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 Old Zoo In Griffith Park

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Just around the corner from the Griffith Park Merry Go Round, which I blogged about yesterday, is the location of the park’s former zoo – an abandoned site  which is commonly referred to as the Old Zoo or the Old Zoo Picnic Grounds.  I first found out about this location from favorite stalking tome Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors and was shocked to discover that in the almost decade that I’ve lived in Southern California and in all of the stalking that I have done during that time period, I had never before even heard the place mentioned.  As “Javier J.” commented in his Yelp review of the Old Zoo, “It’s one of the biggest in-plain-sight secrets of Old Los Angeles”.  So incredibly true!  After stalking it a couple of weeks back, I couldn’t help but wonder why more about the landmark location has not been written.  It is a truly AMAZING place!

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The Old Zoo property was first built almost a century ago in 1912 and continued to operate until 1965, when a new zoo attraction was opened in another area of Griffith Park, about two miles north of its predecessor.  Thankfully, but for reasons I am not entirely sure of, the city had enough foresight to keep the former property intact for the future citizens of L.A. to enjoy and explore.  The Old Zoo site, which had been completely renovated and expanded in the mid-1930s, is an absolutely AMAZING piece of L.A. history and is comprised of such structures as animal enclosures;

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aviaries and monkey habitats;

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rows of cages of all different shapes and sizes;

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and a house-like structure of some sort . . .

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. . . all of which are (unbelievably) open and accessible to the public.

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I was absolutely shocked upon our arrival to discover that there were no fences or gates barring access to the former enclosures and cages.  Guests are pretty much given a free pass to wander around and explore the entire property, including the insides and employee-access areas of the former bear habitats.  SO incredibly cool! 

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The website WebUrbanist recently named the Old Zoo one of its Seven Most Amazing American Abandonments and I have to say that I completely agree with that sentiment.  While stepping inside one of the old abandoned cages, I turned to my husband and said, “How lucky are we to live in a city that has stuff like this?”  It still boggles my mind – and I often have to pinch myself to actually believe it – that we live in such an amazing place!  Each week we get to go on these incredible stalking adventures during which we discover countless hidden and historic gems located throughout the city.  Los Angeles seems to be an unending treasure trove of unique and historically significant locations and I still can’t believe that I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to explore them all.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I SO HEART L.A.!  🙂

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And the Old Zoo is, of course, a filming location!  It stood in for the Central Park Zoo in the 1996 movie Eraser in the scene in which Lee Cullen (aka Vanessa Williams) and U.S. Marshal John Kruger (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) face off against U.S. Marshal Robert Deguerin (aka James Caan). 

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The zoo was redressed significantly for the shoot in order to make it appear as if it was an actual working zoo.  Fake entrance gates, resembling those of the real  Central Park Zoo in New York, were added to the property for the filming . . .

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. . . as was a large indoor exhibit.  According to the Hollywood Escapes book, Eraser director Chuck Russell said of the site, “The whole complex is a fun bit of L.A. history.  The Old Zoo’s barred cages supplied a nice retro touch.  More importantly, the area’s grassy field was big enough for us to land a helicopter, fire weapons, and crash vehicles through our prop gates, activities we were not allowed to do in New York.”

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In the 2004 flick Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, the Old Zoo stood in for the San Diego Zoo where Lee Wong, the Panda, gave birth.

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The big bear tank that Veronica Corningstone (aka Christina Applegate) and Ron Burgundy (aka Will Ferrell) fell into is not there in real life.  It was in actuality just a set that was built solely for the filming.

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The Old Zoo was also featured in the Season 2 episode of CSI: New York titled “Zoo York”.  (I blogged about this same episode yesterday, as it was also filmed at the nearby Griffith Park Merry Go Round).  In the episode, the property stood in for the Central Park Zoo where a dead body is found in one of the tiger cages.

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The Old Zoo also appeared in the movies Human Nature, Crazy Mama, and The Star.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Old Zoo Map

Stalk It: The Old Zoo is located inside of Griffith Park, just northwest of the Merry Go Round which I blogged about yesterday.  It is a bit tricky to find, but the best way to get there is to take Los Feliz Boulevard to Crystal Springs Drive and head north.  Make a left onto Fire Road and bypass the first parking lot that you come to (denoted with the blue arrow in the above map).  Keep driving until you reach “Merry Go Round Parking Lot #2”, which is denoted with the pink arrow in the above aerial view.  Walk due west from that lot and follow the signs to the Old Zoo Picnic Grounds.

The Griffith Park Merry Go Round from “The Mentalist”

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One location that I have wanted to stalk for almost two years now, ever since November of 2008 when it appeared in the Season One episode of The Mentalist titled “Seeing Red”, was the merry go round where Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) lured murder suspect Travis Tennant (aka Noel Fisher).  The only problem was that I had absolutely NO idea whatsoever where to find it, as in my ten-plus years of living in Southern California the only merry go round that I had ever encountered was the one located on the Santa Monica Pier and it didn’t look anything like the one that had appeared in The Mentalist.  So, I immediately called up Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and asked him if he knew where it was located.  Sure enough, he did!  As fate would have it, the merry go round is located right in the heart of L.A.’s Griffith Park and Mike used to ride it regularly when he was a kid!

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The Griffith Park Merry Go Round is actually something of a Los Angeles landmark and I am extremely shocked that, up until its appearance on The Mentalist two years ago, I didn’t even know of its existence.  The Merry Go Round was first built in 1926 by the Spillman Engineering Company and is currently the only full size Spillman carousel still in operation today.  It was originally commissioned by the Spreckels family, of the Spreckels Sugar Company, to be used at their San Diego theme park, the Mission Beach Amusement Center.  Sadly, the amusement center was shuttered in 1935 in the midst of the Great Depression and the Merry Go Round was subsequently moved to Balboa Park to be featured in the California Pacific International Exposition.  When the exposition ended in 1937, a man named Ross Davis purchased the carousel and transported it over 120 miles north to its new home in Griffith Park, where it is still in operation to this day, over seven decades later. 

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The Griffith Park Carousel is comprised of 68 different hand-made horses, all of which “jump” – ie. move up and down – and boast tails made of authentic horse hair. 

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The carousel also features a custom-built Stinson 165 Military Band Organ, which plays a library of over 1500 different songs.

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And, incredibly enough, the Griffith Park Merry Go Round even served as the inspiration for one of the most famous landmarks in the entire world – Disneyland!  Yes, you read that right.  According to one of my very favorite stalking tomes, Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, Griffith Park historian Mike Eberts states, “Walt Disney brought his young daughters to the carousel and this is one of the places where he began to dream up the idea that would lead to Disneyland.”  So incredibly cool!  The bench where Walt used to sit during those outings (which is pictured very poorly above) is still on display at the merry go round to this day.  And, according to the book Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Walt’s daughter Diane “thought the inception [of Disneyland] took place during the Sunday afternoons when Walt picked the girls up from religious services – he never attended himself – and took them to the Griffith Park merry-go-round, where they would spend hours.  ‘He’d see families in the park,’ Diane would later recall, ‘and say, ‘There’s nothing for the parents to do . . . You’ve got to have a place where the whole family can have fun.’”  Further adding to the carousel’s celebrity status is the fact that James Dean’s very first acting job took place there!  It was a commercial for Pepsi Cola and, in it, the newbie actor was shown handing out bottles of the soft drink to teenagers who were riding the merry go round.  Such incredible history!

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I, of course, had to take a ride on the carousel while I was there and it was so incredibly fun!  Being there brought me RIGHT BACK to my childhood when I used to ride the Edgewater Packing House Carousel on Monterey’s Cannery Row each and every weekend.  In an odd coincidence, I just found out today that my childhood merry go round was also designed by the Spillman Engineering Company, but it is sadly no longer in operation publicly as it was purchased by a Vegas millionaire who had it installed in a room in his home!  Not kidding!  But I digress.

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In the “Seeing Red” episode of The Mentalist, Patrick Jane hypnotizes a young murder suspect named Travis in order to lead him to a supposed Sacramento-area merry go round so that he can be captured by the CBI.

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Mike clued me into the fact that the Merry Go Round was also featured at the very end of the 1988 comedy Twins, in the scene in which Julius and Vincent Benedict (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, respectively) meet up with their wives, Marnie and Linda Mason (aka Kelly Preston and Chloe Webb, respectively), and their new twin children at a carousel in a park.

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Once Mike told me about the Merry Go Round, I started noticing it popping up in all sorts of movies and television shows, including the Season 2 episode of CSI: New York titled “Zoo York”, in which the body of a teenage debutante is found on the supposed Central Park carousel.

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The Griffith Park Merry Go Round also showed up in the 1992 flick Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as the spot where Amylin (aka Paul Reubens) turned Grueller (aka Sasha Jensen) into a vampire.

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And it also appeared briefly in the Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “Every Time She Smiles” as a supposed Bulgaria-area merry go round.

  

And thank you to fellow stalker Eileen, who informed me that the carousel also appeared in the video for the Jessica Simpson/Nick Lachey song “Where You Are”.

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The Merry Go Round was also featured in the Sally Field-directed movie Beautiful, but I don’t own that movie, so I was not able to make screen captures.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Griffith Park Merry Go Round Map

Stalk It: The Griffith Park Merry Go Round is located at 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.  The Merry Go Round is open each Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  During the summer months, it is also open on weekdays.  The Merry Go Round can be a bit tricky to find and is not entirely visible from the road.  The easiest way to get there is to take Los Feliz Boulevard to Crystal Springs Drive and head north.  Make a left onto Fire Road and park in the first lot that you come to.  The Merry Go Round is located just north of that lot.