The Reno Main US Post Office from “Sister Act”

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While visiting my grandmother in Sparks, Nevada over Christmas, I dragged her, along with my parents, out to stalk the Reno Main US Post Office, which masqueraded as the Reno Police Station in the 1992 movie Sister Act.  I first found out about this location from fave book Shot on This Site: A Traveler’s Guide to the Places and Locations Used to Film Famous Movies and TV Shows (which was gifted to me by fellow stalker Lavonna Smile) while doing research on the area in preparation for my July trip out to the Silver State.  For some reason, though, while I had managed to stalk the Washoe County Courthouse from The Misfits during my visit, I had somehow forgotten all about the post office – which is a pretty incredible feat being that the two buildings are located directly across the street from each other!  As I have said countless times before on this blog, I am such a blonde!  So during this recent visit, I made it a point to trek the family out to Downtown Reno once again so that I could finally do some Sister Act stalking.

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The Reno Main US Post Office was originally constructed in 1932 by Frederic DeLongchamps, the prolific Nevada-area architect who also designed the Washoe Country Courthouse, the Riverside Hotel, and countless other noteworthy buildings across the Silver State.  The structure was built on the site of what was formerly Reno’s very first public library.  When the library was moved to a new location in 1931, DeLongchamps set to work on building the post office, which did not officially open for business until 1934.  The Reno Main US Post Office, which also houses several Federal agency offices, is considered to be one of the finest examples of Zigzag Moderne architecture – a highly decorative style of Art Deco design that employs sunken vertical panel windows, flat roofs, geometric ornamentation, repetitive angular patterns, and astrological imagery – in all of Nevada.  The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 28th, 1990.

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The interior of the Reno Main US Post Office is nothing short of breathtaking and not at all what I had been expecting when I first walked in.  I mean, the Pasadena Post Office is quite beautiful as well, but nothing like this!

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The detail in the design of the interior was absolutely astounding!  There are ornate cast aluminum fixtures, like the one pictured above, fastened to the corner of every single marble tile which covers the lobby walls.

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And each bank of mailboxes is adorned with an elaborately-carved border.  Every time I turned around, I found myself discovering some new miniscule detail that I had not previously noticed.  Simply amazing!

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The original blue prints for the Reno Main US Post Office were even on display in the lobby, which I thought was so incredibly cool!  Smile

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The Reno Main US Post Office shows up twice in Sister Act.  It first appears very briefly in the beginning of the movie, in the scene in which Deloris Van Cartier (aka Whoopi Goldberg) reports to the police that her boyfriend, Vince LaRocca (aka Harvey Keitel), has just killed his limo driver.  According to the IMBD Sister Act trivia page, producers decided to film at the post office because they did not think that the actual Downtown Reno police station looked like a police station.  LOL  Ah, Hollywood!

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The post office next shows up in the scene in which Vince leaves the police station with his lawyers after having been interrogated for six hours.

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And while I had originally assumed that the interior of the Reno Main US Post Office had been used as the interior of the police station in Sister Act, as you can see above, that does not appear to have been the case.  The interior does not look to have been a set, though, either, so I guess I am going to have to do a bit of digging to track down where filming actually took place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Reno Main US Post Office, aka the police station from Sister Act, is located at 50 South Virginia Street in Reno, NevadaThe Washoe County Courthouse, from The Misfits, is located across the street at 117 South Virginia Street.

The Washoe County Courthouse from “The Misfits”

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As promised, while visiting my grandmother in Reno last month, I did indeed bring along a copy of The Misfits on DVD and we did indeed watch it.  Prior to gathering around her television set, my grandma informed me that she had actually seen The Misfits once before, back in 1961 when it first came out in theatres.  How incredibly cool is that!  When I asked her if she had enjoyed it, she said “No, not particularly.”  Ha!  My grandmother has never been one to mince words.  Winking smile She told me that the movie was a bit too depressing for her taste and that the horse-wrangling scenes seriously disturbed her.  Now, having seen the flick myself, I can say that her analysis was spot on.  The Misfits was seriously depressing and I had to fast-forward through each and every one of the scenes involving horse-wrangling.  I must say, though, that it was, as always, thoroughly enjoyable to see my girl Marilyn Monroe onscreen in what many consider to be her finest performance.  Every time MM would enter a scene, my mom, who watched the film with us, would say, “God, she was beautiful!”  And it is so true!  The camera certainly loved Marilyn and she was absolutely luminous in The Misfits, which, as fate would have it, was the last picture the starlet ever completed.

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A very brief, but important scene from The Misfits, which was filmed almost in its entirety in the Silver State, takes place at the Washoe County Courthouse in Downtown Reno, a building which is still in use to this day.  So I, of course, just had to drag my dad and my grandma out to stalk the place while we were in town. (My mom, who had just had back surgery, decided to sit this one out.)  The absolutely beautiful, neo-classical-style courthouse was originally designed in 1911 by Frederic DeLongchamps, in what was to be the prolific Nevada-area architect’s very first solo commission.  The stunning structure, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, cost $250,000 to construct and features a copper dome, towering Corinthian columns, a large portico, terrazzo tile flooring, and a stained glass ceiling.

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Sadly though, as you can see above, no photography whatsoever is allowed inside of the building.  According to the Yahoo! Travel website, more marriage licenses have been given out at the Washoe County Courthouse than at any other courthouse of its size in the entire country. Consequently, due to Reno’s lenient divorce laws (the city’s waiting period for a divorce in the early 1900s was only six months; in 1927 that waiting period was shortened to three months; and in 1931 it was shortened yet again to a scant six weeks!), countless marriages have ended within the courthouse walls, as well, resulting in the city being dubbed “The Divorce Capital of the World”.  In the 1930s alone over 33,000 divorces were granted at the historic courthouse, which is, I am guessing, how The Misfits came to be filmed there.

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In The Misfits, Guido (aka Eli Wallach, whom my sharp-as-a-tack, 86-year-old grandmother immediately recognized as Arthur Abbot from fave movie The Holiday), drives Roslyn Taber (aka Marilyn Monroe) and her friend Isabelle Steers (aka Thelma Ritter) to the Washoe County Courthouse so that Roslyn can be granted a – you guessed it – divorce.  Guido drops the two women off on the northeast corner of South Virginia Street and Court Street in the scene, just across the road from the courthouse, which you can see in the background in the two screen captures pictured above.

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Roslyn and Isabelle then cross South Virginia Street and head to the courthouse, where they run into Roslyn’s soon-to-be ex-husband, Raymond Taber (aka Kevin McCarthy), and have a brief confrontation with him on the front steps.  I find it absolutely amazing that the courthouse not only still looks exactly the same today as it did in 1961 when The Misfits was filmed, but that the place is still in use almost a full century after its inception. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

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While stalking the courthouse, I was under the mistaken assumption that Marilyn had walked up the north side of the front steps in The Misfits and I had my dad take a photograph of me posing there.  It was not until I got home and re-watched the scene that I realized that Marilyn had actually walked up the south side of the steps.  Ugh, I am such a blonde sometimes!  Ah well, I guess I will just have to go back and re-stalk the place during my next visit to Reno!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The official address of the Washoe County Courthouse from The Misfits is 75 Court Street in Downtown Reno, but the front of the building and the area that appeared in the movie is actually located around the corner at 117 South Virginia Street.