The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles from “90210”

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Last week, after reading my post on the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank in which I mentioned that I had actually stalked the iconic restaurant way back in November, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, sent me a text asking, “If you did not stalk ever again, how many blogs could you write before you ran out?”  My response, “I don’t know . . . but A LOT!”  If I had to guess I would say there are at least 200 locales stored away in my stalking back log.  In fact, there are still quite a few spots from my trip to the Pacific Northwest last May that I have yet to post.  So not to worry – even if I were to never stalk again, I would still be cranking out posts for a very long time to come!  Smile Anyway, Chas’ text got me to thinking about all of the locations that I have pushed to the back burner in recent months – one of which was The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, which appeared in the Season 3 episode of fave show 90210 titled “The Enchanted Donkey” and which I had dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk back in July.  Speaking of 90210, I would just like to state here, for the record, that I am NOT AT ALL happy about the latest developments in the “Lannie” saga.  But I digress.

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El Pueblo de Los Angeles, or the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District as it is also called, is the oldest surviving section of the city and serves as a monument to L.A.’s September 4th, 1781 founding.  On that day, at a site located along the L.A. River just northeast of the Plaza, eleven families, consisting of 22 adults and 22 children, arrived from the Gulf of Mexico and established a small pueblo with mud huts and a village square.  In 1815, a flood washed away that original settlement and it was later rebuilt in 1825 at its current location, which sits on higher ground.  The Plaza immediately became the social, commercial, and cultural center of Los Angeles and remained that way throughout most of the 19th Century.  By the 1920s, the area had sadly fallen into serious disrepair and was set to be largely demolished to make way for a railway station.  Thankfully, a woman named Christine Sterling came along in 1926 and, with help from Harry Chandler and several local businesses, transformed the site into a bustling marketplace and popular tourist attraction.  Today, the 44-acre property, which is considered to be the “birthplace of Los Angeles” and is a State Historic Monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, consists of five separate museums, a church dating back to 1861, the Mexican marketplace known as Olvera Street, 27 historic buildings, including L.A.’s oldest firehouse, and a central plaza, aka The Old Plaza.

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In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, The Old Plaza stood in for the supposed-Cabo-San-Lucas-area marketplace that Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes) and Liam Court (aka my love, Matt Lanter – sigh!  Winking smile) visited while in Mexico during Spring Break.  It is there that Annie gets bitten by a rabid monkey which lands her in the hospital.  Because the BEST Mexican restaurants in all of Southern California can be found there, the GC and I have visited El Pueblo de Los Angeles countless times over the years.  So when The Old Plaza popped up on 90210, I recognized the place immediately.

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In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode, the rock that the monkey is sitting on is located in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, under one of the site’s four historic Moreton Bay Fig trees.  Ironically enough, as you can see above, that rock bears a plaque which reads “Los Angeles Plaza”, which, being that the scene was supposed to have taken place in Mexico, explains why it was covered over with a blanket for the filming, .  Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

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While watching the scene, I also immediately recognized the leather clip that Annie was wearing in her hair as being from Murillo Leather, a store that is located about twenty feet from the Old Plaza and that I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street way back in May of 2009.  I have visited the shop, which is owned and operated by Armando Murillo, who made all of the purses and belts worn by Jessica Simpson in the movie The Dukes of Hazzard, countless times over the years and even have a belt that was made by the second-generation leather craftsman.

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So while we were there I just had to stop by to ask Armando if my hunch about Annie’s barrette had been correct.  He confirmed for me that not only did his hand-crafted hair clip appear in the episode, but that Shenae Grimes herself had come into his shop to pick it out.  I was literally drooling hearing Armando talk about meeting Shenae and how incredibly sweet she was.  (This was before I was fortunate enough to meet the actress myself this past August.)  And while I SO wanted to buy a Shenae-style hair clip while we were there, the GC immediately ixnayed the idea, noting that my hair was far too short to ever be able to get any use out of it.  Hmph!

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As I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street back in May 2009, The Old Plaza was also featured in Lethal Weapon 3 as the spot where Martin Riggs (aka Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (aka Danny Glover) were assigned to work patrol after being demoted for blowing up a building.  It is there that Riggs and Murtaugh threaten to shoot a man for jaywalking and also witness an armored-car robbery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

90210 - The Old Plaza location

Stalk It: The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, from “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, is located at 1 Olvera Street, across from Union Station, in Los Angeles.  In the episode, Annie and Liam stood in front of the large rock located under the huge Moreton bay fig tree in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, in the area depicted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.  Murillo Leather, where Annie’s hair clip was made, is located just up the street from The Old Plaza at 6 Olvera Street in Los Angeles.

The Piru Creek Bridge from “Burlesque”

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Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I visited this past weekend while doing some stalking in the Heritage Valley was the Union Pacific Railroad Piru Creek Bridge which stood in for the supposed Iowa-area bridge that Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) walked across during the opening scene of Burlesque.  I once again found this locale thanks to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, who added the bridge to his Burlesque filming locations page just a couple of weeks ago.  In an odd twist, though, when we showed up to stalk the structure we discovered that there were, in fact, two very similar-looking bridges located directly next to each other and I was unsure of which one exactly had appeared in the flickThe GC ended up taking photographs of both of them, though, and I am so incredibly grateful that he did because, as it turns out, they have each appeared on the silver screen in various productions!

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The two Piru Creek bridges that we stalked are pictured above via an aerial view.  Because I, unfortunately, could not find much information about either of the structures online, for the purposes of clarity I will refer to the bridge denoted with the pink arrow above as the Burlesque Bridge and the bridge denoted with the blue arrow above as the Enough bridge (it had a very brief onscreen appearance in the 2002 flick Enough which starred Jennifer Lopez, but more on that later). 

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The Burlesque bridge was first built in 1902 and measures 320 feet in length.  The steel, through-truss structure is a Ventura County historical landmark and formerly serviced the Union Pacific Railroad.

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In the opening scene of Burlesque, Ali is shown very briefly walking across the bridge while on her way to the local bus depot to purchase a train ticket to Los Angeles.  You can see some photographs of Christina Aguilera filming the scene on the Zimbio website here.

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Sadly, the Burlesque bridge is largely inaccessible to the public, which was highly disappointing as I was hoping to walk across it just like Ali had done in the movie. 

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And while it has been reported that the Burlesque bridge was the site of the train crash in the 1994 rom-com I Love Trouble, as you can see in the above screen capture, that information is incorrect.  The train crash scene was actually filmed on the Sespe Creek Bridge, which you can see a photograph of here, in the neighboring town of Fillmore.

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Just south of the Burlesque bridge, on the opposite side of Center Street, is the bridge which appeared in Enough.  As you can see in the above photographs, despite a difference in color and despite being wide enough for cars to drive on, it is strikingly similar in appearance to the Burlesque bridge.

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And while I could find no historical information whatsoever about the structure online, I am happy to report that it is much more accessible than the Burlesque bridge.  While one cannot actually walk across it, it is easily viewable from Center Street.

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In the 2002 thriller Enough, the high-speed car chase between Slim Hiller (aka Jennifer Lopez) and Robbie (aka Noah Wylie) ends at the bridge when Robbie crashes his SUV into a steel beam that has fallen across the span.

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At the end of the scene, Slim is shown driving off of the bridge and west onto Center Street.

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Thanks to fave stalking book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I learned that the Enough bridge was also featured as the plane crash site in 1992’s Hero.  Considering how deathly afraid I am of flying, I CANNOT believe that I actually had to scan through the plane crash scene to make the above screen captures.  Shudder!

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The Enough bridge was also featured during the opening scene of the 1974 movie The California Kid

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Thanks to the Confederate General Lee Fan Club website, I learned that the Enough bridge was also featured in two episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard.  It first appeared in the Season 1 episode of the show titled “Luke’s Love Story” during the Hazzard County Obstacle Derby scene.

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It later appeared at the very end of the Season 1 episode titled “Route 7-11” as the spot located just over the Hazzard county line where Luke Duke (aka Tom Wopat) and Cooter (aka Ben Jones) dropped off their friend Dewey Stovall (aka Paul Brinegar). 

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Piru Railroad Bridges 2

Stalk It: The Piru Creek Bridges, which are depicted in the above aerial view, are both located on Center Street in Piru, above Piru Creek, about 1,000 feet east of the Downtown area.  The Burlesque bridge is located on the northern side of Center Street, while the Enough bridge is located on the southern side.  And while the Enough bridge is easily visible from Center Street, you can catch the best glimpses of the Burlesque bridge from Piru Canyon Road about 1000 feet east of Orchard Street.