L.A. Confidential – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 22, 2018January 21, 2018

SPARCinLA from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

The Grim Cheaper and I are moving in a couple of days (we bought a house out here in the desert – our first house!) and while packing last week I informed him that as soon as we got settled we would be taking a trip to Los Angeles as I “have nothing to blog about.” His response? “Yeah, just like you have nothing in your closet to wear!” He’s right, of course. My stalking backlog is ridiculously long. There are locales in my stockpile (pun intended) dating back almost a decade that I have yet to write about! Case in point –SPARCinLA, aka the former Venice Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, which Mike, from MovieShotsLA, alerted me to during a stalking adventure way back in July 2009. As I’ve mentioned many times before, Mike is like a walking/talking encyclopedia of the city. It is always such a treat driving around L.A. with him and watching him point out various spots and their respective filming resumes. That particular 2009 day, while journeying down Venice Boulevard, Mike happened to identify a small Art Deco-style structure on our right, explaining that it was the jail where Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) was taken after getting arrested in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “B.Y.O.B.” We decided to pull over to snap some pics and were thrilled to discover that the building was open to the public! (For reasons I no longer remember, I did not take any photos that day – I am guessing my camera was dead by the time we got to the station. So Mike was generous enough to share his for me to post here.)

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Built in 1929, the two-story reinforced concrete structure that now houses SPARCinLA served as Venice Police Station Division 14 through March 1973, when the department moved to its current home, the Pacific Area Community Police Station at 12312 Culver Boulevard in Del Rey.

SPARCinLA, aka the Social and Public Art Resource Center, took over the building in 1977, transforming it into a community cultural center comprised of an art gallery, exhibition space, special collections, a mural lab, archives, a darkroom, offices, and studios.

Miraculously, much of the site’s original detailing and furnishings were left intact. SPARCinLA is essentially a museum housed inside the confines of a former working police station and jail. It definitely makes for a unique environment to peruse art.

In fact, the setting is like a work of art in and of itself.

I absolutely love the view of the palm trees framed through the windows below.

Because so many of the original elements have not been altered or touched, stepping into the space feels very much like stepping into a police station from the 1950s – which makes it prime for filming. And Hollywood has definitely taken note.

In the “B.Y.O.B.” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, which aired in 1991, Brandon spends the night at the former Venice station after getting arrested for drunk driving following a car accident.

SPARCinLA only appears in exterior shots of the jail in the episode. Though the interior of the site is used regularly for filming (as you will see when you read further), Mike and I looked all over for Brandon’s cell and the visiting room where Jim and Cindy Walsh (James Eckhouse and Carol Potter, respectively) waited for him, but couldn’t find them anywhere. I am unsure where interior footage was lensed, but, as you can see below, it does look to have been an actual prison of some sort and not a set. Because of that, I am guessing that the exterior shots were likely re-used footage from another Aaron Spelling series. I highly doubt that production went all the way to the former Venice station to film exteriors and then to a different jail location for interiors, when they could have just shot interiors onsite. Strange things happen all the time during shoots, though, especially location-wise, so who knows?

That didn’t stop me from doing a little re-creation of Brandon’s stint behind bars. Winking smile

In the 1976 crime comedy Moving Violation, Division 14 portrays the jail where Alex Warren (Eddie Albert) discusses the surrender of his clients Eddie Moore (Stephen McHattie) and Cam Johnson (Kay Lenz).

The exterior of the building pops up as the exterior of the Anderson Police Station in Assault on Precinct 13, which was also released in 1976.

Only the outside of the structure is shown in the film. The interior of the Anderson station was just a soundstage-built set.

Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is sent to the former Venice jail after getting arrested for crashing into several cars in a parking lot and then subsequently ripping up his driver’s license in front of a cop – he has a “terrific problem with authority,” after all – in the 1977 comedy Annie Hall.

The station’s interior was also seen briefly in the film.

In the 1980 drama The Jazz Singer, Jess Robin (Neil Diamond) and his bandmates wind up in jail at Division 14 after a fight breaks out during one of their gigs.

SPARCinLA portrays Santa Monica Police Station #4, where Frances Farmer (Jessica Lange) is taken after one of her arrests, in Frances. The building’s exterior . . .

. . . lobby . . .

. . . and jail area all appear in the 1982 biopic.

In 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (and I thought Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death was a terrible name for a movie!), the site plays the role of the New Brunswick Police Station . . .

. . . where Penny Priddy (Ellen Barkin) is imprisoned.

Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) is taken there after her arrest following a car chase with the police in The Net. The 1995 thriller made use of the building’s lobby . . .

. . . and jail area.

SPARCinLA is one of three locations that masquerades as the Hollywood Police Station in the 1997 drama L.A. Confidential. While the Pacific Electric Building in downtown L.A. appears in all of the bullpen and office scenes and the abandoned Lincoln Heights Jail pops up in the prison sequences, Division 14 is featured in the lobby bits.

In the 2000 comedy Nurse Betty, Betty Sizemore (Renée Zellweger) is taken to the former Venice police station to be evaluated by a psychologist after witnessing her husband’s murder.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location and for providing all of the photos that appear in this post. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: SPARCinLA, aka the former Venice Police Station Division 14 from the “B.Y.O.B.” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 685 Venice Boulevard in Venice. You can visit the center’s official website here. The property is open to the public every Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m. when exhibitions are being held.

December 22, 2017January 14, 2018

The “L.A. Confidential” Christmas Eve Pot Bust House

Some might not consider the subject of today’s post a Christmas location. It’s certainly not from a holiday flick, that’s for sure. But the scene that was shot there took place on Christmas Eve, so I figured it was fair game. For those who do not recognize the pad pictured above, it was at the two-story Craftsman that the infamous “movie premiere pot bust” – or as I always refer to it, the “Christmas Eve pot bust” – from L.A. Confidential was lensed. If you’ve never seen the 1997 film (and I just learned that the Grim Cheaper counts himself in that category, which absolutely flabbergasted me!), I’ll fill you in.

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At the beginning of the 1950s-set drama, Hush-Hush tabloid reporter Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) convinces LAPD sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) to arrest two Metro Studio contract players, Matt Reynolds (Simon Baker) and Tammy Jordan (Shawnee Free Jones), whom he has set up for pot possession, so that he can document the whole thing for his magazine. When they arrive at Reynolds’ home, Vincennes, ever the media opportunist, immediately notices that a Hollywood premiere is taking place at the theatre down the street and instructs Sid, “Put your camera right there. When I walk out, I’ll stop right here, you get the movie premiere in the background.” To which Sid says, “I like it! I like it! The movie premiere pot bust!” (Why a film premiere would be taking place on Christmas Eve night is beyond me, but I guess that is a question for director/screenwriter Curtis Hanson.) As Sid later spins the story, “It’s Christmas Eve in the City of Angels and while decent citizens sleep the sleep of the righteous, hopheads prowl for marijuana, not knowing that a man is coming to stop them – celebrity crime stopper Jack Vincennes, scourge of grasshoppers and dope fiends everywhere.”

Because of the tight angle from which the scene was shot, as well as the low lighting (not to mention a change in paint color in the ensuing years), the movie premiere pot bust house looks quite a bit different in person than it did onscreen.

While it deceivingly looks like a single-family residence from the street, as was depicted in L.A. Confidential the 1914 property is actually a multi-occupancy dwelling. Per Zillow, the structure boasts a total of 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,304 square feet, and a 0.23-acre parcel of land.

Though they are now largely obscured by a screened-in porch, you can just make out the property’s two front doors in my photograph below.

The home’s actual interior was also utilized in the movie. It is there that Vincennes (does L.A. Confidential have great character names, or what?) first learns about Fleur-de-Lis thanks to a mysterious black business card he finds tucked away in a notebook.

Though the scene taking place there is rather brief, the pot bust house was one of the tougher locales for the L.A. Confidential production team to nail down. According to an interview with location manager John Panzarella and key assistant Leslie Thorson that ran in L.A. Weekly this past September, early versions of the script called for a residence within view of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Panzarella says, “Our directive always was to have a theater that was in a sightline to a house, like half a block away. We did go look at the Chinese Theatre, we went down Sycamore, we went down Orange, we went down all the adjacent streets and there was no house there that was within sightlines.” So they started seeking out other venues – in Leimert Park, Westwood, and additional areas of L.A. But they came up with zilch. That’s when production designer Jeannine Oppewall stepped in and saved the day by proposing that an old Art Deco bank building at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood could possibly mask as a theatre in the scene. Her idea was right on the money and Panzarella and Thorson soon zeroed in on a home with period-perfect architecture located just down the street from the structure at 1714 North Gramercy Place to portray Reynolds’ residence.

Transforming the bank building into the fictional “El Cortez” theatre for the shoot did prove a bit challenging, as the owners of the structure would not allow anything to be attached to the façade. So Oppewall had to think outside the box. As she explained to Curbed L.A. in a recent interview, “What I ended up doing was designing the movie marquee as a freestanding triangle. We shoved it up against the building, and then we built two pilasters on the back two legs that disappeared directly into the background of the building . . . And we had to have a supporting pillar in the front, which we painted black. I specified that we had to always have some extras standing directly in front of it so you wouldn’t see that it was actually standing on three legs.”

Known as the California Bank/Precision Auto Building in real life (per this Historic Resources Survey Report), the structure was designed by John Parkinson of Parkinson & Parkinson, the father-and-son architecture team who also gave us Union Station, Bullocks Wilshire and both Security Trust & Savings Bank’s Highland Park Branch and North Hollywood Branch. According to the Los Angeles Times, the site, which boasts a 95-foot-tall pyramid-topped tower, was built in 1920 (though many others report the year of construction as 1929). Said tower was badly damaged during the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Though it has, thankfully, since been repaired, you can check out some eerie photographs of its toppled spire here and here.

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 Christmas Eve pot bust, aka the movie premiere pot bust, from L.A. Confidential took place at 1714 North Gramercy Place in Hollywood. The California Bank/Precision Auto Building, aka the fictional “El Cortez” theatre seen in the background of the scene, can be found just down the street at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard.

November 13, 2014November 6, 2014

Latest CityThink Post – About Lynn Bracken’s House from “L.A. Confidential”

Be sure to check out today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about Lynn Bracken’s house from L.A. Confidential. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

January 14, 2014February 25, 2016

Bob’s Market from “The Fast and the Furious”

As I mentioned in my December 12th post for Los Angeles magazine’s CityThink blog, I was heartbroken upon learning the news of Paul Walker’s death. I met Paul on December 1st, 2012, almost a year to the day of his passing, and couldn’t have been more impressed with his down-to-earth attitude and kindness. (You can read about my experience meeting Paul on the Mike the Fanboy website here.) For whatever reason, I had never seen what is arguably his most famous movie, The Fast and the Furious, though, so I set about to amend that the week before Christmas. I wound up absolutely loving it, especially the locations, and ran out to stalk Bob’s Market in Echo Park, which masqueraded as Toretto’s Market & Deli, the bodega owned by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) in the flick, shortly thereafter.

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Bob’s Market, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #215, was constructed in 1913. Yep, the place is over one hundred years old! The one-story edifice was designed by architect George F. Colterison and built by Peter A. Holmberg for $3,500. The property, which boasts Mission Revival and Asian design elements, was commissioned by Ella J. McMillen and originally consisted of two separate storefronts – one that housed a tailor and the other, a small market.

In 1934, new owners merged the two spaces into one to house a larger grocery store and the set-up has remained that way ever since. It became “Bob’s Market” in 1965 when it was purchased by a man named Bob Nimura and his wife, Keiko, who still own the site to this day.

In The Fast and the Furious, Bob’s Market was where Walker’s Brian O’Conner character infiltrated a group of illegal street racers over “tuna on white, no crust.”

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, stalked the market a while back and was informed by Bob that the interior of the place was gutted and then completely redressed for the filming. How crazy is that? I would have guessed that a set had been used for the interior scenes.

I have heard that Bob isn’t especially friendly to stalkers, but he was nice enough to allow Mike to take some photographs inside of the store. As you can see it looks absolutely nothing like the interior of Toretto’s – no counter seating, no open back room, no tuna on white.

Mike told me that Bob even has photographs on display showing the transformation that took place for the filming. So incredibly cool! You can check out some more interior pictures of Bob’s Market here.

In The Fast and the Furious scene, Brian parked his car directly across the street from Bob’s Market.

The big fight between Brian and Vince (Matt Schulze) took place in that area, as well.

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When I stalked Bob’s back in December, there was a small memorial set up for Paul in that spot.

Bob’s Market has appeared onscreen countless times over the years. In 1997, it popped up briefly in the background of L.A. Confidential in the scene in which Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) and Edmund J. Exley (Guy Pearce) interrogated boxer Leonard Bidwell (Robert Barry Fleming).

In the 2002 movie The Salton Sea, Danny Parker (Val Kilmer) stopped to buy cigarettes at Bob’s Market during a sting operation.

The interior was also shown very briefly in the film.

In 2011, the market was used in the Season 3 episode of Southland titled “Graduation Day,” as the spot where Detective Lydia Adams (Regina King) discussed her love live with Detective Josie Ochoa (Jenny Gago) while investigating a death.

That same year, Bob’s was where Kimball Cho (Tim Kang) and Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) investigated the whereabouts of a suspect named Richard Haibach (William Mapother) In the Season 4 episode of The Mentalist titled “Blinking Red Light.”

In the second episode of TNT’s new neo-noir miniseries Mob City, which was titled “Reason to Kill a Man”, Bob’s stood in for Abarrotes, where boy scout cop William Parker (Neal McDonough) successfully defused a hostage situation early in his career.

The real life interior of the store also appeared in the episode.

Bob’s pops up briefly in the 2014 thriller Nightcrawler in the background of the scene in which Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) listens to information coming across a police scanner while sitting in his car.

In the Season 4 episode of Major Crimes titled “Hindsight Part I,” the LAPD Major Crimes division investigates a shooting of a young mother and son that took place outside of Bob’s Market.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for sharing his photographs of the interior of Bob’s Market.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bob’s Market, aka Toretto’s Market & Deli from The Fast and the Furious, is located at 1230 Bellevue Avenue in Echo Park.

February 18, 2011December 5, 2018

Boardner’s of Hollywood from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

Another destination included on the Grim Cheaper’s Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt was Boardner’s of Hollywood, a historic bar which was recommended to me by fellow stalker John who lives in the Bay Area. John had emailed me quite a few months back to let me know that the legendary watering hole had been featured in countless productions over the years, including my fave show Beverly Hills, 90210, and that it was a very cool place to hang out. So, because the GC loves anyplace with a history, I decided to add the bar to his hunt and we headed out there to grab a cocktail this past Saturday evening.

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The space which now houses Boardner’s was first opened in the 1930’s by legendary singer Gene Austin in a Moorish-style, L-shaped building designed by architect Norman Alpaugh and was known at the time as the “My Blue Heaven” night club. After Austin sold the watering hole, it went through several different incarnations, including a restaurant named Padres and a gay bar named Cherokee House, until January of 1944 when a young man named Steve Boardner purchased the place and renamed it Boardner’s. Boardner’s became an immediate success with the Hollywood crowd and such luminaries as Errol Flynn, W.C. Fields, Walter E. Scott (aka “Death Valley Scotty”), Elizabeth Short (aka “The Black Dahlia”), Robert Mitchum, Mickey Cohen, Jack Dragna, Andy Griffith, Donald Sutherland, Ed Wood, Jimmy Stewart, George Burns, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio all hung out there. Steve remained the proprietor of Boardner’s for just over three decades, until 1980, when he retired to Palm Springs and sold his beloved bar to a man named Dave Hadley. Sadly, the place was completely remodeled with an Art Deco-theme in March of 2006 and, despite being known as “one of the oldest bars in Hollywood”, does not look anything like it did back in the heyday of Tinseltown.

Don’t get me wrong – Boardner’s is still a VERY cool place to hang out and the food is absolutely FABULOUS (especially the crab cakes!), but it would be an even cooler place to hang out if it had retained its historic interior. As I have mentioned a few times before on this blog, I am not big on change, especially when said change involves altering a filming location in some way! Sigh! Boardner’s has remained popular with the Hollywood set despite the remodel, though, and just a few of the celebs who have been spotted there in more recent years include Drew Barrymore, Holly Madison, Hugh Hefner, Bridget Marquardt, Kendra Wilkinson, Nicole Kidman, Slash, Axl Rose, Courtney Love, Scott Wolfe, Piper Perabo, Rose McGowan, Fran Dresher, Jason Patric, Tommy Lee, John Lennon, Ben Affleck, Paul Bettany, Jake Gyllenhaal, Vince Vaughn, Keifer Sutherland, Heath Ledger, Bela Lugosi Jr., Jared Leto, Tim McGraw, Lee Majors, Miley Cyrus, and Pete Wentz.

The back of the bar boasts a super-cute little hearth area, complete with a plush couch, a coffee table, and board games. So adorable!

And, each Saturday night, Boardner’s Moroccan-tiled back patio area . . .

. . . and its private events space, which is named the Casablanca Room, are transformed into an extremely popular gothic-themed nightclub known as Bar Sinister. The Casablanca Room has also become a popular wrap party venue over the years.

While stalking Boardner’s, I asked the bartender if she happened to know which episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 had been filmed on the premises, but, unfortunately, because she did not work there at the time, she was not sure. And because I only watched the first four seasons of the series, before the characters were of drinking age, I was absolutely stumped on this one. So, I called on Geoff, from the 90210locations website, who pretty much immediately figured out that Boardner’s had been used in the Season 9 episode of the series titled “That’s the Guy”, as the spot where Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) sought out information about the man who raped Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth).

The establishing shot of the bar which appeared in that episode was filmed at another location altogether, though, and looks nothing like the actual exterior of Boardner’s.

Boardner’s also popped up in 1994’s Ed Wood, as the spot where fledgling film director Ed Wood (aka Johnny Depp) grabbed a drink just before meeting Bela Lugosi (aka Martin Landau) for the first time. Interestingly enough, the real Ed Wood had been a regular at Boardner’s throughout most of his lifetime, which is most likely how the bar ended up being chosen as a filming location for the flick.

Boardner’s was also the spot where Dudley Smith (aka James Cromwell) met up with Bud White (aka Russell Crowe) in order to return his badge and his gun towards the beginning of 1997’s L.A. Confidential.

The exterior of Boardner’s was also used very briefly as the exterior of a cowboy-themed gay bar that Mick Dundee (aka Paul Hogan) and Jacko (aka Alec Wilson) attempt to visit in 2001’s Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.

In the 2003 movie Hollywood Homicide, Boardner’s was the regular hangout of Sergeant Joe Gavilan (aka Harrison Ford) and Detective K.C. Calden (aka Josh Harnett). Boardner’s has also appeared in the movie Up Close & Personal and in episodes of the television series Alias, Numb3rs, and Cold Case. Supposedly, Boardner’s was also featured in 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas and in 1997’s Wag the Dog, but I scanned through both of those movies earlier today while writing this post and did not spot the bar in either one.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for recommending this location to me and to Geoff, from the 90210locations website, for figuring out which episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 it appeared in! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Boardner’s of Hollywood, from Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 1652 North Cherokee Avenue in Hollywood. You can visit the bar’s official website here.

February 15, 2011February 15, 2011

Crossroads of the World from “Dexter”

Before I get started, I’d like to give a big birthday shout-out to my beloved Grandma, who turns 86 today. Happy Birthday, Grandma! I love you! And now, on with the post! One location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while in the Hollywood area a few weeks back was Crossroads of the World, a historic Hollywood landmark which was featured in the Season 5 episode of Dexter titled “Practically Perfect”, among numerous other productions, including L.A. Confidential and Indecent Proposal. I had actually driven by Crossroads of the World countless times over the past ten-plus years that I have lived in Los Angeles and had even known of the place’s legendary filming history, but for whatever reason had never stalked it. So, after I noticed the historic property pop up on Dexter last October, I added the place to my extensive and ever-growing To-Stalk list and finally made it out there a couple of weeks ago.

Crossroads of the World was first opened in 1936 and is often credited as the U.S.’ first outdoor shopping center. It was built in the Streamline Moderne-style – a type of Art Deco design which features nautical elements – by architect Robert V. Derrah, who also designed the the Coca-Cola Building and the Southern California Gas Company Building, both in Downtown Los Angeles. The theme of the two and a half acre property, which opened to the public on October 29th, 1936, was envisioned by Ella Crawford, the widow of real estate mogul and racketeer Charlie Crawford, as a port-of-call, a “cultural and business center offering an experience like taking a trip around the world”. The marketplace was built to look like a large ocean liner docked at an international village and incorporated Spanish, Mediterranean, Moorish, Cape Cod, and Old English design elements.

The village section of Crossroads of the World, which can be found at the rear of the property on Selma Avenue, very closely resembles Fantasy Land at Disneyland.

There is even a wishing well, a la Snow White’s wishing well at Disneyland, situated in the village area! Which is highly ironic being that Crossroad’s of the World ship building was recreated in part at the Disney Hollywood Studios section of Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, which you can see a photograph of here.

Crossroad’s most prominent and recognizable feature is its sixty-foot-tall tower which is capped off with a revolving eight-foot-tall neon globe. The property, which is no longer a shopping center but currently serves as an office park, became a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Such luminaries as Alfred Hitchcock, Walter Heider, Randolph Duke, Tim Burton, and Rob Lowe have all had offices there at one time or another.

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In the “Practically Perfect” episode of Dexter, Crossroads of the World stood in for the supposed Miami-area Hungry Dog Diner at which Dexter Morgan (aka Michael C. Hall) spies on, and then has lunch with, serial killer Boyd Fowler (aka Shawn Hatosy).

The Dexter episode was filmed in the northwest corner of Crossroads of the World. Dexter was sitting just outside of Suite 1521 at a prop table that was brought in just for the filming.

The Hungry Dog Diner was set up in a vacant storefront just across from where Dexter was sitting in the scene.

The Hush-Hush Magazine office where gossip reporter Sid Hudgens (aka Danny DeVito) worked in the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential is located just around the corner from where Dexter was filmed.

His corner office is numbered 1523 and is located next to the center’s parking lot area.

The real estate office where Diana Murphy (aka Demi Moore) worked in 1993’s Indecent Proposal is also located at Crossroads of the World.

Diana worked in Suite 1500, which can be found in the rounded portion of the center’s ship building in the southern-most section of the property.

The water fountain that was visible behind John Gage (aka Robert Redford) in the scene in which he visits Diana at her office can be found at the southern-most tip of the property near the center’s main entrance on Sunset Boulevard.

The office where Ford Fairlane (aka Andrew Dice Clay) worked in The Adventures of Ford Fairlane was also located at Crossroads of the World, on the second floor of the property’s ship building.

The center’s front office area, which was the same area used in Indecent Proposal, was even made to look like a gym for the movie.

You can see a complete list of productions that have been filmed at Crossroads of the World on the property’s official website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Crossroads of the World is located at 6671 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the property’s official website here. The Hungry Dog Diner from Dexter was located in the vacant storefront across from the office numbered 1521 and is denoted with a blue arrow in the above aerial view. The area where Dexter was sitting in the episode is denoted with a pink “X”. Suite number 1523 was used as Sid Hudgens’ office in L.A. Confidential and is marked with a purple arrow in the above aerial view. And finally, Diana’s office in Indecent Proposal was Suite 1500, which comprises the entire circular area located under the center’s tower and globe. The door she used to enter and exit her office is marked with a light pink arrow in the above aerial view.

March 29, 2010March 29, 2010

The Nite Owl Coffee Shop from “L.A. Confidential”

I have to apologize in advance for today’s post as it is going to be a short one. My best friend came to visit me this weekend and we spent all of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday doing wedding planning which, unfortunately, left me with no time for blogging. 🙁 I promise to write a more complete post tomorrow, but in the meantime, on with the stalking! One location that I have known about for quite some time now, but, for whatever reason, had yet to stalk was J & J Sandwich Shop from fave movie L.A. Confidential. In the 1997 flick the tiny restaurant stood in for the Nite Owl Coffee Shop, the 24 hour diner which was the site of the aptly named “Nite Owl Massacre”, the investigation of which provided the movie’s central plotline. I first learned of the location from Mike, from MovieShotsLA, way back when, but didn’t actually stalk the place until two weeks ago when the two of us walked by it while in Downtown Los Angeles trying to find the “Beat It” cafe.

In real life, J&J Sandwich Shop is not actually a coffee shop at all, but more of a walk-up-style delicatessen. And it, sadly, looks very different in person than it did in L.A. Confidential. According to J&J’s owner – a super nice woman who answered all of our silly questions about the filming and let us take as many pictures of the place as we wanted – set dressers completely remodeled the cafe’s interior for the movie. The restaurant actually had to be closed down for a total of three weeks for the filming, which included time for both dressing the set to look like a ‘50s diner and then subsequently putting it back to normal again after shooting had been completed.

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As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, J&J Sandwich Shop is almost unrecognizable from it’s appearance in L.A. Confidential. Not only was the floor completely redone for the filming, but replacement light fixtures were also brought in, as were new tables and chairs, to make the place seem more ‘50s like.

A rounded, sit-down countertop was also brought in to replace the restaurant’s real life walk-up counter.

The restaurant’s back hallway was also featured in L.A. Confidential, and, thankfully, looks pretty similar in person to how it appeared onscreen.

J&J’s owner also told us that the restaurant’s real life bathroom was also used in the movie, as the spot where most of the Nite Owl patrons were killed during the massacre.

I am kicking myself right now for not sending Mike into the actual bathroom to take pictures, though. 🙁 I have no idea why, but I never even thought of it while we were there! UGH!

Even though J&J Sandwich Shop does not look at all like its onscreen counterpart, I still have to say that I’d recommend stalking the place just because its owner was so incredibly nice. We didn’t have time to actually eat there during our stalk – as I said, we were on a mission to find the “Beat It” cafe – but according to its Yelp reviews, the place serves up some great food, so it’s looks like I’ll have to go back there again soon. Well, I told you it was going to be a short one today. But, as I said, I will be back tomorrow with a normal post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: J&J Sandwich Shop, aka the Nite Owl Coffee Shop, is located at 119 East 6th Street, directly across from Cole’s Restaurant.

February 10, 2010June 16, 2011

Cole’s Restaurant from “A Lot Like Love”

This past weekend I dragged my fiancé out to re-stalk Cole’s Restaurant, a location that I originally blogged about way back in May of 2008. I first learned about the old time watering hole while watching the DVD commentary for fave movie A Lot Like Love, during which one of the film’s directors mentions that the New York bar scene featured at the beginning of the flick wasn’t actually filmed on the East Coast at all, but at a historic little bar in Downtown Los Angeles named Cole’s. After doing a bit of online research I discovered that COUNTLESS movies had actually been filmed on location at the historic bar, so I, of course, immediately dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, upon arriving we were greeted by a sign announcing that the restaurant was closed for a massive renovation project. 🙁 And I have longed to stalk the place ever since. So, since we were in the area this past weekend, I begged my fiancé to make a little pit stop there and, since he was hungry at the time, he happily obliged. YAY!

Cole’s actually has a few other claims to fame besides being an oft-used filming location, including the fact that it is not only where the French Dip sandwich was first originated, but it is also the oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant in all of Los Angeles.

Cole’s, which was originally known as Cole’s P.E. Buffet, was first opened on December 8, 1908 by an entrepreneur named Harry Cole in what was once the main terminal of the Pacific Electric Building. That very same year, Cole’s main chef, a resourceful young man named Jack Garlinghouse, dipped the bread of a roast beef sandwich in Au Jus sauce in order to soften it for a customer who suffered from sore gums, and, thus, the French Dip sandwich was born. Those sandwiches, and the restaurant itself, became extremely popular with the hundreds of thousands of commuters who traveled through the Pacific Electric Building terminal each day. Twenty-five years later, in 1933, Cole’s was still such a popular spot that on the day California nixed its ban on beer, the bar served up over 19,000 gallons of the stuff to its parched customers. Yes, you read that right – 19,000 GALLONS in ONE day! That same year, Harry Cole’s son, Rawland, who was a bit of an entrepreneur himself, decided to start cashing checks out of the restaurant’s back room and wound up giving out over $1,000,000 each month (and we’re talking 1930’s money!), which was a larger amount than any U.S. bank was giving out during that same time! Cole’s has also had a longtime celebrity following, attracting such notables as Mickey Cohen who was a regular there during the 70’s and even had his own booth.

In 2007, Cole’s was purchased by a Los Angeles area development company named 213 who subsequently began a year-long, $1.6 million restoration process on the historic restaurant, during which its 40-foot long mahogany bar, porcelain penny tile mosaic flooring, and antique Tiffany glass lamps were all brought back to their original glory. The 213 company, which is headed by C.E.O. Cedd Moses, even added a “secret” bar in what was formerly Cole’s storage room. That secret bar is named “The Varnish” and it is so hidden, in fact, that I had absolutely no idea it was there until I read about it online after I got home. 🙁 For their restoration efforts of the legendary restaurant, 213 was awarded the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Preservation Award.

Cole’s specialty is, of course, its signature hand-carved, made-to-order French Dip sandwich which was originated on the premises one hundred and two years ago. There’s actually another L.A. area restaurant named Phillipe’s also laying claim to that exact same feat and the dispute between the two establishments is almost as old as the sandwich itself. But being that in 1974 the City of Los Angeles designated Cole’s a Historical Landmark Site and a State Point of Historical Interest not only due to its significant location, but also to its culinary invention, I think it’s safe to say that Cole’s has won that battle. 🙂 Cole’s French Dips can be constructed out of a variety of meats, including lamb, pastrami, turkey, and the typical roast beef. They can also be adorned with extra meat, Swiss, cheddar, goat, or blue cheeses, and an “atomic pickle spear”. I opted for a turkey French dip, sans the cheese and pickle, and I have to say it was absolutely A-MA-ZING! The meat truly was hand-carved, right-off-the-turkey-type turkey and I loved every last bite of it. What I loved more, though, was the historic aura of the place. It was incredible to be sitting there, dining on my French dip, thinking about the fact that the very sandwich I was now eating had actually been created on the premises over a century ago. Yes, I’ll take my meal with a side of history, please. 😉 I think it goes without saying that I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Cole’s and I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough!

In A Lot Like Love, Cole’s stood in for the New York bar where Oliver (aka Ashton Kutcher) and Emily (aka Amanda Peet) make a $50 bet that he won’t be a successful married businessman in six years time.

And I, of course, just had to eat lunch while sitting in the same spot where Ashton and Amanda sat in the flick. 🙂

The side booth area that is visible to the left of Ashton in the above screen capture is no longer a part of Cole’s. It was closed off during the restaurant’s recent remodel and is now a separately owned “secret” bar known as the Association. Yes, there are two secret bars located on the Cole’s premises!

The Association’s unmarked front door is pictured above.

In Jumpin’ Jack Flash – one of my all-time favorite movies EVER – Cole’s once again stood in for a New York bar, this time as the place where Terri Dolittle (aka Whoopi Goldberg) gets kidnapped by a man in a tow truck while making a telephone call from a public phone booth.

It is during this scene that Whoopi utters the infamous line “I am little black woman in a big silver box!” LOL

Towards the end of the movie, Whoopi once again runs by the restaurant on her way back to her office after escaping from the police. Cole’s is also talked about throughout the flick as the place where Whoopi and her pals hang out after work. Ironically enough, back before my very first trip to the Big Apple, I spent HOURS using Google Street View to search New York for this location. It wasn’t until years later, when I stalked Cole’s the first time after watching A Lot Like Love, that realized my mistake. I can’t believe I wasted so much time scouring New York for this location, when the whole time it was literally right in my own backyard! 😉

In Rumor Has It, Cole’s stands in for the San Francisco bar named the Fillmore Pub, where Kevin Costner and my girl Jen Aniston share a dance. Ironically enough, before I knew about Cole’s, I actually spent quite a bit of time searching the San Francisco area for this spot! Which means – you guessed it! – that I not only wasted countless hours searching for this location – not realizing it was the same place featured in Jumpin’ Jack Flash – in New York, but in San Francisco, too. LOL Man, I’m such a blonde sometimes!

The scene where Kevin and Jen kiss outside of the ladies’ room after their dance was really filmed in the bathroom area of Cole’s, as well.

The exterior of the restaurant was also used in the filming of the scene, although they changed the signage to read “Fillmore Pub”. As you can see in the above photograph (which was taken during my first Cole’s stalk) and screen capture, though, the signage used in the movie is an exact match to Cole’s real life signage. Love it!

In Forrest Gump, Cole’s yet again stood in for a New York watering hole. It was used as the spot where Forrest and Lieutenant Dan spend New Year’s Eve of 1971. Sadly, though, not much of the bar is visible in that scene.

On a side note – Located directly across the street from Cole’s is a little place named J &J Sandwich Shop, which is the restaurant which stood in for the Night Owl Cafe in fave movie L.A. Confidential.

And located directly above Cole’s is the ninth floor window from which Bud White (aka Russell Crowe) hung D.A. Ellis Loew (aka Ron Rifkin) in the same movie.

Cole’s has also appeared in an episode of The X-Files, in numerous episodes of both Mad Men and NYPD Blue, and it flashed by very briefly in the 1991 movie Guilty By Suspicion. And, according to legend, the Terminal Bar from 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was in actuality just a set, was based on Cole’s.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Cole’s is located at 118 East Sixth Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit their website here.