Category: TV Locations

Pico House from “My Sister Sam”

The name of my blog is (obviously) meant in jest. I always feel a pang of guilt over having chosen it, though, when I think about Rebecca Schaeffer, the young actress who was gunned down in her doorway by a deranged stalker at the tender age of 21 in 1989. My grandma and I religiously watched My Sister Sam, the CBS series she starred on, when it was on the air in the late-80s and were both considerably obsessed. We were equally devastated when it was cancelled after a scant one and a half seasons and then again when we learned of Schaeffer’s murder a little over a year later. While the show and its star have never strayed far from my mind in the years since, somehow I never though about tracking down the supposed San Francisco building where Schaeffer’s teenaged character, Patti Russell, lived with her older sister, Sam Russell (Pam Dawber). Thankfully, in 2013, a reader named Vera Charles left a comment on my 2009 post about downtown L.A.’s Pico House, which I was reporting on due to its use as “Sacramento’s” CBI headquarters on The Mentalist, alerting me to the fact that the very same spot served as the My Sister Sam apartment! I was floored over the news, but, for whatever reason, am only just now getting around to re-blogging about the historic site.

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Constructed from 1869 to 1870, Pico House has the distinction of being Los Angeles’ first three-story building.

Commissioned by Pio Pico, the last governor of California under Mexican rule, the Italianate structure originally served as an 82-room hotel. Not just any hotel, though – it was the city’s finest, featuring arched windows and doors at every turn, a grand double staircase, an aviary, 21 parlors, 2 courtyards, a French restaurant, restrooms and water closets for both sexes on each floor, a bar, and a billiards room. Designed by architect Ezra F. Kysor, the lodging cost $48,000 to construct and a whopping $34,000 to decorate and furnish. At the time of its opening, the most expensive rooms ran for $3 a night.

Though the property proved bustling throughout its first decade, Pio wasn’t the savviest when it came to finances and he wound up losing Pico House to foreclosure in 1880. The site subsequently passed through several hands, continuing to function as a hotel, before being transformed into an inexpensive boarding house named The National in 1892. It operated as such for the next three decades, growing more dilapidated as time passed. Though the original moniker was restored in 1920, the building continued to deteriorate, becoming a mere shadow of its once grand self, and was eventually condemned in 1922.

It was finally acquired by the city of L.A. in 1953 and incorporated into El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Monument. Though it has remained vacant ever since (you can check out some images of the interior taken in 2006 here), the site has undergone several renovations in the ensuing years and is both a California Historical Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. Today, it is utilized mainly as a special events venue and, of course, for filming.

Pico House has the fortunate and unique quality of boasting four rather diverse façades. As such it has proved an extremely versatile landscape for filming. The north and west edifices are both elaborately Italianate in style, with arched windows and doors and stuccoed exteriors fashioned to resemble blue granite. Though similar, the north end (pictured below) stands alone facing El Pueblo de Los Angeles’ Old Plaza and bears the look of a 19th Century courthouse or city hall . . .

. . . while the west end (pictured below), which runs along North Main Street, is much wider and is adjacent to several buildings with Victorian detailing, giving it a very San Francisco feel.

The south façade, which is situated on Arcadia Street, boasts an Old West style and has a very Sacramento-ish look.

And the east side, which runs along Sanchez Street, features fabulous red brickwork as far as the eye can see.

It is the western end that masked as Sam and Patti’s apartment building on My Sister Sam, which, as I mentioned above, was said to be located in San Francisco.

Only the exterior of the building was utilized on the series. The interior of Sam and Patti’s apartment was just a set constructed at Warner Bros. Ranch (then named The Burbank Studios Ranch), where the show was lensed.

In the Season 1 episode of Amazing Stories titled “Alamo Jobe,” which aired in 1985, the north side of Pico House masks as the site of the modern-day Alamo.

Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) work patrol in front of Pico House’s north end at the beginning of 1992’s Lethal Weapon 3.

That same year, Pico House’s southern side masqueraded as Hotel Brian in 19th Century San Francisco where Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) tried to secure lodging in the Season 5 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation titled “Time’s Arrow: Part 1.”

The building situated adjacent to Pico House at 425 North Los Angeles Street also appeared as 19th Century San Francisco in the episode.

In real life, that structure (pictured below) houses the Chinese American Museum.

In the Season 1 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Machismo,” which aired in 2006, the south side of Pico House . . .

. . . . as well as the interior courtyard portrayed a police station in Allende Del Sol, Mexico.

Beginning in 2008, the south end of the site was utilized regularly as Sacramento’s CBI Headquarters on the television series The Mentalist. Besides appearing in weekly establishing shots . . .

. . . some location filming also took place on the premises, as was the case with Season 1’s “Bloodshot.”

The building’s east side was even used to portray a nightclub in that particular episode.

JLS shot their 2009 music video for “Everybody in Love” in Pico House’s courtyard. You can watch the video here.

That same year, the courtyard situated just outside of Pico House’s north entrance appeared in the “ . . . if he’s not marrying you” vignette in He’s Just Not That Into You. The bit contains one of my favorite lines from the movie – “The second you hear that, you just run to the store and get yourself some ribs and some ice cream, because you have been dumped!” You can watch the hilarious segment here.

The Ghost Adventures crew investigates paranormal happenings related to an 1871 race riot in which 19 people were killed at Pico House in the Season 4 episode titled “Pico House Hotel,” which aired in 2011.

In the 2016 drama Live by Night, Pico House’s courtyard appears as the hospital where Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck) recovers from a beating.

The Chinese American Museum also pops up in the movie as the spot where Joe and his crew rob card players during a high stakes poker game.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Pico House, aka Sam and Patti’s apartment from My Sister Sam, is located at 424 North Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. The site is part of El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Monument. Several areas of the monument have appeared onscreen, including the Old Plaza, located just north of Pico House at 1 Olvera Street, and the historic Olvera Street outdoor marketplace, the entrance to which is just beyond the Plaza. Union Station, another popular filming locale, can be found directly across the street at 800 North Alameda Street.

February 28, 2018
Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant from “Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed!”

They say you should always listen to your mother. It’s good advice. Case in point – about a decade ago, while stalking in Studio City, my mom, my dad, the Grim Cheaper and I passed by Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard and decided to pop in for a bite. During our meal, my mom encouraged me to take photos of the place as she figured it had likely been utilized for filming at some point or had a celebrity connection. I spent the next couple of minutes bothering the staff with inquiries about shoots on the premises, but no one was aware of any. I snapped a few pictures regardless, but never did further research on the subject. Flash forward to last month. On the advice of my good friend/fellow 90210 aficionado Mike, from MovieShotsLA, I ordered a copy of the book Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed!, an authorized behind-the-scenes look at the series and its stars written by Bart and Nancy Mills in 1991. When I got to the chapter on Jason Priestley and read the words, “He is all smiles and apologies as he arrives at Art’s Deli half an hour late because work had detained him,” I just about fell over! Oh, how right my mom was! Not only does the restaurant have a celebrity connection, but to my favorite show of all time, no less! I was so thankful I had taken some pics of the place! The only trouble was that when I went to locate the shots, they were nowhere to be found. Fortunately, the GC and I had to head out to Burbank for an IKEA run last week, so we made a pit stop at Art’s while in the area.

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Art’s was established by New York native Art Ginsburg, who moved to Los Angeles as a teen and spent his junior college years learning the ins and outs of sandwich-making while working at a deli owned by his cousin. Armed with $3,000, a collection of family recipes, and the support of his then girlfriend/later wife Sandy, he purchased a small Studio City eatery boasting a scant three and a half booths and twelve counter seats and opened it as Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant on June 22nd, 1957.

Art’s quickly developed into an area staple, popular with locals, tourists and celebrities alike who flocked to the deli in droves for its authentic Jewish delicacies, homemade soups, and spectacular sandwiches. It is the latter that the site became most famous for. Considering the restaurant boasts the tagline “Where every sandwich is a work of Art,” that is no surprise. Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold had this to say about the Reuben:, “Sometimes I suspect Ginsburg studies the Reuben the way other great scholars parse the Talmud — adjusting proportions, strength of dressing and sharpness of cheese, crunchiness and ooziness, sweet and tart, until the sandwich speaks simply if profoundly on its own. Art’s is a good deli, but after the Reuben, all else is commentary.” I did not sample that particular offering while there, but instead opted for the Turkey Club (with turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato on sourdough – along with added cheddar cheese) and it was honestly one of the best sandwiches I have ever had in my life. I can count on one hand the delis I would travel great distances to visit and Art’s is now on that list! (The others are Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese in Windsor Square, Sweet Lady Jane in Santa Monica and Sherman’s Deli & Bakery in Palm Springs.)

Thanks to the restaurant’s massive popularity, it was not long before Art’s needed to expand. The site has actually been enlarged four times throughout its sixty-year run, taking over five neighboring storefronts in the process, and its patronage only continues to grow. Today, the deli seats 170 – and is typically packed at most hours.

Art’s has also undergone a complete reconstruction. While it survived the Northridge earthquake of 1994 with only a cracked wall, it succumbed to a massive electrical fire caused by an aftershock early the following morning. There was never any doubt that Ginsburg would rebuild, though. As he told the Los Angeles Times the day after the blaze, “The sign has been up there since 1957; it’s still up there and it’s going to stay up there.” It took nine months to bring the eatery back to life, during which time the surrounding stores felt the brunt of the closure. According to a different Times article, “By some merchants’ estimates, business on the block is down 40% since Art’s 1,000 customers a day stopped walking off their meals by window shopping along Ventura Boulevard.” When the deli’s doors re-opened on October 19th, patrons were lined up outside anxiously awaiting their reunion with the best sandwiches in town. Art’s has been going strong ever since. According to a 1999 LA Weekly article, each week the restaurant goes through 1,000 pounds of corned beef, 4,800 bagels, and 480 pounds of turkey!

Ginsburg himself was just as much a pillar of the community as his restaurant. He not only founded the city’s business improvement district, but also sat on the board of the Los Angeles Valley College Foundation. Even after retiring in 2010 due to health issues, Art would still pop into the restaurant on a daily basis to hold court with his regulars. When he passed away in 2013, the entire neighborhood mourned. Ginsburg’s son, Harold, carries on Art’s vision today, running the eatery with the same aplomb and conviction as his father.

Thanks to Art’s gregariousness and the restaurant’s proximity to a multitude of studios, the place has long been a celebrity haven. Just a few of the luminaries who have been spotted dining on the premises include Delta Burke, Gerald McRaney, Tori Spelling, Leah Remini, Steve Martin, Rob Lowe, John Landis, Lew Wasserman, Ed Asner, Mickey Rooney, Richard Dreyfuss, Jaime Pressly, Ashley Tisdale, Sara Gilbert, Tom Green, Jonah Hill, Zoey Deutch, Lea Thompson, Howard Deutch, Sarah Silverman, and Justin Theroux. Billy Wilder even hung out there in Art’s early days. And in 2011, the deli was the site of an informal reunion for several St. Elsewhere cast members including Ed Begley Jr. and Abby Singer.

One of the most famous movies of the ‘80s was even born over breakfast at the deli. One morning in May 1983, Ivan Reitman, an Art’s regular, met up with Dan Aykroyd at the eatery to discuss a futuristic sci-fi flick the comedian was writing about teams of men who fought ghosts in outer space. As Ivan explained to The Hollywood Reporter of their talk that day, “I said, ‘Look, I love this idea that there are people whose job is to catch ghosts and act like firemen. But it should have a contemporary setting, a big city that we know, like New York. There’s something [better] about seeing apparitions in a context that we understand, like in our living rooms or on our city streets, rather than in a void in outer space in the future sometime. He said, ‘That’s cool.’ And I said, ‘Actually, the story of their formation would be good.’ And I pitched this idea that these guys were paranormal investigators — like, looking at paranormal studies at a university in some kind of postgraduate study program. They get in trouble, they get kicked out, and then they fortuitously set up a business. That was what I pitched at this breakfast and he said, ‘That’s all cool.’” The result of that meeting was, of course, Ghostbusters.

For his Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed! interview, Jason Priestley chooses to meet with the authors at Art’s, a favorite deli of his that sits in close proximity to the studio where the series was shot. While there, over a meal of matzo ball soup and a bagel with a pickle on the side, he discusses his journey to becoming a household name through his iconic role of Minnesota teen transplant Brandon Walsh. The eatery is referred to by name several times in the book and figures prominently in the chapter on Priestley. One passage reads, “Sitting in Art’s Deli on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles, Jason racks his memory to come up with a reason why he chose his life’s work while he still had his baby teeth. To help himself think, he dunks his pickle in his soup.” I find it so incredible – and fabulous – that the restaurant is still in operation thirty years after that interview took place!

As my mom suspected, Art’s is also a filming location!

In the Season 5 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee titled “Happy Thanksgiving, Miranda,” which aired in 2014, Jerry Seinfeld takes Amanda Sings (Colleen Ballinger) for a Thanksgiving meal at Art’s Deli. The exterior . . .

. . . and interior were utilized in the filming.

Chelsea Handler dined with members of ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) at Art’s Deli in the Season 1 episode of Chelsea titled “I Was a Ticking Time Bomb,” which aired in 2016. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior of the place appeared in the episode.

Sandy Wexler (Adam Sandler) drives past Art’s in a very brief scene near the end of the 2017 Netflix original movie Sandy Wexler.

According to our server, Guy Fieri also recently filmed something at Art’s, but I am unsure of exactly what.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant, where Jason Priestley’s interview for the book Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed! took place, is located at 12224 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

February 14, 2018
Bookstar from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

I have certainly been revisiting the past lately, as evidenced here, here, and here. Maybe it has something to do with nostalgia hitting me after our recent move. Whatever the reason, here I am yet again with yet another redux. Today’s locale is a favorite, one that I originally covered in May 2008 – Bookstar, a former-theatre-turned-Barnes-&-Noble in Studio City. Back in 1991, when the venue was operating as Mann’s Studio Theatre, Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) took Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) there for their first date in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Isn’t It Romantic?” While I have visited the unique book shop countless times over the years, it was not until last December when I came across this post on Scouting Los Angeles (if you are not familiar with Scouting Los Angeles or its sister blog Scouting New York, be sure to check them out – they are hands-down two of the very best location sites out there!) that I realized how much of the property’s original theatrical detailing remains intact. So I decided I just had to re-stalk the place and do another, more extensive write-up on it.

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Originally established as the Studio City Theatre by the Laurel Theatres company, the understated Streamline Moderne-style structure was designed by architect Clifford A. Balch of Magnolia Theatre fame. The 65-foot wide, 881-seat, single-screen venue celebrated its grand opening on June 11th, 1938 with a showing of MGM’s Test Pilot. You can check out a photograph of the movie house shortly before it opened its doors here and another photo here taken in 1946 by which point its ticket booth had been overhauled and made more ornate.

The arena hit a hiccup almost immediately. Per the Los Angeles Movie Palaces website, Laurel Theatres sued Fox West Coast for excluding them from various distributions just a few weeks after the opening. The lawsuit turned out to be rather ironic considering the fact that Fox (a division of the National General Pictures conglomerate) wound up managing the venue for many years after the Laurel Theatres group bowed out. During Fox’s tenure, the site was known as Fox Studio City Theatre. In 1973, when Mann Theatre Corporation took over the cinema portion of National General Pictures, which included the Studio City movie house, it was renamed Mann’s Studio Theatre.

Sadly, by 1990 the ever-growing popularity of multiplexes had caused patronage of Mann’s Studio Theatre to wane. The company chose not to renew their lease and the venue was shuttered in February 1991. Instead of selling to developers as many locals feared, the site’s longtime owners, the Rothman family, decided to bring in a tenant that would not only take advantage of the place’s history, but also preserve its aesthetic. The Rothmans’ real estate broker Bruce Bailey told the Los Angeles Times that despite generous offers from several builders, “they won’t change the property unless it is falling down. They are against mini-malls. They like the look of Studio City. They’ve had tenants ask if they could clear a portion and they won’t do it.” Those words are absolute music to my ears! I wish more Los Angeles building owners shared that sentiment. The Rothmans wound up finding exactly what they were looking for in Bookstar, a division of Barnes & Noble that had refurbished San Diego’s Loma Theatre into a book shop the year prior. The result of the company’s efforts is a fabulous amalgamation of cinema and print. Though the theatre’s lobby appointments and auditorium seating are now gone, pretty much every other original detail remains intact.

That detailing includes the colorful exterior terrazzo flooring;

the gilded ticket booth;

the marquee and “Studio City” signage;

the ceiling lip above the former concessions stand, as well as the columns that flanked it (which you’ll see some screen captures of in a bit);

the movie screen;

the ceiling art;

and the projection booth, which, per Scouting Los Angeles, now houses the store’s offices.

Paying homage to its original incarnation, all of Bookstar’s signage boasts cinematic and Art Deco styling.

It is easily one of the most unique spots to shop in L.A.

Movie magic between the stacks!

Mann’s Studio Theatre pops up three times in “Isn’t It Romantic?” At the beginning of the episode, Brenda tags along with her twin brother, Brandon (Jason Priestley), and his BFF Dylan for a showing of Animal Crackers at the venue. Watching the show, you can really get a feel for how little the space has changed since Bookstar took over. As I mentioned above, though the concession stand has been removed, the pillars that once flanked it as well as the curved ceiling lip above it remain in place.

Even the decorative outline carvings on the ceiling are still intact!

The staircase visible to the right of the concession stand in the scene also remains, but is now largely obscured by displays.

A better view of it is pictured below.

Later in “Isn’t It Romantic?”, Dylan, Brenda, and Brandon make plans to catch another Marx Brothers movie at Mann’s Studio Theatre, but Brandon gets sick, leaving Brenda to go out with Dylan alone, much to her father, Jim Walsh’s (James Eckhouse), chagrin.

While waiting in line for tickets, the two decide to, as Dylan says, “shine on the movie” and instead go back to his suite at the L’Ermitage, where they kiss for the first time.

Something I’ve always found amusing about the scene is that the establishing footage of the theatre shown in it is actually re-used from the third segment of the episode that takes place at Mann’s. Though you don’t see her from the front, Brenda is visible pacing away from the camera in the fabulous navy and pink outfit she wears for her date with Dylan in the later scene.

In the theatre’s third “Isn’t It Romantic?” appearance, Dylan and Brenda make another date to see another Marx Brothers flick at the cinema, but, devastatingly, he stands her up, leaving her to pace in front of the venue for hours until the movie lets out. Brenda is so upset over the experience that she stays home from school the following Monday. Have no fear, though – it all works out in the end. Well, until that little home-wrecker Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) steps in and ruins things in Season 3. But I digress.

It is so amazing that despite the changeover from theatre to bookstore and the passage of almost thirty years, the locale looks pretty much just as it did when the episode was filmed.

Bookstar has popped up in a couple of other productions, as well. It appears as the the theatre “near Olympic and Western” where Sergeant Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Officer Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) investigate a juvenile assault with a deadly weapon at the beginning of the Season 2 episode of Dragnet titled “The Grenade,” which aired in 1967. Only the exterior of the venue was utilized in the scene. Interiors were filmed on a set.

Thanks to fellow stalker Al, I learned that the site is featured in Wang Chung’s 1985 “Fire in the Twilight” music video, which you can watch here.

The theatre is also seen very briefly in the 1988 comedy Earth Girls Are Easy in the scene in which Wiploc (Jim Carrey) meets some “Finland babes” while cruising Ventura Boulevard.

Jerry Seinfeld and Miranda Sings (Colleen Ballinger) briefly park in front of Bookstar at the end of the Season 5 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee titled “Happy Thanksgiving, Miranda,” which aired in 2014.

According to commenter YMike on the Cinema Treasures blog, Mann’s Studio Theatre also appears in an episode of the 1985 version of The Twilight Zone television series. I am unsure of which episode, though, and scanned through a copious amount of them in preparation for today’s post, but did not see it pop up anywhere. If anyone happens to know, please fill me in!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Bookstar, from the “Isn’t It Romantic?” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 12136 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the shop’s official website here.

February 9, 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.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

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.

January 22, 2018
The SmokeHouse Restaurant from “Lucifer”

Hollywood loves a redux. So do I, apparently, because here I am yet again with yet another location re-do! (For those who missed it, I penned a second post on the Simpson family home from She’s Out of Control last week.) Today’s blog is actually my third go-around with this particular spot (you can read my first two blurbs on it here and here), but when I saw the legendary SmokeHouse restaurant pop up in a rather lengthy segment of the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “The Sinnerman” early last December, I knew I had to revisit the place once again. So here goes.

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Originally established in 1946, the SmokeHouse (which is also referred to as the “Smoke House”) is about as Old Hollywood as it gets!

The eatery, founded by Lockheed engineers Jim Stockton and Jack Monroe, was initially situated at the corner of North Pass Avenue and West Riverside Drive in Burbank. That location, a small 46-seat space, is pictured below via a still from a video made about the restaurant called Tales from the Smoke House.

The site, which became known for serving “fine food at a fair price,” proved so popular right out of the gate that a mere two years later Stockton and Monroe started looking for a larger venue. They found one just a half a mile south in the form of the Red Coach Inn, a 6,000-square-foot Tudor-style eatery that actor Danny Kaye had built in 1947, but never opened. The partners purchased the building in 1948 and it still serves as the home of the Smoke House today.

By 1955, the restaurant once again found itself bursting at the seams, so architect Wayne McAllister (of Bob’s Big Boy and George’s 50’s Diner fame) was hired to create a 12,000-square-foot expansion. Since that time, very little of the place has been altered. Stepping inside is like entering a portal that leads straight back to the heydays of Hollywood.

Inside, dark wood paneling, exposed brickwork, red leather booths, and dimly-lit sconces stretch as far as the eye can see.

As I said earlier, the SmokeHouse couldn’t be more Old Hollywood if it tried.

It is just the sort of spot I imagine Frank Sinatra dropping by for a martini after playing a set at the Hollywood Bowl – which isn’t actually a stretch. Old Blue Eyes was such a fan of the place that the restaurant named a dish after him! (If you would like to partake, Steak Sinatra features tender cuts of filet mignon sautéed with bell peppers, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes and red wine, served over linguini.) Frank is hardly the SmokeHouse’s only celebrity patron, though. Thanks to its fabulous food and proximity to several studios, it quickly became a stomping ground for the Tinseltown elite. In Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, author Richard Alleman dubs the eatery the “unofficial commissary” of Warner Bros., which is situated right across the street. In its early days, luminaries such as Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Milton Berle, Jack Paar, Walt Disney, James Dean, Burt Ives, Robert Redford, and Garry Marshall regularly stopped by.

In more recent years, such celebs as Britney Spears, Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Madonna, Taylor Swift, and Evan Handler have all been spotted at the SmokeHouse. During the ‘90s, the cast of Friends regularly dined on the premises on taping days. And George Clooney became such a fan of the place while shooting ER at the WB that he named his production company Smoke House Pictures in homage to the restaurant.

It is not just stars who love the place. Thanks to its old school aesthetic and Anywhere, U.S.A-appeal, location managers have flocked to the SmokeHouse over the years.

In the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Move On,” which aired in 2005, the SmokeHouse masks as the karaoke restaurant where Julie Mayer’s (Andrew Bowen) birthday party is held.

Gil Grissom (William Peterson) and Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) interrogate Lois O’Neill (Faye Dunaway) at the SmokeHouse in the Season 6 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Kiss Kiss, Bye Bye,” which aired in 2006.

In the Season 5, 2008 episode of Entourage titled “Pie,” Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) meets his old friend Andrew Klein (Gary Cole) for lunch at the restaurant.

In one of its most notable roles, the SmokeHouse portrays the Niagara Falls hotel restaurant/bar where the Dunder Mifflin gang hangs out while in town for Jim Halpert (John Krasinksi) and Pam Beesly’s (Jenna Fischer) wedding in the Season 6 episodes of The Office titled “Niagara: Part 1” and “Niagara: Part 2,” which aired in 2009.

In “Niagara: Part 1,” the couple’s rehearsal dinner takes place in the SmokeHouse’s back room.

Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) and John Chambers (John Goodman) discuss making their fake movie over a meal at the SmokeHouse in the 2012 drama Argo.

The SmokeHouse’s interior appears as the inside of Lipton’s, the restaurant where Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) plays the piano at the beginning of 2016’s La La Land. (The exterior of Lipton’s can be found about four miles away in Hollywood – at 1648 Wilcox Avenue, to be exact.)

Chloe Decker (Lauren German) and Marcus Pierce (Tom Welling) finally capture the supposed Sinnerman killer during a sting operation at the SmokeHouse in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “The Sinnerman.” For those who are unfamiliar with the series, I highly recommend a watch. The Grim Cheaper and I got majorly hooked on it from the start. Besides fabulous stories, witty writing and a stand-up cast, the police procedural boasts a highly unique lead character – the devil. Like the actual devil – Lucifer Morningstar (played perfectly by Tom Ellis), who, weary of his long banishment in hell, decides to head to L.A. for a little reprieve. He takes to the City of Angels and all of its hedonistic tendencies quite quickly and it isn’t long before he makes his stay permanent. Through a twist of fate, he begins helping the LAPD solve crimes, eventually taking a day job as a sort of police consultant. It is hilarious, completely irreverent, and hands-down one of the best shows on television right now.

In the most recent episode of All Rise titled “Dripsy,” Mark Callan (Wilson Bethel) witnesses his dad Vic’s (Tony Denison) arrest during what is supposed to be a reconcillation dinner at the SmokeHouse.

Though a few websites claim that the SmokeHouse portrays Joey’s Slammer, the Italian joint belonging to Joseph DiMinna (Michael Ansara), in the Season 2 episode of The Rockford Files titled “Joey Blue Eyes,” that information is incorrect. As a commenter named Brian clarified on the Rockford Files Filming Locations blog, the restaurant scenes were actually shot at Martoni Marquis, formerly located at 8240 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can check out some great photos of the place when it was still in operation here.

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 SmokeHouse, from “The Sinnerman” episode of Lucifer, is located at 4420 Lakeside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

January 19, 2018
Barnsdall Art Park from “Big Little Lies”

The Grim Cheaper is easily the most creative gift-giver I know. Not only does he find incredibly thoughtful presents, but he always comes up with highly unique ways of presenting them. I have only ever managed to match his ingenuity on rare occasions – one being Valentine’s Day 2011 when I created a scavenger hunt around Los Angeles during which he solved clues that disclosed GPS coordinates of spots I thought he would enjoy visiting. The hunt included stops at Grub Restaurant, LACMA, Boardner’s of Hollywood, the HMS Bounty Bar and Restaurant, Annenberg Space for Photography, and Barnsdall Art Park. The latter, a sprawling esplanade situated atop a hill in East Hollywood, boasts two of the largest staircases I’ve ever seen in my life – one leading from the lower parking lot to the northern side of the property and the other situated next to the complex’s Junior Art Center building on its eastern end. While exploring, the GC and I climbed both, much to my chagrin. (I’ve never been one for exercise, especially on a holiday.) They were so long and daunting that images of them have remained ingrained in my mind ever since. So when Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) was shown scaling the Junior Art Center steps in the second episode of Big Little Lies, titled “Serious Mothering,” I recognized them immediately. I was floored when Barnsdall popped up multiple times in later episodes of the 2017 HBO series, most notably the finale in which it played a major role. Though I mentioned the park’s use on the show in my post about Big Little Lies filming locations last April, I figured it was high time I get back out there to do a proper stalk and proper post about the place.

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Barnsdall Art Park is the brainchild of Aline Barnsdall, a wealthy Chicago oil heiress who came to California hoping to establish a community center that would serve as the headquarters for her theatre company. After purchasing a 36-acre site atop Hollywood’s Olive Hill, she hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design a complex consisting of a theatre, studio space, dorms for actors, homes for visiting directors, and a massive private residence for herself on the vast property. It was Wright’s first Los Angeles commission.

Aline’s home, which became the park’s centerpiece, was designed with Mayan and Japanese influences in a style that Wright dubbed “California Romanza.”

The dwelling was named “Hollyhock House” in honor of Barnsdall’s favorite flower, the hollyhock, which Wright incorporated heavily into his creation.

The unique poured concrete structure, made to take advantage of the idyllic outdoor landscape surrounding it, is quite striking, with a look that bears more resemblance to an ancient temple than a residence.

As noted by Alice T. Friedman in her book Women and the Making of the Modern House, “The project on which Wright and Barnsdall collaborated between 1915 and 1923 represents one of the most unusual challenges Wright encountered during his long career, since it called for a rethinking of building types and particularly of notions concerning house design, family life, and domesticity. Barnsdall’s Hollyhock House, the most important piece of that project to survive, was a house built not for the private life of a family but as a residential centerpiece in a public garden and theater complex; its large, formal spaces and evident lack of domestic feeling reflect this program. Yet in rejecting the conventions of domestic planning and searching for an unusual hybrid type, architect and client were free to push the boundaries of architecture to new limits, focusing on theatricality, on the experience of monumental form, and on the vividness of the landscape as it was framed and defined by the house.”

Even before construction had started, Aline referred to the complex as an “art park,” where, as again stated in Women and the Making of the Modern House, “Not only would theater patrons be encouraged to stroll outside during long intermissions, but there would also be a roof garden for ‘afternoon teas and theater suppers’ and extensive gardens for the use of the public.” Sadly, and for numerous reasons, one of which was an ongoing discord with Wright, only three of the intended structures were completed. It would be several decades before Barnsdall’s vision of a community “art-theater garden” came to be.

Though Aline attempted to donate Hollyhock House and the eight acres surrounding it to the city in 1923, her offer was refused. The generous bequest was eventually accepted in December 1926 and Barnsdall Art Park was born. It was not until 1971, though, a full 45 years later, that a theatre and art gallery (the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre and Los Angles Municipal Art Gallery, respectively) were built at the site. In an interview that took place in 1919, long before her home had been completed, the heiress said, “I propose to keep my gardens always open to the public that this sightly spot may be available to those lovers of the beautiful who come here to view sunsets, dawn on the mountains and other spectacles of nature, visible in few other places in the heart of the city.” Her words were finally a reality.

Barnsdall Art Park’s vistas are, indeed, spectacular and rare. Even the Hollywood Sign can be viewed from the property’s expansive lawn . . .

. . . as can the Griffith Observatory.

The park is a fabulous place to spend a sunny afternoon. With its shaded central courtyard, grassy terrace, theatre showings, art gallery exhibitions, countless offerings of art workshops for both children and adults, and self-guided and docent-led tours of Hollyhock House, the possibilities for both activity and leisure are endless.

In Big Little Lies, Barnsdall Art Park masks as the supposed Monterey-area community theatre where Madeline works.

Several times throughout the series she is seen walking up the massive, always under-repair set of stairs leading to the theatre.

As I mentioned earlier, Madeline’s staircase can be found on the east side of the park, adjacent to the Junior Art Center.

The steps are easily the most recognizable of the many Barnsdall locations used on Big Little Lies.

Definitively dramatic, it is not very hard to see how they came to be adopted as a focal point on the series.

Big Little Lies also utilized the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre.

The venue’s interior is where the Avenue Q rehearsals and performance took place. You can check out photos of the inside of the space here.

For the theatre’s exterior, though, producers instead chose to film the outside of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, which is situated just north of the Gallery Theatre.

The park’s tree-lined central courtyard makes several appearances on the series. Not only is Madeline shown walking on one of its pathways on her way to work in “Serious Mothering” . . .

. . . but the Trivia Night costume party in the finale, titled “You Get What You Need,” takes place there.

The red carpet that party attendees walk down on Trivia Night . . .

. . . which is the same one shown in the series’ opening credits, was set up on a pathway on the northern side of the courtyard. Said pathway runs through the center of the courtyard and abuts the double set of stairs situated between the Hollyhock House Garage and the Municipal Art Gallery.

That double set of stairs served as the Trivia Night valet drop-off in “You Get What You Need.”

It, too, was affixed with a red carpet for the shoot.

The Trivia Night stage, where Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott) so movingly sang “The Wonder of You” (fun fact – that was actually the voice of the Villagers’ Conor O’Brien you heard in the scene) was actually just the heavily-dressed exterior of the Municipal Art Gallery.

For the episode, the structure’s portico was draped with material, stung with lights, and affixed with a small stage.

In real life, it is almost unrecognizable from its “You Get What You Need” appearance. In fact, it was so heavily dressed, it took me quite a while to figure out the stage’s exact position in the scene.

The stairs that figure so prominently in the series’ climax are the very same ones that Madeline regularly climbed.

The landing where the killing took place is situated in between the staircase’s two main flights, next to the western-most Junior Art Center building.

A couple of other productions have also made use of Barnsdall Art Park. Thanks to fellow stalker Gilles, I learned that the Municipal Art Gallery was utilized in establishing shots of the Colby Collection on the 1980s series The Colbys.

In 1989’s ridiculously-named Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (and yes, that is a real movie!), Hollyhock House masks as the “secret temple of the Piranha Women.” (I swear, I’m not joking!)

Upon first approaching it in the film, Dr. Margo Hunt (Shannon Tweed) says “Their architecture is surprisingly advanced,” to which Jim (Bill Maher) responds, “It looks like a big Lego to me.”

As I mentioned in a 2015 article for Los Angeles magazine, a Season 2 episode of True Detective was shot at the park. In the episode, titled “Maybe Tomorrow,” Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) interrogates prostitutes he comes across in Barnsdall’s lower parking lot for information about a missing city manager.

Wills Reid’s intro package for the most recent season of Bachelor in Paradise was also shot at Barnsdall.

Though IMDB says that Hollyhock House was featured in Dirty Love, I scanned through the 2005 comedy and didn’t see it anywhere.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Barnsdall Art Park, from Big Little Lies, is located at 4800 Hollywood Boulevard in East Hollywood. You can visit the park’s official website here. As denoted in the graphic below, the stairs Madeline regularly walks up, which is also where the series’ climax takes place, can be found in the eastern portion of the property, adjacent to the Junior Art Center. The exterior of the community theatre where Madeline works, which is also where the Trivia Night stage was set up, is the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in the center of the park. Theatre interiors, where the Avenue Q performance was held, were shot inside the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, which is situated next to and just south of the Art Gallery. The Trivia Night valet drop-off stairs can be found at the northern end of the park, adjacent to the Hollyhock Garage. The Trivia Night red carpet, aka the opening credits red carpet, was set up on the pathway that runs just south of the stairs and through the center of the central courtyard.

January 17, 2018
Emerson College Los Angeles from “Scandal”

Despite the fact that I live in Palm Springs, I tend to think of myself as having my finger on the pulse of L.A. But when penning A Film Lover’s Guide to Tomorrow’s Movie Location Stars for Los Angeles magazine in 2015, I overlooked two key spots, which I hope speaks more to the vast landscape of the city than it does to my lack of awareness. Though I noted Wilshire Grand Center, Hollenbeck Community Police Station, 8500, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, and the revamped Grand Central Air Terminal as the then newly-constructed sites I thought location managers would soon be flocking to, I somehow failed to include The Broad, a contemporary art museum in DTLA with a highly unusual perforated exterior, and Emerson College Los Angeles, an arts and communication school in Hollywood with a campus the Times deemed “a futuristic complex of aluminum and glass.” I actually did not become aware of the latter until watching the Season 5 episode of Scandal titled “Pencils Down” in March 2016, a full two years after its completion.

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In “Pencils Down,” Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) clandestinely meets up with Alex Vargas (Danny Pino) outside of the supposed Washington, D.C.-area venue where Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) and Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani) are participating in their first presidential debate. One look at the staggering wall of geometric panels pictured in the background of the scene and the dramatic vistas shown in wide shots and I was transfixed. I promptly paused my DVR and began trying to figure out where filming had taken place. Because Scandal shoots in L.A., I knew the locale had to be somewhere within the thirty-mile-zone, though I was certain I had never come across it in any of my stalking travels. So I did a Google search for “new modern building” and “Los Angeles” and pored through the countless images that were kicked back until finally landing upon one of Emerson College that matched what I had seen onscreen. Pulling up additional photos of the campus only served to make me more obsessed with the place. Though I immediately added the school to my To-Stalk list, it was not until this past December that I finally made it out there. Thankfully, Emerson, or ELA as it is also called, was worth the wait.

Construction on the 107,000-square-foot, 10-story, $110-million structure began in 2012 and grew out of a need for a more permanent place for the Boston-based Emerson to house and teach students in its semester-abroad program – abroad in this case being Hollywood.

The program, originally established in the 1980s, allows for participants to not only spend a semester studying in the show business capital of the world, but to also participate in invaluable internships at places like MTV, Comedy Central, and E! Entertainment. With no West Coast home base to call its own, students were originally taught in leased space in Universal City and put up in furnished units at the Oakwood at Toluca Hills by Avalon complex in Burbank. That all changed when Emerson’s Hollywood campus was completed in early 2014.

The striking complex, situated on the site of a former Sunset Boulevard parking lot measuring a scant 0.80 acres, essentially consists of one large box-shaped building with an open center. Two residential towers housing 217 dorm rooms, as well as a few faculty apartments, make up the framework of the structure.

Common areas, which include classrooms, editing labs, two black box theatres, a screening room, a conference room, rehearsal space, and lecture halls, are situated in between the two towers.

To say the site, which is the brainchild of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne of the Morphosis architecture firm, is dramatic would be an understatement.

As ELA’s founding director (and the executive producer of Friends!) Kevin Bright said of the structure, “I don’t care whether you walk around it or drive by it or you see it from a distance; the thing about this building is it demands your attention.”

I’ve honestly never seen anything quite like it.

Considering the building’s completely unique and dramatic aesthetic, it is no surprise that location scouts came a-calling pretty much immediately.

As this ArchDaily article puts it, “Looking to the local context, the center finds a provocative precedent in the interiority of Hollywood film studios, where outwardly regular facades house flexible, fantastical spaces within. With rigging for screens, media connections, sound, and lighting incorporated into the framework, the upper platform serves as a flexible armature for outdoor performances, transforming the undulating scrim into a dynamic visual backdrop. The entire building becomes a stage set for student films, screenings, and industry events, with the Hollywood sign, the city of Los Angeles, and the Pacific Ocean in the distance providing added scenery.” The place truly is a location manager’s dream.

Besides appearing in the scene in which Olivia and Alex exchange damaging information on rival presidential candidates in “Pencils Down” . . .

. . . one of Emerson’s residential hallways served as the spot where Susan breaks up with her cheating boyfriend David Rosen (Joshua Malina).

At the beginning of the Season 1 episode of Extant titled “More in Heaven and Earth,” which aired in 2014, ELA portrays the upscale The Villas condominium building where Molly Woods (Halle Berry) attempts to question Derek Pearce (Rocco Vienhage) about the Aruna mission.

Molly returns to The Villas in a later scene only to discover that Derek has died, the victim of an apparent suicide.

Julie Gelineau (Grace Gummer) and Odim James (Charlie Bewley) also dine on the premises in “More in Heaven and Earth.” In the episode, the two share a meal at Emerson Kitchen, a restaurant that was formerly located on the college’s ground floor. Today that space houses Homeward Ground.

On The Catch, a now defunct series that aired on ABC from 2016 to 2017, ELA appeared regularly as the exterior of the Anderson/Vaughan Investigations office.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Emerson College Los Angeles, from the “Pencils Down” episode of Scandal, is located at 5960 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the school’s official website here.

January 12, 2018
Rise N Grind from “Veep”

I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions. That being said, in 2018 I am hoping to regularly exercise, be kinder (to myself and others), drink more water and less champagne, and cut down on my daily latte regimen. The last one is going to be much easier said than done. No matter what, though, I will definitely not be cutting down on my stalking of coffee shops – that I can promise. One café that I recently visited was Hollywood’s Rise N Grind, which I became enamored with after it made a brief appearance in an episode of Veep.

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In Season 6’s “Georgia,” Catherine Meyer (Sarah Sutherland) and girlfriend Marjorie Palmiotti (Clea DuVall) meet with Dan Egan (Reid Scott) at a supposed New York coffee shop to ask if he would be willing to be their sperm donor. The encounter is extremely quick, as Dan readily agrees to the proposition – literally no questions asked.

Though I’ve always been prone to coffee shop adoration, the café that appeared in the episode intrigued me even more so than usual. I was immediately taken with the space’s modern décor. A black and white color schematic? A marquee “coffee” sign? Painted brickwork? Touches of wood throughout? Yes, yes, yes, and yes! The place couldn’t be any more “me” if it tried! So I, of course, set out on a mission to track it down.

While watching, I noticed what looked to be a menu board constructed out of skateboards in the background of the scene. So I did a Google search for “Los Angeles,” “coffee shop,” and “skateboards.” The second result kicked back was a listing for Rise N Grind located at 6501 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. One glimpse at the photographs of the place posted online told me it was the right spot. I ran out to stalk it just a short time later.

Opened in July 2014 by nightclub impresario Robert Vinokur, Rise N Grind is fairly new to the Hollywood coffee scene.

Situated inside of a corner building in the heart of Tinseltown, the site is easily one of the most artfully-decorated cafes I’ve ever visited.

Prior to opening, Vinokur completely and painstakingly re-designed the 7,000-square-foot, 2-story, 1994 building, which previously housed a designer suit outlet.

As writer Kim Sudhalter chronicled in a post for the Only in Hollywood blog while the space was being renovated, “Last month I drove up Wilcox and saw a crew of painters working on the building gracing the northwest corner of Wilcox and Hollywood, near my old office. As I got closer, I noticed they were carefully painting the face of each brick white, leaving the brick-colored mortar intact in between. I drove by several times in the next week and they were still at it . . . hand-painting bricks one by one. The final effect was so elegant I knew something special was happening.” Something special indeed! The white brick motif was carried out inside the café, as well, to stunning effect.

The result is a thoroughly modern venue that manages to be industrial, but wholly welcoming at the same time.

“Welcoming” is one of the key characteristics Vinokur hoped to embody in his design – a space where patrons could feel comfortable hanging out for hours on end. To that end, the café provides free WiFi, power outlets for customer use, a copious amount of seating, a large menu offering sandwiches, pastries, juices, and salads, and java specialties provided by Stumptown Coffee Roasters.

As described on LinkedIn, the site is a “laptop haven for all creative minds.”

Regarding the name, Rise N Grind, as Vinokur explained to the Los Angeles Times, is a play on both a motivated get-out-of-bed attitude and the city’s longstanding skateboard culture, which is paid homage to via the menu board I spotted in the background of Veep – a massive display of more than 150 decks displaying the store’s moniker and its many food and drink offerings.

While stalking the place, I, of course, had to partake of a latte and it was fabulous. Rise N Grind will definitely be a frequent stop whenever I find myself in Hollywood. Whoops – there I go, already abandoning that less-lattes-in-2018 plan!

Only the interior of Rise N Grind appeared on Veep. The exterior shots shown were of Orwashers, “New York’s Original Artisan Bakery,” at 440 Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. With its corner location and black and white façade, Orwashers does bear quite a resemblance to Rise N Grind, as you can see below.

Back in 2003, when the Rise N Grind site housed a clothing store named Roma, it appeared in the background of S.W.A.T., in the scene in which Alex Montel (Oliver Martinez) is captured by Jim Street (Colin Farrell) shortly after escaping from a police bus.

As you can see in the screen captures as compared to the photographs above and below, the building looked completely different – and much less attractive – at the time. The white brick edifice really suits 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: Rise N Grind, from the “Georgia” episode of Veep, is located at 6501 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the café’s official website here. Exterior footage from the episode was shot at Orwashers, located at 440 Amsterdam Avenue on New York’s Upper West Side. You can visit the bakery’s official website here.

January 8, 2018
Home Restaurant from “Raines”

Every once in a while a show comes along that immediately hooks me. Such was the case with Raines, an extremely short-lived police procedural boasting a scant seven-episode run. I was unaware of the NBC series at the time of its original airing in March 2007. In fact, I only learned of it this past October while doing research for my post on High Tower, the iconic Hollywood Hills campanile from Dead Again that, as I learned via IMDB, also had a prominent role in Raines’ pilot. I was thrilled to discover that the series is available to stream on Amazon and quickly downloaded the inaugural episode. Though I intended to only scan through it to make screen captures for my post, I instantly became intrigued, mainly due to the locations – one of which was an absolutely charming outdoor eatery that I fell in love with upon sight.

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The Raines pilot centers around the murder of beautiful young call girl Sandy Boudreau (Alexa Davalos). The lead cop assigned to solve her killing is Michael Raines (Jeff Goldblum), an eccentric LAPD detective with a unique method of talking to the dead victims he is investigating in order to close cases. (No, he doesn’t actually “see dead people” – the apparitions he encounters are merely figments of his imagination.) In one of the episode’s flashback scenes, Sandy is shown dining at an adorable café where she meets, and winds up dining with, a married man named Harry Tucker (Jeff Perry). One look at the restaurant’s unique signage reading “THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME” and idyllic front patio and I was smitten. I promptly halted my research on High Tower and instead switched my efforts to tracking the eatery down. Thankfully, a quick Google search of the terms “Home,” “restaurant,” and “Los Angeles” led me to the right spot – Home Restaurant at 1760 Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz. I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter.

Home Restaurant was originally established in 1997 by the husband-and-wife team of Aram and Rose Serobian.

More than twenty years later, the place is still going strong – though eagle-eyed viewers will notice the signage has changed a bit since Raines aired just over a decade ago.

Home has become such a success that the Serobians, who lived above the restaurant on the property’s second floor during its early days, have since opened two sister eateries – a second Home at 2500 Riverside Drive in Silverlake and H Coffee, a café situated next to the original Home at 1750 Hillhurst Avenue. (The couple just recently closed the latter to undergo a renovation and rebranding. It will open in January as Guest House.)

Nestled in amongst a canopy of trees, Home’s setting is absolutely magical.

In a 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement, Aram explained that he landed on his eatery’s name because “The word ‘home’ means everything in my culture, and almost everyone holds that idea and concept close to their hearts. So, I put my own heart and soul into this restaurant and see the customers as guests in my own house. It’s about feeling welcome and comfortable, being able to get away from the often-hectic nature of Los Angeles. If everyone can walk in and feel like they’re part of a family, even for just an hour, then I know it has been a success.” Aram can definitely pat himself on the back for a job well done because the restaurant truly does have the feel of a home – albeit the home of someone with impeccable taste in décor.

Situated around a sparkling fountain, with furniture made of reclaimed wood, the patio is especially inviting.

The restaurant also boasts an indoor dining room for those who do not want to eat amongst the elements, but, in my opinion, the patio is where it’s at.

Though neither the Grim Cheaper nor I are big breakfast people, we were both completely enamored with Home’s fare. I opted for the cafe’s California Omelette and it was hands-down one of the best omelets I’ve ever had in my life. The GC selected The All American, with eggs, pancakes, and bacon, and it, too, was fabulous.

Home’s prices are surprisingly reasonable, especially considering the fact that the place is not only a brunch hotspot and hipster haven, but the portion sizes are enormous.

The eatery is also something of a celeb magnet. Mark Ballas, Kristen Stewart, Katherine Heigl, Sophia Bush, Jon Foster, Rachel Bilson, and Audrina Patridge have all been spotted there.

Patridge likes the place so much, she even filmed a scene from her short-lived reality series Audrina there. In Episode 2, she meets with her sister Casey Loza at the restaurant to discuss their parents’ upcoming anniversary party.

Thanks to fellow stalker Ellie I learned that Home was also the spot where Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) met up with Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) at the end of the Season 1 episode of Grey’s Anatomy titled “No Man’s Land,” which aired in 2005.

And in the Season 2 episode of You titled “Just the Tip,” Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) spies on Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) and her friends at Home.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Home Restaurant, from the pilot episode of Raines, is located at 1760 Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

January 3, 2018
The Site of Sanford and Son Salvage from “Sanford and Son”

There’s pretty much nothing I relish more than diving into the nitty-gritty when proving or disproving a location – especially if that location is from an old production and/or is no longer in existence. I love the challenge of it. I recently had the pleasure of delving into one such case thanks to a fellow stalker named Dale who emailed me in October to ask if I had any information on Sanford and Son Salvage from Sanford and Son. I never watched the hit series, which ran on NBC from 1972 to 1977 (it was a bit before my time), but started looking into things and quickly came upon this thread about the locale on the Sitcoms Online Message Boards website. User shakespeares_bust started off the thread in August 2003 with the query, “Does anyone know the actual address of the exterior shot used for the opening of Sanford and Son?” It was not until eight years later that he finally got a definitive answer thanks to user Shady Grady who in November 2011 stated that the storefront was located at 10659 West Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood. When I inputted that address into Google Street View, though, it became apparent that the locale had either been greatly altered or demolished altogether and replaced with a new structure in the four-plus decades since filming took place. Thankfully, Shady Grady had pointed out some neighboring landmarks still currently standing to prove he had uncovered the right spot. I figured it was my duty to further his pursuit in a blog post, as well as dig into the history of the property. So here goes.

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For those who, like me, aren’t especially familiar with the series, Sanford and Son revolves around the curmudgeonly Fred G. Sanford (Redd Foxx) and his longsuffering son, Lamont (Demond Wilson), who run Sanford and Son Salvage, an extremely cluttered junkyard said to be located at 9114 South Central Avenue in Watts. The duo’s equally-cluttered home is situated directly behind the shop. Interestingly, though it is the sitcom’s main location, the exterior of Sanford and Son Salvage does not ever appear in establishing shots or in the midst of any of the show’s 136 episodes. The storefront only pops up in the opening credits (which you can watch here) . . .

. . . and the closing credits (which you can watch here).

The junkyard where each episode’s action takes place . . .

. . . and the adjacent exterior of the Sanfords’ home . . .

. . . as well as the ramshackle interior were nothing more than parts of an elaborate set built inside of a soundstage at NBC Studios (now The Burbank Studios) in Burbank where the series was lensed.

The storefront’s rather limited screen time did not provide many clues as to its whereabouts, making the job of tracking it down a laborious and lengthy one. Doing so was certainly a group effort on the part of the Sitcoms Online Message Boards users. Clarity on the subject started to take form in September 2003 when member pawson wrote in to say that the junkyard exteriors were shot on Magnolia Boulevard near Cartwright and Denny Avenues, though no proof or further information was given. It was not until user Retrotek posted a comment in April 2011 stating that the Sanford and Son Salvage location had also been featured in the Season 3 episode of Emergency! titled “Alley Cat” that some headway was made. Using pawson and Retrotek’s intel, Shady Grady began lining up elements of the Sanford and Son exterior with the “Alley Cat” junkyard and then matching those elements to current Street View images of the stretch of Magnolia between Denny and Cartwright. It wasn’t long before he landed on 10659 West Magnolia as the right spot.

Though the building at that address, which currently houses a plumbing service named Power Plumbing, is one story and rather small, it otherwise bears no resemblance to Sanford and Son Salvage. Enter Shady Grady once again. As I mentioned earlier, he graciously pointed out several landmarks seen in Sanford and Son and Emergency! to verify his find. I thought I’d take things one step further by providing some graphics to go along with his comments. I must apologize beforehand, though, as I did not snap any photos of the neighboring structures while I was stalking the place, so Google Street View imagery will have to suffice for this endeavor. I also have to take a moment to say a big thank you to fellow stalker Richard Yokley for the Emergency! screen captures that appear in this post. “Alley Cat,” which originally aired in 1973, is not available for streaming anywhere, so I called upon Richard, who is a huge fan of the series – he even penned the book Emergency!: Behind the Scene – to make some grabs of the episode for me and he happily obliged. Thank you, Richard!

In “Alley Cat,” the Squad 51 paramedics are called to a scrapyard to help a junk dealer who has gotten his foot stuck in a bear trap. Shady Grady explains that as the firefighters head to the scene “they pass an intersection, and a streetlight next to a power pole, then a vacant lot, then the store.” As the street sign visible in the background of the segment (denoted with blue arrows below) shows us, the intersection the rescuers drive through is that of Magnolia and Cahuenga. Amazingly, the 7-Eleven they pass (marked with pink arrows) is still there today, though its signage no longer looks as it did at the time of the filming.

When the paramedics exit their vehicle, a portion of the junkyard’s green, yellow and white awning is visible. That awning should be familiar to Sanford and Son fans. As Shady Grady notes, it is a perfect match to the S&S Salvage awning – even down to the bent grim trim!

Shady Grady goes on to say, “Pay attention to the buildings in the background and then go to the address above [10659 West Magnolia Boulevard] in Google Earth. As you look around in street view, you’ll see the stores across the street are still the same.” Though the corner building (denoted with pink arrows below) at 10626 West Magnolia looks a bit different today, it still bears the rounded shape it did on Emergency! The billboard seen in the episode (blue arrows), as well as the scaffold holding it (purple arrows) and the vacant area where it is situated are all direct matches to what appeared on “Alley Cat.” The overhang and door and window configuration of the building just east of the billboard (green arrows) at 10644 West Magnolia also remain frozen in time to when Emergency! was filmed.

When “Alley Cat” was shot, the junkyard was located next to an empty lot. That is now where the Actors Forum Theatre (10655 West Magnolia) stands. Adjacent to that was a thin one-story building (denoted with pink arrows below). That site now houses a Poquito Más outpost (10651 West Magnolia) and still looks much the same as it did onscreen in 1973. Across the street from that structure was some sort of auto supply store (blue arrows). Little of that spot has changed in the ensuing years. In fact, it is still home to an automotive store – San Fernando Tires & Wheels (10637 West Magnolia).

Shady Grady finishes up by saying, “Compare that to the opening credits of Sanford and Son and it falls into place. As Lamont pulls in the driveway, you can see a sign in front of the house, to the right of the driveway [pink arrow] and a power pole to the left of the driveway [blue arrow]. Both are in the Google earth photo.” The building with the angled overhang [purple arrow] seen in the background of the opening credits also remains the same today.

Being that the locale portrayed a junkyard in two different productions, I figured it was likely one in real life, too – at least at the time each was lensed. User waterguybob had written in to the message board in September 2014 to say that he had grown up three blocks away from 10659 West Magnolia and that it was indeed the site of Sanford and Son Salvage (he had even witnessed the filming!). While he said that the property housed a junkyard known as “Joe’s Junk Shop” during the shoot, I could not find any mentions of that name online or any definitive proof of his assertion – until I registered with newspapers.com, that is. Thanks to the incredible (albeit pricey!) stalking tool, I was able to uncover quite a bit of the locale’s history. Via the advertisement pictured below, which ran in the September 21st, 1967 issue of The Los Angeles Times, we know that 10659 Magnolia was the site of an actual junkyard at least as far back as that date, though it appears to have had no name at the time.

I hit pay dirt thanks to the October 8th, 1977 Valley News article below, which detailed the locale’s transition from a junkyard named “The Select Shoppe” into a theatre. Yep, you read that right. According to author Bobbi Zane, somewhere around late 1975, proprietor Joe Lawler turned his long-running scrapyard into a live performance venue known as the Junk Yard Theater. As Zane states, “He’d been donating props occasionally for various productions and his shop was well known to many actors. One day an actor strode into the shop and suggested, ‘Why don’t you make a theatre out of the junk yard?’ The idea struck home, and in short order Lawler had cleared the yard and had his first production underway. It was ‘Everybody Loves Opa [sic],’ appropriately concerning a man who runs a junk store.” Though the place still had the feel of a wrecking yard, with Zane stating “old furniture, bicycle parts, kitchen utensils, tools line the path every patron has to make his way through to get to the theater,” Lawler did add Astroturf, two fish ponds, and plenty of foliage, transforming the site into a “lovely” space.

I am unsure of what year the Junk Yard Theater shuttered, but per various newspapers ads and blurbs plays were running on the premises through October 1978.

I could not find any articles detailing the razing or remodeling of the site, so I next headed over to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety website to search building records and quickly discovered that the Sanford and Son Salvage storefront, along with the property next to it at 10661 West Magnolia, were demolished in March 1989. New structures were subsequently built in their place that same year. So while some have surmised that the locale might have merely been altered in the years since filming took place, I can safely – and sadly – say that is not the case. Sanford and Son Salvage no longer exists.

During my research, I came across the Sanford and Son publicity shot pictured below. (You can see similar images here, here, here, and here.) Interestingly, though a sign reading “Sanford and Son Salvage” is positioned on the fence, the photo was obviously not lensed at the Magnolia Boulevard location, being that no house was ever situated there. I am unsure of where exactly the picture was taken or why a different locale was used for it, but if anyone happens to know, please fill me in.

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Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Dale for asking me to look into this location and to fellow stalker Richard for providing the Emergency! screen captures.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The former site of the Sanford and Son house and junkyard can be found at 10659 West Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood. Sadly, the building was razed in 1989 and a new structure now stands in its place.

December 13, 2017