The “New Girl” Apartment Building

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My good friend/fellow stalker Lavonna has been begging me to track down locations from New Girl for a good three months now, but because I had never seen an episode of the series I was unable to do so.  Until last Monday evening, that is, when the Grim Cheaper and I finally sat down and started watching it from the beginning.  Thank you, Hulu!  I have to admit that I did not have very high hopes for the show as, for whatever reason, I am not that big of a fan of actress Zooey Deschanel (whose mom played Eileen Hayward on fave series Twin Peaks, but I digress).  I ended up LOVING it, though, and both the GC and I are now absolutely hooked!  After watching the first few episodes, I immediately started doing research on the warehouse-style loft apartment building where the New Girl gang lives (Lavonna’s most coveted locale from the series) and thankfully, Christine, over at fave website OnLocationVacations, had posted the address several times on her Daily Filming Locations page.  So I dragged the GC right on out to the Arts District in Downtown L.A. this past Saturday afternoon to do some stalking of the place.  (On a side-note, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, just taught me how to process my photographs using the soon-to-be defunct Picnik editing program, so I have been having a little fun with them today.  Don’t mind me.  Smile)

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I had never before visited – or even heard of – the “Arts District” (or “Artists District” as it is sometimes referred to) until this past Saturday, but according to the Los Angeles Downtown Arts District website, the area is the site of an average of 900 movie shoots per year!  Um, yes please – sign me up!  It is basically a stalker’s heaven – and one of the coolest spots that I have been to in all of my stalking travels.  The District became a haven for the artistically-inclined in 1976 thanks to the many affordable studio-type spaces available in the countless then-abandoned buildings and warehouses located there.  Artists gradually began to take over the many spacious lofts, turning them into art studios and illegal living spaces (the area was not yet zoned as residential).  In the 1980s, the Artists-In-Residence ordinance was passed which allowed lessees to use their flats as live/work spaces and, as a result, even more artisans flocked to the area.  Today, the Arts District is a flourishing mecca of artists and hipsters and boasts fabulous brick buildings, sidewalk cafes and more galleries than you can shake a stick at.  While there, not only did I feel like I had been transported back to my beloved Manhattan, but we ended up falling bass-ackwards into one of my most sought-after filming locations ever!  But that is another story for another post.

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In real life, the property where the New Girl gang lives is known as the Binford Building and it was originally constructed in 1906, but was not converted into a residential structure until the mid-1980s.  The 36-unit domicile was the brainchild of real estate developer Michael Kamin, owner of the Mika Company, who, in a 1986 Los Angeles Times article said, “We wanted to make the building a statement and an art piece  — something that says this is an exciting place to live, something to keep the focus on this street.”   I would say he succeeded – in spades!  The structure is definitely unique and the most eye-catching on the entire block.

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In New Girl, the Binford Building is where Jess (Zooey Deschanel), Nick (Jake M. Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Winston (Lamorne Morris) live.  The exterior of the structure is shown weekly on the series.

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The building’s main entrance has also popped up from time to time.

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That entrance is shown above.

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As you can see, the Binford’s real life directory and intercom are even visible on the show.  Love it!

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The interior of the gang’s apartment is just a set, though, located at Fox Studios where (I am fairly certain) the series is lensed.  You can check out some photographs of the interior of an actual Binford Building unit here.  As you can see, it does not look anything like the New Girl loft.  I am absolutely IN LOVE with the group’s sprawling, FOUR-bedroom, industrial, brick-walled loft, by the way.  The GC and I also live in a loft-style apartment that I ADORE, but it is 750-square feet, has no actual bedrooms and only ONE teeny-tiny closet!  Yes, ladies, I have to share a closet with my husband – GASP!  The GC recently commented that he has noticed his side of the closet getting gradually smaller over the years.  Ha!  And here I thought I was being all sly.  Winking smile So yes, I have been known to drool copiously while watching New Girl.  I definitely have apartment envy!

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I could do without their public-style bathroom, though, which is an aspect of the show that I still do not entirely understand.

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According to a message board on the Animation Nation website, the premiere episode of the cartoon Family Dog (which was part of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories) was created by animator Brad Bird in one of the Binford Building lofts.  The family in the series was even named “The Binfords” in honor of the property.  Traction Avenue, the street where the Binford is located, was also mentioned (and briefly seen on a freeway sign) in Bird’s 2004 hit, The Incredibles.

Binford Lofts–the “New Girl” Apartment Building

You can watch a video about the Binford Building lofts by clicking above.

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Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for asking me to find this location (and for turning me on to New Girl) and to Christine, from OnLocationVacations, for tracking it down!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Binford Building, aka the New Girl apartment building, is located at 837 Traction Avenue in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles.

The Historic Mayfair Hotel from “The Office”

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Fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, sent me an email last week after reading my post on Red Studios Hollywood from The Artist (a location that I had learned about from his website) informing me that he had tracked down some locales from Season 7’s “The Search” episode of The Office that I might be interested in stalking, most notably The Historic Mayfair Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) shared a rooftop kiss.  Ironically enough, my good friend, fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, had also sent me this location on February 4th of last year, the day after the episode had originally aired, along with a list of all of the other places featured in “The Search”.  And while I did stalk a few of them – Kung Pao China Bistro and Larry’s Chili Dog – for whatever reason, I never made it out to The Mayfair.  So, this past weekend, I decided to change that and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there.  (I am not sure what happened with the above photograph, but somehow it turned out a bit wonky and neither the GC nor I realized it at the time.)

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The Historic Mayfair Hotel was originally designed in 1927 by Alexander E. Curlett and Claud W. Beelman, the same architecture team who gave us the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park (an extremely popular filming location that I have stalked, but have yet to blog about), the Cooper Arms condominium building in Long Beach, and the Los Angeles Board of Trade Building in Downtown L.A.  The 13-story hotel, which at the time was named simply The Mayfair, was commissioned by Texas oil tycoons and was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million – and we’re talking 1920’s dollars!  In its heyday, the luxury property hosted such luminaries as Mary Pickford and John Barrymore.  Raymond Chandler even wrote and set his 1939 short story “I’ll Be Waiting” at The Mayfair, although he dubbed the place the “Windermere Hotel” in the tale.

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The property, which originally boasted 350 rooms, but now has just 304, was the largest hotel west of the Mississippi at one time and featured an immensely popular supper and dance club known as the Rainbow Isle Room, from which George Eckhardts, Jr. and the Rainbow Isle Orchestra would broadcast a live radio show each night.  In 2004, after suffering from a long period of neglect, the structure underwent a massive and much-needed $40 million renovation, at which point it was renamed The Historic Mayfair Hotel.  You can check out some great photographs of the place during its early days on The Mayfair’s Facebook page here.

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In “The Search” episode of The Office, after being stranded at a supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area gas station, Michael Scott goes on a walkabout which ends on the rooftop of The Historic Mayfair Hotel.  When Holly finds him there and Michael tells her how much he has missed her, the two finally kiss, ending several years worth of will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together storylines and allowing  audiences to finally breath a long-overdue sigh of relief.  Not surprisingly, the roof area of The Mayfair is closed to the public, so I was unable to snap any pictures of it.

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Mike, from MovieShotsLA, figured out that The Mayfair stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area The Addison Hotel where Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) attended her 15-year high school reunion in 1999’s The Deep End of the Ocean.

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It was from the lobby of The Mayfair that Beth’s 3-year-old son, Ben Cappadora (Michael McElroy), was kidnapped.

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As you can see above, despite the renovation, the lobby still looks very much the same today as it did back in 1998 when The Deep End of the Ocean was filmed.

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The super-nice front desk clerk that we spoke with while we were there informed us that both the interior and the exterior of the property had also appeared in 1994’s True Lies, as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Washington Mayfair Hotel where Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), on horseback, chased motor-cycle-riding religious zealot Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through a lobby.

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The Mayfair lobby was actually one of three different lobbies used in that particular scene.  Harry is first shown chasing Salim across the length of The Mayfair’s lobby.

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The two then turn a corner and are magically transported to the now-defunct The Ambassador hotel, the same lobby of which was used as the Regent Beverly Wilshire in 1990’s Pretty Woman.

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The duo then heads outside, “across the street” and into The Westin Bonaventure Hotel.  In reality, when the Ambassador was still standing, it was located a good two miles away from The Bonaventure.  Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

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Thanks to the Richard Dean Anderson Website, I learned that The Historic Mayfair Hotel was also used in the 1986 Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “The Assassin”.

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I am fairly certain that only the exterior of the property appeared in the episode, though, and that all of the interior hotel scenes were filmed on a set.  And while IMDB states that The Mayfair was also featured in 2009’s Don’t Look Up, I scanned through the flick yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it pop up anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of its appearance in The Deep End of the OceanSmile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Historic Mayfair Hotel, from “The Search” episode of The Office, is located at 1256 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.