South Pasadena Public Library from “Say Anything . . . “

 South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-2364

I was incredibly saddened to learn of the passing of John Mahoney last week.  Not only did I love the actor in pretty much every role he played, but his Hollywood story is such an unusual and admirable one.  After graduating from college, Mahoney tried his hand at a few different occupations including teaching English at a university and editing a medical journal.  Then at the not-so-tender age of 37, he switched gears and decided to follow his passion – acting.  He found quick success on Broadway, even winning a Tony for his performance in The House of Blue Leaves in 1986, before ultimately heading to Tinseltown where he hit the big time with memorable parts in such iconic productions as Moonstruck, Barton Fink, She’s the One, Primal Fear, Reality Bites, In the Line of Fire, and, of course, Frasier, among countless others.  It is extraordinary that Mahoney accomplished so much after such a late-in-life career shift.  What an inspiration – and proof that it is never too late to change course in order to pursue your dreams!  So today I thought I’d honor John by writing about South Pasadena Public Library – a locale from one of his early movies, 1989’s Say Anything . . .

[ad]

Truth be told, South Pasadena Public Library did not actually appear in the final cut of Say Anything . . .  The building – or more accurately Library Park, which surrounds it – pops up in one of the flick’s alternate scenes that can be viewed on both the 20th Anniversary Edition and Special Edition DVDs.  In the scene, Diane Court (Ione Skye) asks ex-boyfriend Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) to take her back outside of what is supposed to be the kick-boxing dojo where Lloyd works.  Though interior dojo bits were shot at the same North Hollywood spot used as the Cobra Kai karate studio in The Karate Kid, the segment taking place outside of the dojo was lensed on the western side of Library Park along Diamond Avenue, a good 15 miles away.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6073

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6096

I recognized the locale immediately upon watching the alternate scene a couple of years ago while I was on a hunt for the house where Diane lived in the flick.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6074

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6105

South Pasadena Public Library is a tough spot to forget.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6119

The city’s original library was established in 1907 thanks to a $12,000 grant from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.  Designed by architect Norman Marsh, the building, which Carnegie himself visited in 1910, boasted a Classical Revival style.  You can see an image of it from its early days here and here.  Sadly, virtually none of that structure remains.  After being expanded in 1916 via another grant from Carnegie (this one to the tune of $6,000), the facility was completely overhauled in 1930 and given a Mediterranean Revival motif, once again created by Marsh, along with architects D.D. Smith and Herbert J. Powell.  Their design still graces the site’s El Centro Street edifice today.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6129

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6126

Formerly the library’s front entrance, the El Centro Street façade now serves as entry to the facility’s Community Room.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6133

Constructed as the library’s main reading area during the 1930 renovation, the Community Room retains much of its original design, including a hand-painted beam ceiling, leaded glass windows, and wrought iron detailing.  You can see a 1946 image of its interior here and a current picture here.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6128

Today, the Community Room hosts special city events and can be rented out for certain functions.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6125

In 1982, South Pasadena Public Library again underwent a remodel and expansion, but this time only the property’s southern face, situated along Oxley Street, was touched.  That edifice, designed by architect Howard Henry Morgridge, is pictured below.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6089

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6088

It now serves as the facility’s main entrance.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6091

As you can see, it is quite a departure from the 1930 design.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-2367

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-2365

The two varying faces of the library, which is South Pasadena Cultural Heritage Landmark #10, make for an interesting and striking piece of architecture.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6093

Surrounding the site is Library Park, a lush 2-acre space overflowing with trees, sprawling lawns, and pathways.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6011

The towering Moreton Bay fig that stands as the park’s focal point is nothing short of magical.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6116

Though its origin is not entirely known, per the City of South Pasadena website, the tree was likely planted by Street Department employee Willem Garret Andries Kloezeman in 1930.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6144

Library Park is one of South Pas’ most picturesque and serene spots.

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6005

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6006

So it is no surprise that the park, along with the library itself, has found its way onto both the big and small screens in a myriad of other productions besides Say Anything . . .

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6120

In Rob Zombie’s 2007 horror flick Halloween, the exterior of South Pasadena Public Library briefly masks as Haddonfield High School.

Screenshot-007183

Screenshot-007186

Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) schools Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) on the importance of hair extensions while walking along a path on the western side of Library Park in the 2009 romcom The Ugly Truth.

Screenshot-007176

Screenshot-007177

Rebecca Harper (Emily VanCamp) catches her boyfriend, Justin Walker (Dave Annable), kissing his sponsee, Chelsea Yeager (Kaitlin Doubleday), on the library steps after an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the Season 3 episode of Brothers & Sisters titled “Owning It,” which aired in 2009.

Screenshot-007171

Screenshot-007173

In the Season 1 episode of Modern Family titled “Moon Landing,” which aired in 2010, Gloria Delgado-Pritchett (Sofia Vergara) brings Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) to Library Park to show him where she got into a recent car accident.

Screenshot-007190

Screenshot-007192

South Pasadena Public Library pops up several times as the Carson Springs Department of Social Services in the Season 5 episode of The Mentalist titled “Red John’s Rules,” which aired in 2013.

Screenshot-007198

Screenshot-007194

The interior of the Community Room also appears in the episode.

Screenshot-007195

Screenshot-007200

That same year, Dr. Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack) attends a supposed Brooksville, Pennsylvania town hall meeting at the library in the Season 2 episode of Perception titled “Toxic.”

Screenshot-007157

Screenshot-007165

The interior of the Community Room was also utilized in the episode.

Screenshot-007162

Screenshot-007163

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

South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything-6132

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: South Pasadena Public Library, from Say Anything . . . , is located at 1100 Oxley Street in South PasadenaKaldi Coffee and Tea, another frequent film star, can be found just across the road at 1019 El Centro Street.

The Federal Bar from “Parks and Recreation”

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (6 of 26)

It’s shaping up to be Parks and Recreation week at IAMNOTASTALKER.com, as here I am with yet another location from the series.  I actually came by today’s locale accidentally.  While scanning through P&R’s “Operation Ann” episode for yesterday’s post about the Hamburger Hamlet in Sherman Oaks, I spotted The Federal Bar, a North Hollywood watering hole that I stalked back in May of last year because of its appearance on fave show Perception.  For whatever reason, I had yet to blog about it, though, and, thanks to the P&R kick I’ve been on lately, figured today was the perfect time to do so.

[ad]

The ornate brick building that currently houses The Federal Bar was originally constructed as a branch of Security Trust and Savings Bank in 1926.  It was designed by John and Donald Parkinson, the father-and-son architectural team who also created Union Station (which I briefly blogged about here), Bullocks Wilshire (which I blogged about here) and Los Angeles City Hall (am oft-used filming locale that I have, shockingly, never stalked).  Parkinson and Parkinson built several similar-looking bank buildings for the Security Trust chain across Los Angeles throughout the years.  The one located at 5601 North Figueroa Street in Highland Park is a virtual twin to The Federal Bar.  That structure, which I have yet to stalk, has appeared countless times onscreen.  It is currently featured each week as the police station on the new CBS series Battle Creek.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (26 of 26)

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (23 of 26)

For many years, The Federal Bar space operated as Paperback Shack Books, an independent bookstore owned by Earl Spar.  In the mid-2000s, the proprietors of Fred 62 (a popular restaurant/filming locale in Los Feliz that I blogged about here) acquired the location and began an extensive, three-year renovation process to turn it into a restaurant/nightclub.  They named the new venture “Bank Heist,” which I think was a rather unfortunate dubbing considering one of the bloodiest bank heists in L.A.’s history took place just a little over two miles away.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (22 of 26)

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (4 of 26)

Bank Heist opened in late September 2007, but never really had a chance to establish itself.  Less than four months later, on January 7th, 2008, it was gutted by a fire.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (3 of 26)

In 2010, Knitting Factory Entertainment CEO Morgan Margolis spotted the architecturally stunning building while taking his children to a martial arts class (I am guessing that class was held at the dojo from The Karate Kid, which is located less than a block south) and thought it would make the perfect place for a new Knitting Factory music club (his insanely popular Hollywood Knitting Club outpost had closed in 2009).  The historic look of the building caused him to eventually rethink his plans, though, and, after leasing the place, he decided it was better suited to house a gastropub.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (5 of 26)

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (2 of 26)

Of the neighborhood, Margolis stated in a Los Angeles Daily News article, “I was really trying to get to the next area I felt was going to move forward, and North Hollywood seems to be transitioning consistently.  A lot of other areas were also moving up – i.e. Silverlake, Los Feliz, downtown – but I felt like they were already getting saturated.  There are also a lot of great architectural spaces that I like that are hard to find in certain areas.  I like a lot of brick, I like old buildings, auto garages and warehouses.  I like high-beamed ceilings.  This area seems to have an abundance that is popping up.  And I found an area where I felt like you could still touch the square footage at the right price.”

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (1 of 26)

After a bit of renovation, The Federal Bar was opened in early 2011.  According to a 2012 Los Angeles Times article, it turned a profit the following month and has continued to do so every month since.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (8 of 26)

The 5,000-plus-square-foot space, which was fashioned by interior designer Rod Sellard, boasts four (yes, four!) bars, a second floor special events area with a stage, and an outdoor patio.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (13 of 26)

The Federal Bar is nothing short of spectacular, both inside and out, and it is not very hard to see why the place has become popular with location scouts.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (15 of 26)

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (17 of 26)

In the Season 4 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Operation Ann,” Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) headed to The Federal Bar to spy on Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), who they thought was out on a secret date with her boss Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe).  As Leslie and Ben soon discovered, though, Ann was actually on a date with Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari).

ScreenShot1043

ScreenShot1044

While scanning through the episode to make screen captures for yesterday’s post, I immediately recognized The Federal’s intricate exterior.

ScreenShot1046

ScreenShot1045

In the scene, Tom and Ann were sitting in the southwest area of The Federal’s bottom floor and Leslie and Ben spied on them through the windows located on Weddington Street.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (20 of 26)

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (19 of 26)

The Federal portrays the Philadelphia bar where the Dunder Mifflin gang crashes a trivia contest Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) is participating in in the Season 8 episode of The Office titled “Trivia.”

The Federal popped up as two different places in the Season 2 episode of Perception titled “Wounded.”  One of the bars on the main floor was used as the watering hole where Kate Moretti (Rachael Leigh Cook) told Blake Rickford’s (Logan Bartholomew) date that he was a suspected rapist.

ScreenShot1020

ScreenShot1022

And one of the upstairs bars was where Kate spied on Blake later in the episode.

ScreenShot1026

ScreenShot1027

The exterior of The Federal was also used in that scene.

ScreenShot1028

ScreenShot1030

The Federal also popped up in flashback scenes in Perception’s next episode, titled “Warrior.”

ScreenShot1031

ScreenShot1032

In 2013, The Federal masked as Sudz in the Season 9 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled “The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award.”

ScreenShot1036

ScreenShot1038

Only the interior of The Federal was used in the episode, though.  The establishing shot that was shown was of Alla Spina restaurant, located at 1410 Mount Vernon Street in Philadelphia, which I found thanks to this amazing map of the series’ City of Brotherly Love locales.

ScreenShot1035

Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) attend a “jazz brunch” with Amy’s ex, Teddy Wells (Kyle Bornheimer), at The Federal in the Season 4 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “The Audit,” which aired in 2017.

The women of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills debrief on the latest Lisa Vanderpump drama while at The Federal in the Season 9 episode titled “A Wolf in Camille’s Clothing.”

In 2013, Morgan Margolis opened a second Federal Bar inside of another former Security Trust and Savings Bank building.  It, too, has appeared onscreen.  Located at 102 Pine Avenue in Long Beach, the space formerly housed Madison steakhouse, which was where Brad’s (Vince Vaughn) company Christmas party was held in the 2008 comedy Four Christmases.

ScreenShot1050

ScreenShot1051

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking many of the photos that appear in this post.

The Federal Bar Parks and Recreation (25 of 26)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Federal Bar, from the “Operation Ann” episode of Parks and Recreation, is located at 5303 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood.  You can visit the bar’s official website here.

Dr. Daniel Pierce’s House from “Perception”

Daniel's House Perception (2 of 12)

For nearly two years now, I have been on the hunt for the house where Dr. Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack) lives with his long-suffering assistant, Max Lewicki (Arjay Smith), on the TNT series Perception.  Due to the fact that the residence is typically only ever shown at night in rather tight establishing shots, with no clues such as street signs or address numbers visible in the background, I had a tough time tracking it down.  While I did have an inkling that, thanks to its Craftsman-style architecture, the dwelling was most likely located somewhere in Pasadena, my numerous searches of the Crown City left me empty-handed.

[ad]

It wasn’t until I recently re-watched the Season 2 episode titled “Brotherhood” that I realized my mistake.  Several scenes from “Brotherhood” were actually shot on location at the home and a view of the neighborhood was briefly shown – a neighborhood that looked decidedly South Pasadenan.  So I did some online sleuthing for Perception filming in SP and eventually came across this South Pasadena Patch article which stated that the show had done some filming on the 1800 block of Diamond Avenue.   Sure enough, I would up finding the house right where the article said it would be – 1800 Diamond Ave.

ScreenShot666

ScreenShot668

Daniel’s house pops up regularly on Perception, typically in tightly-angled or dimly-lit night shots, as I mentioned above.

ScreenShot669

ScreenShot661

Only rarely is a full or semi-full view of the exterior shown.

ScreenShot663

ScreenShot670

I was shocked to discover how different the residence looks in person.  As you can see in the screen capture as compared to the photograph pictured below, the house currently has much more foliage surrounding it than what is depicted on Perception.  In real life, the dwelling is almost completely shielded by trees.  In fact, when I first showed up to stalk it, I drove right by the place, missing it completely!

ScreenShot665

Daniel's House Perception (4 of 12)

The trees are so abundant that they even hide the fact that the home has a second story!

Daniel's House Perception (10 of 12)

Daniel's House Perception (5 of 12)

In real life, the 1919 residence features four bedrooms, two baths, 1,866 square feet, and 0.17 acres of land.  The pad last sold in August 1991 for $326,000.

Daniel's House Perception (3 of 12)

Daniel's House Perception (9 of 12)

I am absolutely in LOVE with the covered patio.  How great would it be to sit out there, sipping on a Starbucks iced latte?

Daniel's House Perception (6 of 12)

Daniel's House Perception (7 of 12)

Only the exterior of the home is used on Perception.  The interior of Dr. Pierce’s house exists on a soundstage at Los Angeles Center Studios where the series is lensed.  Because the pilot was shot on location in Toronto, a different interior was shown in that particular episode – the interior of what I believe is an actual residence in Canada.  As you can in the screen captures below (taken from the pilot and the second episode titled “Faces”), the two residences are quite a bit different.

PerceptionHouseInterior

I would guess that the set of Daniel’s home was based on the real life interior of the Diamond Avenue house, but, try as I might, I could not find any photographs with which to verify that hunch.

PerceptionHouseInterior2

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Daniel's House Perception (8 of 12)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Dr. Daniel Pierce’s house from Perception is located at 1800 Diamond Avenue in South Pasadena.