JordanTGS is based on the real life sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, on which Tina Fey worked as an actor and head writer for over seven years.  Because SNL  is filmed each week on a soundstage inside of the GE Building, Tina decided to set her fictional series in the exact same location.  In reality, though, while the GE Building is used for all exterior set-up shots on the show, 30 Rock is actually filmed inside of a soundstage on the Silvercup Studios lot in Queens. 

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Several different areas of the GE Building are featured prominently in the opening credits of 30 Rock (which you can watch here) each week and it was those areas that I set out to stalk while in New York last month.  Ironically enough, though, because Rockefeller Center is so darn huge, I actually had a hard time finding the particular locations I wanted to stalk and had to ask a nearby policeman for help!  LOL  Thankfully, though, he was also a big fan of the show and was able to point me in the right direction.   The first locale I wanted to stalk was the ornate gold-plated 30 Rockefeller Plaza sign that is shown towards the beginning of the opening credits.  I wasn’t even sure where to begin looking for that particular placard, though, and had incorrectly assumed it would be located somewhere on one of the building’s exterior walls.  In actuality, the sign is located on the ground just outside of the GE Building’s main entrance – and it’s absolutely HUGE in person!!!  I had no idea it would that big!  LOL  It was so large, in fact, that we couldn’t take a very good picture of it as we couldn’t get the whole thing to fit in our camera lens.  LOL 

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The next spot I wanted to stalk was the gold lettered “30 Rockefeller Plaza” sign with the grey marble background that quickly runs from right to left across the screen at the very end of the 30 Rock opening credits.  It turns out that the sign is located just to the left of the GE Building’s main entrance and is extremely hard to see in person.  The policemen actually pointed out the sign to me no less than four times before I could actually see it!   LOL He actually had to walk up and physically touch it before I realized what he was talking about.   LOL  The sign is actually much smaller than I expected it to be and is very hard to see from far away, thanks to the reflection of the sun off its marble background.

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And because we didn’t get very good photographs of it the first time around, we had to actually head back there the very next day to take some additional pictures, which is why I am wearing a different outfit in the above pic.  🙂  But you can tell how hard it is to see the sign from far away in the above photograph.

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And where is the GE Building’s side entrance which is also sometimes featured on the series?  It’s actually just around the corner from the building’s main entrance and the two “30 Rockefeller Plaza” signs I talked about above.  The side entrance is actually the main entrance of New York’s NBC Studios and is featured quite frequently on 30 Rock.  Besides being shown regularly in establishing shots, the side entrance has also been used in the actual filming of certain episodes, as was the case in the Season Four opener entitled “Season Four” – LOL- in which Kenneth the Page leads his fellow pages along with a group of mall santas, horse whisperers, bucket drummers, and TGS’  two lead actors – again LOL – in a mass picket outside of NBC studios (pictured above).  The demands of that picket, you ask?  That GE exec Jack Donaghy sign a piece of paper stating “I am a big, old liar.”  LOL LOL LOL 

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I cannot tell you how cool it was to finally be able to stalk the various locations featured each week in the opening credits of 30 Rock!    I could NOT have been more excited!  🙂  And for those of you out there who have never seen the show, you really need to start tuning in!  However, I’d really recommend renting Season 1 and watching the series from the very beginning. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: As its name implies, the 30 Rock building, aka the GE building, is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York.  Both of the gold-lettered “30 Rockefeller Plaza” signs can be found at the front entrance of the building.  The first one is located on the ground directly outside of the building’s front doors and the second is located on the wall just to the right of the main entrance.  The NBC Studios entrance can be found on 50th Street between Rockefeller Plaza and 6th Avenue.  Liz Lemon’s apartment building – which I unfortunately did not stalk while in New York – is located at 160 Riverside Drive in New York’s Upper West Side.

The “Big” Paddleball Court

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Another day, another Big location.  And, sadly, this is actually the last Big location that I have to blog about.  🙁  Well, from this year’s New York trip, anyway.  Being that fellow stalker Owen recently tracked down both the MacMillan Toys headquarters and Tom Hank’s loft from the movie, it looks like I’ll have a few more Big locations to stalk during next year’s New York vacation.  🙂  But for now, the last and final Big  locale that Owen, my fiancé, and I visited during our stalking day in Manhattan last month was the court where Josh (aka Tom Hanks) played a little game of paddleball against his MacMillan Toys co-worker Paul (aka John Heard) in the movie.  In real life, that paddleball court, which Owen found thanks to fave stalking book The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, is named Vesuvio Playground and it encompasses not only a paddleball court, but basketball courts, bocce ball courts, a sandbox, a mini pool, and a shower area, as well.  When the park originally opened in 1929 it was called Thompson Playground and it consisted solely of a wading pool and a swing set and existed on a much smaller parcel of land than today’s .64 acres. In 1957, the City purchased an additional piece of land in order to expand the playground into what it is today.  The park was then renamed Vesuvio Playground in honor of the nearby Vesuvio Bakery, which is owned and operated by longtime SoHo community leader Anthony Dapolito and his family.

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  In Big, Vesuvio Playground is the site of a very brief, but very memorable, scene in which the newly-adult Josh gets challenged to a paddleball duel by his douchebag of a co-worker, Paul.  Because Paul is extremely jealous of his girlfriend Susan’s growing affection for Josh, he brings him to the paddleball court thinking he’ll teach him a lesson. 

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But Josh, who is a paddleball novice, ends up calling Paul out for cheating during the game which leads to a very juvenile – and absolutely hilarious – playground fist fight between the two.  LOL LOL LOL 

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Unfortunately, even though it was mid-day, the paddleball court was absolutely JAM PACKED with children while we were stalking it, so we weren’t able to venture inside to take photographs.  I mean, hello, shouldn’t kids be attending school during the middle of the day??? 😉  LOL  I am happy to report, though, that the same pizza place which was visible in the background of the Big paddleball scene is still in business to this day, as you can see in the above screen captures and photographs.  🙂  So cool!! 

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According to fave stalking book Manhattan on Film: Walking Tours of Hollywood’s Fabled Front Lot, Frankie (aka Nick Scotti) and Joey (aka Domenick Lombardozzi) play handball on the very same paddleball court in the 1997 movie Kiss Me Guido.   And the playground was also featured in an episode of the NBC series Third Watch.

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On a very sad side – During our stalking day, Owen, my fiancé, and I also tried to stalk Asti, the Italian eatery where Billy takes Josh for his birthday in Big.  Unfortunately, though, that restaurant closed its doors on New Year’s Eve 1999, after 75 long years in operation.  🙁  Such a bummer!  Asti, which was named after a town in Italy famous for its sparkling wine (LOVE IT!), was a New York institution ever since it first opened in 1925.  Apparently, not only did such luminaries as Babe Ruth, Luciano Pavarotti, and Noel Coward frequent the restaurant during its heyday, but there was even an autographed photograph of Tom Hanks from the filming of Big  displayed in the front window.   Also LOVE IT!  🙂  Even the building which once housed Asti is famous – former President Chester A. Arthur once lived there!  I can’t even begin to tell you how sad I am that this landmark restaurant is now gone.  🙁  Currently, in its place is another eatery – a steak restaurant named Strip House (pictured above).  You can read more about Asti and its history here.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for loaning me his Big paddleball court pics to post here, as, for some reason, I did not take that many photographs of it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Vesuvio Playground, aka the Big paddleball court, is located at 95 Thompson Street in New York’s SoHo area.  The former Asti restaurant (now Strip House) was located at 13 East 12th Street in Greenwich Village.

The Hotel St. James

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The one location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, told me I could absolutely NOT come home from New York without stalking was the seedy hotel where Josh Baskin (aka Tom Hanks) stayed after first becoming “big” in the 1988 movie of the same name.   Mike had found the location of the Hotel St. James thanks to fave website The 80s Movies Rewind shortly before I left on my Big Apple vacation.  So, since Owen, my fiancé, and I had already stalked several other Big  filming locations during our NYC stalking day, we decided to keep the theme going by also making a stop at the Hotel St. James.   The twelve story St. James, which first opened up in 1972  and is no longer the mangy place it was when Big was filmed, is considered to be one of the city’s most affordable hotels.  Located just a block away from Times Square, a room at the St. James will run you anywhere from $159 to $269 per night depending on the time of year.  Let me tell you, rates that low in Manhattan are almost unheard of!  And thankfully, in real life, the hotel looks NOTHING like it did in the movie – otherwise I might never have ventured inside!  LOL 

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The Hotel St. James first shows up in the very beginning of Big, as the seedy little place that Josh and Billy stumble upon while wandering the streets of Manhattan looking for an affordable hotel.  Thanks to the shady characters hanging around out front, Josh refuses to even walk inside the place, prompting Billy to say “St. James, Josh!  It’s religious!”  LOL LOL LOL  Josh and Billy end up booking a room at the hotel, which costs them $17.50 a night, plus a ten dollar deposit for the sheets.  LOL LOL LOL  Apparently, at the time Big was filmed during the late 80s, the St. James really was a decrepit little spot in a very shady part of town. But thanks to Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to clean up Times Square, Disney’s restoration of the New Amsterdam Theatre, and a renovation of the actual St. James itself, the hotel is really quite beautiful – and quite safe – now.  🙂

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Several areas of the St. James were featured in Big, including the exterior (On a side note, the sign in the entrance door pictured in the screen capture above reads, “Firearms Kept On Premises”.  LOL LOL LOL  Really shows what a classy joint the hotel used to be!) ;

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the lobby entrance;

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and the check-in desk, which as you can see in the above photographs and screen captures is still positioned in the exact same place as it was in Big.  The plastic partition and the toothless concierge are long since gone, though.  🙂   

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According to the EXTREMELY friendly concierge that I talked to, while the filming of Big  did take place in the lobby area of the St. James, the hallway and hotel room scenes were actually all filmed on a studio soundstage.  However, I’m not entirely convinced that information is correct.  After recently re-watching the movie, it seems to me that a real St. James’ hotel room and the real St. James hallways were used in the filming.  Thankfully, though, as you can see in these photographs, both the rooms and the hallways have undergone significant remodeling since that time!  LOL 

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It is in Josh’s St. James hotel room that the very famous Big  silly string scene took place.  🙂

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I highly recommend stalking the Hotel St. James!  Even though it has undergone some drastic changes in the years since the filming of Big took place, the hotel is still set up very similarly to how it was portrayed in the movie and is therefore still very recognizable.  🙂  The Hotel St. James also looks like a very nice, very affordable place to spend a few nights when visiting the Big Apple!  And while the newly renovated St. James is not luxurious or upscale by any means, it prides itself on having roomy, comfortable, clean accommodations.  If the lobby is any indication of what the rooms look like, they must be be pretty darn nice!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Hotel St. James is located at 109 West 45th Street in Midtown Manhattan.  You can visit their website here.

The “Big” School

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Located just around the corner from the two main houses used in the movie Big is Cliffside Park Elementary School #6 – the elementary school attended by Josh Baskin (aka Tom Hanks) and his best friend Billy (aka Jared Rushton) in the 1988 flick.  So, since we were already in the area, Owen, my fiancé, and I just had to stalk the place.  🙂  I am always a little bit leery of stalking schools while they are in session, though, as teachers and administrators tend not to like it when random adults start taking pictures of their campus while children are present.  Why are there so many bad people out there who have to ruin things for us harmless movie-stalkers???  Anyway, because most of the students of Cliffside Park Elementary were outside playing on the playground while we were stalking the place, I wasn’t able to snap the greatest of pictures, nor were we able to venture inside for a closer look.  🙁 

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Cliffside Park Elementary School #6, which despite what its name would lead you to believe, is actually comprised of both an elementary school and a middle school and houses about 630 students in grades one through eight.   The reason for the misnomer, you ask?  Originally, the school was solely an elementary school facility.  It wasn’t until about eight years ago that the middle school portion was added.  Cliffside Park #6 was featured twice in Big.   It first shows up at the very beginning of the movie, when young Josh rides his bike down the side of the school on his way to play stickball with Billy.

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Owen and I couldn’t seem to locate the actual stickball court the boys play on while we were stalking the place, though.  But, according to this former Cliffside student,  apparently there did used to be an empty lot located behind the school where children would actually play stickball.  That lot got covered over a few years back, though, when an addition was added to the school building.  So sad!  🙁  I am guessing that addition was built to house the new middle school. 

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Cliffside Park #6 also shows up towards the end of the movie, during the montage sequence in which adult Josh returns to his hometown and watches a group of children take their class picture at his alma mater.

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In that same montage, Josh also watches some boys play baseball in the school’s baseball field.  Random site note – as Owen and I discovered, the “grass” on the baseball field is not real- it’s actually Astroturf!  LOL  

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I am very happy to report that Cliffside Park Elementary School #6 looks very much the same today as it did back in 1988 when Big  was filmed.  And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how cool I think it is that the school is located so close to the two homes used in the movie, because if there actually were a real Josh and a real Billy who lived in those houses, then Cliffside Park #6 would really be the school they would attend!  🙂  LOVE IT!  And, while I highly recommend stalking Cliffside Park #6, I suggest doing so during non-school hours when no children are present.  It’s a lot easier to take photographs that way.  🙂

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for “loaning” me his photographs of the Big  baseball field and allowing me to post them here, as, for some odd reason, I didn’t take any pictures of the field while we were stalking the school. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Big  school, aka Cliffside Park Elementary School #6, is located at 440 Oakdene Avenue in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.  The Big houses are located just around the corner at 435 and 437 Greenmount Avenue.  The Heffernan house from The King of Queens is also located right around the corner at 519 Longview Avenue.  Unfortunately there is no easy way to get to these locations from Manhattan.  A taxi ride is your quickest, easiest bet, but be prepared as the trip will cost you $45 each way!  Riding the bus is a much cheaper option, but be prepared for a long travel time, as the bus ride to Cliffside Park takes upwards of an hour.

The Houses from the Movie “Big”

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Right around the corner from The King of Queens house, which I blogged about on Friday, are the two main houses used in the 1988 Tom Hanks movie Big.  And when I say “right around the corner”, I literally mean RIGHT around the corner.  The King of Queens  house and the Big  houses are located a scant 88 yards away from each other!   Too cool!  So, of course, since Owen, my fiancé, and I were already in the area stalking the Heffernan house a few weeks ago, we just had to walk around the corner to make a stalking stop at the Bighomes, too.  🙂 Owen had found the addresses of the houses belonging to Josh (aka Tom Hanks) and his best friend Billy (aka Jared Rushton) in the 80’s flick thanks to IMDB’s Big filming locations page.  And even though IMDB’s location information isn’t always one hundred percent accurate, thankfully, in this case, it was right on the money!

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I am VERY happy to report that the two Big  houses still look EXACTLY the same today as they did back in 1988 when the movie was filmed!  I was absolutely amazed at the fact that, besides the leaves on the trees out front being a little bit fuller and a little more green due to the time of year, the two homes  look absolutely identical today to how they were portrayed onscreen twenty-one years ago.  YAY!  Other movie house owners should take lessons from these people!!  🙂

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The home pictured above belonged to Josh and his family in the movie and was where he lived before he became “Big” and subsequently moved to Manhattan.  Several areas of the house were featured in the flick, including the front exterior;

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the garage, where a new door has been installed, but which otherwise looks very much the same as it did in the movie;

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and the front door, which I was extremely excited to see still looks EXACTLY the same as it did in Big!  The only difference is that a white screen door which covers the front door was added in the time since filming took place. 

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Best friend Billy’s house is located directly next door to Josh’s and I am happy to report that its front door also looks EXACTLY the same as it did in the movie.  I was so tempted to go up and knock.  🙂

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In Big, Billy and Josh have a pulley system that runs between their two bedroom windows, which face each other.  The pulley shows up in the scene in which Billy and Josh’s mom talk about Josh’s dissappearance late at night.  In the scene, Josh’s mom uses the pulley to show Billy a set of baseball cards that she had purchased for Josh’s birthday.  She tells Billy he can keep the cards, but he sends them back to her telling her that Josh will be home soon.  UPDATE – Fellow stalker Owen just informed me that Billy and Josh’s pulley is actually only shown in the extended edition DVD of the movie and not in the regular version.

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Of course, in real life, that pulley is not there.  🙁  Would have been SO cool if it was, though!  If I owned those houses, I would so install one for my fellow stalkers to appreciate.  🙂  Otherwise, though, the boys’ windows still look very much the same.

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And, of course, I just had to pose for a pic on the street corner where Susan dropped Josh off at the end of the movie.  🙂  That street corner also looks very much the same as it did in Big – all that was missing in real life were the piles of fallen autumn leaves which covered the sidewalks in the movie.

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  I can’t tell you how exciting it was to finally see the Big houses in person twenty-one years after first watching the movie which made them famous!  I honestly can’t recommend stalking them enough!  🙂

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On a side note – In real life, the houses from Bigare located in the borough of Cliffside Park, New Jersey and in the filming of the scene in which the police are called out after Josh first disappears, the words “Cliffside Park” can be seen on the police car that Billy walks by.  So LOVE that they used the real town’s name!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Josh’s house from the movie Big  is located at 437 Greenmount Avenue in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.  Billy’s house is located right next door at 435 Greenmount Avenue.  At the end of the movie, Susan drops Josh off at the Southwest corner of Greenmount and Highridge Avenues.  The King of Queens house is located directly around the corner at 519 Longview Avenue.  Unfortunately there is no easy way to get to these locations from Manhattan.  A taxi ride is your quickest, easiest bet, but be prepared as it will cost you $45 each way!  Riding the bus is a much cheaper option, but the travel time is upwards of an hour.

Halloween 2009 at The Nest!

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I hope my fellow stalkers had an absolutely fabulous Halloween 2009!  As I’ve mentioned many times before, Halloween is downright my favorite holiday.  I pretty much look forward to it all year long!  So, today I thought I’d take a little break from my New York blogging to write a post about this year’s Halloween adventure, which took place, yet again, in Palm Springs, where my fiancé and I had been invited to a little All Hallows’ Eve party.  As you know, the two of us always dress up as either a famous celebrity couple or characters from a movie or TV show for Halloween.  Well, after seeing Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage back in June, I decided that this year my fiancé and I just had to dress up as Baby and Johnny!  And yes, I always plan my costumes that far in advance.   🙂  I told you, I LOVE Halloween.  I practically live for the holiday!  So, pretty much immediately after seeing the Dirty Dancing stage show, I started scouring the internet and local thrift shops for a pink chiffon dress that would resemble the frock Baby wore in the movie’s famous final dance sequence.  And, unbelievably, I came up completely empty-handed!  I am still in shock, actually, that no one, not even an EBay seller, had a dress like Baby’s to hawk!!  In fact, the only pages I came across while performing a Google search for “Baby’s pink dress from Dirty Dancing” were entries posted from women like myself who wanted to know where they could purchase an outfit similar to Baby’s.  Thankfully, in answer to one of those queries, a woman had posted a link to a dress pattern that was a pretty close match to the one Jennifer Grey wore in the movie.   So, I begged and pleaded with my mom, who is an excellent seamstress, to make me Baby’s dress.  Begrudgingly she agreed, and did quite the excellent job on it, I might add.  THANK YOU, mom!  🙂

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Because my fiancé and I were dressed as one of filmdom’s most famous dancing couples, before heading out to our Halloween party we just had to hit up the hottest dance spot in the entire Coachella Valley – a little place known as The Nest.  The Nest is actually a combination bar/eatery/piano lounge/dance club which first opened up in 1965 and is now known as Indian Wells’ most famous restaurant and night club.  My fiancé and I refer to it, though, as the “Cougar Den”.  Contrary to how it might sound, trust me when I say that the nickname is a term of endearment as The Nest is quite simply one of my very favorite places to visit in all of Palm Springs.  And while the food is great, the drinks are strong, the music is live, and the atmosphere is hopping, none of those attributes are the restaurant’s main draw.  No, going to The Nest for the food or drinks or even the music is entirely beside the point. The Nest’s main attraction has to be its lively, dressed-to-the-nines, up-all-night-on-the-dance-floor patrons, who are almost all between the ages of 65 and 100.  Yes, you read that right!  You’d be hard pressed to find any Nest regulars who don’t fall under the senior citizen category.  You’d also be hard pressed to find any of them sitting down!  On no, the Nest’s patrons don’t let a little thing like age stop them from dancing all night long!  And, let me tell you, I can only hope that I look and feel as good as they do when I am their age.  But who am I kidding, I don’t even look or feel that good now!  My fiancé and I always feel a bit cadish when asking for our check – usually yawning while doing so – at around 10 p.m. – 11 at the latest – while all of the club’s more senior regulars are still on the dance floor and showing absolutely no signs of stopping!  It’s truly unbelievable!  And so are the outfits, which are usually quite risqué.  And thanks to A LOT of medical enhancement, the women look far better than I would in such clothing.  LOL  It’s an absolute hoot to see and something that everyone visiting Palm Springs should experience at least once!

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Ironically, I thought my fiancé and I would be a big hit at The Nest come Halloween thanks to our dance-themed costumes.  I could not have been more wrong about that one, however!  No, thanks to the many aged 75 and older women who were dressed in extremely sexy Halloween costumes, no one even gave my fiancé and I a second glance!  LOL LOL LOL  Our costumes were far too tame for The Nest, I guess.  I’ve actually never seen anything quite like The Nest on Halloween.  It was like a Leg Avenue Catalog had come to life, right before my very eyes.  In attendance were a sexy Batgirl, a sexy Catwoman, a sexy cop, and even a cougar!  🙂  But the costume that really caught my eye?  A Playboy Bunny, complete with a bowtie, fishnet stockings, and . . . a thong leotard.  Yes, you read that right!  LOL  I honestly didn’t think such a thing was possible, but The Nest is even more of a sight to see on Halloween than on any other night!

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Besides cougars, celebrities have also been frequenting The Nest since it first opened over forty years ago, and they’ve got the autographed pictures on the walls to prove it.  🙂  In fact, crooner Frank Sinatra and some of his famous friends were regulars during the bar’s early days.  Today a bevy of different celebs and sports stars (mostly professional golf and tennis players) can be spotted dancing or singing along with the club’s live “piano” – it’s actually an electronic keyboard – on a nightly basis.  Country star Toby Keith recently spent a few nights at The Nest and even obliged some fans by stepping up to the mic to sing a few songs.  🙂  So cool!  Even without the celeb connection, though, I’d still recommend stalking the place, as it is just so darn entertaining!  It’s DEFINITELY a Palm-Springs-Must-See!   If you arrive after 9 p.m., be prepared to wait, though, as you’ll be hard pressed to find a seat, or even standing room, for that matter!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Nest is located at 75-188 Highway 111 in Indian Wells, just outside of Palm Springs. You can visit their website here.  The live music starts at 7 p.m. nightly.  And if you would like to make your own Dirty Dancing dress, the pattern my mom used is Vogue’s Vintage Pattern #2902.