I am going to take the next few days off from blogging (yes, again), so that I can celebrate New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day (our last in Pasadena ) with the Grim Cheaper. I did get to meet Uggie the Dog from The Artist and Water for Elephants yesterday, though, so I thought I’d leave you with a couples of photos that I took with him. <3
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Uggie even gave me a kiss. And, yes, he really is that cute in person!
I hope all of my fellow stalkers have a very fun and very safe New Year!
Another Christmas-themed locale that I had long wanted to track down and stalk was Clark W. Griswold’s (Chevy Chase’s) dream pool from the 1989 classic Christmas Vacation. (Is it odd, by the way, that I can still remember exactly where I was and who I was with the first time I saw the flick back in middle school? But I digress.) Being that the pool had only popped up once in the movie and that a very small portion of it was ever shown, I had no clue whatsoever where it might be located or how to even begin searching for it. Then, back in February, while Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were visiting Warner Bros. Ranch, where the majority of Christmas Vacation was lensed, our lovely tour guide took us by the lot’s pool and I got an inkling that it might have been the one used in the movie. Our guide was unsure if that was the case, though, and when I re-watched the flick to make comparisons later that day, I noticed some differences in the two pools which led me to believe that they were not one and the same.
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Then, in October, I returned to the Ranch for another tour, this time with fellow stalkers Kim and Lavonna, and our guide informed us that Old Navy had just shot a series of Christmas Vacation-themed commercials (one of which you can watch by clicking below) on the premises and that, during the filming, Chevy Chase had mentioned that the lot’s pool had been used as Clark’s dream pool in the original movie. YAY! As someone who is always seeking further verification, though, I popped in my dad’s Christmas Vacation DVD while visiting my parents during Thanksgiving to see if any mention of the pool’s location was made in the commentary and, sure enough, director Jeremiah S. Chechik stated that the pool scene was filmed at Warner Bros. Ranch, just across from the house used as the Griswold residence in the film.
Clark’s dream pool, which, according to the fabulous Columbia Ranch website, was originally built in 1948, is located in the Park section of Warner Bros. Ranch, right next to the fountain used in the Friends opening credits and the Alan House from Pushing Daisies and Small Soldiers.
Mike took the photographs below during our February visit and, as you can see, a backdrop was installed around the southern portion of the pool at the time for a production that did not want it to be visible.
For the filming of Christmas Vacation, a significant amount of foliage was added to the premises to make it appear more like a residential backyard. And, as you can see below, while the lip of the pool was plain cement at the time of the shoot, it is now brick, and the metal ladder that was once affixed to the side of the structure has also since been removed.
But, thankfully, the legs of the diving board still look EXACTLY the same today as they did in 1989 when Christmas Vacation was filmed! LOVE IT!
You can check out a close-up photograph of those legs below.
And I, of course, just had to pose on the diving board like Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) while I was there. If only I had brought my skivvies that day!
The Warner Bros. Ranch pool also appeared very briefly in the Season 1 episode of The Monkees titled “The Chaperone” during their “You Just May Be the One” performance.
The pool also popped up several times in various The Partridge Family episodes, including the Season 1 episode titled “Danny and the Mob” . . .
. . . and the Season 2 episode titled “Home Is Where the Heart Was”.
And while the pool was used in the Season 1 episode of Bewitched titled “And Something Makes Three”, it was never actually shown. In the episode, Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery) conjures up a pool in her backyard on a hot summer day, absolutely perplexing nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz (Alice Pearce), who can only see small glimpses of Samantha, jumping up and down on a diving board and splashing water, over their shared fence.
The Warner Bros. Ranch pool was also used significantly in the 2012 high school comedy Project X.
Stalk It: The Christmas Vacation pool is located on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot at 411 North Hollywood Way in Burbank. Unfortunately, the Ranch is gated and not accessible to the public.
One Christmas location that I had been absolutely obsessed with finding for years was the supposed Miami, Florida-area motel where the McCallister family – minus Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), of course – stayed in the 1992 flick Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I had always assumed that the place was located in Miami, until I noticed a mention on the movie’s IMDB filming locations page that stated that it was actually in Malibu. Well, believe you me, once I found out that the motel was located in the L.A. region, I became bound and determined to find it and immediately enlisted the help of fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website. Chas wound up contacting one of the HA2 crew members about a year and a half ago, who had this to say, “That was the last scene we shot in the movie and I was driving the van. I just looked it up. We shot it at Rochelle’s Motel, 3333 Lakewood Boulevard @ Donald Douglas Drive, Long Beach, CA. I’m honestly not sure it exists anymore, but that would be (I think) the correct name and address. I just found the call sheet.” (I LOVE hearing insider info like the fact that it was the last scene shot and that the crew-member was driving the van. SO COOL!) Sadly, said crew member was right – Rochelle’s had been leveled shortly after Home Alone 2 was lensed. Even though the locale was no longer in existence, though, I was absolutely dying to stalk its former site and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there to do just that on our way to Newport Beach this past weekend.
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Fellow stalker Gary, from Seeing Stars, did a TON of research on this locale and I honestly cannot thank him enough. Because he lives in the South Bay, Chas had contacted Gary to ask if he had ever seen Rochelle’s when it was still in operation. He hadn’t, but decided to do some Googling on the subject and came up with quite a bit of information. From his queries, which yielded several Los Angeles Times mentions of various events held at the site, Gary was able to ascertain that the location, which is a stone’s throw away from the Long Beach Airport, was originally a motel named the Landmark that opened around 1962. You can check out a photograph of an old Landmark matchbook here and a vintage postcard from the place on Ron-Kane’s Flickr photostream here. According to the postcard, the Landmark featured a heated swimming pool and fully-carpeted, air-conditioned rooms with tubs, showers and 21-inch television sets. Sometime around 1967, the Landmark was razed (or completely altered) to make way for a new, larger hotel/convention center named Rochelle’s. You can see an old Rochelle’s matchbook here, which states that the place boasted 163 “luxurious units” with separate kitchenettes, a heated pool, a restaurant, a coffee shop, sauna baths for both men and women, and a private conference room. From what Gary ascertained, Rochelle’s seems to have been in operation until at least 1988 and, if I had to guess, I would say that the place was closed and vacant at the time that Home Alone 2 was filmed in 1992, which is most likely why producers chose to use it. Sometime thereafter, the motel was demolished and a parking structure for the Long Beach Airport currently stands in its place. Boo!
Rochelle’s Motel, which was re-named Villa de Dolphine for the filming, only showed up twice in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York – first in the scene in which the McCallister family arrived in Miami, only to discover that the motel that Uncle Frank (Gerry Bamman) recommended was a total dump. Of the place, he says, “It didn’t look this bad on our honeymoon.” LOL I absolutely LOVE the docked boat that was parked in front of the pool area in the scene. Fabulous touch!
Rochelle’s later appeared in the scene in which Kate McCallister (Catherine O-Hara) received a phone call from the Miami Police informing her that Kevin had tried to check in to The Plaza Hotel in New York (which I blogged about here).
Amazingly enough, I could not find a single photograph of the former Rochelle’s Motel anywhere online. Not one! Thankfully though, fave website Historic Aerials did come through with a view of the locale from 1972, which you can compare to the current aerial view below.
As you can see in a more close-up version of that 1972 view, the C-shape of the motel, as well as the pool with parking spaces set around it, match up perfectly to what appeared onscreen in Home Alone 2.
The pink-hued interior of the McCallister family’s motel room was, I believe, just a set and not an actual room at Rochelle’s.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, and Gary, from Seeing Stars, for their help in finding and researching this location.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Rochelle’s Motel, aka Villa de Dolphine from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, was formerly located at 3333 Lakewood Boulevard in Long Beach. Today, the site is a parking structure for the Long Beach Airport.
Today’s location is a big one, my fellow stalkers! Well, it is for me, at least, being that it took me years to find it, as I mentioned in last Friday’s post. Yes, I am talking about the ultra-modern and gorgeous hilltop home where Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) lived in the 2008 romantic comedy Four Christmases. Despite the fact that the abode only showed up once inthe flick – and very briefly at that – its contemporary façade and bamboo accents made quite an impression on me and I fell in love the place pretty much on sight. Try as I might, though, I just could NOT seem to track it down. So when I finally did this past Thursday morning, I was pretty much doing cartwheels across my apartment for the next hour and a half. And while the residence is actually located in San Francisco and I was therefore not able to stalk it myself, I recruited my good friend Nat, who lives in the Bay Area, to stalk it on my behalf, which she did the very next day. Thank you, Nat!
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Because Four Christmases was lensed in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, I had no idea where to even begin my search on this one. When I first embarked on the hunt, fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, had contacted one of the movie’s crew members for me, who informed him that the residence was indeed located in San Francisco, but that it had been changed significantly for the filming and would be virtually unrecognizable in person. He refused to divulge the property’s exact location, though, so I did not put much credit into his information as I thought that he might be fabricating things in order to throw us off the scent. As it turns out, the guy was telling the truth. Brad and Kate’s house was changed drastically for the shoot, which is another reason that it was so hard to find. It was not until I came across production designer Shepherd Frankel’s amazing website last week and saw this artistic rendering of the Four Christmases house that I was able to finally find the place.
What threw me off considerably during the search was the fact that, for the filming, the home’s real life front doors (which face the street) were covered over and a fake door added to the eastern side of the structure (in the area denoted with a red arrow in the photograph below), making it impossible for me to figure out how the place was situated in relation to the street. Once I saw the drawing of the house on Frankel’s website, though, it all came together in my head and I was able to find the pad within minutes. WHOO HOO!
The home’s actual front doors are pictured below. I much prefer the set-up of the house that appeared in the movie to its real life exterior. Absolutely LOVE that bamboo-covered accent wall.
Also love that the residence’s stuccoed front half-wall was covered over with wood for the shoot. It gives the place a much more modern feel and adds quite a bit of texture and color to the exterior.
One aspect of the house that was not altered for the filming was its view, which, as you can see below, is absolutely STUNNING.
Can you imagine waking up to this image every morning? Sigh!
In real life, Brad and Kate’s dwelling is absolutely gargantuan – much larger than it appears to be from its front exterior and much larger than it appeared to be in Four Christmases. The four-story pad, which was originally built in 1987, boasts five bedrooms, four baths and a whopping 3,990 square feet of living space – all on a 0.09-acre plot of land.
Absolutely LOVE the Christmas tree in the window. Can you imagine how spectacular it looks at night, all lit up and against the backdrop of that amazing San Francisco view?
All of the interior scenes that took place at Brad and Kate’s house were filmed in Venice Beach at the same residence that was used in Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” music video, which I blogged about last week.
Oddly enough, though, it seems that a different interior was used as Brad and Kate’s house at some point during the filming because in the trailer for Four Christmases, the couple is shown making phone calls to their respective parents while sitting in a brick-walled loft-style residence with arched windows.
Even odder still is the fact that that particular interior (which in reality is located at 1161 Vine Street in Hollywood and which you can check out some photographs of here) did wind up in the film – as the studio where Brad and Kate took dance lessons. As you can see below, the brick walls, exposed duct work and arched windows match Kate and Brad’s house from the trailer perfectly. Heck, even the Christmas decorations are the same! Very, very strange! UPDATE – Shepherd was nice enough to send me an email explaining that this scene was supposed to have taken place in a break area at the dance studio and not at the couple’s home, so the seeming anomaly now makes sense.
You can watch the Four Christmases trailer by clicking below.
My parents, the GC and I headed down to Newport Beach for the weekend to celebrate my dad’s birthday. We stayed at the Balboa Bay Club, which, as you can see above, was decorated quite beautifully for Christmas. If you are in the area, I HIGHLY recommend stopping by to see their lights. Anyway, we just returned home yesterday evening and I, unfortunately, did not have time to write a post while we were away, but I will be back tomorrow with a whole new location.
As the song goes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and what better way to celebrate than by blogging about holiday-themed locales on each day leading up to the 25th? Hope y’all enjoy them! And now, on with the post! Two Thursday ago, while watching fave show Parks and Recreation, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with the charmingly picturesque home belonging to Jerry Gergich (Jim O’Heir) and his shockingly gorgeous family – wife, Gayle (Christie Brinkley), and daughters, Millicent (Sarah Wright), Gladys (Katie Gill), and Miriam (Maliabeth Johnson) – in the Season 5 Christmas-themed episode titled “Ron and Diane”. I mean look at the place! It’s like it was ripped right out of a Hallmark commercial or something! A-DO-RABLE!
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Thankfully, this one was an easy find. I thought the residence looked slightly familiar and had a vague recollection that I had seen photographs of it online while on the hunt for the Boy Meets World house back in mid-November. So I dashed over to my favorite locations library, Malibu Locations, to search for colonial-style residences in the Studio City area (the same parameters I used to track down the BMW abode) and, sure enough, I came across a listing for the place almost immediately. Fortunately, an address number of 11800 was visible in the listing photos, which made finding the home from there a snap. Yay! So I ran right out to stalk the place just a few days later.
In real life, Jerry’s house, which was originally built in 1939, boasts three bedrooms, three baths and 3,126 square feet of living space. As you can see below, the residence is absolutely idyllic in person – so much so that I am shocked it has not been used in more productions.
Oddly enough, while the house is nestled on what appears to be a gargantuan plot of land, in actuality the property only measures a scant 0.31 acres according to fave website Zillow .
Jerry’s house is featured quite extensively in the “Ron and Diane” episode, as the site of the Gergich family Christmas party where the Parks and Rec Department gang are all guests – well, except for Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) and Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt), whom Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) has banned from attending, and Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), who are at the Indiana Fine Woodworking Association Woodworking Awards. LOL
I so love the fireplace video that played in the background on Jerry’s TV during the party, by the way.
Oddly enough, an entirely different house – one located at 4203 Bellaire Avenue in Studio City – was used as Jerry’s residence in the Season 4 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Sweet Sixteen”.
Early yesterday morning, after what had amounted to years and years of searching and thanks to the assistance of both Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and my good friend Nat, I finally, finally, FINALLY managed to track down the San Francisco-area house where Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) lived in the 2008 holiday flick Four Christmases. Woot woot! The stalking Gods were definitely smiling down upon me yesterday because shortly thereafter I ALSO found the residence where Kate’s mom, Marilyn (Mary Steenburgen), lived in the flick. And while Nat, who resides in the Bay Area, will be stalking Ben and Kate’s pad for me later today so that I can blog about it next week, Marilyn’s house is, thankfully, located right near me in South Pasadena. So I, of course, immediately ran out to stalk it yesterday.
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Surprisingly, finding Marilyn’s house was a snap. I had heard rumblings over the years that the abode was located inside the gated Hancock Park community of Fremont Place, but while scanning through Four Christmases yesterday, I spotted an address number of 1217 on the curb in front of the house and on the façade above the front door. Because Fremont Place addresses are only three digits long, I knew that the dwelling could not be located there – unless, of course, the number had been altered for the filming, which I doubted. Upon closer inspection, I got the strange feeling that I had seen the house before, possibly in South Pasadena. So I decided to begin my search on the most oft-filmed-at street in the area, Milan Avenue. I punched 1217 Milan Avenue into Google and, lo and behold, it was the spot! Let me tell you, I almost fell out of my chair! Here it had taken me YEARS to track down Ben and Kate’s house, but I somehow managed to find Marilyn’s on the very first street that I searched! Go figure!
In real life, the charming home, which was originally built in 1927, boasts four bedrooms, three baths, a whopping 4,447 square feet of living space, and almost half an acre of land.
The exterior of Marilyn’s house only showed up once, very briefly (blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-briefly), in Four Christmases, in the scene in which Ben and Kate arrived at Kate’s mother’s residence to celebrate their second Christmas of the day. Quite a bit of décor was added for the filming, including a white picket fence, a huge amount of wildflowers lining the front walkway and sidewalk, a cross in each downstairs window, and, of course, a myriad of religious statues. I was absolutely FLOORED to discover that the Christmas wreaths that had been displayed in the second floor windows in the movie were there in real life, as well – in the exact same positions! SO INCREDIBLY COOL!
And while I would have bet money on the fact that the real life interior of the home had been used in the movie, that was, shockingly, not the case. According to the Four Christmases production notes, all of the interiors of the four parents’ houses excluding one – the residence where Creighton (Jon Voight) lived, which was actually the Boddy House in Descanso Gardens, which I blogged about way back in May 2009 – were sets built on a soundstage at Ren-Mar Studios (now Red Studios Hollywood, which I blogged about this past March). All I can say is that production designer Shepherd Frankel (who has a Masters Degree in architecture) did an UH-MA-ZING job because, outside of Nancy Meyer productions, I have never seen such detailed sets. Of Frankel’s design, the production notes state, “In keeping with Marilyn’s malleable personality, her home is characterized by what Frankel describes as ‘surfaces and veneers, reflecting no real sense of self.’ At the same time, it reveals a dedication to symmetry and order, with wallpapers matched to upholstery patterns, suggesting the hand of a woman who is constantly striving toward some higher standard of domestic design as much as she strives for the perfect relationship.” You can check out some FABULOUS pictures of the set that Frankel created here.
As you can see in the screen captures below as compared to these real life photographs of the house, the set is much different than the actual residence. Areas of the dwelling that Frankel recreated include the entryway, which you can see real life photos of here and here;
the living room, which you can see real life photographs of here and here;
the den, which you can see real life photos of here and here;
I am fairly certain that the backyard that appeared in the movie was a mixture of both the home’s real life backyard and a set. You can see photographs of the actual backyard here and here, and a picture of the set here. UPDATE – Shepherd Frankel contacted me after I wrote this post and informed me that Marilyn’s backyard was just a set. Of the filming, he said, “It was all done onstage where I replicated a version of the rear elevation of the location, but modified it to suit our needs.” He also told me that the view behind Marilyn’s fence was a “plate shot” of the home’s actual neighborhood. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!
Back in mid-November, a fellow stalker named Vinnie tweeted me to ask if I knew the location of the house belonging to Diane Lewis (whom I had no idea was played by Lucy Lawless, by the way!) – aka the spot where Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) fixed a pothole – in the Season 5 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “How a Bill Becomes a Law”. As luck would have it, fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, had tracked down that particular abode and texted me its address on October 2nd, the very same night that the “How a Bill Becomes a Law” episode first aired. So I passed along the info to Vinnie and the following day he tweeted me to let me know that he had visited the location and that the pothole patch was still visible! Well, believe you me, once I heard that, I was bound and determined to stalk the place just as soon as humanly possible. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there a few days after Thanksgiving.
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Finding this location was a snap for Owen because he had done some previous cyber-stalking on the very same street (Margate Street in Sherman Oaks) a couple of years ago while searching for the house where Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) and Jim Halpert (John Krasinksi) bought a lamp in the Season 4 episode of The Office titled “Fun Run” (which I blogged about here). As it turns out, the “Fun Run” home is located almost directly across the street from Diane’s dwelling. In fact, you can see a sign for Margate Street in the background behind Jim and Pam in the episode. Love it!
As fate would have it, while we were stalking the house, the super-nice owners came out and chatted with us about the filming of Parks and Recreation and a few other productions that had been shot in the neighborhood. They also mentioned that they had met fellow stalker Vinnie while he was stalking the place just a few days prior.
In the “How a Bill Becomes a Law” episode of Parks and Recreation, Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) decides to implement a 311 phone line at the Parks Department so that Pawnee citizens can report any municipal-related problems that they might be having. While manning the line, Ron takes a complaint from Diane about a pothole that has remained unfixed for months on the street outside of her home. He responds to that complaint by saying, “Well, Diane, for potholes, you want to speak with Public Works . . . I understand you’ve tried them four times – government is inefficient and should be dissolved.” LOL LOL LOL Gotta love Ron Swanson! Ron then decides to take matters into his own hands and heads over to Diane’s house to fix the pothole himself, along with a little help from Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt). As you can see below, Diane’s residence looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did in the episode.
I was, of course, most excited to see the pothole patch that Vinnie had told me about, though.
I find it so incredibly cool that a vestige of the filming was left behind for all of us stalkers to appreciate for years to come. LOVE IT!
The house also showed up in the Season 5 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Halloween Surprise”, in the scene in which Ron apologizes to Diane for ruining her daughters’ Halloween.
While the real life address number of Diane’s residence is 13155, crew members dropped the first 1 to make it 3155 for the filming of the “How a Bill Becomes a Law” episode. Nothing unusual about that – house numbers are often changed for a film shoot. But in an odd twist, that number was changed even further – to 155 – just a few episodes later for “Halloween Surprise”. The Parks and Rec producers must think us stalkers aren’t paying attention or something.
The owners of Diane’s house also informed us that the residence across the street was used in the “Halloween Surprises” episode, in the scene in which Ron breaks Diane’s daughter’s tiara.
This past weekend, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park (one of my very favorite shopping centers) to do some major Christmas shopping. And “since we were in the area” (cough, cough), I asked if we could make a little stalking stop beforehand at the apartment building where Frankie Davis (Elizabeth Banks) and her son, Josh Davis (Michael Hall D’Addario), lived in the 2012 flick People Like Us. I had learned about the location thanks to a June 26th, 2012 Los Angeles Times article that chronicled the various L.A. locales that appeared in the flick and in which author Richard Verrier stated, “Filming took place throughout the San Fernando Valley, where Sam’s [Chris Pine’s] sister Frankie, a struggling bartender, lives with her son in an apartment complex, which was actually the Saticoy Court Apartments in Canoga Park.” Never before had I seen a film location spelled out like that in a newspaper article, so I would be remiss if I did not give major props to Richard here! A man after my own heart, I swear!
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The location was also (sort of) spelled out in People Like Us, in the scene in which Sam is shown reading a letter from his recently-deceased father which states, “Please get this to Josh Davis. Regal Arms Apartments. 731 Saticoy Street.” From there, tracking down the building – which, in actuality, is located at 21731 Saticoy Street – was a snap.
As luck would have it, while we were stalking the Saticoy Court Apartments (which are, sadly, gated), one of the residents, who could NOT have been nicer, came outside and started talking to us. He answered all sorts of questions I had about the filming (although he did not live on the premises at the time and, shockingly, has still yet to watch People Like Us!) and, when he saw how excited I was about seeing the building in person, invited us inside for a closer look! (Yes, I was pinching myself. The GC, not so much. )
As luck would further have it, while I was snapping photographs, the owner of the actual apartment used in the movie (unit #58), who also could NOT have been nicer, happened to step outside and spent quite a few minutes talking with us. She informed us that filming did indeed take place inside of her actual apartment and that she and her husband were moved into one of Saticoy Court’s vacant units for a few weeks during the shoot. She also told us that filmmakers chose her particular unit over the many others in the building because they liked its location in relation to the exterior stairwell and that the interior of her apartment was painted and upgraded a bit for the production. And while I was hoping that she might invite us inside for a little look-see, sadly that was not to be.
The Saticoy Court Apartments, which was named the “Regal Arms” in People Like Us, showed up repeatedly throughout the flick. Quite a few areas of the building were used in the movie, including the front exterior;
the main entrance doors;
the mailboxes;
the exterior stairwell;
the central courtyard and pool;
the side of the building (please excuse my photograph, which was taken from the wrong angle);
Apartment 25, where Ted (Mark Duplass) lived;
and, of course, Apartment 58.
How cool is it that they used the unit’s actual number for the filming, by the way? Love it!
Even though I was not a huge fan of People Like Us, I cannot tell you how much fun I had stalking Saticoy Court and how amazeballs it was to be invited inside! AND the GC and I got all of our Christmas shopping done shortly thereafter, so it was definitely a banner day.
On a very sad People Like Us side-note – This past Monday morning, a fellow stalker named Diane published a comment on my Henry’s Tacos post informing me that the historic eatery is set to close its doors in just a few weeks. According to the AngelCityArt blog, while the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission voted 5-0 last year to designate Henry’s a historic-cultural monument, for whatever reason, Councilman Paul Kerkorian never submitted the proposal to the City Council and the designation was not pursued. Mehran Ebrahimpour, the owner of the Henry’s Tacos building, vehemently opposed the cultural status nomination and subsequently raised the rent on the site considerably last December. Due to the spike in rent, Henry’s current owner, Janis Hood, whose grandfather, Henry Comstock, founded the eatery on December 13th, 1961 (exactly fifty-one years ago tomorrow), will close up shop at the end of the month. Such a shame! You can visit the official Henry’s Tacos Facebook page here and you can watch an ABC 7 news special on the closure by clicking below.
Stalk It: The Saticoy Court Apartments, aka the Regal Arms Apartments where Frankie lived in People Like Us, are located at 21731 Saticoy Street in Canoga Park.
) with the Grim Cheaper. I did get to meet Uggie the Dog from The Artist and Water for Elephants yesterday, though, so I thought I’d leave you with a couples of photos that I took with him. <3
And, yes, he really is that cute in person!
)
