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I am so excited for today’s Los Angeles magazine post, in which I compiled a guide to 21 memorable locations featured on the show Parks and Recreation. You can check it out here. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
As I mentioned in Monday’s post, this past weekend was an absolute whirlwind! It all started bright and early Friday morning when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I embarked upon what turned out to be a nine-hour stalking adventure across the greater part of Los Angeles. One of the stops on our trip – and the most exciting for me – was the Sullivan Street Pit, aka the Pit, aka Lot 48, from my new favorite show, Parks and Recreation. Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, had given me the address to the Pit, along with the addresses of about twenty other P&R locations, a few years back, and when I finally started watching the series last month, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking it. So I added the locale to Friday’s To-Stalk list and dragged Mike right on over there after the two of us grabbed some lunch.
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The story of the Sullivan Street Pit is as follows: Once upon a time in Pawnee, Indiana, a real estate developer purchased a plot of land, into which he dug a huge hole before subsequently going bankrupt and abandoning the property, leaving behind a giant pit. At some point afterward, a musician named Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) fell into the Pit, breaking both of his legs, causing his girlfriend, Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), to complain about the abandoned site at a public forum. When overly ambitious Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) learns of the situation in the series’ pilot episode, she makes it her mission to turn the property into a beautiful public park, and the storylines of Seasons 1 and 2 focus entirely on that (misguided) venture. The Pawnee Pit, which, in actuality, was a giant hole dug by the Parks and Recreation crew at an undeveloped lot in Van Nuys, was featured regularly during the series’ first two seasons.
In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Kaboom”, the Pit gets filled in, thanks to the efforts of Leslie, Andy, and Ann, and that filled-in lot is then also featured in numerous subsequent episodes.
I cannot tell you how absolutely incredible it was to see the Parks and Recreation Pit in person! The site is, hands down, one of the coolest locations that I have ever stalked in all my years of stalking. In fact, I think I am going to have to add it to my Los Angeles Must-Stalk List. And yes, I do realize that the place is basically just an overgrown, vacant lot, but, for some inexplicable and intangible reason, it seems to have a certain hold on people, including me. I think it has to do with the fact that the site played such an important role on P&R. As Owen said, the Pit is almost a character in and of itself. Add that to the fact that the the Pit was once an actual hole in an actual neighborhood and not some manufactured set piece and you have one must-see locale. Mike had never actually watched an episode of Parks and Recreation before Friday, but after stalking the Pit he went right out and bought Season 1 on DVD. And when I mentioned the place to my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog (who could normally care less about locations), she said, “Now that’s one site I would really like to stalk.” See what I mean? The Pit just has a certain allure.
As you can see below, the lot, which is absolutely HUGE in person (much larger than I had expected it to be), is currently completely overgrown and it does not appear as if Parks and Recreation has done any filming there in quite some time. Oh, how I would have loved to have seen the place back when it was still in pit form! You can see some fabulous aerial views of what the location looked like during the filming of Season 1 on fave website Virtual Globetrotting.
According to the sign pictured below, the 1.16-acre lot is currently for sale for a whopping $4,999,999. The site has apparently already been permitted for the building of 26 townhomes, with expenses and fees paid, so I am guessing that the story told on P&R (that a developer purchased the land in order to build condos and then went bankrupt) is pretty much exactly what happened in real life, too. I am hoping against all hope that the property does not sell anytime soon. How fabulous would it be if it was indefinitely left its current state for all of us stalkers to enjoy?
And while Ann’s house is, of course, located directly behind the Pit, I am actually saving that location for a separate post.
On a side-note – I would like to send out a huge CONGRATULATIONS to the love of my life, Matt Lanter, who recently proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Angela Stacy. And while it really should have been me you proposed to, Matt, I guess I am just going to have to be the bigger person here! All kidding aside, here’s wishing you all the happiness in the world! 
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 
Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Sullivan Street Pit from Parks and Recreation is located at the southeast corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Collins Street in Van Nuys. Ann Perkins’ house is located directly behind the Pit at 5655 Murietta Avenue in Van Nuys.
Last Wednesday, while on my morning walk to Starbucks, I happened to pass by fave bookstore Vroman’s and just about fell over when I noticed an entire slew of production trucks parked out front. I, of course, immediately sought out one of the crew members to ask what was being filmed and he told me that it was an episode of Parks and Recreation. And even though I had never actually seen the NBC series before, I decided to stick around to watch the filming – only after getting my Starbucks first, of course. 
The shoot was taking place inside of Vroman’s, in the store’s Reading Group section, which had been set up to look like a book signing event was about to occur. The crew had brought in all new furniture for the scene, as well as several posters for Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, a book supposedly written by Pawnee, Indiana Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler). And while I had assumed that the tome was a fake that had been created solely for the filming, it is apparently a real life publication about the show that is set to be released on October 4th.
A display featuring several copies of Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America was set up in the background of the scene and, throughout the day, before filming began, countless Vroman’s customers would walk up and look through it, thinking it was a real item that was for sale. LOL I am dying to know if anyone actually brought a copy up to the cash registers and tried to purchase it!
At first I was not sure if I would be allowed to photograph the set that the crew had created, so like an idiot I was trying to be sly and take pictures on the down-low, which never seems to work out for me. For some reason, whenever I try to fly under the radar and be covert, I end up drawing attention to myself, which is exactly what happened in this case. One of the crew members noticed me ever-so-stealthily snapping photographs and informed me that I was welcome to take all of the pictures that I wanted . . .
. . . at which point I immediately jumped up onto the podium that Amy Poehler would be standing on during the scene to pose for a pic. 
YAY!
I was most fascinated, though, with a palm tree located just outside of Vroman’s front doors (which would only be seen in the background of the scene) that set dressers decorated to look like a tree indigenous to the Midwest, where Parks and Recreation supposedly takes place.
As you can see above, the front side of the tree’s trunk had been covered over with fake bark for the filming.
And real life branches from some sort of Midwestern tree (can you tell that I am in no way, shape, or form a green thumb?!?) were mixed in with the actual palm’s branches. The tree looked so incredibly realistic, even up close, that it was almost unbelievable! I don’t think anyone who walked by even noticed that it had been altered, even though the trunk looked a bit odd from the side.
I was absolutely dying to get a photograph with Rob Lowe (whose autobiography, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, was recently loaned to me by my good friend/fellow stalker Kerry and is can’t-put-down-AMAZING!) and figured I could catch the actor on his way into the bookstore before filming got started. Sadly though, Vroman’s has three different entrances and I waited outside of the wrong one and missed him entirely. Major, major FAIL! Especially since he was reportedly incredibly friendly and nice! Apparently, one of the Vroman’s employees, who goes by the twitter handle @howsannie, had sent out the following tweet the previous evening: “Parks & Recreation is filming at the store tomorrow. Dibs on @RobLowe!”, to which the actor responded, “I expect prominent book display!” When Rob walked into the store the following afternoon, his books were indeed on prominent display and he not only signed a bunch of copies for Vroman’s to sell, one of which is pictured above, but he also signed a copy for @howsannie. How incredibly cool is that? He even tweeted a photograph of himself from the set that day, which you can take a look at here. I was lucky enough to get to watch Rob, along with Amy Poehler and Chris Pratt, during the filming and all I can say is WOW! The guy is VERY good looking! Much more so than he appears to be onscreen. And while I would have waited around until the shoot wrapped to try to get a picture with the cast, I had promised Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, that I would stalk a movie premiere with her later that afternoon, so I couldn’t. Ah well! Here’s hoping they will be filming in Pasadena again sometime soon!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the store’s official website here. Look for the Parks and Recreation episode that was filmed at Vroman’s to air sometime in the next two months or so.