abandoned places – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 11, 2019August 10, 2020

Lacy Street Production Center from “Stitchers”

They say the third time’s the charm, but I attempted to stalk today’s location on no less than ten different occasions before finally being successful! Lacy Street Production Center, the exterior of which portrayed the site of a rave in an episode of Stitchers, is an actual working studio and, unfortunately, each time I showed up for a look-see, production trucks were parked over every square inch of the place, blocking all views of it from the street. So I was thrilled to arrive on a recent Wednesday morning and find the complex free of any and all freighters, meaning I could finally snap some photos. Considering the number of man-hours put into it, this stalk was truly a labor of love!

[ad]

It is at Lacy Street Production Center that Kristen Clark (Emma Ishta) and her team investigate the death of a young woman in the Season 1 episode of Stitchers titled “Friends in Low Places.”

One look at the rusted-out smokestack visible in the episode and I was smitten! I had never seen anything like it in Los Angeles and promptly got started trying to identify it. Thankfully, the Seeing Stars website did the legwork for me, chronicling all of Stitchers Season 1 locales, including Lacy Street Production Center, aka the site of the “Friends in Low Places” rave.

The conglomeration of buildings that today makes up Lacy Street Production Center originally served as the home of the Talbert-Whitmore Co., a window shade manufacturer that later became known as Columbia Mills. Initially constructed in 1908, the complex was expanded multiple times over the years as Talbert-Whitmore grew, eventually developing into the largest window shade factory on the West Coast. You can see an image of the plant from its early days here.

I could find absolutely no provenance regarding the American Wrecking Company signage so prominently splayed across the complex’s central structure – not via old building permits, newspaper.com archives or historic resources surveys. I am guessing it is leftover from a shoot, quite possibly an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. But more on that in a bit.

In 1982, the 9-building, 2-acre site was transformed into a de facto movie studio thanks to producer Barney Rosenzweig who was looking for a permanent spot to shoot his new TV series, Cagney & Lacey. The former Talbert-Whitmore warehouse fit the bill perfectly, thanks to the vast open spaces it provided, perfect for building sets, not to mention the low rental rates, much less than those of an actual studio. The show called Lacy Street Production Center home for its full six-year run. When it wrapped, the complex’s owners, Don Randles and Jim Knight, began leasing the space out to other productions.

It proved so popular that when Rosenzweig came back to Randles and Knight a couple of years after Cagney & Lacey went off the air in the hopes of renting out the facility for his new series The Trials of Rosie O’Neill, he was told it had already been booked by another show, Alien Nation. Lacy Street Production Center has continued to be booked regularly ever since, serving as the home to such productions as Catch Me If You Can, L.A. Confidential and Seabiscuit.

Shooting in a converted warehouse does have its drawbacks, though. As author Bob Fisher stated in a 1987 American Cinematographer article about Cagney & Lacey, “The Lacy Street studio does impose some production limitations. There are low ceilings with no room for scaffolds, comparatively small sets with immovable walls, pillars in the middle of rooms and large air conditioning ducts that add to the ambience but present some considerable obstacles to the director of photography who has to light in a comparatively cramped space.” Still, there’s nothing quite like the authentic urban aura it provides. Though not actually abandoned, it definitely has that feel. As Peggy Archer said in a 2007 LAist article documenting Lacy Street’s dilapidation over the years, “Of course, the reason movies, TV and commercials keep shooting here although it’s about to fall over is that the place looks really. f*cking. cool.”

When Lacy Street Production Center came on the market in 2015, there were talks of razing several buildings, gutting interiors, and transforming it into a large-scale mixed-use development. Commercial production company Buck Design eventually stepped in, purchasing the 90,000-square-foot complex for $20 million in August 2017. Thankfully, the firm decided to continue to operate the site as a studio, going to great pains to bring it up to code, all while keeping intact all of the rough elements that make it so insanely shootable. You can check out what the interior looks like post-rehab here.

Lacy Street Production Center is nothing if not picturesque – especially with the blue skies of Los Angeles serving as its backdrop.

The complex is just begging to be photographed, particularly my beloved smokestack which can be found in the center’s main parking lot, very visible from the street (well, at least when film trucks aren’t blocking it from view, anyway).

The vast majority of productions that film on the premises make use of Lacy Street’s interior, building sets in the sprawling empty rooms. A few, like Stitchers, have utilized the outside, though.

The center masks as the Recovery House Youth Shelter in the 1991 horror flick Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.

That same year, the building situated just west of the smokestack portrayed a chop shop in Out for Justice.

That structure is pictured below.

Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) has a showdown with a terrorist in Lacy Street Production Center’s front courtyard in the Season 1 episode of 24 titled “3:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m.,” which aired in 2001.

The property portrayed the Detroit lair of a group of Reptilians seeking to destroy humanity in the Season 3 episode of Star Trek: Enterprise titled “Carpenter Street,” which aired in 2003. In the episode, the “American Wrecking Company” signage is very visible. As I mentioned earlier, I could find no information regarding a business by that name ever operating in Los Angeles, so I am thinking the painted words may have been set dressing installed for the shoot that Lacy Street’s owners decided to leave intact post-filming. Who knows, though.

Several portions of Justin Timberlake’s 2016 “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” music video were lensed at the studio.

That same year, it served as the abandoned mental health hospital where Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander) was held prisoner in the Season 6 episode of Rizzoli & Isles titled “Hide and Seek.”

Lacy Street Production Center is also the site of a huge shootout at the end of the Season 10 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles titled “Better Angels,” which aired in 2019.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to the Seeing Stars website for identifying this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lacy Street Production Center, from the “Friends in Low Places” episode of Stitchers, is located at 2630 Lacy Street in Lincoln Heights.

October 28, 2016September 29, 2017

Eastern State Penitentiary

Prior to traveling anywhere, I read copious amounts about the place I plan on visiting. Copious amounts, from sources including books, magazines, websites, guides, and blogs. My favorite travel guides are the Eyewitness Travel books published by DK. Before my recent trip back east, during which we visited Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia, I purchased DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Philadelphia & The Pennsylvania Dutch Country. As usual, it did not disappoint and chronicled countless sites I was interested in visiting while in the City of Brotherly Love. At the top of my Philly Must-Stalk List was Eastern State Penitentiary, which Eyewitness Travel described as an abandoned former prison turned museum. Yeah, I pretty much started drooling upon reading those words. In person, the locale was even more amazing than depicted in the book. Because Eastern State has been repeatedly called “one of the most haunted places in the world,” I figured what better time to blog about it than now?

[ad]

Tickets to Eastern State Penitentiary cost $14 per person and include either an audio tour or a guide-led tour. We opted for the audio tour, in which visitors are led through the vast premises via messages digitally-recorded by various experts, former guards, former inmates, historians, and other individuals, including actor Steve Buscemi who became enamored with the prison during a location scout for his 2000 film Animal Factory. Though Buscemi did not end up choosing the site for the movie, its haunting beauty stayed with him and he generously lent his voice to become the main narrator of the audio tour, escorting guests through what he calls a “magnificent ruin still standing in the middle of a modern city.”

As we learned via Buscemi, Eastern State Penitentiary, also known as the “House,” was originally founded in 1829, thanks largely to the efforts of the Philadelphia Quakers and the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. For years, the groups had lobbied for the reform of area jails, which were known for their poor and often brutal conditions.

The Gothic Revival-style institution, which was designed by British architect John Haviland, was established as a place where prisoners would spend time alone and seek penitence for their crimes. As such, it was given the name “Eastern State Penitentiary.”

Initial construction of the 11-acre site lasted from 1822 to 1836 and cost $780,000.

The unique pinwheel layout of the penitentiary, which consists of 14 cellblocks (originally 7) that extend like bike spokes from a central room, served as a model for more than 300 prisons across the globe.

Though Eastern State’s exteriors are extremely stark and foreboding . . .

. . . consisting of all-encompassing 30-foot high walls . . .

. . . (you can see just how tall those walls are below – use the large benches in the bottom right of the photos as reference) . . .

. . . each of the 450 original cells was considered largely modern. (And yes, I know that was a run-on sentence. Blame poetic license.)

The cells all featured skylights and, in keeping with the solitary concept of the prison, private exterior exercise yards.

Each also boasted central heating and running water, amenities that the White House did not even have at the time. Yep, that’s the toilet pictured below.

“You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

Additional cellblocks were added to the structure from 1877 to 1926 , bringing the total to 14, with space for 1,700 prisoners.

Eastern State abandoned its solitary nature in 1913, at which time inmates began gathering for meals, recreation and religious ceremonies.

During its tenure as a prison, many of history’s most infamous criminals were incarcerated at Eastern State, including Al Capone. A re-creation of his lavish cell is pictured below, though there is some debate as to how extravagant his confines actually were.

For various reasons, the site was shuttered in 1971.

It was then left to deteriorate. Some images from that time period are pictured below. As you can see, the prison became so overgrown with foliage, it looked like a virtual forest.

The city of Philadelphia purchased the property, which was becoming more dilapidated by the day, from the state in 1980 and began making plans to transform it into a commercial center.

Thankfully, in 1988 a group of preservationists dubbed the “Eastern State Task Force” stepped in to thwart the renovation and to revitalize the site.

Around that same time, the prison’s doors were opened to a select few for tours. Due to the dangerous conditions of the building, initial guests had to sign liability waivers and wear hardhats to gain admittance.

Over the next few years, volunteers and preservation groups work to clean up Eastern State Penitentiary and to raise money in order to transform the site into a tourist attraction. On Halloween night 1991, a fundraiser was held for the prison. The event was so successful that it became an annual affair and eventually turned into a season-long Halloween attraction known as Terror Behind the Walls.

The gargoyles pictured below, who are named Frank and Carson, are not authentic to the building, but are props installed each year for Terror Behind the Walls. During the nighttime event, the prison is turned into a massive haunted house and guests are invited to explore the grounds in the dark. Sounds like my perfect evening!

In 1994, Eastern State Penitentiary opened its doors to the public for daily tours.

The tours proved immensely popular and today the prison is one of Philadelphia’s most famous attractions, well-loved by visitors and locals alike.

Though Eastern State has been “cleaned up” and visitors are no longer required to sign waivers or wear hardhats when touring the premises, caretakers had the foresight to leave much of the property’s decay intact.

Seeing it is nothing short of breathtaking.

Not only did Eastern State turn out to be one of our favorite places that we visited during our trip, but it is one of our favorite places we have visited period!

Our time in Philadelphia was extremely limited (we only had three days to explore the city) and we originally planned on spending two hours at the penitentiary, yet we just could not tear ourselves away and wound up staying for more than four hours. It still didn’t seem like enough, though. I literally could have spent all day there.

While exploring, I snapped more than 200 photos and I am pretty much in love with every single one (as evidenced by the number that appear in this post), even the ones that are overexposed . . .

. . . and underexposed.

#framer

There was beauty literally around every turn.

I just could not stop snapping.

I mean, come on!

I became just a wee bit obsessed with the gate below.

Can’t stop . . .

. . . won’t stop.

As if there wasn’t already enough to love, Eastern State Penitentiary is also a filming location!

The prison appeared in Tina Turner’s 1985 music video “One of the Living.”

The Dead Milkmen also shot their 1988 “Punk Rock Girl” music video there.

In the 1995 thriller 12 Monkeys, Eastern State Penitentiary masked as the insane asylum where James Cole (Bruce Willis) was sent.

Several areas of the site were utilized in the filming, most notably the anteroom outside of Cellblocks 2, 10 and 11.

Eastern State Penitentiary portrayed a Malaysian prison in the 1998 drama Return to Paradise.

The property’s exterior was digitally altered to appear as if it was on a coastline in the movie.

Sting shot the album cover and album art for 2001’s . . . All This Time at Eastern State.

That same year, the prison was featured in a Season 1 episode of the MTV reality show Fear.

Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) took refuge at Eastern State in 2009’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior were utilized in the flick.

Eastern State was also the main location featured in Whitney Peyton’s 2010 “Crazy” music video.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Eastern State Penitentiary is located at 2027 Fairmount Avenue in Philadelphia. You can visit the prison’s official website here. The nighttime Terror Behind the Walls event runs each year from mid-September through early November.

October 22, 2015September 29, 2017

New “L.A.” Mag Post About “The Postman Always Rings Twice” Train Station

Be sure to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine article, about East Los Angeles Union Pacific Station, an abandoned train depot from The Postman Always Rings Twice!

October 16, 2015September 29, 2017

Spadra Cemetery

Finding the words “ghost town” used to describe a cemetery is likely to cause my head to start spinning. Which is exactly what happened while I was doing some research on abandoned locales for an upcoming Discover Los Angeles post. I happened to come across an article on the Avoiding Regret blog about a forgotten, dilapidated old graveyard in Pomona named Spadra Cemetery and my eyes practically bugged out of my head. The photographs displayed showed an overgrown, crumbling site marked by toppled, cracked tombstones. I was instantly intrigued. An abandoned cemetery? Count me in! I knew the place would be perfect for my Haunted Hollywood postings, so I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter.

[ad]

Prior to reading about the cemetery, I had never heard of Spadra. The now defunct small town came to be thanks to a stagecoach line established in 1859 that ran from San Francisco to Memphis via Los Angeles. Several stations were constructed along the route, one of which was in the area that came to be known as Spadra. In 1864, a wealthy rancher named Louis Phillips purchased a 12,000-acre portion of land that included the station, with the intention of breaking it up and selling it off. One of the first to purchase a parcel was a colorful character named Billy Rubottom, aka “Uncle Billy.” Not only was Rubottom wanted in Arkansas on two separate murder charges, but he had also killed his son-in-law in El Monte.

The enterprising Rubottom built a hotel and bar on his new land in 1866. It was not long before stores, warehouses, a post office and a school sprung up around it. Rubottom dubbed the fledgling community “Spadra,” in honor of his hometown of Spadra, Arkansas. It doesn’t sound like it was a great place to reside. According to a post on The David Allen Blog, a Historical Society of the Pomona Valley booklet describes the town as such: “The village of Spadra was characterized by murder, suicide and mysterious deaths.” Not surprising considering its founder.

The 2.5-acre Spadra Cemetery was established in 1868 on land donated to the town by Louis Phillips.

Spadra continued to thrive and in 1874 the Southern Pacific Railroad extended their line to the town. While that caused a boost in popularity, it was short-lived. The following year, the line was again extended about thirty miles farther east to Colton and Spadra became an all but forgotten stop along the route. As the neighboring town of Pomona began to grow and boom, thanks in large part to the fact that the area had a water supply, the population of Spadra dwindled. The establishment of a mental hospital in the area in 1927 and a landfill in 1957 further drove people away. The town was finally acquired by Pomona in 1964. The last burial at Spadra Cemetery took place in 1971 and four years later the site was deeded to the Historical Society. You can read a more in-depth account of Spadra’s history here.

Today, Spadra Cemetery, which boasts 212 graves (that’s the official number, at least), is almost completely hidden from view and extremely hard to find. Situated underneath State Route 57, the site shares a driveway with a company named Altec Southern California Service Rentals, which bars it from sight. (A Google Street View image of the shared driveway is pictured below.) We actually drove past the entrance twice before stopping to ask a local resident for directions. Upon finally finding it, I was a bit disheartened to discover that no part of the property is visible from the street.

The graveyard itself is located about 500 feet south of a locked gate and can only be reached via an open field to the west of it. And no, the Grim Cheaper and I did not venture over past the gate. The cemetery is on private land and I am not one for trespassing. But man, do I wish I could have seen it because the images I found of it online are haunting. There is good news, though! The Historical Society does sometimes offer tours of the cemetery. One such tour takes place annually on Halloween night. I honestly cannot think of a better place to spend the holiday!

I was thrilled to discover while researching this post that the entrance gate is also a horror movie location! In a case of art imitating life, the gate stands at the entrance to the abandoned funeral home and cemetery that the Doyle family – Jonathan (Dan Byrd), Leslie (Denise Crosby) and Jamie (Stephanie Patton) – purchases in 2005’s The Mortuary.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Spadra Cemetery is located at 2850 Pomona Boulevard in Pomona. As I mentioned, it can be hard to find. The entrance, which shares a driveway with Altec Southern California Service Rentals at 2882 Pomona Boulevard, is situated about 100 feet east of the 57 Freeway. The actual graveyard is located about 500 feet south of the entrance gate, across a set of railroad tracks. Pleased by advised that the cemetery is private property and venturing onto its grounds is trespassing. There are legal ways to see it via the Historical Society of the Pomona Valley. You can contact them regarding tours here.

October 14, 2015August 20, 2020

The Orchid Tree Inn

It’s no secret that there’s nothing this stalker loves more than an abandoned site. Throw in a waterless pool and I am an even happier camper. So a couple of months ago when I passed by an abandoned motel that appeared extremely accessible in downtown Palm Springs, I immediately pulled the car over for a closer look. I came to find out the property was a shuttered 1930s-era hotel known as the Orchid Tree Inn and that it not only boasted three pools, but had been deserted for over a decade. My kinda place!

[ad]

The Orchid Tree Inn is a sprawling, ramshackle property that takes up almost an entire block of land. That was not always the case, though. The motel, which was founded in 1934 by a man named Horace L. Cook, was originally established as a tiny 10-bungalow complex known as the Sakarah Apartments. The site offered both short- and long-term lodging. The original ten units still stand to this day. One is pictured below.

A reader who is a distant relative of Horace recently sent me scans of the property’s original advertising pamphlet! The booklet boasts of mountain and desert views, a roof garden, gas heating, breakfast nooks, and “tasteful, early Californian furniture.”

She also sent me the photograph below and informed me that the Sakarah was named after a favorite cat. Couldn’t love that more!

When Horace decided to relocate to Los Angeles in 1941, he sold the property to Beverly Hills contractor Harry Irvin, who renamed it the Apache Lodge.

By 1948, the name had been changed yet again, this time to the Bel-Ardo Villas. The complex was finally given its current moniker, the Orchid Tree Inn, in 1952. A pool was also added to the property’s central courtyard at that time. You can check out some postcard images of what the site looked like in those days here and here. The area featured on the postcards is the same area pictured below. As you can see, despite the hotel being abandoned for over a decade, it still looks very much the same today as it did then.

During its heyday, the Orchid Tree Inn played host to several Old Hollywood celebrities including William Holden, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, Anthony Perkins, and Rosalind Russell.

Over the years, the owners of the inn purchased the many different properties surrounding it. It eventually came to be made up of seven different structures and complexes, the oldest of which, a private residence, dated back to 1915. The home, which was Craftsman in style, belonged to a Christian Science Practitioner named Genevieve Reilly for over 45 years. Sadly, it was destroyed in a fire in 2007 and all that currently remains of it is the stone archway pictured below.

According to a Historic Site Preservation Board report done on the Orchid Tree Inn in 2010, the archway was hand-laid.

From what I have been able to gather, I believe that the large stone pad visible below was the bungalow’s footprint.

A faraway view showing the footprint, the archway, and the motel units beyond and adjacent to them is pictured below.

At some point (I believe in the ‘90s), the Orchid Tree Inn acquired a neighboring motel known as the Desert House Inn that was originally built in 1941.

The Desert House Inn’s dry, but intact pool . . .

. . . hot tub . . .

. . . and fountain practically had me drooling!

While most of the Orchid Tree Inn’s acquisitions were Spanish in style, there was one mid-century modern building formerly located on the premises. When the nearby Premiere Apartments, originally designed by prolific architect Albert Frey in 1957, were threatened with demolition in 1972, the entire complex was moved onto a vacant plot of land on the Orchid Tree Inn premises. Sadly, that building was also burned in a fire in 2007 and no longer stands. It was formerly situated in the area pictured below.

The Google Street View images below were taken in 2007 and show what the Premiere Apartments looked like shortly after the fire. And you can check out some photocopied pictures of the building in its original state here.

The pool located behind the Premiere Apartments remains intact.

After over seven decades in business, the Orchid Tree Inn was shuttered in 2005 and has remained vacant ever since.

The hotel’s former owners held an estate sale during which its furnishings were sold in 2010. You can check out some photographs of the many items put up for sale here.

I was shocked – and delighted – at how photographically accessible the Orchid Tree Inn is.

Virtually all of the property is visible from the street.

Even through the chipped paint and crackling walls, it is apparent how beautiful it once was.

On a neighboring parcel of land sits the former Community Church, which was devastated by a fire in 2013. It has been left charred and dilapidated ever since.

The church was originally designed in 1935 by William Charles Tanner.

Developer Richard Weintraub is currently seeking the city’s approval to turn the Orchid Tree Inn and the Community Church into an 89-room luxury resort. He plans to revive the ten historic bungalows in the process. The property renderings looks absolutely gorgeous and, being that many portions of the original hotel will be kept intact, I hope the plans are approved and that new life is brought to the site. In the meantime, though, I sure enjoy passing by it in its current state.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Orchid Tree Inn is located at 261 South Belardo Road in Palm Springs. The aerial view below denotes the many different properties that were added to the hotel throughout its history and what year they were originally built.

July 10, 2015September 29, 2017

The Bates Motel

Today’s location would be better suited for a Haunted Hollywood post, but because it is set to be torn down by the end of the year, I figured time was of the essence. While spending the week in L.A. last month with my good buddies Kim and Katie (that’s Katie pictured above), a friend named Becky mentioned that I should stalk the abandoned Sunset Pacific Motel in Silver Lake. The property is more commonly known as the “Bates Motel” thanks to both the fact that it sits at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Bates Avenue and that it has been in a decrepit state for decades. The 3-story, 37-room structure was recently painted white as part of a temporary art exhibit, which only serves to make it all the more eerie. Becky thought I would enjoy seeing it in person and she was right! The place did not disappoint!

[ad]

From what I can gather from the Historic Aerials website, the Sunset Pacific Motel was built sometime between 1954 and 1964. While the property provided a home away from home for tourists in its early years (it even had a pool that has since been cemented over), by the 1980s it had fallen into a serious state of disrepair and had become a haven for drug use, prostitution and violent crime. A 2002 Los Angeles Times article described it as “one of the city’s most dangerous properties.” Concerned neighbors had been trying to get the facility shuttered for decades, to no avail. Finally, in December 2000, longtime owner Edward Eng was charged with two dozen housing code violations at the property and was eventually forced to close it in March 2002 when the city revoked his operating license. The Sunset Pacific Motel has sat boarded up ever since. You can check out what it looked like during its boarded up phase here and here.

In September 2009, the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Building and Safety voted to raze the motel. Before the demolition took place, though, the site was purchased by Frost/Chaddock Developers with the intent of building a large mixed-use project on the site. Those plans have met with some opposition, though, and while on hold, Frost/Chaddock decided to allow French artist Vincent Lamouroux to paint the property as a temporary art instillation.

In mid-April, Lamouroux began his instillation which he titled Projection. He and his crew used sprayers and hoses to coat every square inch of the Sunset Pacific Motel with an eco-friendly lime wash.

Lamouroux also painted the back of the motel’s billboard;

its sign;

and its palm trees.

It really is a sight to see!

The lime wash will fade over time (it has already begun to disappear from the palm trees) and the motel is slated to be demolished at the end of the year, so if you would like to see it in all of its blindingly white glory, I would get over there as soon as possible.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Becky for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Sunset Pacific Motel, aka the Bates Motel, is located at 4301 Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake.

October 20, 2014September 29, 2017

Santa Fe Depot from “The Trouble with Angels”

It is no secret that I love abandoned places, especially during this time of year. (What I wouldn’t give to be able to see this in person!) Recently I stalked Monrovia’s former Santa Fe Railroad Depot and it had my heart going pitter-patter. The now defunct train station is also a filming location and, while it appeared in a comedy and not a horror movie, due to its current dilapidated state I figured it would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood postings.

[ad]

The Santa Fe Railroad Depot was originally constructed in 1925 for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

The Spanish colonial revival-style structure replaced a wooden station constructed on the site in 1886 that serviced the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Railroad. Fun fact – the initial depot also serviced a mule-drawn railway car that shuttled passengers to and from Monrovia’s business district.

Santa Fe Depot fell victim to the decline of railway use in the second half of the 20th century and wound up being shuttered in 1972. The property was left vacant and allowed to dilapidate over the four decades that followed.

In coordination with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Gold Line Foothill Extension, there are plans currently in the works to turn the depot and the land surrounding it into the Monrovia Station Square Transit Village – a 25-acre mixed-use center that would feature retail stores, restaurants, offices and housing. The project is set to be completed by the end of 2015, although I am not sure how feasible that date is considering the current state of the property.

The Santa Fe Railroad Depot was featured twice as the St. Francisville Train Station in the 1966 comedy The Trouble with Angels. While a portion of the movie was shot on location in Pennsylvania (the stunningly gorgeous St. Mary’s Villa for Children and Families in Ambler masked as St. Francis Academy), the vast majority of the flick was lensed in L.A. Interestingly, two different locales were used as the St. Francisville Station. As the St. Francis school bus arrives at the depot to pick up Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) and the girls in the film’s opening scene, a shot of the Merion, Pennsylvania depot was shown. A matching Google Street View image of that spot is pictured below.

When the girls are actually shown getting off the train, though, the location switches to the Santa Fe Depot in Monrovia.

Santa Fe Depot was also used in The Trouble with Angel’s ending sequence in which the girls leave St. Francis Academy. You can see a great shot of the side of the station that appeared in The Trouble with Angels here and you can read a fascinating blog post about the making of the movie here.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Santa Fe Depot, from The Trouble with Angels, is located at 101 West Duarte Road in Monrovia.

April 21, 2014April 29, 2014

The Salton Sea

About fifty miles southeast of Palm Springs lies the Salton Sea, a former resort destination that I had wanted to stalk ever since seeing Troy Paiva’s haunting images of the place on his website Lost America. Due to the fact that it is largely abandoned and hence lacking in public restrooms, I hesitated making the trek out there. (I suffer from an abnormally small bladder.) Then, while my best friend Robin was in town in mid-March, the Grim Cheaper convinced me that it was time to finally make the trip. Sadly, as we discovered, many of the abandoned structures that Paiva had pictured on his site were demolished in 2008. Being there still turned out to be quite an experience, though, to say the least. [There are several abandoned and semi-abandoned towns lining the shores of the Salton Sea – Bombay Beach, Niland, and Slab City (yes, that’s a place), just to name a few. We hit them all. This post will solely be focused on the North Shore and the Sea itself, with future posts about the other areas to come.]

[ad]

The Salton Sea was created accidentally in 1905 when runoff from the Colorado River broke through levees and flooded a large valley known as the Salton Sink. The deluge, which lasted for two years, left behind a 380-square-mile inland sea (the largest inland body of water in California – yes, it’s bigger than Lake Tahoe!) situated 228 feet below sea level. It was dubbed the “Salton Sea.”

Developers, recognizing the potential of the picturesque coastal site, started building resorts and marinas (including the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club – pictured above and below – which was designed by legendary architect Albert Frey in 1962) in the region in the 1950s. It wasn’t long before the Salton Sea became a luxury getaway destination and even celebrities flocked to the area for fishing, sunbathing and waterskiing. Just a few of the stars who spent time there include Sonny Bono, Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, The Beach Boys, The Marx Brothers and Jerry Lewis.

The region’s tenure as a resort destination was short-lived. Agricultural runoff, containing fertilizer, pesticide and salt, from nearby farms continued to flow to the Salton Sea, at the same rate that the expanse was naturally evaporating. Because neither salt nor fertilizer evaporate, the salinity of the lake, as well as its toxicity, increased year after year. This caused a large growth of algae, which drained the sea of oxygen, which in turn killed off the fish population. Dead fish remains began to wash ashore, littering the once beautiful beaches. Birds wound up feeding on those dead fish and, in turn, also died. The thousands upon thousands of animal carcasses that papered the shoreline created a horrific smell that permeated the area. People started to flee. Then, in 1976 and 1977, two large storms hit the region, submerging many of the marinas, clubs, motels and neighborhoods. Residents vacated the Salton Sea in droves, leaving behind homes, cars and other structures. They were never to return.

It was the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club, which was shuttered and left abandoned in 1984, as well as the neighboring North Shore Motel and its pool, and a large Texaco gas station sign that I most wanted to see. Sadly, the motel, pool and Texaco sign are all long gone and the Yacht Club was completely refurbished in 2010 (it now serves as a special events center). You can check out some photographs of what they used to look like here.

Today, the abandoned sites are few and far between.

The ones that still stand are sufficiently eerie, though.

From afar, the Salton Sea is quite beautiful, with bright blue waters.

A closer glance reveals that beauty to be an illusion, though. In reality, the waters of the Salton Sea are a murky brown. The blue hue is simply a reflection of the sky.

The white shoreline hides its own secrets.

In truth, the “sand” of the Salton Sea is mainly comprised of crushed fish skeletons . . .

. . . as well as dead fish. It is an absolutely eerie place to visit.

Thanks to its apocalyptic landscape, the Salton Sea has been immortalized onscreen numerous times over the years. The flooded out house where Jim Henry (Richard Conte) lived in 1954’s Highway Dragnet was said to be located at the Salton Sea and I am fairly certain that filming actually took place there, as well. Because the area has changed so drastically over the ensuing sixty years, I was unable to confirm that, though.

I do know for certain – thanks to this 2006 Los Angeles Times article – that the interior of Jim’s house was a set and not the interior of an actual Salton Sea residence.

In 1957, the sea was where prehistoric mollusk mutations were discovered in The Monster That Challenged the World. The narration that opens the film states, “This is the Salton Sea in Southern California – a strange phenomenon in which nature has placed four hundred square miles of salt water in the middle of an arid desert.” Aside from the aerial view of the area shown during that narration, I do not believe any other filming took place there.

The region was also used for flashback scenes in which Tom Van Allen (Val Kilmer) thinks back to a time when his wife, Liz (Chandra West), was still alive in 2002’s aptly-named The Salton Sea.

In the book Hollywood Escapes, the film’s director D.J. Caruso is quoted as saying, “I had flown over The Salton Sea many times and always wondered What the hell is that down there, and why is it called a sea? After reading the first draft of Tony Gayton’s screenplay The Salton Sea, I hopped into my car and made an impromptu trip out there. Upon arriving, I was overcome by the vastness of this body of water. It was indeed visually striking and I was moved by its haunted beauty. The images at the Salton Sea alone could have made a two-hour picture. I knew this place was the perfect companion to the soul of Val Kilmer’s character. What once was beautiful and full of hope, now was lost and searching for a way to survive.”

The North Shore Beach and Yacht Club masqueraded as the Aces & Spades dance club in the 2005 thriller The Island.

I am fairly certain that only the exterior of the Yacht Club was used in the filming and that the interior of the Ace & Spades was a set built elsewhere.

The North Shore Motel also appeared briefly in the movie.

Rock band Linkin Park shot the cover images for their 2007 album, Minutes to Midnight, at the Salton Sea.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Salton Sea is located off Highway 111, about 50 miles southeast of Palm Springs. The North Shore Beach and Yacht Club can be found at 99155 Sea View Drive in Mecca.