The Barclay Hotel from “As Good As It Gets”

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This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I re-watched the movie As Good As It Gets, which I had not seen since it first came out in theatres almost 15 years ago.  I am ashamed to admit that I had somehow forgotten what a great flick it is!  While watching, I, of course, became a bit obsessed with tracking down some of the Southern California locations featured in it and just about had a heart attack when I read on IMDB’s As Good As It Gets filming locations page that the interior of the Barclay Hotel in downtown Los Angeles stood in for the movie’s fictional Café 24 Heures, where Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) worked and where Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) dined each morning.  So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place this past Sunday afternoon.  As it turns out, this location proved to be one VERY LUCKY find as it has been used in countless productions over the years.

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First built in 1897 and commissioned by L.A. businessman Isaac Newton Van Nuys, the Barclay Hotel was originally known as the Van Nuys Hotel    The Beaux-Arts-style building was designed by the architecture firm Morgan + Walls and, with its sprawling lobby, detailed stained glass windows, and phone service in each room, was considered one of the finest hotels of its day.  In 1929, the property’s name was changed to the Barclay Hotel and there is supposedly a sign still visible on one of the building’s exterior walls which reads “Van Nuys Hotel, Rooms $1 and Up.”  It would have been so incredibly cool to see, but, sadly, I could not find it anywhere.  The Barclay has the distinction of being known as downtown L.A.’s oldest continuously operating hotel and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.  It currently serves as a residential hotel which offers affordable housing to its residents, many of whom have lived there for years.

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The GC and I were lucky enough to speak with the Barclay’s manager as well as one of the hotel’s longtime residents while we were stalking the place, both of whom could NOT have been nicer!  They filled us in on all of the filming that has taken place on the premises over the years and allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted.   Yay!  The resident that we spoke with was literally like a walking encyclopedia of the hotel’s vast filming history and in some instances was able to tell me not only when filming of certain productions had taken place, but how long the crew was onsite, AND he also knew the names of particular episodes of shows that had filmed on the premises and the exact dates on which those episodes had aired!  Speaking with him was like . . . well, it was like speaking with myself, actually.  Winking smile

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The Barclay Hotel’s actual, working lobby was transformed into the supposed Manhattan-area Café 24 Heures for the filming of As Good As It Gets.

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According to the hotel manager, producers not only brought in several booths for the filming;

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but they also built a fake waitress station;

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and swapped out the lobby’s front windows with French doors, which were then swapped back after filming had wrapped.

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The hotel’s real life check-in desk, which is now caged, was used as the Café’s bar in the movie.

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The entire opening scene of the 1998 disaster movie Armageddon takes place in front of the Barclay Hotel and the neighboring Farmers & Merchants National Bank, which were both made to look like they were located in New York City.

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In 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, the Barclay was the apartment building/residential hotel from which a young Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) was evicted after having written a series of bad checks to the landlord.

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Leo returned to the Barclay for the filming of last year’s Inception, in which the hotel was featured twice.  It first showed up towards the very beginning of the movie in the scene in which Cobb (DiCaprio) is dunked into a bathtub.  According to the manager, that scene was filmed in one of the Barclay’s second floor hotel rooms.

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The Barclay’s lobby was later used as the African casino where Cobb meets up with Eames (Tom Hardy).  The hotel’s check-in desk is where Eames cashed in his casino chips in the scene.

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The Barclay also stood in for the Columbian hotel where John Smith (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) met at the very beginning of 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

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A fake bar was set up in the Barclay’s lobby for the filming of that scene.

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In 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, the Barclay’s lobby was transformed into the coffee shop where Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) regularly hung out with his friends McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler).

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The Barclay’s former coffee shop, which is located on the southeast corner of West 4th and South Main Streets, is not currently a working restaurant, but was kept intact in order to be used for filming, which I think is so incredibly cool!  Unfortunately, that area is closed to the public so I could only take photographs of it through its front windows.

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The cafe was featured in the Season 5 episode of The Closer titled “Tapped Out”, in the scene in which Lieutenants Flynn (Anthony John Denison) and Provenza (G.W. Bailey) are shown eating breakfast and discussing Provenza’s new girlfriend all the while ignoring a crime taking place directly outside.

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There is another vacant room located on the eastern side of the hotel that is also often used for filming.

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That room was recently dressed to look like a New York bakery in the Season 7 episode of CSI: New York titled “To What End”.

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The exterior of the Barclay also appeared a few times throughout the episode.

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Most amazing of all, though – to me, at least – is the fact that the Barclay appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Starsky & Hutch way back in 1975, looking almost exactly the same as it does today!  As I mentioned above, the check-in desk has since been caged in, but other than that minor detail, the Barclay has remained unchanged in the more than 36 years since filming took place.  Love it, love it, love it!

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Ironically enough, the Starsky and Hutch movie, which premiered in 2004, was also filmed at the Barclay.  The flick’s opening scene took place on the hotel’s roof.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Barclay Hotel, aka Café 24 Heures from As Good As It Gets, is located at 103 West 4th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

The 90210 Pilot Church

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A few days ago I sent Mike, from MovieShotsLA, a screen capture of the church featured in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. I had a hunch he might know where it was located – and, sure enough, he did! He immediately called me and said “That’s the Spiderman church!” as it was also used in the filming of Spiderman 3. 🙂 God, he’s good! St. Brendan Church – or as Mike and I like to call it, the “pilot church” – was built in 1927 by Los Angeles area architect Emmett Martin.

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In the pilot episode of 90210, Brenda, not wanting her new twenty-something boyfriend Jason to know that she is only sixteen years old and still living at home with her parents, lies and says that she is attending UCLA and living in a sorority house named Sigma Rho Tau. After their first date, Jason drops Brenda off in front of her fake sorority house, which just happens to be located next door to a church. That church is St. Brendan and that sorority house is not really a sorority house at all, but the church rectory. As you can see in the above screen captures, all the producers had to do was add a sign with the sorority’s name to the outside of the rectory and cover up the stained glass window with a bulletin board – and voila, they had themselves a sorority house!

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While researching St. Brendan Church earlier today I remembered something very ironic from my past. I can’t even believe I’m admitting to this – in a public forum no less – but you only live once, so here goes! When I was in high school I receieved the Sacrament of Confirmation. At the time I was fifteen years old and deep in the throws of my 90210 obsession. So much so in fact, that I chose Brendan, after St. Brendan, as my confirmation name. In the Catholic faith, when ones receives the Sacrament of Confirmation, they are to adopt the name of a patron saint who is said to then guide and protect them. Confirmation candidates are supposed to study the history of the saints and find one that represents the type of Christian they want to become. But for me the choice was easy. Once I found out there was a saint named Brendan, that was it for me! Of course, the female version of the name Brendan is Brenda. 🙂 Yes, I was THAT obsessed. LOL Being that my mother wanted to kill me when she found out the saint name I chose, this little episode of my life has been a long running joke in my family. LOL So earlier today when I found out that St. Brendan was the name of the 90210 church, I just about fell out of my chair.

St. Brendan actually has quite a rich filming history. Besides the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, the church was also featured in Armageddon as the location of Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler’s wedding.

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You can watch the wedding scene below:

It was the location of Stephanie Seymor and Axl Rose’s wedding in the Guns N’ Roses music video for the song “November Rain”.

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On a side note – I must say that I absolutely LOVE Stephanie Seymour’s wedding dress from the video (pictured above). I am gonna have to get me one of those for my wedding! LOL As if!! 🙂 You can watch the “November Rain” music video below:

In the Season Four episode of CSI: Miami entitled “From the Grave”, my fave Horatio Caine confessed his sins at Saint Brendan.

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The church was also featured in the 1953 version of War of the Worlds (as the location where the residents of L.A. gather during the final scenes of the movie), Spiderman 3 (the interior is where Topher Grace prayed for God to kill Peter Parker), Fight Club (Edward Norton’s cancer support group was held there), and an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. You can see interior pics of the church on the Saint Brendan website.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Beverly Hills, 90210 pilot church, aka St. Brendan, is located at 310 South Van Ness Avenue in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.