Year: 2015

The “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” Park

Today’s post was a true labor of love – one that required stalking a location three separate times and a massive amount of help from a fellow stalker named Michael. While most of the locales from the 1985 movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun (one of my all-time faves) have been tracked down and detailed on this blog, one that I have long wondered about is the park where portions of the dance practice montage sequence took place. As luck would have it, I happened to meet the flick’s leading man, Lee Montgomery who played hunky Jeff Malene, at the Hollywood Show back in April and got the information straight from the horse’s mouth.

[ad]

When I heard that Lee would be making an appearance at the Hollywood Show, I just about flipped my lid from excitement and informed the Grim Cheaper that I would be attending come hell or high water. And I am so glad that I did. Lee truly could NOT have been nicer! He spent quite a bit of time chatting with me and filled me in on several behind-the-scenes tidbits, including the fact that he and Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Janey Glenn, underwent extensive dance training for weeks before filming began and that much of the onscreen dancing, including the lifts, was actually performed by them.   At one point, I mentioned that there was a missing GJWHF locale that I was interested in tracking down. Now, in no way, shape or form did I expect Lee to remember a location from over 30 years ago, but I decided to broach the subject anyway and was shocked when he recalled it immediately! When I asked him where the dance montage in the park had taken place, without skipping a beat, he replied, “Oh, the row of trees? That was in Griffith Park, near the merry-go-round.” Um, THANK YOU, Lee!

For those not familiar with the Girls Just Want to Have Fun dance practice montage (and if that’s the case, then for shame!), you can watch it by clicking below.

The three spots that I was interested in tracking down were the row of trees that Janey and Jeff danced between . . .

. . . the tree that Jeff flipped off of while his sister, Maggie Malene (my girl Shannen Doherty), sat nearby . . .

. . . and the hill that Janey and Jeff flipped down.

As soon as I got home from the Hollywood Show, I popped in my Girls Just Want to Have Fun DVD and was SHOCKED to discover that the area of Griffith Park featured in the dance practice montage was Park Center, the very same area that was utilized in the Full House Season 1-3 opening credits. I had detailed that exact spot in a September 2014 blog post, but until that moment had failed to recognize its appearance in GJWTHF. I figured out the location thanks to a very unusual tree that I remembered from the Full House credits.

The tree has an extremely unique shape. From the trunk it immediately bends to the side and runs almost parallel to the ground and then turns back upward, forming an almost 90-degree angle with its lower portion.   Its white, speckled bark is also quiet unusual.

As it turns out, that is the very same tree that Jeff flipped off of in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. As you can see below, the curve of the tree, the speckled bark and the chopped off branch on the left-hand side match perfectly to what appeared onscreen.

Now I should mention here that the first time the GC and I stalked Park Center, we made the unfortunate decision to head out there on a Sunday and not only was the place jam-packed with picnickers, but there was a piñata tied to Jeff’s tree! Humph!   So these photos were taken during our second stalk of the park. On that particular visit, I, of course, had to re-created the montage moment . . .

. . . but I did not attempt Jeff’s flip. That tree is a LOT higher off the ground than it looks! I did jump off the tree, however, but was not nearly as graceful as Jeff.

I have never been very good at pinpointing outdoor locations, so to track down the other two Girls Just Want to Have Fun montage spots I enlisted the help of a fellow stalker who I knew had an aptitude for park-like settings – Michael. He is the one who had originally made the discovery of Park Center’s appearance in the Full House opening credits. Michael was only too happy to help and was an immeasurable source of guidance with this particular hunt. He immediately noticed that the hill that Jeff and Janey flipped down was the same hill that was featured in Full House, just shot from a slightly different angle. Griffith Park’s Park Services Building, which is visible in the background of both productions, is denoted with pink arrows below.

While it was hard to pinpoint the exact angle from which the hill scene was shot (as I said, outdoor places are not my forte), I believe my photograph below was taken from pretty much the right spot. I believe the pine tree to the right of the frame is now gone, but the split-branched tree in the middle of my photograph appears to match was was pictured onscreen, as does the shaping of the hill itself.

The one spot that Michael was unsure about was the row of trees that Janey and Jeff danced between. So during our first trek out to the park (on picnic day!), the GC and I walked around all of Park Center to see if we could find the right place and he fairly quickly zeroed in on the trees pictured below. In my recollection of the scene, Janey and Jeff had danced between two parallel rows of trees, while the trees that the GC had found were situated in one row, with a lone tree situated parallel to it. I was certain it was the wrong spot.

When I got home and compared my photographs to the montage scene, though, I saw that he was spot on! Nicely done, GC!

As fate would have it, during our second venture out to Griffith Park, a man happened to be sleeping next to the row of trees, in the exact spot where we wanted to take photographs. I did end up posing for a pic, but because of Sleeping Beauty, we could not match the angle of the photo to the angle shown in the movie – which meant (you guessed it!) another trip out there. I swear, if the GC never sees Griffith Park again it’ll be too soon.

During our third trip to the park, we managed to take photographs from the right spot. Well, almost.

We should have moved one tree farther back. As you can see below, the tree that is in the foreground of our photograph is the second tree visible in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. That is as good as it is going to get, though, because there is no way the GC is ever setting foot in Park Center again.

And I am pretty sure that if I ever ventured out there on my own and asked a stranger to take my photograph posing like I am below, they’d probably try to have me committed.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Michael for all of his help in finding these locations!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Girls Just Want to Have Fun dance montage was shot in the Park Center area of Griffith Park, which is located at 4730 Crystal Springs Drive in Los Feliz. A detailed aerial view denoting where the montage’s three park segments were filmed in relation to the merry-go-round is pictured below.

June 2, 2015
Caesars Palace from “The Hangover”

My recent trip to Las Vegas with the Grim Cheaper was magical, due in large part to the fact that we stayed at Caesars Palace. Neither the GC nor I had ever stayed there before and, while planning our trip, I decided to see what the rates were. I happened to find a remarkably inexpensive one and booked it immediately. It was a fortuitous decision because the four nights we spent there were spectacular.

[ad]

As luck would have it, when we checked in we were given an upgraded room in the Palace Tower. It was absolutely gorgeous – and huge.

The bathroom was massive as well and featured a huge Jacuzzi tub and stand-alone shower.

We also had a pretty stunning view of the Garden of the Gods Pool Oasis area.

Construction on Caesars Palace began in 1962. The property was the brainchild of hotelier Jay Sarno, who also owned the popular Cabana Motel chain. According to this article, Sarno purposely left off the apostrophe in the resort’s name because having it “’would mean that it was the place of only one Caesar.’ He wanted to create the feeling that everybody in the hotel was a Caesar.” The site opened to the public on August 5th, 1966. You can read an extremely extensive history on the hotel here.

At the time of its inception, Caesars Palace consisted of a single 14-story tower with 680 rooms.

Today, the site is comprised of six towers, 3,960 hotel rooms, a 300,000-square-foot convention center, a 4,296-seat circular theatre modeled after the Colosseum in Rome, and a 636,000-square-foot shopping center known as The Forum Shops at Caesars. In short, the property is massive!

The front of Caesars Palace is marked by a 135-foot driveway flanked by 18 fountains.

In 1967, daredevil Evel Knievel tried to jump across the 141-foot long fountain situated directly in front of the hotel, but failed and wound up in a coma for the next 29 days.

You can watch that failed jump below.

In 1989, Evel’s son Robbie attempted the jump and was successful. You can watch a video of Robbie’s jump below.

Caesars’ humongous Garden of the Gods Pool Oasis was modeled after the Pompeii baths of ancient Rome.

Sadly, because the GC and I were in Las Vegas for a working trip and were busy most of each day, we were not able to partake of the pool facilities.

Caesars Palace has been featured onscreen countless times over the years – far more times than I could ever chronicle here, but I will name a few of its more notable appearances. The hotel’s most famous role was in The Hangover. It was there that Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) threw an epic bachelor party for Doug (Justin Bartha) in the 2009 breakout hit. The movie made extensive use of the Caesars property, including the front entrance;

lobby;

check-in desk;

(love the shot of the Wolf Pack below);

a hallway, which (according to Hannah Allen, the Director of TV and Film Production for Caesars Entertainment, who was nice enough to fill me in on the shoot) was a hallway on the 24th floor of the Augustus Tower;

the Augustus Tower’s 24th floor elevator bay (again, thank you, Hannah!);

an Augustus Tower elevator (once again, thanks to Hannah);

the roof;

and the Garden of the Gods Pool Oasis.

For the scene in which Stu, Phil and Alan take note of Doug’s mattress on the hotel’s roof, a fake statue was installed in the area noted with a pink arrow in my photograph below.

The hotel’s actual roofline is pictured below.

“Some guys just can’t handle Vegas!”

Sadly, the guys’ spectacular villa was not an actual Caesars room, but a set created inside of a soundstage at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank. The set was modeled, in part, after the hotel’s lux Emperors Suite.

The casino where the Wolf Pack gambled in The Hangover was not located at Caesars Palace, but at the since closed Riviera, which, sadly, is set to be demolished in the near future.

Stu, Alan and Phil returned to Caesars Palace for 2013’s The Hangover Part III.

Thanks to Hannah, I learned that an actual Caesars suite was used in Part III – the Constantine Villa in the Octavius Tower –

which Stu and Alan climbed down to from Caesars’ roof.

The Constantine Villa also appeared in Think Like a Man Too.

The 2014 comedy gave audiences a much better view of the suite.

Think Like a Man Too was filmed almost exclusively at Caesars Palace.

Caesars also made an appearance in Rain Man. It was there that Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman) counted cards for his brother Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) in the 1988 classic (as Alan said in The Hangover, “He practically bankrupt a casino and he was a re-tard.”). The casino floor looks much different today, though, and is virtually unrecognizable from its appearance in Rain Man.

Hannah informed me that the escalator that Charlie and Raymond famously rode down in the movie was removed when Caesars’ convention center was remodeled in 2009. Such a shame!

Rain Man’s escalator scene was re-created in The Hangover, complete with “Iko Iko” playing in the background. Because the re-creation was shot at the Riviera, sadly, that escalator will soon be gone, too.

The suite where Charlie and Raymond stayed in Rain Man is an actual Caesars room, the Emperors Suite (which, as I mentioned earlier, served as the inspiration for the Wolf Pack’s room in The Hangover). It looks quite a bit different today, though. You can check out some current photos of it here.

The room, which is located in the Forum Tower, was numbered 7416 in Rain Man, but looks to be numbered 6316 today. It is an extremely popular room thanks to its appearance in the movie and is still referred to as “the Rain Man suite,” 27 years after the film originally premiered!

The scene in which Charlie lets Raymond drive took place in front of Caesars’ main entrance.

Isabel Fuentes Whitman (Salma Hayek) worked at Caesars Palace in the 1997 romcom Fools Rush In.

After getting married, she and her new husband, Alex Whitman (Matthew Perry), spend the night in the Rain Man suite.

Caesars Palace was also featured in the Coen Brothers’ 2003 dark romantic comedy Intolerable Cruelty.

Miles (George Clooney) and Marilyn (Catherine Zeta-Jones) also spend their wedding night in the Rain Man suite in the movie.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) gambles at Caesars Palace in the beginning of Iron Man.

In Ocean’s Eleven, Elliot Gould describes “the three most successful robberies in the history of Vegas,” one of which took place at Caesars in 1987.

Joyce Brewster (Barbra Streisand) and Andrew Brewster (Seth Rogen) spend a night at the hotel in the 2012 comedy The Guilt Trip.

One of the hotel’s real life rooms – one that looked very much like ours – was used in the filming.

Caesars Palace also made appearances in Godzilla, The Electric Horseman, Rocky III, Oh, God! You Devil, History of the World: Part I, The Sopranos, 21, Showgirls, My Giant, The Only Game in Town, 2012, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Emma for putting me in touch with Hannah so that I could get all of my filming questions answered!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Caesars Palace (not the real one – Caesar never actually lived there), from The Hangover, is located at 3570 South Las Vegas Boulevard in Las Vegas. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

May 29, 2015
New “L.A.” Mag Post – About the “Battle Creek” Police Station

Be sure to check out my latest post for L.A.mag.com today, about the police station from Battle Creek and my disappointment over the series’ recent cancellation. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

May 28, 2015
The “Even Stevens” House

Though I am a tween at heart, for some reason the 1999 television series Even Stevens, which focused on the life of seventh grader Louis Stevens (Shia LaBeouf), was never on my radar. In fact, I don’t think I had ever even heard of it until a fellow stalker named Britt posted a comment on my site in early March challenging me to find Louis’ supposed Sacramento home from the show. Britt had included screen captures with her query, but, being that I was not even sure if the series had been shot in California at the time, I had no idea where to begin looking for the residence. Thankfully, both Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, and a reader named Melissa found the place for me. (Chas and Melissa found the house independently, but on the same day and within minutes of each other! Literally, at almost the exact same time that I received a text from Chas alerting to me to the home’s address, I also received an email notification that Melissa had posted the house’s address as a comment on my site. Talk about synchronicity!)

[ad]

In her challenge, Britt had given us a big clue. She mentioned – and provided a screen capture showing – that an address number of “10321” was visible on the curb in front of the Stevens’ house in an episode. Melissa and Chas each took that info and successfully ran with it. Thank you, both! And even though I still have yet to watch an episode of the series, because I thought the dwelling might be a location my fellow stalkers were interested in, I ran right out to stalk it.

In real life, the 1938 home has 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 3,135 square feet of living space.

As you can see below, the residence looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.

Although the surrounding foliage has grown significantly since filming originally took place 16 years ago.

Besides being shown weekly in establishing shots, a digitized version of the property was also featured in the Even Stevens opening credits.

You can watch those credits by clicking below.

The real life interior of the residence was not used on the series. The inside of the Stevens’ home was just a set.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Chas, from It’s Filmed There, and Melissa for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Even Stevens house is located at 10321 Cresta Drive in Cheviot Hills.

May 27, 2015
The Alhambra from “NCIS”

Sometimes you go years wondering about a location only to find out that it is right in your own backyard. For what seemed like ages, I had wanted to track down the United States Criminal Investigative Service office from NCIS. I had a feeling that the series used two different structures – one for establishing shots and one for on location exterior filming – and it turns out I was right. While watching a scene that took place outside of NCIS headquarters in the Season 11 episode titled “Crescent City (Part I),” I immediately recognized one of the visible buildings as being part of The Alhambra, a large commercial office and retail complex in Alhambra that I had visited often when I lived in L.A. That led to me eventually finding the structure used in establishing shots, as well. But more on that later.

[ad]

The Alhambra complex was built for C F Braun & Co., a petrochemical engineering company originally founded by Carl Franklin Braun in San Francisco in 1909. After World War I, Braun, seeking to expand the business, decided to relocate the main offices to Southern California where real estate was more affordable. He purchased a 45-acre plot of land at the corner of West Mission Road and South Fremont Avenue in Alhambra and proceeded to build a large office complex there. The beautiful site, which looks more like a college campus than a company headquarters, was completed in 1922.

Braun passed away in 1954, but the company continued to function throughout 1980, at which time it was acquired by Santa Fe International. The business then went through a succession of different owners and its Alhambra headquarters was eventually sold to The Ratkovich Company in 1999. The development firm set about revitalizing the site by adding retail shops, a massive gym and a housing development. The new complex was dubbed “The Alhambra.”

My mom used to teach in the Alhambra area and attended several conferences at The Alhambra. For reasons I no longer remember, I dropped her off at many of those conferences. On my first visit, upon driving into the complex, I became mesmerized by its beauty and wound up wandering around a bit.

Though I fell in love with many aspects of the complex, my favorite feature is easily the walking bridge that links it to a shopping center located across the street. In that shopping center? A Starbucks! So yes, I’ve utilized that walking bridge many a time .

I figured filming had to have taken place at The Alhambra at some point, but, at the time, could not seem to find any information about its cinematic history online. Then one day, while watching an early episode of House, I spotted it standing in for the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) and made a mental note to re-visit the complex so that I could stalk it properly. I never got around to it, though. Then when I saw it pop up on NCIS last year, The Alhambra moved right to the top of my To-Stalk List.

In the beginning of the “Crescent City (Part I)” episode of NCIS, Eleanor Bishop (Emily Wickersham) is shown trying to make a repair to her car outside of what is supposed to be the United States Criminal Investigative Service office in Washington, D.C.

While watching, I immediately recognized the brick exterior and unique roofline of The Alhambra’s A9 East building.

The area where the scene was shot is denoted with a pink “X” in the aerial view below.

A far-off view of that same area is pictured in the photograph below.

Later in the episode, Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula) and T.C. Fornell (Joe Spano) are shown walking through what is supposedly the Washington Navy Yard. In reality, the men were strolling along the eastern side of The Alhambra’s Building A10. (My photograph was taken a bit too far north and does not perfectly match the scene, but the building pictured in my photo is visible in the far background of the screen capture below.)

The area and direction in which the men walked is denoted with a pink arrow below.

The trio eventually winds up in the courtyard of The Alhambra’s Building A9 East.

That courtyard is denoted with a pink “X” in the aerial view below.

The Alhambra has appeared in several other episodes of NCIS, including Season 9’s “Till Death Do Us Part.”

Once I discovered NCIS’ use of The Alhambra for on location exterior filming of scenes taking place at the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service office, I decided to attempt to track down the building used for establishing shots. It turned out to be a rather easy hunt. The real life headquarters of NCIS in Washington, D.C., aka the the CNIC (Commander, Navy Installations Command) office, is used for those shots. That building is located at 716 Sicard Street SE at the Washington Navy Yard. You can see a photo of it here.

As I mentioned above, The Alhambra also regularly masked as the exterior of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital on the television series House. The stills below are from the Season 2 episode titled “Daddy’s Boy.”

The Alhambra also appeared in the Season 3 episode titled “Son of a Coma Guy.”

As well as in Season 3’s “Needle in a Haystack.” For that episode, the grounds of The Alhambra were covered in snow.

Well, a portion of the grounds, at least. As you can see in the screen capture below, the production team failed to put snow on the far end of the street leading into The Alhambra, making the flurry appear to be a bit fake. Whoops!

The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer also made extensive use of The Alhambra. Though UCLA was initially utilized to masquerade as the University of California, Sunnydale on the show, when filming on a operating campus proved to be too difficult, production moved to The Alhambra to shoot exterior college scenes.

The Alhambra also masked as a mental institution in the Season 5 episode of Sliders titled “Map of the Mind.” And yes, that’s a CGI-generated vortex pictured in the second screen capture below.

The Alhambra was where Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) met up with CGB Spender (William B. Davis) in the Season 7 episode of The X-Files titled “En Ami.”

The Alhambra was also featured in episodes of The Profiler, Scandal, and Arli$$, though I am unsure of which episodes specifically.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Alhambra, aka the exterior of the United States Criminal Investigative Service office from NCIS, is located at 1000 South Fremont Avenue in Alhambra. You can visit the property’s official website here.

May 26, 2015
Happy Memorial Day!

I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Memorial Day. I hope everyone takes a moment today to remember what the holiday is truly about – not three-day weekends or BBQs, but honoring those who passed away while fighting for our country’s freedom.

May 25, 2015
The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House from “Mod Squad”

As I’ve said before, stalking begets stalking. Back in January, I wrote a post about a spectacular abandoned residence that had been featured in recent episodes of both Major Crimes and Parks and Recreation. A longtime reader (a veeeery longtime reader, pretty sure he’s been with me since the beginning!) named John was intrigued by the property and started exploring the surrounding neighborhood via Google Street View. In doing so, he stumbled upon the Frederick Mitchell Mooers House, an absolutely stunning Victorian located just a couple of blocks away, and posted a comment about it on my site. I was stoked over his find and even more thrilled to discover, after doing a bit of online research, that the pad had been featured in two episodes of the 1960s television series Mod Squad. So I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter. Thanks, John!

[ad]

The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was designed by the Bradbeer & Ferris architecture firm in 1894. The 4,617-square-foot, 5-bedroom, 2-bath dwelling was built for a contractor named Frank Wright and his wife, May Gertrude Wright. Just four years after its construction, the Wrights sold the residence to gold miner Frederick Mitchell Mooers (hence the reason the home is sometimes referred to as the Wright-Mooers House). Upon Frederick’s death, the property was deeded to his mother, Eliza A.R. Mooers, though, according to Wikipedia, there was quite a bit of contention and drama over his will.

The sensational property, which mixes the Queen Anne style with Richardsonian Romanesque and Moorish design elements, features ornamental woodwork, asymmetrical detailing and a three-story tower with a unique roofline that is referred to as an “onion dome” in architectural circles. You can check out a historic image of the house from around the time that it was originally built here.

The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1967 and was cited for being “a prototype of distinctive architecture of the boom of the 80’s,” though it was not actually built until the 1890s.

The pad was featured twice on the television series Mod Squad. It first appeared in Season 1’s “Child of Sorrow, Child of Light” as the home/illegal adoption agency belonging to Iris Potter (Ida Lupino). At the time of the filming, the house did not have a fence surrounding it – a look I much prefer.

I believe that the real life interior of the Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was also utilized in the episode, but, surprisingly, I could not find any photographs of the inside of the home with which to compare to screen captures. While I was stalking the property, I happened to meet one of its residents, a very nice man who invited me inside to snap some pictures. Sadly though, I was alone at the time, so I did not accept his offer. If only the Grim Cheaper had been with me! What I wouldn’t give to see the interior of that place!

During Season 2 of Mod Squad, the house masked as the office of shady doctor Asa Lorimer (Paul Richards) in the episode titled “The Healer.”

A different, but extremely similar interior was shown in “The Healer.”

As you can see below, the front doors and wooden paneling of the anteroom shown in the two episodes are a perfect match.

The staircase, though in differing locations, is also a match in appearance and structure.

The stained glass windows and doors leading to an interior office are also a match. All of this leads me to believe that the real life interior of the home was utilized in “Child of Sorrow, Child of Light,” and then a set modeled after it was created for use in “The Healer.”

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 telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House, from Mod Squad, is located at 818 South Bonnie Brae Street in Westlake.

May 22, 2015
New “L.A.” Mag Post – A Guide to Tomorrow’s Film Location Stars

Don’t forget to head over to L.A.mag.com today to check out my latest post. I am REALLY excited about this one. It is a guide to the buildings that I believe will be the film location stars of the future. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours

May 21, 2015
The Last Bookstore from “Gone Girl”

I love bookstores – and books. Actual books, not the digitized versions. You will never catch me reading on a Kindle. I like the feel of a book in my hands, the physical act of turning the pages and the smell. I love, love, love the smell of books. The Grim Cheaper always makes fun of the fact that I am constantly smelling my reading materials and when we watched the Sex and the City movie for the first time, he turned to me laughing at Carrie’s “I love the smell” line (video here). So me! So when I discovered The Last Bookstore in downtown L.A. a couple of years ago, it was love at first sight. Not only is the shop a virtual work of art, with interesting details looming around each and every corner, but it carries unique and intriguing tomes (new and used) that you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Oh, and the place is also a filming location. Yep, right up my alley!

[ad]

The Last Bookstore was originally founded by Josh Spencer in 2005 as an online emporium that he ran out of his downtown loft. The young entrepreneur had an extensive background in selling books, furniture, records, clothes and cars via eBay, but had decided to focus solely on literary sales. He dubbed his new endeavor “The Last Bookstore.” The name was chosen ironically. As Spencer explained in a Southern California Public Radio interview, “I’ve always been into science fiction and post-apocalyptic things, so I always wondered what a cool ‘last bookstore’ would look like for some future civilization.”

The shop’s website further states, “The name was chosen with irony, but seems more appropriate with each passing day as physical bookstores die out like dinosaurs from the meteoric impact of Amazon and e-books.” Thankfully, The Last Bookstore seems immune to such a fate. By late 2009, Spencer had outgrown his loft and decided to lease a small brick and mortar site on Main Street. By June 2011 (the very same year that the Borders chain filed for bankruptcy), Spencer had outgrown that location, as well, and moved to the much larger, 10,000-square-foot lobby space of the Spring Arts Tower. It was only months before he needed to expand yet again and in February 2012 he began leasing the building’s second floor. Today, The Last Bookstore encompasses over 16,000 square feet – and every last inch of it is spectacular.

The 12-story Spring Arts Tower was originally designed as the Citizens National Bank Building in 1914 by John Parkinson, the same architect who, along with his son, was responsible for Union Station, Bullocks Wilshire, Los Angeles City Hall, and the Security Trust and Savings Bank (now The Federal Bar).

The building’s grand former lobby features mosaic tiled flooring, sweeping 25-foot-tall ceilings, and towering pillars throughout. The Art Nouveau-style space would be beautiful on its own, but Spencer decided to treat it like a blank canvas onto which he could create a work of art. The result is nothing short of incredible.

The Last Bookstore, which is California’s largest independent bookshop, houses an inventory of 250,000 new and used books, with stacks as far and as high as the eye can see.

Thanks to its whimsical displays, though, it is easy to forget the space is a store. The site seems more like a museum or a movie set or a scene from Alice in Wonderland come to life.

Unique design elements can be found everywhere you turn.

Even the bank’s old vault is utilized as display space.

My favorite décor element, though, has to be is what is called the “Labyrinth Above the Last Bookstore.”

The Labyrinth is absolutely overwhelming in person!

The best part is that The Last Bookstore employees won’t tell you where to find it – you have to go on a hunt to track it down yourself, which the GC and I had a blast doing.

Despite its incredibly unique interior, The Last Bookstore has not popped up very often onscreen, though it was utilized in a rather illicit flashback scene in Gone Girl.

The scene was filmed in the shop’s main room, in the northwestern-most aisle as you first enter the store (though the photograph below was taken from the opposite angle from which the movie was shot).

As I mentioned in this post, the exterior of the Spring Arts Tower appeared in one of my favorite movies, 2004’s Little Black Book, though that was long before The Last Bookstore was founded.

The exterior of the building also appeared briefly in the the Season 2 episode of Castle titled “The Fifth Bullet.”

In a 2011 Los Angeles Times article, Spencer stated, “I think there’s always going to be a great market for books, but it’s definitely going to shrink to those who value and enjoy the ritual of browsing through books and holding books and turning pages. That’s gradually going to become less and less, as the generations pass. This might be the last generation, I think.” If his prediction does someday come to pass, I sincerely hope I am not around to witness it.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Last Bookstore, from Gone Girl, is located at 453 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the store’s official website here.

May 20, 2015
The Cooper House from “Forever Young”

Today’s locale is a bit of a long time coming. In my early March post about the bungalow where Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) lived in Forever Young, I mentioned that I had stalked a different house from the 1992 movie – the one where Claire Cooper (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her son, Nat (Elijah Wood), lived – in my early stalking days. I found the location thanks to Scott’s L.A. Audio Tour of Pasadena CD, but because this was long before I had a blog, had failed to write down the address. Thankfully, the pad was rather easy to re-track down, though. In fact, the address was mentioned explicitly in a scene.

[ad]

When Nat and his friend Felix (Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’s Robery Hy Gorman) are playing around at a military facility, they discover Daniel’s cryogenically-frozen body inside of a suspended animation chamber. Daniel immediately starts to thaw and grabs Nat’s jacket, freaking the boys out, who run away. Daniel later looks inside the jacket and discovers Nat’s address written on the tag. Though the city is listed as San Marcos, the rest of the address shown is the home’s real life address. Claire and Nat’s house is located at 1724 Oxley Street in South Pasadena. How cool is that?

The residence was used extensively in Forever Young.

It is where Daniel lives after waking up from being frozen for 53 years.

In one of the movie’s more memorable scenes, Daniel fixes Claire’s roof and gives Nat some tips on women.

Amazingly, aside from the paint color, virtually no part of the property has been changed since filming took place in 1992.

In real life, the house, which was built in 1910, boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,115 square feet of living space and a 0.17-acre plot of land.

The home’s real life backyard was used in the movie. Sadly, though, Nat’s awesome tree house hangout was just a prop and is not there in real life.

I could not find any photographs of the real life interior of the home, but am fairly certain it was also used in the filming.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Cooper House from Forever Young is located at 1724 Oxley Street in South Pasadena.

May 15, 2015