historic places – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 29, 2020January 27, 2020

The Adamson House from “You”

The second season of You had me feeling like an inadequate Angelino! (Yes, even though I now live in Palm Springs, I still consider myself an L.A. denizen.) In episode 6, “Farewell, My Bunny,” Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) and her friends teach Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) about Los Angeles’ “seven totems,” which, once seen, render a person an official Angelino. Those totems are as follows – 1. A rollerblader in booty shorts, 2. A “ghetto bird”, aka police helicopter, 3. Two starlets wearing the same dress, 4. A pack of coyotes, 5. A dog in a stroller, 6. An off-brand superhero, “but out of context, not in front of Grauman’s, because that’s too easy,” and 7. A palm tree on fire. In my almost fifteen years of living in the City of Angels, I only encountered three of the seven (#1, 2, and 5, for those wondering). But I did immediately recognize the spot where the wedding of Lucy (Marielle Scott) and Sunrise (Melanie Field) took place in the series’ Season 2 finale, so I’m thinking that restores at least a bit of my L.A. cred! The Adamson House in Malibu is a site I am very familiar with and even blogged about back in 2009. Since my post on the place was written so long ago, though, I figured it was high time for a redo.

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Though I covered the history of the Adamson House in my original post, I’ll provide a brief recap here. The estate was built by Rhoda Agatha Rindge Adamson and her husband, Merritt Adamson, in 1929 on a 13-acre parcel of land given to them by Rindge’s mother, Rhoda May Knight Rindge. At the time, Rhoda May owned 17,000 acres of bucolic coastal land that today is known as Malibu. She and her late husband, Frederick Hastings Rindge, had purchased the seaside enclave in 1892 and their family remained its only occupants for the following forty years.

To build their new home, Rhoda Agatha and Merritt commissioned architect Stiles O. Clement, who also designed the Pasadena residence where some of Twilight’s prom scenes were filmed and the El Capitan Theatre.

The Mediterranean-style estate took a year and a half to complete.

Rhoda and Merritt spared no expense on construction of the home which boasted 5,000 square feet of living space, 5 bedrooms (all en suite), 2 servants’ quarters, a 5-car garage, hand-carved doors, a myriad of fireplaces, plaster-molded ceilings, elaborate friezes, arched windows, frescoes, a swimming pool complete with a pool house, a patio with a sprawling lawn and fountain, and furnishings custom-made by interior decorator John Holtzclaw. Oh, and views for days!

Clement even included a luxurious outdoor tub for the bathing of the Adamsons’ many pets.

By now, you’ve likely noticed the property’s elaborate tile work. It was commissioned by Rhoda May, who owned her own tile company, Malibu Potteries, which sourced clay directly from the Rindges’ land.

The colorful hand-painted pieces are a sight to behold and are, in fact, the reason the Adamson House stands to this day. In 1966, the State of California declared eminent domain on the property with the plan to raze it to make way for a – wait for it! – parking lot! Thankfully, the Malibu Historical Society and Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation stepped in, waging a ten-year battle to save the historic home. They were ultimately victorious and in 1983, after a lengthy restoration, the site was opened as a museum. It also became available for weddings and special events and, of course, filming.

It is at the Adamson House that Sunrise and Lucy tie the knot in the Season 2 finale of You, titled “Love, Actually.”

The episode made use of the property’s expansive lawn and rear patio, both of which you can see via a docent-led tour.

The Adamson House has long been a favorite of location managers.

Way back in 1976, the pad portrayed the estate of Frank Bartone (Cesare Danova) in the Season 1 episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “The Mexican Connection.”

The Adamson House served as the home of Wally Windham (John Larch) in the Season 8 episode of Dallas titled “Deeds and Misdeeds,” which aired in 1985.

Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Marilyn Kelsy (Wendy Schaal) hid out from assassins at a party taking place at the house in the Season 3 episode of Airwolf titled “Hawke’s Run,” which aired in 1986.

That same year, the property played the home of actress Gigi Dolores (Deborah Walley) in the Season 6 episode of Simon & Simon titled “The Last Big Break.”

As I detailed in my 2009 post, the Adamson House masqueraded as the Baja cantina where Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) took Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) during their secret weekend getaway to Mexico in the Season 2 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Mexican Standoff,” which aired in 1992.

After getting into an epic fight and then making up over a mariachi band’s rendition of “Feelings,” Dylan and Brenda dance the night away on the patio where the outdoor bathtub is located, which can be found on the Adamson House’s north side.

That area, pictured below, is not part of the official Adamson House tour, but can easily be viewed while venturing around the property beforehand or afterward.

The house pops up as a Mexican restaurant on Beverly Hills, 90210 once again in the Season 9 episode titled “Marathon Man,” which aired in 1998. On that occasion, it portrayed Mariscos San Lucas, the Cabo San Lucas eatery where Dylan took Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) after flying her to Mexico on a private jet as a surprise.

The Adamson House was also utilized as the town square where the two later shopped in the episode and where Dylan, unbeknownst to Kelly, scored some drugs.

And in 2018, the Adamson House masked as a beachside restaurant in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “City of Angels?”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Adamson House, where Lucy and Sunrise got married in the Season 2 finale of You, is located at 23200 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. You can visit the home’s official website here. Tours of the property are given Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

May 3, 2019May 2, 2019

Disney’s Grand Central Air Terminal

I am one of the few people lamenting the upcoming opening of Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Though renderings certainly look cool (it is Disney, after all!), I fear the massive crowds the new 14-acre land is expected to draw are going to ruin the park. The Happiest Place on Earth is crowded enough! The powers that be majorly blundered on this one, IMHO. Galaxy’s Edge should have been its own park, a la California Adventure, leaving DL a separate entity for purists like myself. One thing The Walt Disney Company did get right recently? The restoration of Glendale’s historic Grand Central Air Terminal. The former airport/prolific film star, now part of Imagineering’s Grand Central Creative Campus, had been sitting boarded-up and vacant for years, as I chronicled in both a 2012 blog post and a 2015 Los Angeles magazine article. When my friend/fellow stalker John informed me that it was finally ready for its close-up once again following a painstaking renovation, I knew I had to get back out there to document its new look.

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Though I covered the history of Grand Central Air Terminal in both my previous articles, I figured a recap was in order here. The land where GCAT is now situated was originally part of what was to be Glendale Municipal Airport, a plan that never really, ahem, got off the ground. In 1928, investors bought the site (which at the time basically consisted of a hangar and a 1,200-foot runway that private pilots had been using since 1923) and began a major overhaul to transform it into a modern commercial airport.

Architect Henry L. Gogerty was brought in to design the main terminal building. His creation combined Spanish Colonial Revival, Art Deco and Zigzag Moderne styles.

The interior boasted such modern amenities as a coffee shop, a checkroom, a spacious waiting area, and, after Prohibition ended, a bar. You can check out what the inside looked like in these historic images, though I am unsure of when exactly they were taken.

Grand Central Air Terminal opened to the public on February 22nd, 1929 and quickly cemented itself as Los Angeles’ main airport. Its tenure didn’t last long, though.

During WWII, the site was transformed into a military base and its runway extended to accommodate large P-38 fighters. The move would have been crucial to GCAT’s survival, but when the war ended, the city demanded the runway be returned to its previous length, which was too short for modern jets, essentially rendering the facility obsolete. Commercial air travel migrated to the larger Hollywood Burbank Airport and Los Angeles International Airport and GCAT was finally shuttered in 1959. Its runway was subsequently removed, as were several ancillary buildings, but the terminal was left intact and transformed into offices. Walt Disney Imagineering leased much of the space in 1961 before purchasing it in its entirety in 1997. Following the acquisition, plans were announced to redevelop the former airport into a 125-acre creative campus featuring 3.6-million-square-feet of offices, production space, and soundstages. Local citizens balked at the idea, though, and plans were stalled, leaving the once grand terminal building boarded-up and vacant. I visited the locale in May 2012 and found it looking like this.

In 2013, the city finally approved a new renovation plan and Disney got to work. The revamped Grand Central Air Terminal, which consists of a visitor center, event space and offices, was completed in late 2015. As you can see, the finished product is phenomenal! What a difference!

Unfortunately, the property is not open to the public, but tours are offered monthly. You can find out more information on visiting GCAT here and you can check out some post-renovation interior photos on the Disney Tourist Blog here.

Considering its proximity to Tinseltown and its gorgeous architecture, it is no surprise that location scouts came a-knocking on Grand Central’s doors from the beginning. The place was such an onscreen stalwart in the ‘30s and ‘40s, in fact, that for those partial to Old Hollywood, it should be deemed a must-see.

Grand Central Air Terminal pops up at the beginning of the 1933 drama Air Hostess.

Thomas (Walter Johnson) and Shirley Blake (Shirley Temple) pick Adele Martin (Judith Allen) up there in 1934’s Bright Eyes. (Off subject, but could Shirley Temple have been more of a doll?!? Talk about adorable!)

Rosero (Luis Alberni) lands at GCAT, said to be in Texas, in the 1936 comedy Hats Off.

Ronny Bowers (Dick Powell) also lands there in 1937’s Hollywood Hotel.

That same year, GCAT portrayed the Le Bourget Airport in Stolen Holiday.

Thanks to fellow stalker Constant who commented on my 2012 post, I learned that the terminal also appeared in the 1939 thriller Five Came Back.

I am unsure if the interior shown in the movie was Grand Central’s actual interior or a set, but portions of it do seem to match these images.

GCAT very briefly masked as Transatlantic Airway’s London Terminal in 1943’s Sherlock Holmes in Washington.

Grand Central has appeared in more recent productions, as well. In the 1985 comedy My Science Project, it portrayed the Carson Police Department.

That same year, in arguably its most famous role, the terminal popped up as the Texas bus station where Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) ran into Simone (Diane Salinger), who was finally on her way to Paris, in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

GCAT also played a bus station in the Season 6 episode of Simon & Simon titled “Ancient Echoes,” which aired in 1987.

And in 2004’s The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, the terminal served as the inspiration for Genovia International Airport, which was actually just a backdrop. For whatever reason, the orientation of the building was flipped for the scene. You can check out a photo that shows a matching (but non-flipped) angle of Grand Central for comparison here.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for letting me know the renovation of this location was complete!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Disney’s Grand Central Air Terminal is located at 1310 Air Way in Glendale. You can find out more information about tours of the property here.

February 15, 2017February 15, 2017

The George Peabody Library from “Sleepless in Seattle”

The Grim Cheaper has never been much interested in filming locations, as I’ve mentioned many times before. He does love stalking them with me, though, as doing so usually involves seeing historic and unique spots. One site that absolutely bowled him over during our trip back east last September was the George Peabody Library in Baltimore. The locale first came on my radar way back in 1993 thanks to its appearance in fave movie Sleepless in Seattle. Once I started researching and viewing photographs of it online prior to our trip, I became a wee bit obsessed with its staggering beauty and knew I wasn’t leaving Charm City without stopping by.

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In February 1857, philanthropist George Peabody announced his plans to create a cultural center for the citizens of Baltimore consisting of an art gallery, a music school, and a library – but not just any library. As George conceived it, the place was to be an “extensive library, to be well furnished in every department of knowledge and of the most approved literature, which is to be maintained for the free use of all persons who may desire to consult it.”

HIs vision became a reality in 1878 when the Library of the Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore opened to the public. Designed by local architect Edmund George Lind, the Renaissance Revival-style structure, while pretty, is rather non-descript on the outside.

It is the interior that had my tongue wagging.

Dr. Nathaniel H. Morison, the first provost of the Peabody Institute, wasn’t speaking in hyperbole when he described the library as a “cathedral of books.”

The building’s atrium-like interior is a dazzling array of cast iron balconies;

towering stacks featuring more than 300,000 volumes of books;

gold leaf columns that stretch six stories;

black and white marble flooring;

and a paned skylight that looms 61 feet above the ground, casting the space in gorgeous natural light.

As I walked through the library’s entrance doors, my jaw dropped to the floor.

I truly felt like Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

The George Peabody Library is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited in my life.

In 1967, the City of Baltimore acquired the property and it became part of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Johns Hopkins University took over the space in 1982 and continues to own it today.

Open to students and visitors alike, the library is also used as a special events venue.

Not surprisingly, the George Peabody Library has become one of Baltimore’s most popular wedding locations.

Also not surprisingly, it has popped up numerous times onscreen.

In Sleepless in Seattle, Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) heads to the Peabody Library to visit her brother, Dennis (David Hyde Pierce), who works on the premises. While there, the two discuss Annie’s recent obsession with a widower she heard on the radio who lives in Emerald City. Dennis’ advice on the matter? “It rains nine months of the year in Seattle!” According to a 1992 The Baltimore Sun article, Sleepless director Nora Ephron was so enamored of the grand library that she changed Dennis’ profession in the script from a psychiatrist to a musicologist so that scenes could be shot there.

The library’s exterior was used in the movie, as well. In the scene, Annie drives west on East Mount Vernon Place and parks in front of the building. In reality, that move wouldn’t be allowed. Mount Vernon Place is a one-way street on which cars are only permitted to drive east.

In the 1990 drama Men Don’t Leave, Beth Macauley (Jessica Lange) rather loudly delivers a catered lunch from the bakery where she works to a music rehearsal taking place at the Peabody.

The Peabody Library very briefly appears as a Parisian music store where Catherine Sloper (Jennifer Jason Leigh) shops in the 1997 drama Washington Square.

The building pops up twice as the University of Baltimore’s library in 1999’s Liberty Heights.

The rear side of the Peabody, which can be found on Centre Street, masks as Hotel Cotesworth, where Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) hosts a large charity gala – and outsmarts some protestors, as well as a hotel union – in the Season 1 episode of House of Cards titled “Chapter 5.”

The Peabody’s lobby area also appeared in the episode.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The George Peabody Library, from Sleepless in Seattle, is located at 17 East Mount Vernon Place in Baltimore. The site is open Tuesday through Friday and admission is free. You can visit the library’s official website here. Terry Lambert’s (Steve Guttenberg) apartment from The Bedroom Window is located right across the street at 12 East Mount Vernon Place.

March 11, 2011March 10, 2011

The “Georgia Rule” House

One location that I have been absolutely DYING to stalk for what seems like AGES now is the supposed Hull, Idaho-area home belonging to Georgia Randall (aka Jane Fonda) in the 2005 dramedy Georgia Rule. And I have to say here that despite being largely panned by the critics (Moviefone even rated it the Number 2 Worst Movie of the Year in 2007!), I thoroughly enjoyed Georgia Rule . . . and its locations – none more so than the adorable white Craftsman-style residence where Georgia lived. Over the past few years I had managed to track down just about every single locale which appeared in the flick, except for, for whatever reason, that house! Because director Garry Marshall had thanked the City of Monrovia in the movie’s final credits, I had an inkling that the house was most likely located there. So, using Google Street View, I spent countless hours searching through various neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley suburb – all to no avail. Then last week, I decided to bring in the big guns, so to speak, and enlisted the help of fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, who immediately added the flick to his Netflix queue. The movie arrived in his inbox on Wednesday night and within twenty minutes of watching it, he somehow managed to find Georgia’s house – in Monrovia no less – as well as another location that had eluded me! I am telling you, the guy just has the magic touch! So, while in Monrovia taking care of my dad yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the place.

In Georgia Rule, wild child Rachel Wilcox (aka Lindsay Lohan) is sent by her mother, Lily (aka Felicity Huffman), to live for the summer with her grandmother, Georgia, in the small town of Hull, Idaho in the hopes that doing so will calm the troubled teen’s rebellious ways.

In real life Georgia’s home, which is known as the E.N. Hawes House, was built in 1906 and is a Monrovia Historical Landmark. And I am very happy to report that the property is just as charming in person at it appeared onscreen.

The real life interior of the residence was not used in the production, but was apparently very faithfully recreated on a soundstage at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood, where the movie was lensed. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that house in person!!

For whatever reason, producers changed the address number of the house from 243 to 247 for the filming. As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, though, the address plaque was kept exactly the same and producers simply swapped out the real life “3” for a “7”.

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They even went so far as to change the number painted on the curb out in front of the house.

Oddly enough, though, they did not change the number of the house located next door, even though it was highly visible throughout much of the movie.

In an interesting side note – according to Garry Marshall’s commentary on the Georgia Rule DVD, he thought the house across the street from Georgia’s was too ugly to appear in the film, so he parked a large boat in front of it during the production, hiding it from view. As you can see in the photographs above, though, the house has since been remodeled and actually has a bit of “curb appeal” today.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ highly detailed Georgia Rule filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Georgia Rule house is located at 243 North Encinitas Avenue in Monrovia.

February 25, 2011February 25, 2011

Burlesque Lounge from “Burlesque”

A couple of months ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see Burlesque and, because of all of the bad reviews the movie was generating, I did not have very high hopes that either of us would enjoy it much. As it turns out, though, I could NOT have been more wrong! It is a highly entertaining romp which boasts fabulous musical numbers, sparkling and intricately-designed costumes, and incredibly beautiful sets that made me want to hop right into the movie screen. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it. And even though the movie is definitely a chick flick, the GC said he thoroughly enjoyed it as well. So when I saw that fellow stalker Gary, of the Seeing Stars website, had just published a page detailing various filming locations from the movie, I just about died. The were two locations that I was most interested in stalking, the first of which was the Mediterranean-style apartment complex where Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) and Jack (aka Cam Gigandet) lived, which come to find out does not, in fact, exist. Fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, contacted a few Burlesque crew members on my behalf to find out the location of the apartment building, but they all informed him that it was a set that had been built on the Sony Pictures Studio backlot, which was shocking to me as I had been convinced that the building was a real place. I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on the DVD of the movie, which is being released on March 1st, so that I can listen to the commentary to learn more about the construction of that set. Anyway, the other location that I was dying to stalk was the exterior of the Burlesque Lounge, which, thanks to Gary I now know, was in actuality the side entrance of the historic Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood. So, I dragged the GC right on out there to stalk the place this past Monday afternoon.

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The Ricardo Montalban Theatre was first built in 1926 by Myron Hunt, the legendary Los Angeles architect who also designed the Rose Bowl, Occidental College, the California Institute of Technology, the Huntington Hotel (now the Langham), and the Huntington Library, among countless other area buildings. The Beaux Arts-style theatre was originally a live, or a “legitimate”, stage venue known as the Vine Street Theatre, but was transformed into a single-screen movie theatre during the Great Depression. A few years later it was purchased by CBS and became a radio broadcasting venue known as the CBS Playhouse Theatre. It was there that legendary Hollywood producer/director Cecil B. DeMille hosted his Lux Radio Theatre show in which movie stars of the day would act out radio versions of his many films. In 1954, the property once again became a live theatre venue and was renamed the Huntington Hartford. In 2000, the 1200-seat venue was purchased by Nosotros, a non-profit performing arts organization founded by Fantasy Island star Ricardo Montalban. The organization set about renovating the theatre and restoring the property to its former 1927 glory and in May of 2004 reopened the space as the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.

In Burlesque, the Ricardo Montalban Theatre’s side entrance, side exterior stairwell, and parking lot area were all used as the Burlesque Lounge’s main entrance. Amazingly enough, the wrought-iron gate which was featured so prominently in the movie is actually there in real life, which I was BEYOND excited to see! You can check out some pictures of the gate dressed for the filming here. (The theatre was having some sort of a movie screening when we showed up to stalk it, which is why there are people camped out on the sidewalk in all of my photographs).

Sadly, the parking lot area, which was featured in the scene in which Tess (aka Cher) and Nikki (aka Kristen Bell) get into a fight, has been ripped up and is currently under construction. According to the signs posted on the fence which now surrounds the former lot, a parking garage is set to be built in that area.

You can see what the parking lot area used to look like thanks to Bing Streetside in the pictures above and by clicking here.

I literally just about fell over when, while stalking the theatre, I recognized the burger stand located next door as the spot where Lucy (aka Britney Spears), Ben (aka Anson Mount), Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), and Mimi (aka Taryn Manning) signed up for the Slide Records singing audition in the movie Crossroads! I had actually been on the hunt for that location for quite some time and was absolutely FLOORED to have stumbled upon it in such a way. For whatever reason, I always seem to have that sort of luck when it comes to Crossroads locales as I also stumbled upon the gas station which appeared in the movie in a very similar manner.

If you would like to stalk the stand, which is named Molly’s Charbroiler in real life, you should do so soon as, according to fave website CurbedLA, the tiny restaurant may be torn down in the coming months in order to make way for a new office building. Sad smile Have I mentioned how much I love change?

Burlesque Trailer

You can watch the trailer for Burlesque, in which the exterior of the Burlesque Lounge is briefly shown, by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from Seeing Stars, for finding this location and to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for contacting Burlesque crew members to find out where Ali and Jack’s apartment building was located! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ricardo Montalban Theatre, aka Burlesque Lounge from Burlesque, is located at 1615 North Vine Street in Hollywood. The Burlesque Lounge entrance is located on the north side of the property. You can visit the theatre’s official website here. Molly’s Charbroiler, from Crossroads, is located at 1601 North Vine Street. You can visit the burger stand’s official website here.

February 24, 2011February 24, 2011

Paramount Studios – The Fifth Time Around

This past Tuesday, my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry and her daughter Jen and I embarked on a tour of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. While it was Kerry and Jen’s very first time visiting the historic lot, it was actually my fifth – I had previously been on three paid tours and one wedding venue tour. Yes, yes, I know – I just can’t seem to get enough of the place! Sadly though, this tour was easily my least favorite of the bunch and if it had been my first visit to the lot, I doubt I would have ever returned. Our tour guide was painfully, painfully slow and quite boring to listen to and she, sadly, made the tour boring, which is quite a feat being that the lot is so extremely fascinating and has such a vast filming history. Worst of all, while she spent the majority of our tour showing us the exterior of various soundstages and telling us what had been filmed inside of them over the years, we only got to spend about ten minutes in the New York backlot area (my favorite part of the lot) and were only shown the perimeter of it. But we still managed to have fun and, even though I feel like I know the lot like the back of my hand now and could probably host my own tours of the place Winking smile , I still learned a few new things that I thought I’d share with my fellow stalkers.

When arriving on the lot for a Paramount Studios tour, groups are always first led to the Studio Store to purchase their tickets.

I was EXTREMELY excited about stalking the Store, which also doubles as a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, because I had recognized it pop up as the Lima Bean Café in a few recent episodes of Glee! (I love that producers dubbed their faux café Lima Bean, by the way, being that the show is set in Lima, Ohio! LOL LOL LOL)

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The Studio Store first appeared in the Season 2 episode of Glee titled “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle”, in the scene in which Blaine Anderson (aka Darren Criss – who I just found out graduated from the very same high school I did!!!!), Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer), Rachel Berry (aka Lea Michele), and Mercedes Jones (aka Amber Riley) discuss the recent problems with the McKinley High football team.

The store also appeared multiple times in the Season 2 Valentine’s Day-themed episode of Glee titled “Silly Love Songs”, as the regular hangout of Kurt and Blaine.

And it was featured twice in this week’s episode of the show which was titled “Blame It on the Alcohol”. It was first used as the spot where Blaine and Kurt discuss the fact that Blaine might actually have a crush on Rachel.

And it next appeared in the scene in which Rachel kisses Blaine to see if the two have any chemistry.

After purchasing our tickets, our tour guide spent over 25 minutes (not kidding!) hosting a getting-to-know-you session, which seemed just slightly excessive being that the entire tour is only scheduled to last two hours. Sad smile Because that ate up such a significant portion of our time, the rest of the tour was quite harried and rushed and we did not get to see a whole lot. We were first driven by the site of the studio’s former film vaults, which, as you can see in the above photographs, have sadly just recently been demolished.

You can see what the vaults used to look like in the above photographs.

My dad was quite obsessed with the vaults when we took our wedding venue tour of Paramount back in July of 2009 and he managed to snap the above picture of the inside of one. Even though the vaults had not been used in years, due to the fact that because they lacked air conditioning films were apt to melt while inside, it is incredibly sad to me that they are no longer standing.

We were then taken to the Lucy Park area, where we were shown a cement block that Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson had christened with their hand and footprints – a la the famous hand and footprint forecourt outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood – in 1989 while they were filming Cheers. And while Ted Danson just signed his name on the block, Woody’s inscription reads, “Woody Harrelson was here (naked)”. Apparently Ted had dared Woody to run around the lot naked one day and while he was doing so, the two happened upon a block of wet cement and decided to make their mark on it. LOL

Lucy Park is also the site of the famous tree where Grey Brady (aka Barry Williams) smoked his first cigarette in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Brady Bunch titled “Where There’s Smoke”. So I, of course, just had to get my pic taken in front of the tree. Winking smile

Our tour guide informed us that the very same tree and surrounding area were also used in the Season 2 episode of The Brady Bunch titled “A Fistful of Reasons”, in the scene in which Buddy Hinton (aka Russell Schulman) teases Cindy Brady (aka Susan Olsen) about her lisp.

The tree was also where Peter Brady (aka Christopher Knight) beat up Buddy later in that same episode, knocking out his tooth and causing him to then lisp. Ah, if only things worked out in the real world as they did in Brady world!

Lucy Park also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Community titled “The Science of Illusion”, in which Shirley Bennett (aka Yvette Nicole Brown) and Annie Edison (aka Alison Brie) chase Jeff Winger (aka Joel McHale) after catching him with frog-sized mariachi band costumes (yeah, I don’t really get it either Winking smile ).

Lucy Park was also used regularly as Jefferson High School on the television series Happy Days, although that area looks quite a bit different today than it did back in the 1970’s when the series was filmed.

You can see Greg’s tree from The Brady Bunch in the screen captures pictured above, though.

Next, we headed over to the exteriors of Stage 27 and 30, where the hit series Community is filmed. The interior and exterior of both soundstages are used in the filming of the show. As you can see above, the exterior of Stage 30 is used as the Greendale Community College Library (the sign of which is missing the letter “Y” – love it!);

while the exterior of Stage 27 stands in for the campus’ Borchert Hall.

We were then taken inside of the two soundstages to tour a few of the sets used in Community and, even though I have never seen an episode of the show, the sets were extremely cool to see. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any photographs while inside, but we were shown the Greendale Community College Library;

the Dean’s Office;

and the cafeteria/game room – which was quite possibly one of the biggest sets that I have ever seen in my entire life!

By this time we were already an hour and forty minutes into the tour and only had twenty minutes left. So we spent a brief ten minutes driving around the New York Street backlot area. While there, we were shown the practical set pictured above, which has appeared in several productions, including Spiderman 3 which I blogged about in one of my previous Paramount Studios posts.

On this tour I found out that the same spot was also the café where Indiana Jones (aka Harrison Ford) and Mutt Williams (aka Shia LaBeouf) met for the first time in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I also finally got to stalk the stoop where Naomi Clark (aka AnnaLynne McCord) and Liam Court (aka Matt Lanter –sigh!) sat during their Junior Prom in the Season 1 episode of 90210 titled “Zero Tolerance”.

The last time I embarked on the tour, I snapped a photo while sitting on what I thought was Liam and Naomi’s stoop, but as it turns out I was sitting a few stoops too far to the right. So, this time I made sure to get a pic in the right spot, which I could NOT have been more excited about! Smile For those who would also like to take a picture where Liam and Naomi sat, their stoop is located on the Lower East Side portion of New York Street and is the stoop located closest to Washington Square.

After that, we drove by Stage 15 where NCIS: Los Angeles is filmed and I was able to get some great shots of the façade used as the exterior of the NCIS headquarters.

The last stop on our tour was the Paramount Theatre, the inside of which, our guide informed us, was used as Jeff’s former law office in the Season 2 episode of Community titled “Accounting for Lawyers.

And while we did not get to view the inside of the theatre on this particular tour, I snapped the above photographs on one of my previous tours.

The interior of the theatre was also used as an opera house in the Season 7 episode of Frasier titled “Out With Dad”, although it was heavily decorated in that episode and is largely unrecognizable.

The exterior of the theatre was also used as Brooks Memorial Hospital, where Pierce Hawthorne (aka Chevy Chase) was admitted, in the Season 2 episode of Community titled “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Tours are given daily, Monday through Friday, at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. and cost $40 per person. Reservations can be made by calling (323)956-1777. Parking for the tour costs $7 per car and the tour lot is located on Bronson Avenue, directly across the street from the studio’s main entrance. I recommend booking your tour at least a week in advance, as they tend to sell out quickly. You can find out more information about the Paramount Studios Tour here.

July 27, 2010July 26, 2010

The Historic El Paseo Shopping Center from “It’s Complicated”

Another It’s Complicated location that I stalked while visiting the Santa Barbara area a few weeks back was the historic El Paseo Shopping Center located in the heart of Downtown State Street. In the movie, the Spanish-style marketplace stood in for the “Santa Barbara Medical Building” where Jane Adler’s (aka Meryl Streep’s) therapist, Dr. Allen (aka Peter Mackenzie), worked. In reality, El Paseo does not actually house medical offices, but is in fact California’s very first and oldest shopping center. I found the location thanks to this fabulous December 2009 Los Angeles Times article about the filming of It’s Complicated and even though I had yet to see the movie, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place pretty much immediately upon arriving in the area.

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El Paseo Shopping Center was originally built during the 1920’s and currently houses several boutiques, restaurants, and independent offices situated amongst picturesque courtyards, sparkling water fountains, and wood-framed balconies. The place is absolutely huge and, including its parking lot, encompasses an entire city block, which is how my fiancé and I ended up stalking the wrong section of it. Because I had yet to watch It’s Complicated, I had no idea what particular part of El Paseo had appeared in the flick. So, while the Grim Cheaper and I did walk quite a bit of the property and snapped photographs of what we thought was every square inch of the place, we somehow missed the back entrance – which, of course, was the only section of the center used in the filming. Murphy’s Law strikes again!

Thankfully though, our good friends Chris and Amy, who live in the area, agreed to re-stalk the place for me this past weekend. And even though the two aren’t stalkers like myself, they did a FABULOUS job of matching their photographs to the screen captures I had sent them. YAY! Thank you, Chris and Amy!

Filming of It’s Complicated took place at El Paseo’s east entrance, which can be reached via Anacapa Street. As fate would have it, that area of the shopping center happens to be located directly across the street from the city’s main post office. During the shoot, the entire stretch of road in front of the shopping center and post office had to be shut down to all pedestrians and traffic, which on an ordinary day probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. But the It’s Complicated therapist office scene was actually shot on April 15, 2009. Yes, you read that right – the city actually shut down the street in front of its main post office on TAX DAY! Someone in the SB Planning Department seriously dropped the ball on that one! 😉

El Paseo’s main entrance is pictured above and, as you can see, looks markedly different from its back entrance. So different, in fact, that I thought the Los Angeles Times article had printed erroneous information when it reported that filming had taken place at the historic shopping center. It wasn’t until I did some cyber-stalking of El Paseo using Bing aerial maps that I figured out my mistake.

Amazingly enough, the It’s Complicated crew only filmed on location in Santa Barbara for a mere three days. The rest of the filming took place in Los Angeles and New York. According to IMDB’s It’s Complicated filming locations page, some of the flick was also lensed in Santa Barbara’s De Le Guerra Plaza. From what I’ve been able to discern online, the Plaza was converted into a Christmas tree lot for a scene that never actually made it into the movie. You can see some photos of the filming and read a great on-set report on the Fussy blog here.

Big THANK YOU to Chris and Amy for stalking El Paseo and taking the above photographs for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The area of El Paseo Shopping Center that was used in It’s Complicated can be found at 813 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara. De La Guerra Plaza, where the deleted Christmas tree lot scene was filmed, is located in front of the Santa Barbara City Hall, which can be found at 735 Anacapa Street.

February 12, 2010February 11, 2010

The Firehouse from “Ghostbusters”

This past weekend while doing some stalking in Downtown L.A. I dragged my fiancé out to see an oft-used filming location that has long been at the top of my “To-Stalk” list. That location is known as Fire Station #23, a real life former working fire house that served as the offices of Dr. Raymond Stantz (aka Dan Aykroyd), Dr. Peter Venkman (aka Bill Murray), Dr. Egon Spengler (aka Harold Ramis), and Winston Zeddmore (aka Ernie Hudson) in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters. And as fate would have it, when we pulled up to the now-defunct fire station, the caretaker of the property, an EXTREMELY nice man named Daniel Taylor, happened to be standing outside speaking with a student filmmaker. So, I, of course, struck up a conversation with him and asked if it might be alright if I stepped inside to take a look around and snap a few photographs. And, let me tell you, I just about fell over from excitement when Daniel told me to go right in! YAY!

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Fire Station #23 actually has quite a storied, and sometimes scandalous, history. The structure, which first opened on October 2, 1910, was designed by the prominent architectural firm of Hudson & Munsell and served as the headquarters of the Los Angeles Fire Department for over a decade. The three story building, which cost between $57,000 and $60,000 to construct and measured 26 feet wide, 167 feet deep and encompassed 13,600 square feet of space, has been mired in controversy ever since the day it was first dedicated. In the beginning, angry citizens deemed the construction costs far too steep for a public building, especially since tax payers were footing the bill and considering the extravagance with which the place was built. And it has been said that no other fire station in the country is as opulent. The top floor of the structure housed the Fire Chief’s suite, an apartment which every fire chief from 1910 to 1928 called home. The suite featured a marble bathroom complete with a double bathtub, Peruvian mahogany wall paneling, imported Italian tile detailing, oak flooring, a private elevator, a brass bed, a roof garden, a marble fireplace, and French bevel glass mirrors. The second floor contained the captain’s dwelling, a library with built-in bookshelves, and bunks for twenty firefighters. The bottom floor contained an open arcade with enamel tiled walls, 21 foot high pressed tin ceilings, and stalls to accommodate ten horses. Pretty amazing for a fire house, huh? The Los Angeles Times even dubbed the place “the Taj Mahal of fire stations”.

Fire Station #23 remained in operation for fifty years, whereupon its men responded to over 60,000 fires. But with the city moving towards building more modernized stations, Engine Truck Company #23 closed its doors for good on November 23rd, 1960. Because a station in Pacific Palisades adopted the “23” company number, the shuttered station took on the name “Old 23”. For the next six years, the fire department utilized the space for medial records storage and as a training facility. In 1966, the same year it became a City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, the fire house was shut down by the department completely. For the next ten years, as the area surrounding the building became more and more impoverished, the station fell into serious disrepair and suffered from extreme vandalism and looting. In 1979, the Fire Commission decided to renovate the property and eventually turn it into a firehouse museum. A non-profit organization named Olde 23 was set up to oversee the restoration process and to raise funds for the massive undertaking. In 1980, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Nine years later, though, in 1988, the plans for turning Old #23 into a museum were nixed and the city opened their Los Angeles Fire Department Museum at a location in Hollywood instead.

Seven years later controversy came raining down upon the fire house once again when Los Angeles Times staff writer Robert J. Lopez authored a front page article accusing the Olde 23 corporation of misuse of funds. According to the article, Olde 23 had been collecting massive amounts of money (over $210,000 to be exact) thanks to the numerous film shoots that had taken place on the premises over the years. Not only had the company failed to turn that money over to the city, though, but no one had even informed the city that any sort of filming was going on. Being that a city department is responsible for handing out film permits, I’m not quite sure how this even happened, but I guess it’s just another case of a beaurocracy’s right hand not knowing what the left is doing. Causing further scandal was the fact that even though the city had moved the museum location to a different site seven years prior, Olde 23 was still collecting not only filming fees that would supposedly go into the museum fund, but also donations for the project. AND (yes, there’s more!) the supposed non-profit was ALSO collecting filming fees from production companies for shoots that were taking place at other firehouses in the area – firehouses that the Olde 23 company had no jurisdiction over! LOL Talk about a sh*tstorm!! 😉 President and C.E.O. of the Olde 23 company was none other than Los Angeles Fire Chief Donald O. Manning himself, who resigned from his post just 8 days after Lopez’s newspaper article hit the stands. Following his resignation, Fire Station #23 continued to host film shoots, with the money going to the City of Los Angeles, the property’s rightful owner. Just this past September, though, the building was designated surplus property and the city is considering selling it to several different private investors, including a restaurant developer and a non-profit arts education group.

Daniel Taylor, who has been caretaker of the property since 1985 and who the city is currently trying to evict, has different plans for the building, though. He recently formed the Corporation for History, Arts, and Culture (CHAC) with the hopes of restoring the old firehouse to its original grandeur for use as both a cultural center and a filming location. He estimates the restoration project to cost upwards of $8 million and is trying to raise funds now. If you would like to learn more about the cause, you can do so on CHAC’s official website. And while the future of the historic firehouse remains to be seen, in the meantime I highly recommend stalking it as it is a truly beautiful and unique building.

In Ghostbusters, the exterior of the gang’s headquarters (pictured above) was actually filmed at Hook & Ladder Company #8 located at 14 North Moore Street in New York.

But for the interior filming, cast and crew came to Fire Station #23 in Downtown Los Angeles. And I am happy to report that the interior looks almost exactly the same today as it did in 1984 when Ghostbusters was filmed! Amazing!

The boys’ back office area is not there in real life, though, and I am assuming it was just a set that was added solely for the filming.

The upstairs of the firehouse was used in the filming, as well, but unfortunately I didn’t get to see that area while I was there.

Five years later cast and crew returned to Fire Station #23 once again to film the interior scenes for Ghostbusters II.

And I just about died when I spotted the wooden wall adornment pictured above, which was featured in the sequel. So cool!

The firehouse was also featured in 1994’s The Mask, in which it doubled as Jim Carrey’s deceitful car mechanic’s office.

He later vandalizes the place after turning into “The Mask”.

In 2003’s National Security, the firehouse was used as the location of Earl Montgomery (aka Martin Lawrence) and Hank Rafferty (aka Steve Zahn’s) stakeout. Only the exterior of the building and a very small portion of the interior (pictured above) were featured in that shoot, though. Firehouse #23 has also appeared in V.I. Warshawski, Police Academy 2, Flatliners, Set It Off, RE(e)volution, Big Trouble in Little China, in the television series Firehouse, and in the Season 4 episode of The A-Team entitled “The Road to Hope”. All in all, it has been featured in more than 50 commercial, television, movie, and music video productions over the years.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Fire Station #23, aka the firehouse from Ghostbusters, is located at 225 East Fifth Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the station is not in the safest of areas, so please exercise caution if you choose to stalk it. You can visit the CHAC Fire Station #23 website here.

September 3, 2009September 3, 2009

The Warner Grand Theatre

This past Saturday, my family and I returned from Catalina Island via the Catalina Express high speed catamaran that docks in San Pedro Harbor. When the captain announced that we had finally reached our destination, I suddenly realized that a filming location I have LONG been dying to stalk was actually located in the very city where we now found ourselves! The Warner Grand Theatre, where Rosalee Futch took Tad Hamilton on a date in fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton, was in fact located just a few miles away from where our boat had just docked. 🙂 I have absolutely no idea why I hadn’t realized it sooner. So, I begged my dad to drive me over to the theatre as soon as we gathered our luggage and, amazingly enough, he obliged. Thank you, dad!

Warner Brothers first opened the Warner Grand Theatre on January 20, 1931. It was co-designed in an Art Deco style by architect B. Marcus Priteca, who also constructed the Pantages Theatre, and interior designer Anthony Heinsbergen. Priteca and Heinsbergen had also created two other theatres for the Warner Brothers Company – one in Beverly Hills and one in Huntington Park. Unfortunately, though, the Warner Grand is the only one of the three that is still intact. In 1982, the City of Los Angeles declared the 1,400 seat theatre a Cultural and Historic Monument. Sadly, though, in the 1990’s it fell into a serious state of disarray and was almost demolished. The theatre was saved in January of 1996 when the City of Los Angeles stepped in and purchased it for $1.2 million and began a slow, painstaking restoration process. It has since been named a National Historic Place. The Grand is currently open for business, showing foreign and independent films on its fifty foot screen almost every weekend and showcasing various events including concerts, plays, and even graduations. And it is also a frequent filming location! 🙂

The Warner Grand actually shows up three times in Win A Date With Tad Hamilton, where it stands in for the local Fraziers Bottom, West Virginia movie theatre. The movie’s very first scene takes place at the theatre, in which Rosalee, Pete, and Cathy watch Tad’s latest film entitled A Man Called Jackson.

Later on in the movie, Rosalee takes Tad to the Warner Grand for their second date.

It is at the theatre that one of my favorite lines from the movie is spoken. In the scene, while walking by a poster for one of Tad’s movies, Rosalee says “You look so sad there”, to which Tad replies “Give me a break. I just lost my wife . . . and my goat.” LOL LOL LOL

The theatre last shows up in what was to be the movie’s original ending, which is shown in the DVD’s Special Features section. In the scene, Pete, Cathy, Rosalee, and Rosalee’s father are at the Warner watching A Good Man is Hard to Find, Tad’s latest movie which tells the story of his relationship with Rosalee.

The Warner has also been featured in countless other productions. In the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor, the Warner Grand was the Oahu theatre where Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett watched the MovieTone News clip about the war.

Later on in the scene, they grab a bite to eat at the “Black Cat Diner”, which is located directly next door to the theatre and which, in reality, is an art gallery named the Findings Art Center. Unfortunately, I didn’t snap any photos of the Black Cat location as I didn’t learn about its use in Pearl Harbor until after I got home and started researching the theatre. 🙁

In the same scene, while Kate and Josh are eating inside the Black Cat Diner, their friend Ray proposes to his girlfriend Betty on the street outside the Warner Grand.

In the Season One episode of The O.C. entitled “The Proposal”, the Warner stood in for the Newport Beach theatre where Ryan, Seth, and Summer took Marisa to cheer her up after she had discovered that her ex-boyfriend, Luke, was sleeping with her mother. Nice mom, huh?

After seeing the movie, the gang heads over to a Jamba Juice located in the Arcade Building on Sixth Street directly across the street from the theatre, where they run into – you guessed it – Marisa’s mother and ex-boyfriend, Luke.

Because my parents were not too keen on waiting around while I stalked all of West 6th Street, I didn’t get to venture inside the Arcade Building. But I did manage to snap the above pic from across the street.

The Warner has also been featured in the television series Cousin Skeeter, 7th Heaven, Melrose Place, Party of Five, and ESPN’s Reel Classics, and the movies Wharf Rats to Lords of the Dock, Worth Winning, Seabiscuit, Ghosts of Mississippi, Invasion Earth: The Aliens are Here, and What’s Love Got To Do With It (where it stood in for Harlem’s Apollo Theatre).

The Warner is an absolutely beautiful place and I can’t tell you how excited I was to finally be stalking it! Sadly, though, the lobby area wasn’t open while we were there, so I didn’t get to venture inside. But you know what that means! I’ll just have to go back to stalk the place again! 🙂 According to the Warner’s website, though, the theatre’s original seats were just recently restored, so the interior looks quite different now than how it appeared in the many movies pictured above. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Warner Grand Theatre is located at 478 West 6th Street in San Pedro. You can visit their website here. The Black Cat Diner from Pearl Harbor, aka the Findings Art Center, is located at 470 West Sixth Street, next door to the Warner. The Arcade Building on Sixth Street, which was featured in The O.C., is located at 479 West Sixth Street, directly across the street from the theatre.