The King of Queens House

As mentioned in Wednesday’s post, I have many stalking adventures to share from the day my fiancé and I spent with fellow stalker Owen in New York City, including one that actually led us off the island of Manhattan and into the Garden State, aka New Jersey.  In all of my many trips to the Big Apple, I have only actually been off the island once and even then I only ventured as far as Brooklyn.  So, leaving Manhattan to head to an entirely different state was quite the stalking endeavor for me!  The location that led us to such uncharted territory, you ask?  The home where the Heffernans lived in the Kevin James/Leah Remini sitcom The King of Queens.  Owen had actually tracked down this location back in August, after what he described as “the longest, most headache-inducing search for a location that I’ve been through”.  LOL  Oh, I’ve so been there!!!  🙂  Owen’s quest for The King of Queens house actually began ordinarily enough, with him contacting numerous people who had worked on the series, from production designers all the way up to the Vice President of Sony’s Media Relations!  Not kidding!  Unfortunately, they all came back with the exact same answer – they had absolutely no idea where the Heffernan house was located.  Owen certainly had his work cut out for him on this one.  I mean, if a production staff doesn’t even know where one of their filming sites is located, how are any of us stalkers ever supposed to find it???  One of the crew members did remember one pertinent piece of information, though. He said that the establishing shots of The King of Queens  house which were used throughout the series nine year run had been found in the Columbia Television (now Sony) Stock Footage Library shortly before the pilot first aired.  No one on The King of Queens staff knew who had taken the footage or what production it was originally used for and in the nine season run of the show, no one had ever come forward to claim the house as theirs.

For those not familiar with Hollywood lingo, stock footage, or archive footage as it is sometimes called, is basically a video image of a location that is not taken for a specific production, but is instead cataloged in a studio’s stock footage library to be used on an as-needed basis.  Footage that has actually been used in a specific production can also very well wind up in a stock footage library.  Using stock images ends up to be much cheaper for a production than actually sending a crew out to shoot establishing shots of each different locale needed for a particular show or movie.  So, in essence, footage originally shot for, oh say, a car commercial, may wind up being used regularly on a hit television series almost a decade later.  Which is pretty much exactly what happened with The King of Queens  house.  Anyway, once Owen found out that the images of the Heffernan house had been procured from the Sony Library, he went through the painstaking task of searching through all of Sony’s archives until he came across the right video.  But, amazingly enough, his quest didn’t end there!  All Owen was able to gather from locating the footage of the Heffernan house was that it had originally been shot in 1991 for use in a production entitled SIBS II.  Because he had never heard of SIBS II and because that production is not listed in the IMDB database, thought his search may have suddenly hit a brick wall.  Until an idea struck him.  Owen decided to rifle through some of the other stock footage that had been taken for the mysterious SIBS II production and eventually stumbled across this video, in which a clapboard with two crewmember’s names written on it was visible in the opening frames.  Employing a bit of internet savvy, Owen somehow managed to track down one of the crewmembers listed and sent him an email asking if he remembered the location of the Heffernan house.  Here is the crew member’s response, “You should work for the FBI.  I’d be delighted to answer your question, if I can find the info.  But hopefully you’ll be kind enough to answer mine: How in the hell did you find me?”  LOL LOL LOL

The shocked crew member said he had the address of the house written down in one of his files and promised to dig through them to find it.  As promised, just a few days later he emailed Owen with an address, FINALLY putting to rest the mystery of the Heffernan house location!  🙂   And because Owen knew that I would be coming to New York just a few weeks after he had received the address, he promised to wait to stalk the house until I arrived.  YAY!  So, on October 2nd, Owen, my fiancé, and I ventured across the Hudson River to do some King of Queens stalking.   And, let me tell you, seeing the Heffernan house in person was extremely exciting, especially considering the long road that got us there!

A big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location and for waiting to stalk it until I could join him!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The King of Queens  house is located at 519 Longview Avenue in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.  If you plan to take a cab ride from Manhattan to the Heffernan house, be forewarned, even though it is only about a ten mile ride, it will cost you upwards of $45!  Not kidding!!!!  I would suggest taking a bus there instead, as it is the much cheaper option.

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