Village Cigars from “Just My Luck”

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When planning a trip, my M.O. is to pore over as many area travel guides as possible and highlight spots I think the Grim Cheaper and I might be interested in seeing.  I then pass the books along to him and he reads through all the passages I have marked, giving them a yay or a nay.  One place that really piqued both our interests prior to our April 2016 NYC vacay was Village Cigars, which we learned about via The Best Things to Do in New York.  Though the smoke shop is an institution in and of itself, the GC and I were most interested in stalking it because of a small triangular plaque located on the sidewalk out front.

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Originally established in the early 1900s, Village Cigars moved to its current home – a tiny triangular-shaped space situated at the intersection of 7th Avenue South, Christopher Street, West 4th Street and Grove Street in the heart of Greenwich Village – in 1922.  Prior to that, a five-story apartment building known as the Voorhis stood at that site.  Owned by Philadelphia-based landlord David Hess and his family, the property was acquired by the city via eminent domain in 1910 in preparation for a large subway expansion project that ultimately destroyed pretty much everything in its path – all in the name of saving a few bucks.  In order to avoid the expensive process of deep bore tunneling, which would have preserved the buildings situated above, the government instead chose to use a ‘cut and cover’ procedure, i.e. removing streets to allow for subterranean digging and then replacing them upon project completion.  As such, an entire stretch of about 300 city buildings, including the Voorhis, were razed and Seventh Avenue South was extended about a mile.  A commenter named Tim on the Scouting New York website explains it best, saying, “Seventh Ave. used to end at Greenwich Ave.  The cut to Varick St. was made in 1913 so the subway company didn’t have to spend big on expensive drilling, instead they convinced the City to demolish 9 city blocks worth of buildings – churches, businesses and apartments – anything in the path of the new Seventh Ave. South so they could use the cheaper ‘cut and cover’ method.”

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You can read a great write-up on the massive undertaking on the Gothamist website here.  Included in the article are the 1897 and 1916 maps pictured below (garnered from The New York Public Library Digital Collections) which provide a better visual of how the Seventh Avenue extension changed the landscape of the area.  In 1897, the Voorhis (spelled incorrectly as “Vorhes” on the map) occupied lot #55, situated just southwest of Christopher Park (the green triangle denoted “park”).  As you can see, the extension not only cut through that lot, but the ones numbered 51 through 54, as well.

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Years after the Seventh Avenue expansion was complete, Hess’ heirs discovered that during the imminent domain process the government had somehow failed to secure ownership of a miniscule triangular portion of their former land.  So they quickly claimed the rights to it.  In an incredibly nervy move, the city then asked the Hess estate to donate the 500-square-inch section of sidewalk to New York.  I’ve doctored the 1897 map below with an overlay showing the current position of Seventh Avenue and an arrow denoting the location of the land in dispute.

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Not surprisingly, the Hess family refused to donate the plot and instead adorned it with a tile plaque reading “PROPERTY OF THE HESS ESTATE WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN DEDICATED FOR PUBLIC PURPOSES.”  The black-and-white mosaic was installed on July 26th, 1922.  To further drive their point home, the family even erected a fence around the signage at one point.

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In 1938, the Hess heirs sold the land, one of the smallest plots still in private ownership in New York, for $1,000 to the proprietors of Village Cigars, who chose to leave the 25.5-inch by 27.5-inch by 27.5-inch plaque intact.  Today, the tiny patch is known as “Hess Triangle.”  You can read a fabulous accounting of the history of the triangle on the Chris Whong website here and here.

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Though the plaque has never appeared in a movie or television show (at least that I know of – if I’m wrong please fill me in!), Village Cigars is a frequent screen star.

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The store is visible twice in fave movie Just My Luck.  It first pops up toward the beginning of the 2006 film in the scene in which Dana (Bree Turner) and Maggie (Samaire Armstrong) decide to test out Ashley Albright’s (Lindsay Lohan) good fortune by purchasing a lottery ticket for her at a magazine stand located across the street from Village Cigars to see if she wins.  Spoiler alert – she does.

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Later in the movie, after her luck has run out, Ashley heads to Christopher Park, across the street from Village Cigars, with Jake Hardin (Chris Pine) and accidentally sits on a park bench that has just been painted.

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Larry Lapinsky (Lenny Baker) passes by Village Cigars numerous times in the 1976 drama Next Stop, Greenwich Village.

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At the beginning of the 1980 comedy Hero at Large, Steve Nichols (John Ritter) is dropped off in front of Village Cigars after a Captain Avenger media promotion.

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Alice Detroit (Dyan Cannon) asks Ivan Travalian (Al Pacino) to meet up with her outside of Village Cigars in 1982’s Author! Author!

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In the Season 2 episode of NYPD Blue titled “The Final Adjustment,” which aired in 1994, Detective James Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) and Leticia Beltran (Marta Martin) walk through Christopher Park with Village Cigars visible in the background.

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Sonny Koufax (Adam Sandler) grabs a hot dog and “a lot of ketchup” with Julian ‘Frankenstein’ McGrath (Cole and Dylan Sprouse) across the street from Village Cigar in the 1999 comedy Big Daddy.

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Village Cigars can also be seen in the background of the 2013 drama Inside Llewyn Davis in the scene in which Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) exits a Greenwich Village subway station with his friend’s cat.

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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: Village Cigars, from Just My Luck, is located at 110 7th Avenue South in New York’s West Village.  Hess Triangle can be found in the sidewalk just outside the shop’s front doors.

Ashley’s Apartment from “Just My Luck”

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I do not have the best taste in movies and am the first to admit it.  Case in point – Just My Luck, a 2006 Lindsay Lohan romcom that I absolutely love.  Have I lost you already?  If so, it’s understandable.  But I find the film adorable.  I’ve seen it about a hundred times and never tire of it.  Part of the appeal is the fact that it takes place – and was largely shot – in New York.  (Some filming also took place in and around New Orleans.)  Prior to heading to the Big Apple in April, I did some research on the flick and was thrilled to discover the location of the Parisian-style building where Ashley Albright (Lohan) lived.  As it turns out, the gorgeous property has appeared in quite a few productions over the years

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Thankfully, Ashley’s apartment was an easy find – the real life address number of the building was visible in the movie’s opening scene.

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43 Fifth Avenue, as the property is known, was originally constructed in 1905 by architect Henry Andersen.

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The 11-story structure, which originally operated as an apartment building, became a cooperative in 1978.

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The pre-war site boasts 42 units (each with 10 1/2 foot ceilings!), a marble lobby with bas-relief sculptures, a two-story mansard roof, bay windows, wrought iron balconies, a 24-hour doorman, and, my personal favorite, a dry moat that lines the perimeter.  The property is absolutely gorgeous and it is not hard to see how it wound up onscreen multiple times.

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You can see photographs of the lobby area, as well as some of the units here.

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The building next door (which was featured prominently in 13 Going On 30) is currently under construction and, unfortunately, some equipment was set up in front of 43 Fifth Avenue when we showed up to stalk it which kind of marred our view.

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Numerous luminaries have called 43 Fifth home over the years including Marlon Brando, Jennifer Jason Leigh, fashion designer Roland Leal, novelist Dawn Powell, and screenwriter Noah Baumbach.  One particular unit, #9E (which you can see photos of here), has had two big-name celebrity inhabitants – both Julia Roberts and Holly Hunter lived there at different points in time.

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Way back in 1914, Chevalier Giacomo Fari Forni, Italian Consul General to New York, lived in the building.  On October 14th of that year, a terrorist group known as the Black Hand put a bomb in the property’s boiler room with the hopes of killing Forni.  The Consul General was not in New York when the explosive was detonated, though, and remained unscathed.  William Waters, one of the building’s employee’s, was not so lucky.  His skull was fractured in the blast.  Several first floor apartments were damaged, as well.  You can read more about the events of that day here and here.

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43 Fifth Avenue only shows up briefly in Just My Luck as the spot where Ashley lives before she unwittingly transfers her luck to stranger Jake Hardin (Chris Pine) via a kiss at a masquerade ball, at which time she becomes unlucky, her apartment floods and she is forced to move in with friends.  Like I said, my taste in movies isn’t the greatest.

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Only the exterior of the building appeared in the flick.  Interiors were shot on a soundstage in Louisiana.

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43 Fifth Avenue was also used in the 2004 comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which not so coincidentally was directed by Donald Petrie, who also directed Just My Luck.  The property showed up a few times in the flick, most famously in the scene in which Ben Barry (Matthew McConaughey) arrives at Andie Anderson’s (Kate Hudson) apartment to take her to a party and she walks out wearing an unforgettably stunning yellow dress.

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In the 2000 comedy Small Time Crooks, 43 Fifth served as the apartment of David (Hugh Grant).  (I apologize for the poor quality of the screen shots below – I got them off of YouTube.)

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Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) lived in the building in the 2010 dramedy Please Give, though very little of the exterior was shown.

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43 Fifth’s ornate lobby made an appearance in the film, as well.

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The building also popped up in A Kiss Before Dying, but I could not find a copy of the flick with which to make screen captures for this post.  And while it was supposedly featured in both Deconstructing Harry and Everyone Says I Love You, as well, I scanned through both movies and did not see the structure anywhere.

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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: Ashley’s apartment from Just My Luck is located at 43 Fifth Avenue in New York’s Greenwich Village.

Grand Central Station

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Yet another Gossip Girl  filming location that I stalked a few weeks back while vacationing in Manhattan is the train station known as Grand Central Terminal.  But being that Grand Central has actually been featured in more than a few hundred productions since it first opened in 1913, it’s not really accurate to refer to the place simply as a “Gossip Girl filming location”.  Truth be told, being that the building is a National Historic Landmark and has been in operation for close to a century now, it’s really not fair to refer to the place as a “filming location” at all.  The fact that the station has been immortalized in countless films and television shows over the years is more of a side-note than anything else.  Truth be told, Grand Central Station, or Grand Central Terminal as it is officially called, is not only the largest train station in the entire world, but is also a marvel of modern-day architecture and one of the cornerstones of New York History.  The terminal, which boasts 44 platforms and 67 different tracks and covers over 48 acres of space!!!, first opened on February 2, 1913 after a staggering ten years of construction.  The Beaux-Arts style building was actually designed by two architectural firms – the firm of Reed & Stern handled the engineering, while Warren and Westmore conducted the aesthetic composition.  And the place truly is a site to behold!   The station’s main concourse is absolutely breathtaking – I mean my breath was literally taken away the first time I saw it!  Seeing the huge shafts of sunlight stream through the concourse’s many window panels, as Hal Morey captured so beautifully in this photograph, is something everyone should experience in person at least once in their lives. The main concourse’s Grand Staircase which is made of marble and which was modeled after the main staircase in the Paris Opera House, is flanked by three beautiful – and HUGE – 75-foot tall leaded glass windows (pictured above).

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On a side note – The Grand Staircase is also, coincidentally, where I took one of my very favorite photographs of New York (pictured above)!  LOL LOL LOL

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But my favorite part of the terminal’s main concourse has to be its ceiling!  Oh, the ceiling!  Grand Central’s beautiful, vaulted ceiling, which features a mural of  Zodiac signs painted backwards was designed and created in 1912 by artist Paul Helleu and contains over 2,500 stars which actually light up.  The reason for the backwards Zodiac depiction, you ask?   The mural is supposed to represent the view of the stars a god would see while looking down upon planet Earth through the heavens.

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The exterior of Grand Central Station is also quite remarkable, as you can see in the above photograph. 

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In 1914, while the station was under construction, French sculptor Jules-Alexis Coutans designed a 48 -foot tall statue of the Roman gods Minerva, Hercules, and Mercury which was to sit sentinel above Grand Central’s 42nd Street entrance.  The statue, which was carved by the John Donnelly Company, also boasts a central glass clock measuring a whopping 13 feet in circumference.  The clock was designed by none other than Tiffany & Co. and represents the largest example of Tiffany Glass in the entire world.

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At night, the exterior becomes even more spectacular. 

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As you can see in the above picture, Grand Central is usually bustling with commuters and visitors alike!  In fact, more than 500,000 people walk through the terminal’s doors EACH DAY!!!!  (No, that’s not a typo – I really meant EACH DAY!)  According to this fabulous article, in the year 1947 alone over 65 MILLION people visited Grand Central – an amount which equaled 40% of the entire popular of the United States at the time!

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Which makes it all the more amazing that the station’s doors were almost shuttered in the 1950s.   Due to the decline of railroads as a popular means of transportation, the terminal faced demolition on numerous different occasions beginning in the year 1954.  Thankfully all such plans were subsequently thwarted, until 1967 when Penn Central Railroad announced its plans to tear down Grand Central and replace it with a sixty-plus story office building.  Thankfully, New York preservationists, most notably former First Lady Jackie O., stepped in to stop the project.  Jackie’s efforts took her all the way to the United States Supreme Court, where a ten year battle was fought over the station.  Penn Central eventually lost the case and Grand Central was awarded landmark status, eliminating any further possibility of it ever being destroyed or changed. In 1994, the terminal was taken over by the Metro-North company, who subsequently began an extensive renovation process, restoring the terminal to her original glory to the tune of $250 million.  Today Grand Central is as beautiful, and as busy, as ever.  Besides being simply a commuter hub, today’s Grand Central Station also boasts fifty different retail stores and five different upscale restaurants, including the world-famous Oyster Bar which has been in operation since the station first opened in 1913.  And, of course, as I mentioned before, the terminal is also a frequent filming location!

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Grand Central has been featured in two different episodes of Gossip Girl – the Pilot episode and the Season Two episode entitled “Oh Brother, Where Bart Thou?”.  In the Pilot, It-girl Serena van der Woodsen is spotted at Grand Central while making her infamous return to New York after a year spent in a Connecticut boarding school.

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In that same episode, Rufus Humphrey picks up his kids, Dan and Jenny, at Grand Central after a weekend spent with their mother.

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And yet again in that very same episode, Grand Central’s famous Campbell Apartment Bar, which I have blogged about once before, shows up at the site of Nate and Serena’s illicit tryst.

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In the “Oh Brother, Where Bart Thou?” episode, Rufus confronts Lily about the child she never told him about while standing in the middle of Grand Central’s main concourse.

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The Campbell Apartment also shows up in that episode as the spot where Chuck Bass hires a private investigator to look into the background of his deceased father’s widow.

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Grand Central, as well as its flap-board destination sign, figure prominently in the end of fave teeny-bopper movie Just My Luck.

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Other movies that have filmed at the terminal include North By Northwest, Armageddon, Carlito’s Way, Hackers, I Am Legend, K-PAX, Men In Black and its sequel Men In Black II, Midnight Run, Old Dogs, Party Monster, Revolutionary Road, The Bone Collector, The Cotton Club, The Fisher King, One Fine Day, Conspiracy Theory, Midnight Run, Loser, Falling In Love, The Prince of Tides, The Freshman, The Perfect Score, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and Unfaithful.  And, Grand Central replicas have even been built on studio soundstages when filming on location at the actual station wasn’t feasible, as was the case with Superman, Twentieth Century, Going Hollywood, The Thin Man Goes Home and Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

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On a “must-see” side note – One of Grand Central’s most famous spots, an area which I, sadly, have yet to visit, is the Whispering Gallery, which is located in the station’s Dining Concourse.  As the name suggests, thanks to the laws of physics and the Gallery’s domed ceiling, two friends can stand at opposite corners of the room, face the walls, and whisper to each other and those whispers will be carried, quite loudly, from one corner of the room to the other.  How amazingly cool is that?  Fellow stalker Owen has even tested out this marvel of science and says it really does work!  I absolutely cannot wait to try it out myself next year!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Grand Central Station is located on 42nd Street, in between Lexington and Park Avenues.  Docent-led tours of the station are given each Wednesday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. by the Municipal Arts Society.  The Whispering Gallery is located in the station’s Dining Concourse near the world-famous Oyster Bar.  The Campbell Apartment is located at 15 Vanderbilt Avenue, just off Grand Central’s main concourse area.  Sadly though, the bar has recently come under new ownership and the dress code has been changed.  And, for some incredibly odd reason, it seems no one on the Campbell Apartment staff knows exactly what the new dress code entails.  When we called the bar to inquire about the dress code prior to our arrival, we were told that jeans and tennis shoes were permissible. But when we showed up we were denied entrance . . . due to our jeans and tennis shoes.  LOL  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a place upholding a dress code, at all.  In fact, I quite like it.  But if you’re going to do so, the staff should darn well be able to tell patrons CORRECTLY what that dress code is!

The Central Park Conservatory Water

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Because I spoke only very briefly about the Central Park Conservatory Water in yesterday’s post regarding the filming of Gossip Girl, today I thought I’d do a more in-depth blog on that location and the myriad of filming that has taken place there over the years.  So, here goes.  🙂   The Conservatory Water is so named because in the original plans for Central Park, which were drawn up in 1857 by designers Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, an oval-shaped conservatory, or greenhouse, containing tropical plants was to be situated in the area where the Model Boat Pond now stands.  When the money for that particular project fell through, Olmstead and Vaux instead decided to place an oval-shaped model boat pond, designed after those in Paris’ Jardin du Luxembourg, in the exact spot where the conservatory was originally positioned.  Hence the name “Conservatory Water”.  Over the years, the Pond became incredibly popular with children and adults alike and, thanks to the model yacht races which are held there each weekend, the area has come to be more commonly known as the “Model Boat Pond”.  In fact, ask any New Yorker for directions to the Conservatory Water and I doubt they’d know what you were talking about.  🙂

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Besides its weekend boat races, the Conservatory Water is also famous for two statues which are situated along its perimeter.  The statue pictured above is of children’s author Hans Christian Andersen, who penned the stories “The Little Mermaid”, “The Snow Queen”, and “Thumbelina”, among countless others.   In the statue Hans is depicted reading his tale “The Ugly Duckling” to an attentive little duck.  So cute!!!  And please don’t ask what the heck I am wearing in the above picture – it was a freezing cold and rainy day in New York and I threw on whatever warm clothes I could find.  LOL

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At the North end of the pond sits the famous Alice in Wonderland statue, in which Alice cavorts atop a life-sized mushroom with her friends the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Dormouse, and the White Rabbit.  The statue was commissioned in 1959 by George T. Delacorte, founder of the Dell Publishing Company, in honor of his wife.  Legend has it that George’s face was the model for the face of the Mad Hatter in the statue.  🙂

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The Model Boat Pond is so incredibly beautiful and picturesque, with its flat pool of reflecting water, curving benches running along its perimeter, lush green foliage and pink cherry trees juxtaposed against the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, that it’s not very hard to see why producers have returned to film there time and time again.

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In fave movie 13 Going On 30, the Model Boat Pond shows up very briefly during the montage scene in which Jenna is shown enjoying her newfound age.  You can see the Alice and Wonderland statue in the background of the first screen capture pictured above.

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In fave show Sex and the City, the Model Boat Pond shows up in the Season One episode entitled “The Power of Female Sex”, in the scene in which Carrie takes French Architect Gilles on a tour of the city.  While at the Pond, Carrie says, “I felt like I had landed in a Claude Lelouch film”, Lelouch being a French film director known for his picturesque cinematography.  The Alice and Wonderland statue shows up in this scene, as well – Carrie is sitting on top of it in the first screen capture pictured above.

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In Just My Luck, yet another of my favorite teeny-bopper movies, cutie Chris Pine has some incredibly bad luck while visiting the Model Boat Pond at the very beginning of the film.  Again you’ll notice the Alice in Wonderland statue pictured in the background above.  It seems to be a favorite of filmmakers.  🙂

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In the 1998 movie The Object of my Affection, it is while sitting on a bench overlooking the Pond that my girl Jen Aniston tells Paul Rudd that she is pregnant.

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In fave movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Fred is followed by Doc Golightly, Holly’s former husband, while taking a stroll near the Conservatory Water.

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And in the 1999 movie Stuart Little, Stuart (who was voiced by none other than Alex P. Keaton himself – Michael J. Fox) and his pal Jonathan Lipnicki race a model sailboat at the Pond.  (That’s Hugh Laurie, aka Dr. House M.D., who plays Stuart and Jonathan’s dad in the flick, pictured in the second screen capture above!)

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The producers definitely took some liberties while filming this scene, though, because while the race starts out at the Model Boat Pond, it ends up in the Central Park Reservoir, which, contrary to what the movie would have you believe, is not actually connected to the Pond and is, in fact, located quite a few miles away.

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At one point, the boats even sail under a small bridge, but, being that the Model Boat Pond has no bridge, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m fairly certain this scene wasn’t actually filmed in Central Park.  My guess is that the scene was filmed a few thousand miles away on a soundstage at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.  LOL  When watching that scene, you’ll notice that the camera never pans back far enough to show the entire Pond, leading me to believe that producers built their own version of it at the studio in Los Angeles which they then used for the filming.

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The Pond also showed up in I’m Not Rappaport, F/X, Jungle 2 Jungle, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Key Exchange and in 1964’s The World of Henry Orient.  And it has even been immortalized in print, as well!  In J.D. Salinger’s famous Catcher in the Rye novel, Holden Caulfield laments his problems to the Conservatory Water’s resident ducks.

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I honestly cannot recommend stalking the Model Boat Pond enough!!  It is one of my very favorite places in all of New York!  In fact, one of my favorite things to do while visiting the city is to grab a bagel from a street vendor and eat it while sitting on one of the many benches surrounding the Pond – weather permitting, of course.  🙂  Which is exactly what my best friend, Kylee, and fiancé are doing in the above photograph which was taken during my 30th birthday trip to the Big Apple.  🙂  Ironically enough, while doing research on the Pond for today’s post, I kept running across the following sentence – or some variation of it – written again and again: “The Conservatory Water is so relaxing and peaceful that you almost forget you are in New York.”  But to me, the Pond is a perfect representation of what it is that makes New York so incredibly unique.  I mean where else can you find a huge and incredibly quiet and picturesque piece of nature located smack dab in the middle of a beautiful, bustling, towering city?  🙂  No, for me, the Model Boat Pond couldn’t be more New York and I never forget what city I am in while visiting it!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Conservatory Water, aka the Model Boat Pond, is located in Central Park on New York’s Upper East Side and can be reached from 72nd through 75th Streets.