The Mayfair Hotel from True Lies is in the process of being snapped up by the city of Los Angeles. Details over at Dirt.
The Original Pantry Cafe from “Fatal Attraction”
Los Angeles’ historic Original Pantry Cafe is getting some major screen time in the new Paramount Plus series Fatal Attraction. Read all about it over at Dirt.
Hotel Per La from “Your Place or Mine”
If you caught Netflix’s new movie Your Place or Mine, you’re going to want to check out my latest Dirt post. It’s about the gorgeous Hotel Per La, which plays the Brownstone Club, where Debbie Dunn (Reese Witherspoon) meets handsome book editor Theo Martin (Jesse Williams) in the rom-com.
Vibiana from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Downtown L.A.’s historic Vibiana, formerly the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana, has a prominent role in Everything Everywhere All at Once. You can read about it in my latest post for Dirt.
Gillini Restaurant from “Something from Tiffany’s”
If you’re anything like me, you’re completely enamored with Gillini, the bakery at the heart of the new Amazon Prime movie Something from Tiffany’s. Sadly, it’s not a real place. But you can read all about the vacant restaurant that portrayed it in my latest post for Dirt.
The Gulf + Western Offices from “The Offer”
If you’re a big midcentury fan, you were likely immediately enamored of the Gulf + Western offices from the Paramount Plus series The Offer. You can read all about the glorious space, which is located at Los Angeles Center Studios, in my latest post for Dirt.
The Cecil Hotel from “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel”
Be sure to check out my latest post about the Cecil Hotel, the notorious lodging that is at the forefront of the upcoming Netflix series Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, which looks into the mysterious death of Elisa Lam.
The Arts District Firehouse Hotel from “ER”
The Grim Cheaper likes to say that I fixate on the silliest of things. I typically scoff at the notion, but he’s 100% right. Case in point – a few months back favorite blogger Emily Schuman, of Cupcakes and Cashmere, did a photo shoot at the Arts District Firehouse Hotel, a stylish fire-station-turned-lodging in downtown L.A. While there, she recorded an Instagram story showing an assortment of blush matchbooks displayed at the check-in desk. As it so happens, I had recently changed up my kitchen décor by adding some pops of pink, including a bowl filled with two rose-colored matchbooks. One look at Emily’s story and I decided I had to snag some of the hotel’s matches ASAP to add to my new collection. When the GC and I headed out to L.A. to take care of some business a few weeks later, I, of course, tried to reserve a room at the property, but it was completely booked. Undeterred, I ventured right on over there as soon as we arrived in town to grab that matchbook – and an iced latte from the lobby coffee bar, natch. The Arts District Firehouse Hotel is so artfully designed and unique that I couldn’t help but snap some pics while waiting for my drink, which turned out to be quite fortuitous, because, as it turns out, the place is a filming location!
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The Arts District Firehouse Hotel began life as Engine Co. 17, which started servicing the downtown area on April 1st, 1905. Interestingly, it was situated in a slightly different location at the time – at 2100 East Seventh Street, about 100 feet north of its current home. At its inception, the handsome vine-covered building (which you can see here) sat facing Seventh Street, in pretty much the spot where Bread Lounge stands today When the Seventh Street Bridge, which ran in front of the station, was raised above grade in the mid-20s, Engine Co. 17 had to be re-located. I’ve come across a few reports stating that to accommodate the project, the entire building was picked up and moved the short distance to 710 South Santa Fe Avenue, but I don’t believe that to be true. Though similar, the edifice of the original Engine Co. 17 is quite different from that of the Arts District Firehouse Hotel. The former boasted an intricately paned, three-panel window with angled projections across its second floor (as you can see here), while the latter has six separate flat windows in that spot. And while the original featured one bay door, the hotel has two. Though subtle, the differences are just enough to lead me to believe the 1904 firehouse was razed during the bridge project and a replacement then built at the new location. Whatever the case, per LAFire the Santa Fe Avenue facility opened its doors on September 9th, 1927. The station operated at that site for the next five decades before being decommissioned in 1980, at which point Company 17 re-located once again to a new building eight blocks south at 1601 South Santa Fe.
The former firehouse was subsequently sold to photographer Robert Blakeman who transformed it into four separate artist studios which he shared with various contemporaries over the next 20 years. In 2006, he put the property up for sale for $2.95 million. At the time, the 8,721-square-foot, 2-story structure boasted the station’s original kitchen, an indoor handball court, and parking for 13 cars. There were no takers, though, and it was removed from the market in 2007.
At some point, Engine Co. 17 did change hands and the owners began making plans to transform the space into a hotel, but those plans did not reach fruition until hospitality magnate Dustin Lancaster was brought onboard in 2016. He quickly tapped interior designer Sally Breer, with whom he partnered on two prior projects, to reimagine the station’s interior. Sally worked her magic, converting the site into an operable lodging, all the while keeping intact all of the original firehouse elements that make it so unique. A woman after my own heart, she told the Los Angeles Times, “Always our job first and foremost is to respect the architecture and breathe some new life into it.” Yaaaaas! With that mantra in mind, Breer preserved the building’s concrete flooring, pressed-tin ceiling, and exposed beam work.
To say the finished project is stunning would be a gross understatement! Since the transformation, the hotel has been written up by everyone from Vogue to Architectural Digest to Time – and it’s not very hard to see why. The place is serious #designgoals!
Opened this past April, the boutique lodging features nine suites, a restaurant and bar, event space (the station’s former handball court now serves as a private dining room), a coffee bar, a large patio complete with a fire pit, and a small shop featuring Los Angeles- and California-themed wares.
I did not realize Engine Co. 17 had appeared onscreen until long after I got home, though it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. A decommissioned firehouse with many of its original elements intact that operated as a studio (and therefore could easily be shut down for filming) for over two decades? Sounds like a dream site for any location manager working on a procedural!
In the Season 8 episode of ER titled “A River in Egypt,” which aired in 2002, Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) confronts her paramour, firefighter Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal), at Engine Co. 17 for outing her to her fellow County General Hospital coworkers.
Thanks to firehouse expert Richard Yokley (you may remember him from this post and this post), I learned that Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) and Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano) investigated the disappearance of a firefighter at Engine Co. 17 in the Season 2 episode of Without a Trace titled “Trip Box,” which aired in 2003.
Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) interrogates Rod Halstead (John M. Jackson) at Engine Co. 17 about a fire her mother had been looking into in the Season 4 episode of Castle titled “Rise,” which aired in 2011, though little of the building is visible in the scene.
Richard also informed me that Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher), Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) headed to Engine Co. 17 to apologize to Fire Marshall Boone (Patton Oswalt) in the Season 1 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “Sal’s Pizza,” which aired in 2013.
The episode gives us some nice glimpses of the firehouse’s Interior, as well.
The music video for A Great Big World’s 2014 song “Already Home,” which you can watch here, also largely took place at Engine Co. 17. The song tells the story of lovers who live on opposite coasts, which explains why the top screen capture below is split.
Per On Location Vacations, the pilot of Like Father was also lensed at the firehouse in 2012, but, sadly, it appears as if the show never made it on air.
And for those asking, pictured below are the matchbooks I went out of my way to procure – a fabulous addition to my collection, don’t you think?
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Arts District Firehouse Hotel, aka the former Engine Co. 17 from the “A River in Egypt” episode of ER, is located at 710 South Santa Fe Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the lodging’s official website here.
Mawby’s Bar from “Flashdance” – An Update
Typically, when a vacant space is built out for a production, it is dismantled as soon as filming wraps – though sometimes stranger things, ahem, do happen. Take Gwinnett Place, for instance. A wing of the largely deserted Duluth, Georgia shopping center was transformed (with breathtaking attention to detail, I might add) into Hawkins, Indiana’s Starcourt Mall for the third season of Stranger Things. It is one of my favorite locations ever to be brought to life onscreen and, incredibly, was left completely dressed in its destroyed ‘80s state up until earlier this month – almost a year after filming took place! Atypical as that is, the same scenario appears to be true for Mawby’s Bar from Flashdance! As I chronicled in an August 2017 post, the supposed Pittsburgh nightclub was not a real place, but a set created especially for the 1983 movie at a vacant warehouse located at 229 Boyd Street in downtown L.A. While I assumed said set was disassembled following the shoot, fellow stalker Dave (you may remember his amazing research from this post) recently informed me that it popped up again two years later as Coyle’s Club & Cuff in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment! Why producers (not to mention the building owner) chose to leave the bar space intact is beyond me, but I am so grateful they did! Due to the many changes the warehouse incurred in the three-plus decades since Flashdance was shot, it is not at all recognizable, so prior to writing my 2017 post I attempted to dig up additional footage of it from other productions lensed around the same time to further verify its use in the movie. I was unsuccessful, but, thankfully, Dave has now done the legwork for me! So I figure an update is in order!
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It is at Coyle’s Club & Cuff that the officers of the 16th Precinct regularly hang out in Police Academy 2. As Dave explained to me, the small octagonal windows flanking the bar’s front door, the larger one situated on the wall beside it, and the glass block framing perfectly match Mawby’s exterior from Flashdance, giving away its location as 229 Boyd Street, despite looking completely different today.
Dave went on to explain that in one scene, Tackleberry (David Graf) is shown walking inside Coyle’s and, as he enters, it becomes obvious from the octagonal window visible behind him (denoted with a blue arrow below) as well as the glass block framing above the doorway (denoted with a pink arrow) that the warehouse was used for both interiors and exteriors.
Those exact same elements are also apparent in Flashdance, which cements the fact that the inside of the building was utilized in that film, as well – something I hypothesized about in my 2017 post, but could not prove at the time.
As Dave scrutinized the two movies further, he discovered even more matching details! He called my attention to the two shots below, taken from practically the same angle, noting that although framing was built atop the bar for Police Academy 2 changing the look of it, the countertop was left untouched as were the doorway and hatch visible beyond it!
Seeing that doorway and hatch (denoted with pink and blue arrows below) gave me goosebumps! I could hardly believe my eyes, but, sure enough, right before me was proof that the Mawby’s set was left intact long after Flashdance wrapped.
A clearer view of the octagonal hatch is pictured below. (To quote Jake Peralta, “Literal goosebumps!”)
Thrilled at the new development, I excitedly began dissecting Flashdance and Police Academy 2 myself and dug up a few additional elements visible in both, including a vestibule with decorative wood paneling (shown from opposing angles below) situated just inside the front door of the two spaces.
A partition with seating that runs the length of the interiors is also apparent in both flicks.
The counter attached to said partition (shown from opposite angles below) boasts red siding in both productions, as well.
The lip of the bar and the tan and red paneling below it are also direct matches. Oh, how I wish that interior was still intact today!
During his research, Dave unearthed an even more unusual twist! Toward the middle of Police Academy 2, the outside of 229 Boyd appears in an undressed state in the scene in which Doug Fackler (Bruce Mahler) heads to a gas station looking for a public restroom. As Dave wrote to me, “So at some point during production, either before or after Fackler drives past the building, the set designers will have given it quite a makeover!” Though definitely odd, the segment provides a fabulous full view of what the property looked like in 1985 – which is pretty darn close to how it appeared in Flashdance (minus the Mawby’s accoutrements, of course)! Dave notes, “Even the HOTEL lettering is still intact!” Sadly, the location in its current state does not resemble its ‘80s self in the slightest.
As chronicled in my 2017 post, the warehouse pops up in a few other productions, as well, including 1984’s Night of the Comet. In the screen captures below, the Mawby’s site, located just beyond the stop sign, is denoted with a yellow arrow.
Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) and Wilson (Mykelti Williamson) drive by the building in 1988’s Miracle Mile.
And a reused shot of it from Flashdance appeared as an establishing shot in the 1990 made-for-television movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Poisoned Pen, though no actual filming took place there.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
HUGE thank you to fellow stalker Dave for figuring out this location’s Police Academy 2 connection. 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The building that portrayed both Mawby’s Bar in Flashdance and Coyle’s Club and Cuff in Police Academy 2 can be found at 229 Boyd Street in downtown Los Angeles. The neighborhood where it is located is not the greatest, so please exercise caution when visiting.
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites from “True Lies”
There is no shortage of unique architecture in Southern California. The Bradbury Building, LADWP, and the 8500 apartment complex all immediately come to mind as highly individualistic spots. One structure stands heads and shoulders above the rest, though, as being extra extraordinary – The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles. If you’ve ever found yourself on the 110 Freeway, you are sure to have spotted its futuristic edifice gracing the skyline. It’s been called “the world’s largest cappuccino machine,” “a bronzed grain elevator,” and “Camelot in glass” (all per a 1976 Baltimore Sun article that is not available to link to online). Regardless of one’s feelings about the aesthetic of the massive towered building, its Hollywood allure can’t be argued. Location managers have flocked to it like a beacon since its inception. I happened to pop into the exceptional hotel last month and when my eyes landed upon the fountain Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) famously rode a horse through in True Lies, I realized that, although I wrote a brief post on the place back in 2008, it was definitely time for a redux.
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The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, originally known simply as the Los Angeles Bonaventure, was constructed from 1974 to 1976 at a cost of $110 million. Designed by architect John C. Portman Jr., at the time it was the most expensive lodging ever built and the city’s largest. It still holds that latter distinction today.
The 367-foot-tall Postmodern structure, which consists of 5 mirrored cylindrical towers flanked by 12 glass elevators, makes for a strikingly unique vision along the downtown horizon.
Housing 35 floors, the goliath hotel boasts a lobby with a 6-story atrium and a rambling indoor fountain so large it is often referred to as a “lake.”
The Bonaventure also features 1,358 rooms, 135 suites, an outdoor pool, a gym, 155,000 square feet of meeting and event space, and a plethora of restaurants and watering holes including the famed BonaVista Lounge, a revolving bar situated on the 34th floor.
There’s even a mall on the premises with more than 40 stores and a food court!
The Grim Cheaper and I have checked into the Bonaventure several times over the years and have always enjoyed our stay. The rooms are small, but well-appointed and modern . . .
. . . and boast views for days!
And days!
To say that the Bonaventure is unique would be an understatement.
With its cement-clad interior, the hotel is almost post-apocalyptic in its minimalism and starkness . . .
. . . and I mean that in the best way possible.
Though no longer the case, the Bonaventure formerly boasted a highly unusual open-air gym on its third floor with pod-like overhangs holding exercise machinery cantilevered over the lobby below . . .
. . . each of which branched off a small indoor track, as you can see in the images above and below that the GC and I snapped during a 2005 visit.
The exercise equipment has long since been removed and today the former gym area remains eerily vacant.
The place even has a few ties to true crime! On October 7th, 1979, a North Hollywood couple was shot, killed and dismembered in one of the Bonaventure’s rooms (their bodies were later removed via trash bags!) thanks to a drug deal gone wrong. And it was there that John DeLorean was videotaped agreeing to smuggle cocaine as part of an FBI sting operation on September 28th, 1982, which is rather ironic being that a few years prior the hotel was used as a futuristic backdrop in an ad for the businessman’s infamous DMC-12 car.
Though management likely doesn’t relish those moments in the hotel’s past, great pride is taken in its cinematic history. Not only is the hallway leading from the parking garage to the lobby lined with posters from the various productions lensed on the premises . . .
. . . but the elevators that have cameoed onscreen are outfitted with plaques denoting their respective résumés. (Oddly, the In the Line of Fire placard pictured below boasts some erroneous info. The action hit was released on July 8th, 1993, so there is no way that any filming of it took place on the Bonaventure grounds in September of that year, a full two months later!)
A poster noting the hotel’s use in Interstellar was even on display in the lobby the last time we checked in.
The Bonaventure has been featured in so many productions over the years, it would be impossible for me to chronicle them all here.
But I’ve corralled a list of some of my favorites.
As I mentioned earlier, the Bonaventure most famously figures in a climatic action sequence in the 1994 hit True Lies in which Harry Tasker, on horseback, chases a motorcycle-riding Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through the hotel’s lobby . . .
. . . into one of its elevators . . .
. . . and onto the roof, which he subsequently almost falls from.
The BonaVista Lounge masked as the restaurant Above the Top in the 1980s sitcom It’s a Living. Though all actual filming took place on a soundstage, the hotel was featured regularly in establishing shots as well as in the weekly opening credits.
The BonaVista Lounge is also where David Addison Jr. (Bruce Willis) ambushed Maddie Hayes’ (Cybill Shepherd) date in the pilot episode of Moonlighting, which aired in 1985.
MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) lands on top of the Bonaventure via helicopter at the beginning of the Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “Deathlock,” which aired in 1986. (The chopper apparently experienced dangerous “ground resonance” during the filming, as detailed here.)
Dr. Bruner (Gerald R. Molen) attempts to buy off Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) while walking around the Bonaventure’s pool in the 1988 drama Rain Man.
The following year, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) got into a car crash in front of the hotel while chasing a suspect in Lethal Weapon 2.
Mason Storm (Steven Seagal) is ambushed at the Bonaventure in 1990’s Hard to Kill.
It is at the hotel that Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) sets up his plot to assassinate the President (Jim Curley) in 1993’s In the Line of Fire.
Many areas of the property appeared in the thriller, but I am unsure if the California Ballroom is where the actual assassination attempt took place as has been asserted on a few websites. That particular venue looks considerably smaller than the one featured, as you can see in these photos as compared to the screen captures below.
The Bonaventure also prominently appears in the 1995 thriller Nick of Time as the spot where accountant Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is sent to kill Governor Eleanor S. Grant (Marsha Mason).
Dr. Eugene Sands (David Duchovny) visits the Bonaventure to perform surgery on a gunshot victim in the 1997 thriller Playing God.
Usher made great use of the place in his 2002 “U Don’t Have to Call” music video.
In 2005, the outside of the Bonaventure was utilized in exterior shots of the hotel where Roberts (Michael Kenneth Williams) met with Carter (Paul Ben-Victor) in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Another Mister Sloane.” The property’s elevators also appeared in the episode, but all other interior filming took place at The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown, which I blogged about here.
The hotel portrays a top secret NASA facility in the 2014 sci-fi drama Interstellar.
That same year, the outside of the Bonaventure popped up as the Manhattan hotel where David Clarke (James Tupper) stayed in the Season 4 episode of Revenge titled “Repercussions.” As was the case with Alias, interiors were filmed at The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown.
In the Season 4 episode of Bosch titled “Dreams of Bunker Hill,’” which aired in 2018, Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers) visit Michael Harris (Keston John) who is sequestered at the Bonaventure.
The hotel is also said to have been featured in Forget Paris, but I scanned through the 1995 romance and didn’t see it anywhere.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites. from True Lies, is located at 404 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the property’s official website here.