I cannot express how disappointed I am that ABC cancelled Wicked City. I’ll admit that I was not very impressed with the series’ pilot episode, but I think that was mainly due to the fact that it was rather jarring to see Ed Westwick (one of my absolute faves!) portraying a serial killer. The second episode had me hooked, though, and by episode three I was full-blown obsessed. So it was quite a blow when the show was cancelled just three days after that episode aired. And while ABC has said that the remaining five episodes that have yet to be broadcast will soon be available via streaming, so far that has yet to happen, which has me heartbroken that there might not be any sort of resolution to the show’s core mystery. The cancellation did not stop me from hunting down locations from the series, though. A couple of weeks ago on LAmag.com, I blogged about the Whisky a Go Go, which made several appearances on Wicked City. In the article, I mentioned some other locales featured on the show, but at the time I had yet to track down a few key spots, one of which was the Spanish-style home belonging to Kent Galloway (Westwick).
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I spent a ridiculous amount of time scouring film location databases looking for Kent’s home and, just as I was reaching my wits’ end, decided to call in the Grim Cheaper to ask for his thoughts. I happened to show him a scene from the second episode, which is titled “Runnin’ with the Devil,” and he noticed that a large wall was located across the street from Kent’s residence. He presumed it to be part of a studio and told me to search the neighborhoods surrounding The Walt Disney Studios.
Sure enough, I found the house within seconds, exactly where he said it would be! Sometimes I think he’s better at this stalking stuff than I am! Thank you, GC!
I was so intent on finding the locale not only because I am such a huge fan of Ed Westwick and Wicked City, but also because I just love the look of the place. The residence is picturesque, homey and a perfect representation of the Los Angeles bungalow.
In person it did not disappoint.
Though Zillow states that the property, which was built in 1940, measures one bedroom, one bath, and 1,551 square feet, it looks to be much larger from the outside.
The setting is also quite beautiful. The residence is situated on a 0.21-acre corner plot of land that almost looks like a park.
The house appeared in the first two episodes of Wicked City. I’m sure it was also utilized in the five unaired episodes that were shot prior to the cancellation, as well.
As you can see below, it looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though it appears that a lot of foliage was brought in for the shoot.
I fell in love with the iron adornment on the front door while watching the pilot and was floored to see that it is an actual feature of the house.
I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was used in the filming of the pilot episode.
Unfortunately, I could not find any interior photographs of the place with which to verify that hunch.
The inside of Kent’s residence also made a brief appearance in the third episode of Wicked City, which is titled “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” but I am pretty certain that a set was used for that scene.
I am cutting this week short blogging-wise so that I can begin my Thanksgiving celebrations early. I am so excited for all that we have planned for the holiday, including a stay somewhere cold, and will be sharing some of my upcoming adventures on the blog soon. I hope all of my fellow stalkers have a fabulous Thanksgiving!
Some filming locations are maddeningly elusive. One that remained a thorn in my side for ages was the mall where Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Lynne Stone (Helen Hunt) shopped in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which, for those who haven’t been paying attention over the years, is one of my all-time favorite movies. Thanks to some help from my friends Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, and Michael, of The Brady Bunch’s Golden Spoon fame, I was finally able to stalk the place this past August. As it turns out, the Girls Just Want to Have Fun Mall is none other than Westfield Culver City, aka the former Fox Hills Mall. The road to finding it was quite a long one, though.
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Westfield Culver City was originally established as the Fox Hills Mall in 1975. The complex, which was designed by the Gruen Associates architecture firm, was Los Angeles’ first tri-level indoor shopping center. The site has undergone several name changes and remodels over the years and currently looks a bit different than it did during the Girls Just Want to Have Fun days, though some recognizable elements still exist. Besides its many appearances on the silver screen, the mall boasts another claim to fame – it was at Fox Hills that Gary Coleman famously worked as a security guard in the ‘90s.
In Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Janey and Lynne are shown hanging out in what is a supposed Chicago-area shopping mall. While there, they happen upon the DTV cast doing an autograph signing;
they act goofy by riding an escalator the wrong way;
and they run into Maggie Malene (Shannen Doherty) and Drew Boreman (Jonathan Silverman), who is getting fitted for a tux.
Maggie happens to mention that Drew is renting the tux for Natalie Sands’ (Holly Gagnier) debutante ball which is taking place later that evening. (I blogged about the ball scene location here.) Since Janey and Lynne are seeking revenge on Natalie for numerous past wrongs, they decide to steal Drew’s invitation and make copies of it at the mall’s Big Red Q Quickprint Centers, which they then proceed to pass out to various miscreants on Melrose Avenue.
Back in April, I sent some screen captures of the Girls Just Want to Have Fun mall scene to Owen to see if the complex looked familiar to him. It didn’t, but he kindly decided to help with my quest. He scoured Google images of Los Angeles-area shopping centers and while looking at photos of Westfield Culver City, spotted some elements that matched what appeared in my screen grabs, most notably the escalators. He then did a search to see if anything had been filmed at the mall during the same time period as GJWTHF and saw on Chas’ It’sFilmedThere site that The Boys Next Door had been shot on the premises the very same year! In one of the screen caps featured on Chas’ site (pictured below), he noticed the same diagonal red-striped flooring that was visible in GJWTHF and was pretty sure he had nailed the right spot. As always, we wanted further proof, though. (The huge red staircase visible in the screen capture below was a focal point of Fox Hills’ original design. The shiny glass-and-steel structure rose from the mall’s bottom level to the top. Sadly, it was removed during Westfield’s latest remodel in 2009.)
At around that same time, Michael had tracked down a mall that appeared in an episode of The Brady Bunch. He mentioned his hunt to me and how he had utilized a Shopping Mall Directory from the ‘70s that he found in his local library during his search. While watching the GJWTHF scene, I had identified the signage of three stores in the background – Advance Cutlery, Contempo Casuals and Thom McAn. I asked Michael if he wouldn’t mind looking at an ‘80s version of the directory to see which L.A.-area malls housed those three stores. A couple of days later, he came back to me with an answer – Fox Hills was the only mall with a listing for all three! Eureka! (Though Big Red Q Quickprint Centers is, in fact, a real company, Michael could not find a listing for one at any L.A. mall, so we believe that its appearance in GJWTHF was a matter of product placement.)
Not only did Michael search the directory for me, though, but he also went above and beyond in further determining that Fox Hills was the correct spot. Because The Boys Next Door was lensed the same year as Girls Just Want to Have Fun, he thought a viewing of it might provide further ratification. And it did! Michael rented the flick via Amazon and was able to confirm with 100% certainty that Fox Hills was indeed the GJWTHF mall. At the end of The Boys Next Door, Roy Alston (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bo Richards (Charlie Sheen) are chased into Fox Hills by the police. During the chase, they pass by a Gingiss store. Anyone who lived through the ‘80s and ‘90s is familiar with Gingiss. Growing up, it was THE place to rent tuxes come prom season. It has since been sold to May Department Stores and is no longer a mall staple, though. Michael recognized the Gingiss storefront from The Boys Next Door as being the same formalwear shop featured in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. As he explained, “The weird floor stripe runs into the shop in the same part of the entrance as GJWHF. The store carpet is the same color, and there’s a similar riser in the window. And, there’s even the same(!) bright red tuxedo jacket in the corner of the window and metal light on the other corner of the riser.”
Michael then did a Google search for “Gingiss Formalwear” and came across the company’s logo and made another connection. As he said, “You’ll recognize their stylized ‘I’ from the back wall in GJWHF.” You can check out an old image of a Gingiss store in Florida here in which that same large man-shaped-like-an-I placard is visible on the back wall.
As if that wasn’t enough, Michael kept digging and found further proof! In another email, he stated, ”Since that just about confirms it, it’s probably not necessary to point out the other similarities: the structural poles, shiny metal mirror-like paneling all over the mall (as seen in the first few seconds of the GJWHF clip). And I think you might even be able to see a little bit of the huge red staircase in the GJWHF clip as they’re running into the Quickprint.”
Because I desperately wanted a photo in front of the escalators that SJP and Helen Hunt rode in the movie, Michael did some further investigating. Like I said, he went above and beyond! While watching The Boys Next Door, he was able to determine that a Round Table Pizza . . .
. . . and Regal Shoes were located near Gingiss. More on them in a minute.
Through my own investigations, I discovered that the movie Nightmares had also done some filming at Fox Hills. The 1983 flick is actually an anthology of four different horror stories. The segment shot at Fox Hills is named “Bishop of Battle” and stars Emilio Estevez as video game-obsessed teen J.J. Cooney.
Most of “Bishop of Battle” takes place at the SEGA Center (later renamed Time-Out), an actual arcade that used to be located inside of Fox Hills Mall. Though Nightmares is not available to stream online or for purchase anywhere, segments of it pop up on YouTube regularly. While they are taken down almost just as quickly as they appear, Michael was able to watch several clips of it and piece together where the arcade was formerly located.
Thanks to its diagonal layout and proximity to a ramp leading to a parking area, Michael determined that the storefront now houses Fast Fix Jewelry and Watch Repairs.
Fast Fix is located on the mall’s second level, next door to JCPenny.
I am unsure if the interior of the Nightmares arcade was a set or if scenes were actually filmed inside of the SEGA Center.
In some other (much less clear) Nightmares clips, Michael spotted the same area from GJWHF pop up. He then compared the layout of storefronts shown in Nightmares to a current map of Westfield Culver City and was able to figure out not only where the escalator from GJWTHF is, but also the Gingiss store! As he pointed out in an email, “It looks like Regal Shoes was on a corner.”
He explained further, “It’s hard to say looking at the current-day mall map because it’s hard to visualize the escalator placement, but it seems like Gingiss may have been down near JCPenney. With Regal Shoes being where Zales Jewelers is now (with the distinctive corner), and Gingiss where Love D is. And Qdoba having been Round Table Pizza. You’ll probably be able to figure things out better in person, but at least it’s something to start with.” As it turned out, it was not just something to start with, but was actually spot on!
The Gingiss storefront from Girls Just Want to Have Fun does indeed currently house Love D.
The shop sells affordable shoes, handbags and other accessories.
I honestly could NOT have been more excited to be there!
In The Boys Next Door, a back corridor entrance was visible just to the right of Gingiss. That entrance, now closed off with a door, is still there to this day! You can just barely see it on the very right-hand side of my photo below.
And, as Michael pointed out, the chain of round ceiling lights visible in the corridor outside of Gingiss in GJWTHF are a direct match to the lights that are there now.
The escalators from GJWTHF are located just outside of Love D and lead up to the second level entrance to JCPenney.
I tried to get a matching shot of the escalators from the angle that appeared in the movie, but the kiosk that is now situated outside of Love D blocked my view.
As you can see, though, the shape of the bottom of the escalators and the raised circular markings that run down the center connector match what appeared onscreen.
While it appears that some sort of sunken sitting area was situated behind the escalators in 1985, that is no longer the case.
Today, there is now an indoor playground in that area.
As I mentioned above, Fox Hills/Westfield Culver City has appeared onscreen countless times over the years. In 1977, Carrie Fisher did a promotional interview for Star Wars at the SEGA Center, though very little of the arcade was shown.
You can watch a clip of the interview by clicking below.
Fox Hills was also featured in a fabulously cheesy 1978 commercial for Kinney Shoes starring Ken Berry.
You can watch that ad by clicking below.
In 1983, Fox Hills popped up in the Season 1 episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King titled “The ACM Kid” as the mall where Mrs. Amanda King (Kate Jackson) takes Aleksei Kalnikov (Meeno Peluce).
Though Aleksei plays in an arcade in the episode, that arcade does not appear to be the SEGA Center. I have a hunch that Fox Hills was used in establishing shots in “The ACM Kid,” but that all actual filming took place on a set.
The round ramp that the kids skate down in the flick is located in the south east section of the mall property, just southwest of where Fox Hills Drive intersects with Hannum Avenue.
In 1991’s Point Break, the Ex-Presidents lead Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) and Pappas (Gary Busey) on a car chase through the Fox Hills parking lot.
In the Season 2 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled “Charlie Gets Crippled,” Westfield Culver City is where Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) pretend to have polio.
As you can see below, at the time that the episode was shot in 2006, the diagonal brickwork flooring that was visible in Girls Just Want to Have Fun was still intact.
The final scene of the 2007 comedy Superbad was also lensed at Westfield Culver City.
Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) meet up with Becca (Martha MacIsaac) and Jules (Emma Stone) on the mall’s second floor, in front of the escalators near Foreign Exchange and AT&T Spring Mobile.
As I sat down to figure out what to write about for today’s post, I started getting worried that my location backlog was running low. That worry was quickly amended as soon as I began perusing my inventory of stalking photographs and saw that was not the case at all. I have so many locales stock-piled, in fact, that it is almost ridiculous! One such spot that I visited last February, but somehow failed to do a post on is the abandoned El Centro warehouse that masked as an Iraqi factory in the 2014 drama American Sniper.
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The warehouse was featured towards the end of American Sniper, during Chris Kyle’s (Bradley Cooper) fourth tour of duty in Sadr City. I became fascinated by the location due to both the fact that it is abandoned (obviously!) and because cast and crew ventured all the way out to El Centro, an Imperial Valley city situated about 110 miles east of San Diego and a good 200 miles outside of the Thirty Mile Zone, to shoot there. Most of the American Sniper war sequences were lensed on location in Morocco and on outdoor sets at the Blue Cloud Movie Ranch in Santa Clarita. But I guess, for the “Tour Four” scenes, nothing matched the war-torn landscape of Sadr City better than a sleepy stretch of El Centro. (The screen capture pictured below shows the northern side of the warehouse, an area that is, unfortunately, not accessible to the public. My photograph is of the building’s eastern and southern sides.)
I could find virtually no information online about the warehouse’s history, but according to the American Sniper production notes, the structure is a former milk processing plant that set designers transformed into an abandoned date factory for the shoot.
As you can see below, the building looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though the surrounding area was changed significantly via CGI.
I found it fascinating to compare the aerial view of the warehouse shown in the movie to a real life aerial view.
It is on the rooftop of the warehouse that Kyle makes his “impossible” 2,100-yard shot that takes out an enemy sniper in the movie.
I believe the real life interior of the warehouse was also utilized in the filming.
With its dilapidated exterior and surrounding dirt roads, it is not hard to see how the building came to be used in American Sniper.
I found the structure to be eerily beautiful.
I literally could have spent the entire day taking photos of it.
The cracked, rusted detailing was mesmerizing.
The building located immediately northwest of the warehouse also made an appearance in American Sniper.
That property is fabulously dilapidated, as well.
And, thanks to Dr. Andreas Stavridis, the Asst. Professor of Engineering at the University of Buffalo, the site is actually even more run-down today than it was when American Sniper was shot.
The two-story brick and concrete building was originally constructed in the 1920s and, over time, served as both a grocery warehouse and a cabinet store. The property suffered severe damaged during the Mexicali earthquake in 2010 and was subsequently set to be demolished, until Stavridis stepped in. Shortly after the earthquake, the engineer, who was then in the process of getting both his Masters and PhD at UC San Diego (my alma mater), approached the building’s owner and asked if he could conduct an experiment there. The undertaking took four years to set in motion, but finally, in late 2014, several months after American Sniper had shot on the premises, Stavridis and team staged a fake earthquake on the structure’s second floor using a tool called a “shaker.” The effects were then studied to determine the best way to retrofit similar concrete and brick properties in order to make them more quake resistant. You can watch a fascinating video about the experiment here.
It was Stavridis’ testing that caused most of the building’s large gaping holes. According to the article, the experiment only damaged the second floor, which the owner is planning to remove before restoring the bottom level and re-opening it as a business.
I must say, though, that the building fits in with the neighborhood in its current state. The entire area looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland – and I mean that in the best way possible.
There is even a graffitied train car, seemingly frozen in time, situated on the tracks that run adjacent to the buildings.
The rooftop of the building located immediately south of the warehouse was also featured in American Sniper. Although very little of the structure is visible in the movie, the triangular crenellation on the corners of the roofline are very recognizable from their onscreen appearance.
You can watch some behind-the-scenes footage of the American Sniper scene being shot below.
For years now, I have been trying to track down the bank where Terry Dolittle (Whoopi Goldberg) worked in the 1986 comedy Jumpin’ Jack Flash. It is one of those locations that always sits fixed at the back of my mind, images of it constantly floating around in my head. So when I came across photographs of the Pasadena Main Branch of Bank of the West, which bears a striking resemble to the bank where Terry worked, on a Noirish Los Angeles forum, my heart caught in my throat! I was on vacation at the time and, unfortunately, did not have my Jumpin’ Jack Flash DVD on hand to make comparisons, but was fairly certain I had found the right spot. My parade was rained on as soon as I got home, though, when I popped in my DVD and fairly quickly realized the two banks were not one and the same. I decided to stalk Bank of the West anyway in the hopes that researching it might help me to eventually locate the Jumpin’ Jack Flash bank. So far, my quest has not been fruitful. Hence this post. I am now putting it out there to my fellow stalkers. If any of you happen to recognize the place or want to get in on the hunt, please let me know!
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In the Noirish Los Angeles thread, a commenter named T.J.P. had asked for help in identifying a bank that had appeared in the Season 6 episode of Falcon Crest titled “Perilous Charm” (screen captures from the episode, in which the property masked as San Francisco Merchant Bank, are pictured below). Forum member Tovangar2 quickly recognized the place as the former First Trust Bank Building, now Bank of the West, located at 587 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Another commenter named HossC then posted a link to photos of the interior of the building and it was those photos that had me so intrigued.
In Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Terry works at First National Bank in Manhattan. Now, I should start off by saying that I am unsure if the bank used in the movie is in New York or Los Angeles, being that filming took place in both cities. I am leaning towards L.A., though – at least for the interior scenes. I am also leaning towards the idea that two different locations might have been utilized as Terry’s bank – one for exteriors and another for interiors. But that is just a guess. Sadly, with this one, I am just not sure about anything.
While I am fairly certain that the bullpen where Terry worked was a set (as evidenced by the fact that it got shot up at the end of the movie) . . .
. . . I believe that the interior of First National Bank is a real location.
The photo of Bank of the West that HossC posted that originally caught my eye was of a large stone staircase, one that I thought was a match to the staircase shown in Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Upon closer inspection, though, I realized the two had some differences. I am not used to seeing staircases in banks, so the one featured in JJF always stuck out to me. What I wouldn’t give to see it in person! If it, or the interior of the bank looks familiar to anyone, please let me know!
In the meantime, the Pasadena Main Branch of Bank of the West is a pretty spectacular property in and of itself. The eight-story Italian Renaissance-style building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed in 1927 by architects Cyril Bennett and Fitch Haskell.
While the cast stone and stucco exterior makes for a stately and imposing site, it belies nothing of the bank’s stunning interior. The inside of the building is marked by tall walnut wood paneling, travertine walls, and towering stone columns. The gorgeous gilt coffered ceiling was painted by John Smeraldi, the same artist who painted much of the interior of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The Sicilian-born painter, who is likewise known for his work at the Vatican and The White House, is so synonymous with the Biltmore, in fact, that the property named its signature restaurant “Smeraldi’s” in his honor. Bank of the West also boasts four murals created by American Impressionist painter Alson S. Clark. Because the property is a working bank, I felt a little odd about taking photographs of the interior, but if you are in the area, I highly recommend stopping by for a peek. It is absolutely gorgeous!
Besides being featured in Falcon Crest, Bank of the West also appeared in the pilot episode of Undercovers as the bank where Samantha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Steven Bloom (Boris Kodjoe) attempted to steal security footage. I apologize for the subpar screen captures pictured below – I could not find a copy of the episode anywhere and had to take snaps from a preview of it on YouTube.
The super-nice teller that I spoke with while I was stalking the place informed me that a movie starring John Travolta was also lensed on the premises about twenty years ago, but she was unsure of the name of the film or what it was about.
Stalk It: The Pasadena Main Branch of Bank of the West, from the “Law and Ardor” episode of Falcon Crest, is located at 587 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.
Be sure to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine article about the Sanderson house from The Grinder, my new favorite TV show. My articles typically get published in the early afternoon hours.
UPDATE – After closing and then reopening briefly as Café Société in 2018, this spot shuttered for good early last year. It currently remains vacant.
There’s pretty much nothing I love more than a cool coffee house. So when Cupcakes and Cashmere blogger Emily Schuman wrote about the Daily Dose Café, a downtown Los Angeles coffee shop “nestled between two large industrial buildings” that feels like “your own secret spot” this past August, I was mesmerized! I happened to be in the area when I read the post and ran right out to stalk it just a few minutes later. Emily’s description of the place was spot on and I fell in love with it on sight. I still consider the Daily Dose Café one of the coolest coffee shops I have ever visited. So when it popped up in the Season 5 episode of Scandal titled “Dog-Whistle Politics” a couple of weeks ago, I was floored! And while I had written about the café in My Guide to L.A. – Coffee article in August, I decided it was worthy of its own post. So here goes.
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The Daily Dose Café was founded by a real estate developer named Sarkis Vartanian, who became inspired to establish an “honest food” eatery after receiving a reality check from his doctor. Sarkis had been living on a fast food diet, was feeling crappy most of the time, and, when his doctor informed him that his unhealthy ways were taking a toll on his physical well-being, decided to make a major life change. What better way to do so than by setting up his own organic restaurant? Vartanian soon quit his real estate job and, along with partner/executive chef Christian Page, opened the Daily Dose Café in August 2011.
The tiny restaurant is situated in a small alley that sits tucked in between two non-descript buildings.
So tucked and so non-descript, in fact, that you could easily walk right by it without realizing it was there.
But what lies beyond the clandestine entry is nothing short of magical!
Vartanian set out to create a European-style coffee shop in the heart of downtown L.A. and it took a full two years for his vision to come to fruition.
One look at the space and it is not very hard to see why. Every square inch of it is teeming with charm, warmth and romance. With its canopy of strung Edison lights, towering shrub-covered walls, cobblestone flooring, and reclaimed wood furnishings, the Daily Dose Café evokes all the beauty and allure of a Parisian garden.
The Daily Dose Café also boasts an indoor space, but it was jam-packed while we were there, so I did not snap any photos of it – outside of the mugs on display, that is, which I fell in love with.
The eatery, which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a wide array of coffee drinks and fresh juices, is well-known for its organically grown non-GMO food offerings. While the meals I saw being served looked uh-ma-zing, the Grim Cheaper and I only partook of some java while we were there. And I have to say I was quite impressed! The iced latte I ordered was easily one of the best I have ever tasted.
In “Dog-Whistle Politics,” the Daily Dose Café stood in for the Café Graisseux (translation Greasy Coffee Shop) in Paris, where Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) and Charlie (George Newbern) waited for a contact.
Not only was the space dressed heavily for the shoot, but Parisian buildings were digitally added to the background in post-production, making the restaurant virtually unrecognizable.
I identified it immediately, though, thanks to the canopy of Edison bulbs visible throughout the scene.
The Daily Dose Café has appeared onscreen several times throughout the years. In the Season 3 episode of Revenge titled “Endurance,” which aired in 2014, the exterior of the eatery is briefly shown as the spot where Conrad Grayson (Henry Czerny) pays Jess (Nazneen Contractor) for a sneak peek at an upcoming issue of Voulez magazine.
Later that same season, in the episode titled “Impetus,” Margaux LeMarchal (Karine Vanasse) talks to Daniel Grayson (Josh Bowman) about the death of her father while standing outside of the Daily Dose Café, though virtually none of the restaurant is visible in the scene.
In the Season 1 episode of CSI: Cyber titled “Fire Code,” which aired in 2015, the Daily Dose Café masks as the Washington, D.C.-area coffee shop where Elijah Mundo (James Van Der Beek) asks his estranged wife, Devon Atwood (Alexie Gilmore), for another chance.
In the Season 6 episode of Rizzoli & Isles titled “Scared to Death,” it played the role of the Boston, Massachusetts-area cafe where Nina Holiday (Idara Victor) interviewed a hacking victim.
And it is the New York alley Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) runs down in order to escape Candace Stone (Ambyr Childers) in the first episode of the second season of the Netflix series You, titled “A Fresh Start.”
I know I say it every year, but this Halloween truly was the Best. Halloween. Ever. As I mentioned on Monday, my best friend, Robin, and his girlfriend, Steffi, flew in from Switzerland to spend the week with us. Halloween is not celebrated in Switzerland, so I was beyond excited to share my favorite holiday with them and we wound up turning it into a full weekend event.
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Robin and Steffi arrived in L.A. on Friday evening and we immediately headed out to RISE of the Jack O’Lanterns at Descanso Gardens. The Grim Cheaper and I spent last Halloween at RISE and absolutely loved it. While I had heard that this year’s display wasn’t nearly as good, we wound up having a blast and it was the perfect low-key event for our friends’ first night in town.
This year, RISE was exhibited at two L.A. locations, Descanso Gardens and Santa Anita Park. (From everything I have read online and have heard from friends who went, the Santa Anita one was downright awful.) The 2014 show at Descanso Gardens consisted of more than five thousand carved pumpkins displayed on a quarter-mile path and while this year’s seemed noticeably smaller (probably due to the addition of the Santa Anita location), it was still incredible to walk through.
On Halloween morning, we woke up bright and early (far too early!) and headed back to Palm Springs, with a stop at Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch along the way. Live Oak, which I blogged about in 2013, is one of my favorite places to visit during the fall season and the GC and I never fail to make a trek out there each October. The 450-acre property boasts picnic areas, countless food vendors, pony rides, a petting zoo, midway games, slides, an aviary, live entertainment, a tractor-pulled hayride, acres and acres of sunflowers, a massive 12,000-foot corn maze, a 12-acre pick-your-own pumpkin patch with more than 15 pumpkin varieties, and a large gift shop. We spent quite a few hours there, visiting the petting zoo, picking pumpkins and traipsing through the corn maze, which we ended up getting stuck in due to the fact that one of the exit doors malfunctioned. Still, a good time was had by all and I honestly cannot recommend stalking Live Oak Canyon more.
When I first learned that Robin and Steffi would be flying out for Halloween, I, of course, asked what they wanted to dress up as. Robin didn’t skip a beat, replying, “Something from Star Wars.” The 1977 flick is his favorite movie and he finally got me to watch it for the first time during a visit last year. (Yes, you read that right – up until last year I had never seen the original Star Wars!) So the movie not only has special meaning for him, but for our friendship. When I suggested we all go as something from the franchise, Robin couldn’t have been more excited and said, “This is like a dream come true! Well, maybe not for you and Steffi.” Since I am anal about Halloween, I started locking down my costume back in August. I figured that Steffi would most likely want to dress as Princess Leia, so I made an early decision to be Padme Amidala. (That decision was an easy one once I laid eyes on Padme’s amazing sweater cape! It was love at first sight!) As it turns out, the Grim Cheaper dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Robin as Darth Vader and Steffi as a Stormtrooper (Robin wanted both the dark and light sides of the Force represented in our group), so I was the only one who was not from the original trilogy. Whoops! I loved my costume all the same, though.
We had such a great time just being in our costumes and goofing off. Robin was so in love with his that at one point he said he might wear it all week.
Frenemies!
I did not like any of the ready-made Padme costumes available online, so opted to make my own. I was afraid that it was going to be rather tough to put together, but it wound up being extremely easy. Because I could not seem to find any DIY Padme costume advice when I was trying to figure out what to wear, I thought I would put together a list of what I purchased in case others wanted to re-create it. So for those looking to make their own Padme Amidala costume, here you go! The shirt came from Forever 21. It is just a basic thermal in a cream color that I believe cost about $6. Unfortunately, it is no longer available, but I found a similar one here. The GC then put silver duct tape around the tops of my arms to replicate Padme’s armbands. For the pants, I wore these Express Columnist Ankle Pants in Ivory. The belt was a loaner that I swiped off a pair of my dad’s cargo shorts. The sweater cape I actually thought was going to be the hardest to locate, but I randomly found this Halsey Tunic Sweater at Francesca’s Collections one day and, with a bit of modification, it worked perfectly. Using fabric tape, I fastened the sleeves to the back portion of the tunic and then folded the front portion over my shoulders, making it appear to be a cape. An old pair of Sketchers knit boots (which are actually imitations of these Uggs) that I have had for years finished off the look. Though they no longer appear to be available, I found a similar version here. For the hair, I just reworked my Kelly Kapowski wig from last year by pulling it up into a loose bun. It was honestly one of the easiest, lowest-maintenance costumes I have ever put together and was super comfy to boot!
While we were originally thinking of hitting up BB’s legendary Annual Halloweekend Bash, which I have heard is THE place to be on Halloween, we wound up opting for something more low key. We instead headed out to the Arenas Road Halloween Costume Contest and loved every minute of it. (That’s Steffi and me below with Palm Springs celebrity Bella da Ball, who was the evening’s host.)
Literally everyone in attendance was dressed in costume and the vast majority of those costumes were extravagant and incredibly well thought-out, so I was shocked when people started coming up to us asking for photos left and right. We were a major hit, especially Steffi and Robin, and it was so fun to feel like celebrities for the evening. I mean we honestly couldn’t walk five feet without someone approaching us. One man even stopped me to ask if I was Lea Michele. I explained that no, I was dressed as Padme Amidala, to which he said, “I know, but aren’t you Lea Michele in real life?” Um, I’ll take it!
After leaving Arenas Road, we headed to Kaiser Grille where we had cocktails on the patio and watched the many in costume walk by. At one point I headed to the restroom and overheard our waiter say to another waiter, “I’ve got the Star Wars table! How cool is that?” So yeah, while there were countless amazingly ornate and hip costumes to be seen that night, it seems you just can’t beat the classics!
The rest of our week with Robin and Steffi was just as fun and memorable and consisted of no less than four road trips and one overnighter. I will be blogging about a few of the locales we hit up in the near future, including the Ski Inn in Bombay Beach.
Since I am anal about Halloween, I started locking down my costume back in August. I figured that Steffi would most likely want to dress as Princess Leia, so I made an early decision to be Padme Amidala. (That decision was an easy one once I laid eyes on 
