Mawby’s Bar from “Flashdance” – An Update

Mawby's Bar from Flashdance (6 of 6)

Typically, when a vacant space is built out for a production, it is dismantled as soon as filming wraps – though sometimes stranger things, ahem, do happen.  Take Gwinnett Place, for instance.  A wing of the largely deserted Duluth, Georgia shopping center was transformed (with breathtaking attention to detail, I might add) into Hawkins, Indiana’s Starcourt Mall for the third season of Stranger Things. It is one of my favorite locations ever to be brought to life onscreen and, incredibly, was left completely dressed in its destroyed ‘80s state up until earlier this month – almost a year after filming took place!  Atypical as that is, the same scenario appears to be true for Mawby’s Bar from Flashdance!  As I chronicled in an August 2017 post, the supposed Pittsburgh nightclub was not a real place, but a set created especially for the 1983 movie at a vacant warehouse located at 229 Boyd Street in downtown L.A.  While I assumed said set was disassembled following the shoot, fellow stalker Dave (you may remember his amazing research from this post) recently informed me that it popped up again two years later as Coyle’s Club & Cuff in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment!  Why producers (not to mention the building owner) chose to leave the bar space intact is beyond me, but I am so grateful they did!  Due to the many changes the warehouse incurred in the three-plus decades since Flashdance was shot, it is not at all recognizable, so prior to writing my 2017 post I attempted to dig up additional footage of it from other productions lensed around the same time to further verify its use in the movie.  I was unsuccessful, but, thankfully, Dave has now done the legwork for me!  So I figure an update is in order!

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It is at Coyle’s Club & Cuff that the officers of the 16th Precinct regularly hang out in Police Academy 2.  As Dave explained to me, the small octagonal windows flanking the bar’s front door, the larger one situated on the wall beside it, and the glass block framing perfectly match Mawby’s exterior from Flashdance, giving away its location as 229 Boyd Street, despite looking completely different today.

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Mawby's Bar from Flashdance (2 of 6)

Dave went on to explain that in one scene, Tackleberry (David Graf) is shown walking inside Coyle’s and, as he enters, it becomes obvious from the octagonal window visible behind him (denoted with a blue arrow below) as well as the glass block framing above the doorway (denoted with a pink arrow) that the warehouse was used for both interiors and exteriors.

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Those exact same elements are also apparent in Flashdance, which cements the fact that the inside of the building was utilized in that film, as well – something I hypothesized about in my 2017 post, but could not prove at the time.

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As Dave scrutinized the two movies further, he discovered even more matching details!  He called my attention to the two shots below, taken from practically the same angle, noting that although framing was built atop the bar for Police Academy 2 changing the look of it, the countertop was left untouched as were the doorway and hatch visible beyond it!

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Seeing that doorway and hatch (denoted with pink and blue arrows below) gave me goosebumps!  I could hardly believe my eyes, but, sure enough, right before me was proof that the Mawby’s set was left intact long after Flashdance wrapped.

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A clearer view of the octagonal hatch is pictured below.  (To quote Jake Peralta, “Literal goosebumps!”)

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Thrilled at the new development, I excitedly began dissecting Flashdance and Police Academy 2 myself and dug up a few additional elements visible in both, including a vestibule with decorative wood paneling (shown from opposing angles below) situated just inside the front door of the two spaces.

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  A partition with seating that runs the length of the interiors is also apparent in both flicks.

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The counter attached to said partition (shown from opposite angles below) boasts red siding in both productions, as well.

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The lip of the bar and the tan and red paneling below it are also direct matches.  Oh, how I wish that interior was still intact today!

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During his research, Dave unearthed an even more unusual twist!  Toward the middle of Police Academy 2, the outside of 229 Boyd appears in an undressed state in the scene in which Doug Fackler (Bruce Mahler) heads to a gas station looking for a public restroom.  As Dave wrote to me, “So at some point during production, either before or after Fackler drives past the building, the set designers will have given it quite a makeover!”  Though definitely odd, the segment provides a fabulous full view of what the property looked like in 1985 – which is pretty darn close to how it appeared in Flashdance (minus the Mawby’s accoutrements, of course)!  Dave notes, “Even the HOTEL lettering is still intact!”  Sadly, the location in its current state does not resemble its ‘80s self in the slightest.

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Mawby's Bar from Flashdance (4 of 6)

As chronicled in my 2017 post, the warehouse pops up in a few other productions, as well, including 1984’s Night of the Comet.  In the screen captures below, the Mawby’s site, located just beyond the stop sign, is denoted with a yellow arrow.

Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) and Wilson (Mykelti Williamson) drive by the building in 1988’s Miracle Mile.

And a reused shot of it from Flashdance appeared as an establishing shot in the 1990 made-for-television movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Poisoned Pen, though no actual filming took place there.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

HUGE thank you to fellow stalker Dave for figuring out this location’s Police Academy 2 connection.  Smile

Mawby's Bar from Flashdance (5 of 6)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The building that portrayed both Mawby’s Bar in Flashdance and Coyle’s Club and Cuff in Police Academy 2 can be found at 229 Boyd Street in downtown Los Angeles.  The neighborhood where it is located is not the greatest, so please exercise caution when visiting.

Mawby’s Bar from “Flashdance”

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While I am definitely a child of the ‘80s, there are some classic films from that era that I have never been a fan of.  Pretty in Pink, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Flashdance come to mind.  Being that there’s pretty much nothing I love more than movies with musical and dance montages, the latter should be right up my alley, but, for whatever reason, it never struck a chord.  There is one spot from it that I have been asked about regularly over the years, though – Mawby’s Bar, the club where welder-by-day/exotic-dancer-by-night Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals) worked in the 1983 flick.  Filming websites had long documented that the Mawby’s exterior could be found in downtown L.A., though it’s exact address was never specified.  Then in September 2014, The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations published some more detailed information.  According to a tip from location manager Charles Newirth, Mawby’s was a mocked-up vacant warehouse at the corner of Boyd and Wall Streets that had been demolished at some point since filming took place.  Because the building was said to be gone, I did not put any further thought into it.  So imagine my surprise when this past December, fellow stalker Chas, of It’s Filmed There, posted a page about Flashdance locales, along with the address of the still-intact Mawby’s warehouse!

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I immediately headed over to Google Street View to check out the building, which, as Chas explained, looks considerably different in reality.  Not only was the structure, located at 229 Boyd Street, heavily dressed for the filming of Flashdance (with a neon, glass brick and black metal façade added to the exterior, as well as letters spelling out “hotel” written across the second level), but it was also altered in the years following the shoot.  Most noticeably, the five rounded second story windows were filled in at some point.

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Amazingly though, the outlines of those windows are still discernible today, which I was absolutely floored to see!

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I was also floored to see that the utility access cover visible in the sidewalk directly outside of Mawby’s front door is still there today!  (I know, I know – it doesn’t take much to excite me.)

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Mawby’s, which was loosely based upon a real Toronto-area strip club named Gimlets, was featured numerous times throughout Flashdance.

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Though I cannot say for certain, from the way the film was shot and a few blurbs I have read online, it seems that the actual interior of the warehouse was also utilized in the filming.  Ron Karabatsos, who played Mawby’s Bar owner Jake Mawby in the movie, even wrote in to the Fast Rewind website explaining that the club was built from scratch in an empty storefront in downtown Los Angeles.  (Though he states that said storefront was on 5th and Los Angeles Streets, that intersection is only a hop, skip and a jump away from the Boyd warehouse, so I believe he was just a bit off in his recollection.  It is also possible that a different vacant site was utilized for interior shots of Mawby’s, but I do not think that was the case.)

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I was really hoping to find some additional onscreen appearances of the warehouse from the same time period so that I could further verify the location (you know me – I don’t like to leave any stone unturned when it comes to this stuff).  While I did come across a couple, neither provided a great view of the building.  We catch a very brief glimpse of the side of it in the 1984 Sci-Fi horror flick Night of the Comet.  In the screen captures below, the Mawby’s warehouse, located just beyond the stop sign, is denoted with a yellow arrow.

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A much better view of the warehouse is shown in 1988’s Miracle Mile, in the scene in which Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) and Wilson (Mykelti Williamson) attempt to get gas at a downtown gas station.  Unfortunately, I did not take any photographs of that side of the structure while I was stalking the place, so please bear with the Google Street View images pictured below.

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Oddly, the second floor windows that I was so excited to see the outlines of appear to have been replaced by long rectangular windows by the time Miracle Mile was shot, which makes no sense whatsoever.  If the rounded windows were actually swapped out, how are vestiges of them still apparent today?

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Miracle Mile also provides a quick glimpse of the parking lot that was formerly situated across the street from the warehouse and was visible in Flashdance.  Today, a one-story building stands on that site.

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Thanks to a commenter named Sam I learned that an establishing shot of Mawby’s from Flashdance was re-used in the 1990 made-for-television movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Poisoned Pen.  No actual filming took place at 229 Boyd Street, though.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations and Chas, from the It’s Filmed There website, for finding this location! Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The warehouse that masked as Mawby’s Bar in Flashdance can be found at 229 Boyd Street in downtown Los Angeles.  The neighborhood where it is located is not the greatest, so please exercise caution when visiting.

Bob Hope Patriotic Hall from “Flashdance”

Bob Hope Patriotic Hall (15 of 26)

Anyone who has ever driven on the I-10 Freeway east of downtown Los Angeles has most likely noticed the A-line, red-roofed building that towers over the skyline to the south.  That building is Bob Hope Patriotic Hall.  I have passed by it hundreds of times and have always wanted to venture inside.  A couple of weeks ago, while on our way back to the desert, the Grim Cheaper and I finally did.  Though the Bob Hope Patriotic Hall website says that the property is open to the public, that is actually no longer the case.  When the security guard manning the door saw my disappointment upon hearing this news, he took pity on us and allowed us to tour the lobby area.  I am so thankful that he did because the space is nothing short of spectacular.

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Construction on the 85,000-square-foot building, which was originally named “Patriotic Hall,” began in 1925 and was completed in 1926.  The ten-story Italian Renaissance/Romanesque-style site was designed by the Allied Architects Association and was the tallest building in Los Angeles at the time of its inception.

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In late 2004, the structure, which is comprised of offices, a gymnasium, locker rooms, dining rooms, meeting spaces, ballrooms and an auditorium, was renamed Bob Hope Patriotic Hall in honor of the legendary comedian.

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The property went through an extensive, $45-million, 7-year restoration process beginning in 2006 and the result is pretty darn amazing.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of the ornate plaster ceiling.

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Bob Hope Patriotic Hall Lobby

Sadly, we were not able to venture upstairs to the upper levels of the building, but you can check out photographs of some of those areas here.

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Bob Hope Patriotic Hall has been used in hundreds of productions over the years.  Most famously, it was in the building’s Nimitz Room that Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals) auditioned for the Pittsburgh Dance and Repertory Company in 1983’s Flashdance.

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That same room stood in for the Basil St. Mosley School of Dance in The Wedding Planner.

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In 1986’s Back to School, Thornton Melon (Rodney Dangerfield) took his oral exams in another of the Patriotic Hall’s ballrooms.

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The property’s lobby and a meeting room appeared in 1988’s Stand and Deliver, in the scene in which Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) confronts the Educational Testing Service about his students’ AP Calculus test scores.

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Bob Hope Patriotic Hall’s tenth-floor gym appeared in Patches O’Houlihan’s (Hank Azaria) informational video about dodgeball in the 2004 comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

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And while many sources say that the iconic opening scene from Patton, in which General George S. Patton Jr. (George C. Scott) delivered his famous Speech to the Third Army, was shot in the hall’s auditorium, I do not believe that information to be correct.  Because only a large American flag and portions of a curtain were shown in the background of the scene, I was fairly certain upon watching that it was shot on a set.  Then while researching this post, I came across an article titled The Photography of PATTON by George J. Mitchel that states that the scene was lensed at Sevilla Studios in Spain.  Because there is so little to go on with this one, I cannot say for certain either way, but my best guess is that Mitchel is correct.

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We did get to tour the auditorium while visiting the Hall and, though my pictures don’t do it justice, the space is absolutely gorgeous.

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For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Bob Hope Patriotic Hall, from Flashdance, is located at 1816 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles.  The building is currently only open to veterans.