Category: TV Locations

Nicole Simpson’s Condo from “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”

Today’s location is one of the most interesting that I’ve ever uncovered! As I mentioned in Friday’s post about O.J. Simpson’s mansion from The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (which proved to be rather timely considering the “buried knife” story that was released that same day), the Grim Cheaper and I are hooked on the new FX series. Once I tracked down O.J.’s pad from the show, I set out to find the site that stood in for Nicole Brown Simpson’s condo. And what I discovered turned out to be pretty intriguing.

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Nicole’s former Brentwood condo was located at 875 South Bundy Drive (the address has since been changed, but more on that in a bit). It was there that her body and the body of her friend Ronald Goldman were found just after midnight on June 13th, 1994. The site became an instant macabre tourist attraction and though put up for sale in October of that same year, just a few months after the murders, it lingered on the market until finally being sold in 1997 for around $590,000 ($200,000 under the asking price). The new owner immediately set about remodeling the exterior of the 3,400-square-foot, three-story dwelling, which, according to a 1995 Los Angeles Times article, boasted 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces, several patios, and a rooftop sun deck. (The same article also states that Nicole put the property up for lease just days before her death, a factoid that was new to me.) In an effort to detract tourists, the front gate, walkway and entrance were drastically altered and the address was renumbered from 875 to 879. The condo was once again put up for sale in 2006 and sold for a whopping $1.7 million.

You can see a photo of what the exterior of Nicole’s condo previously looked like here. The residence is largely unrecognizable today, not to mention that the entryway is entirely covered over with foliage.

The GC and I visited the site way back in 2006 (it was for sale at the time, as you can see below) and the entryway was much more visible, though we did not take many photos of it.

The door to the neighboring unit, which was also altered after the murders and matches the layout of Nicole’s, is currently visible. You can see what it looks like below.

Not only was the condo’s address changed and the front entrance remodeled, but the walkway (where Nicole’s body was found) was actually moved. Comparison images taken of the walkway shortly after the murders in 1994 as compared to 2016 are pictured below.

More close-up comparison images are pictured below.

As you can see, the walkway was formerly situated just to the right of the large palm tree that stands in front of Nicole’s home. Today, the walkway is located to the left of that tree. The blue box in the lower photo denotes the previous site of the walkway. As you can also see below, the drainage pipe and utility access panel are still located in the same spot in relation to the tree, which helps give a bearing as to the walkway’s prior positioning.

A close-up view of the walkway’s former location is pictured below.

Nicole’s rear gate, which is reached via an alley off of Dorothy Street and is where the killer supposedly entered and exited the property the night of the murders, has also been altered.

The rear gate of the neighboring unit (pictured below) does not appear to have been changed, though, and remains, I believe, in the same state that it was back in 1994.

I am guessing that the reason The People v. O.J. Simpson did not film at the actual condo was two-fold, due to both the alterations and the reticence of the current owners.

So where did filming take place? Thanks to a February The Hollywood Reporter article, I learned that “a house a block away from Nicole Brown Simpson’s home was used as a stand-in” on the series. The walkway and entrance shown on The People v. O.J. Simpson were an exact match to those of Nicole’s former condo, though. Being that the chances of producers finding a walkway/front gate so closely resembling Nicole’s less than a block away from her former home were most likely slim to none, I figured they had heavily altered an existing walkway/front gate to look like hers. When I started looking along Bundy Drive, though, I could not find anything even remotely resembling what appeared onscreen. So I instead started searching for the homes that were visible across the street from Nicole’s in the pilot episode and wound up finding them right away – in the exact spot where The Hollywood Reporter said I would, a block away from Nicole’s condo.

Those houses can be found at 918 and 922 South Bundy Drive.

When I looked at what was across the street from those homes, though, I did not find a Mediterranean-style condominium complex as expected, but a non-descript, one-story single-family residence addressed 917 South Bundy. It wasn’t until I really started scouring Street View images of the property that I realized the entire walkway shown on The People v. O.J. Simpson was a fabrication constructed in the home’s driveway.

Yes, you read that right – from what I have been able to gather, Nicole’s walkway on the series was built entirely from scratch in the area pictured below.

Some heavy CGI and set dressing were employed to achieve the effect. As you can see below, not only was the image of a tall condominium building digitally added to the property, but a front wall, gate, walkway, lamp post, and large amount of foliage were also brought in.

In the images below, I’ve denoted the few things that were not altered. The large palm tree located in front of the home is a direct match to what appeared onscreen (it’s marked with the blue arrow below). The large pine tree behind the palm is also a direct match to what appeared onscreen (yellow arrow). The tall skinny palm located towards the rear of the property also parallels what was shown on The People v. O.J. Simpson (purple arrow). And you can even see where the dip of the driveway was temporarily filled in for the shoot (pink arrow).

A clean view of those same two images is pictured below. The whole thing is absolutely fascinating to me! I cannot even imagine what it would have been like to see it all in person.

I’ve got to give the production designer major props because the faux walkway is an exact replica of Nicole’s, which you can see an image of here.

The street in front of 917 South Bundy got a lot of screen time, too.

You can check out some interior photographs of the 4-bedroom, 2-bath, 2,154-square-foot home here.

All interior filming took place at a building located just a couple of blocks away.

That building can be found at 11978 Mayfield Avenue and it does bear a striking resemblance to Nicole’s actual former home.

The interior of Nicole’s condo was shown in two episodes of The People v. O.J. Simpson, “From the Ashes of Tragedy” and “The Race Card.” You can see photos of the inside of one of the Mayfield Avenue units 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 exterior of Nicole Brown Simpson’s condo was recreated in the driveway of the house at 917 South Bundy Drive in Brentwood for the filming of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Interior scenes were filmed at 11978 Mayfield Avenue in Brentwood. Nicole’s real life former condo is located at 879 South Bundy Drive in Brentwood.

March 7, 2016
O.J.’s Mansion from “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”

The Grim Cheaper and I are absolutely hooked on the new FX series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which is not surprising considering we have both been fascinated with the case since the beginning – as has the rest of the world. While watching the first episode, titled “From the Ashes of Tragedy,” I was shocked to see the real life former home of Robert Kardashian playing the role of itself. I stalked and blogged about the residence back in 2013 and recognized it immediately when it popped up onscreen. I recently wrote about the pad once again for Los Angeles magazine and, during my research for that post, came across this The Hollywood Reporter article which talked about some of the other locales used in the mini-series. One particular sentence had my interest especially piqued. Author Lacey Rose stated, “Many of the case’s famed landmarks will appear familiar, even if the series had to take some liberties with its locations. O.J.’s Brentwood home, for instance, was razed in 1998, so the location manager found a similar-looking Tudor in Beverly Hills and production designers recreated key touches of Simpson’s estate, including the life-size Simpson statue in the yard.” I, of course, instantly got started searching for the property.

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Thanks to an address number of “1006” that was visible on the curb in front of the house in “From the Ashes of Tragedy,” finding it was a snap! I simply began looking through 1000 blocks in Beverly Hills and quickly came across the right spot at 1006 North Rexford Drive. I didn’t get around to stalking the place, though, until this past weekend while the GC and I were in L.A.

The manse has appeared in several episodes of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, including “From the Ashes of Tragedy,” “The Run of His Life,” and “The Race Card.”

Numerous areas of the property have been shown onscreen, including the entrance gates;

the backyard;

and the real life interior, which you can see photographs of here.

The residence looks much the same in person as it does in The People v. O.J. Simpson and, though gated, quite a lot of it is visible from the street.

Unfortunately though, the estate sits on a heavily tree-lined street and, because we were there in the late afternoon, my photographs of it turned out rather dark.

For those who want a true American Crime Story experience, the house is available as a vacation rental for a whopping $14,000 a night. According to its HomeAway webpage, the massive property, which was originally built in 1923, boasts 7 bedrooms, 9 baths, 10,311 square feet of living space, a den, a library, 2 offices, multiple fireplaces, a game room, a gym, a sauna, a “laundry center,” an entertainment lounge with a bar, a 35mm projection screening room, a secluded 1.65-acre lot, a pool, a guest apartment (for the Katos in your life), a tennis court, a spa, and a playground.

The estate also boasts a Hollywood pedigree. According to my buddy E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, the dwelling, which last sold in March 1981 for $2,950,000, belonged to Warner Bros. Studio founder Harry Warner during the 1940s.

On a rather humorous side-note – the GC’s GPS is run through his iPhone and gives directions via Siri. When I asked Siri to direct us to “1006 North Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills,” she instead, rather ironically, gave us a listing of juice places in the area. Not joking! A photograph of the listing that popped up on the GPS screen is pictured below.

The whole thing was especially comical being that the video below had just been released a few days prior.

Since we were on an O.J. kick, the GC and I decided to also stalk the site of Simpson’s real life former residence, which was a first for me. While I have visited Nicole’s condo a few times over the years, for whatever reason, I had never been to “Juice’s” estate. As mentioned above, the home was razed in 1998, long before I moved to L.A., so I guess I always figured it was never worth the trip. Now that the case is front and center again, though, I was dying to see the place in person.

O.J.’s estate formerly stood at 360 North Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood. The football star purchased the 6,200-square-foot, Tudor-style manse for $650,000 in 1977 and lived there for the next twenty years (not counting the 474 days he spent in jail), until being evicted in 1997 after the house was foreclosed upon. The pad was subsequently purchased by Jerry’s Famous Deli owner/investment banker Kenneth Abdalla for close to $4 million. According to a 1998 CNN.com article, Abdalla contended that the property was in need of a large amount of repairs and figured it would be most cost effective to demolish it and re-build from scratch. I believe the tear-down had more to do with the pad’s notoriety than its condition, though, especially considering the fact that Abdalla also had its address changed to 380 North Rockingham.

Today, a large Mediterranean-style residence stands at the site. You can see aerial views of what the property currently looks like below and what it looked like when Simpson lived there here.

There is literally nothing left of Simpson’s former home. The gates, the fencing, the circular driveway, the pool, the waterfalls, the putting green, the guest quarters, the tennis court, and the playground have all been replaced.

You can check out an in-depth rendering of the layout of O.J.’s former estate here and see photographs of it here and here. It is amazing to me how much it resembles the house being used in The People v. O.J. Simpson.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: O.J.’s house from The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story is located at 1006 North Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills. The site of O.J.’s actual former mansion can be found at 380 North Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood.

March 4, 2016
The Lost Horizon Apartment Complex from “Major Crimes”

I have long been a fan of the television series Major Crimes (as well as its parent show The Closer) and though I love pretty much every single episode that airs, I do have a definitive favorite – Season 2’s “There’s No Place Like Home.” For those who have not seen the episode (and you really should!), it centers around a group of retirees who live together in an apartment complex known as Lost Horizon. The complex was so integral to the storyline that it almost served as a character, so I, of course, was dying to stalk it. While I made an attempt at tracking it down back when the episode first aired in 2013, there was virtually nothing to go on (no street signs visible in the background, no evident address numbers, etc.), which caused me to grow frustrated rather quickly and give up. Then in November, I got inspired to begin the search once again after tracking down the Econo Inn & Suites from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (another locale I had long been on the hunt for) and, thanks to a helpful crew member, was successful this time around.

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In “There’s No Place Like Home,” the LAPD Major Crimes squad investigates the murder of the landlord of the Lost Horizon apartment complex, or as the residents like to call it “Shangri-La.” The complex’s tenants are a close group of former crew members of a long-running 1970s television series named Prognosis: Homicide. As the story goes, the Prognosis: Homicide location manager, a man named Norman, purchased the Shangri-La so that the friends could live out their golden years together. Sadly, Norman passed away soon after the former co-workers moved in, leaving the building to his hateful nephew, Ed, who immediately began allowing the complex to deteriorate. In a case of life imitating art, Ed winds up dead and the friends find themselves at the center of a murder investigation. In addition to the engaging, rather tongue-in-cheek storyline, the episode flourished thanks to a stellar guest cast that included such show biz legends as Tim Conway, Paul Dooley, Ron Glass, Doris Roberts, and Marion Ross. You can read an article that series creator James Duff wrote about the filming of it here.

In the episode, it is said that Lost Horizon is located at 1066 North Hastings Boulevard in Los Angeles, but it can actually be found at 2400 South Shenandoah Street in Mid-City.

The complex turned out to be nothing like I had expected. It is actually part of a little 3-acre compound that sits completely hidden from the street. One could easily drive right past it without realizing it was there.

The compound, known as Casa Rocha, is made up of several tiny bungalows, homes, and an apartment building, all of which can be reached via a small roadway off of Shenandoah Street.

Provenza (G.W. Bailey) and the gang were shown walking down that roadway in Major Crimes.

An aerial view of the complex, in which the areas that lie within it are denoted with a pink overlay, is pictured below. The entrance roadway is also marked. As you can see, the property is situated in a sort of upside-down L-shape.

I became very disappointed upon arriving when I realized that the area of the complex that appeared in Major Crimes (the apartment building portion of the property) was located at the very end of the roadway, in the eastern corner of the compound, and did not appear to be at all accessible. A nice resident happened to see us taking photographs out on the sidewalk, though, and was kind enough to invite us onto the premises for a closer look. I so love it when that happens!

I just about came out of my skin with excitement when I spotted the “Lost Horizon” signage that had appeared in Major Crimes posted at the apartment complex’s entrance.

I am guessing that the signage was not original to the property, but something brought in for the filming of “There’s No Place Like Home” and that the residents ended up liking it and asked for it to be left in place. (Being that the building has such a tropical feel, I find it only fitting that sun beams are visible in my photographs above and below.)

The complex was made to appear run down for the beginning scenes of “There’s No Place Like Home.”

By the end of the episode, though, the Prognosis: Homicide group has fixed the place up and bought it back to its pre-Ed former glory.

The ending scenes provide a much more realistic view of what the complex actually looks like.

The compound’s rear parking area also appeared in “There’s No Place Like Home.”

I am 99.9% certain that Ed’s apartment was just a set, though.

As I later learned, Casa Rocha is actually a historic property. The land where it now stands was originally part of the Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes Mexican land grant that was allocated to Bernardo Higuera and Camilo Lopez on December 7th, 1824. In 1865, a man named Antonio Jose Rocha constructed an adobe home named Casa de la Rocha on the property. Amazingly, that residence still stands to this day and is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #13. It is pictured below. You can read a more in-depth history on the house here and on the Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes land grant 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: Casa Rocha, aka the Shangri-La/Lost Horizon apartment complex from the Season 2 episode of Major Crimes titled “There’s No Place Like Home,” is located at 2400 South Shenandoah Street in Mid-City.

February 26, 2016
“The Goldbergs” House

A couple of years ago, my good friend Lavonna got obsessed with the ABC series The Goldbergs and asked me to do some research on its locales. She was most interested in learning the location of the Goldberg family’s Anywhere, U.S.A.-style home and I found the address – 3071 Earlmar Drive in Cheviot Hills – rather quickly thanks to Robert of Movie Locations and More, who has a page dedicated to the show on his site. Oddly though, when I went to view the residence on Google Street View, I noticed that it looked rather different in reality than it did in the screen captures Robert had posted. Needless to say, I became intrigued and wound up uncovering some rather interesting behind-the-scenes information as to why. So although the pad has been covered on a few other websites, I figured it was most-definitely still worthy of a blog post.

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For those not in the know, The Goldbergs is a thirty minute television comedy based upon the real life childhood of producer Adam F. Goldberg. Much of the storyline comes directly from videos that a young Adam took of his family while growing up in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania during the 1980s. Though set on the East Coast, all filming takes place in Southern California. On the series, the Goldbergs – parents Murray (Jeff Garlin) and Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and their children, Adam (Sean Giambrone), Barry (Troy Gentile) and Erica (Hayley Orrantia) – live in a traditional two-story clapboard home. As you can see in the Street View image, which was taken in May 2011, as compared to the screen capture below, at the time the Goldberg residence looked much different in person than it did when the series began production in 2013. Namely, it lacked dormer windows.

Seeing the Street View imagery confused me to no end. I was not sure sure if the windows were an actual alteration made to the residence or something that production brought in for shooting purposes. Being that dormer windows are not an architectural element that can be added to a property without doing some major renovations, my guess was the latter. So I decided to do some digging and learned that the residence is only one story in real life, which meant that the dormers were not actual windows, but some sort of decoration – and therefore likely just an alteration done for the series.

I didn’t give the whole thing much thought after that. Then late last year, Lavonna got back onto a Goldbergs kick and asked me to start watching, as well. The Grim Cheaper and I viewed a few episodes shortly thereafter (it’s a great show, by the way) and as soon as I spotted those dormer windows, I got to thinking about their origins once again. So I logged into Google Street View and was surprised to see that the dormers were present in recent images of the house. My interest piqued more than ever, I did an internet search for “dormer windows” and “3071 Earlmar Drive” and was shocked to discover a series of exchanges on WikiLeaks that had been released during the Sony Hack of November 2014 and pertained to my query. Thanks to the 170,000 pieces of correspondence exposed by the so-called Guardians of Peace, not only did we learn that producer Scott Rudin thinks Angelina Jolie is a “minimally talented spoiled brat,” but also the story behind those darn dormer windows.

It breaks down like this – when the Earlmar Drive house was chosen for the series, it was proposed that four dormer windows be temporarily added to the roof of the structure. The installation caused a lot of back-and-forth between the production team and the homeowners due to the fact that when filming of The Goldbergs eventually concluded, the roof would have to be repaired to the tune of about $18,000. The owners apparently wound up liking the look of the windows, though – or just felt it would be easier to keep them intact – and it was later requested that they be left up permanently. This caused some more back-and-forth discussion between the production team because the roof analysis done prior to the windows being installed was based on them only being in place temporarily. As you all well know, this stalker loves herself some behind-the-scenes information, so I was practically salivating upon reading through the emails. (It is interesting to note that the homeowners did not want their name, address or photographs to be used in any aired footage. Little did they know that documents containing their name and address would be leaked to the masses via the Guardians of Peace shortly thereafter.)

Per a 2007 real estate listing, in real life, The Goldbergs house boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,419 square feet of living space, a remodeled kitchen with granite countertops, a vaulted and beamed living room ceiling, and a 0.20-acre plot of land.

According to Redfin, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1952, last sold in October 2007 for just under $1.5 million.

You can check out some interior photographs of the home here. Only the exterior of the property is used on the series, though. The inside of the Goldbergs’ house is actually just a set built on a soundstage at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. Interestingly, that set was modeled after the dwelling that was featured as the Goldberg residence in the show’s pilot episode.

As is often the case with television shows, The Goldbergs pilot was filmed at a different home than the one used in all subsequent episodes. Thanks to the Seeing Stars website, I learned that the pilot residence (which is pictured below) is located at 4545 Del Moreno Drive in Woodland Hills.

While I could not find any photographs of the interior of the home that was utilized in the pilot, it is obvious from the way the episode was shot that filming did make use of the residence’s actual interior.

For the most part, the set is a pretty close re-creation of the actual home, though set designers did make some changes, which you can see in the collages that appear above and below.

Adam F. Goldberg’s real life childhood home, which is located at 405 Newbold Road in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, is actually much more extravagant than the residence chosen for the show. The 8-bedroom, 6-bath, 6,708-square-foot Tudor-style estate, which was originally built in 1925 and sits on 0.85 acres, is absolutely massive in size and, per Zillow, features a Mahogany library, a kitchen with “multiple Sub-Zero fridges” (because one is just never enough!), a Jacuzzi room (yep, a Jacuzzi “room” – you can see a photograph of it here), a whopping 3 fireplaces, a master bedroom with his-and-her changing rooms, a billiards parlor/game room, an in-ground swimming pool and a tennis court (though when it was put on the market in 2011, the land containing the pool and tennis court were being listed separately).

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

Big THANK YOU to Robert, from the Movie Locations and More website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Goldberg family home from The Goldbergs is located at 3071 Earlmar Drive in Cheviot Hills.

February 19, 2016
Non-Warner Bros. Studio Locations of “Pretty Little Liars”

I have covered Pretty Little Liars locations ad nauseam on my blog, as well as on the other sites that I write for. As I’ve mentioned in all of the posts, the series is lensed pretty much in its entirety at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank (you can check out an extensive guide to the WB locations used on the show here and here) and it is a rare occasion that filming of any kind takes place off the lot. Over the years, I have compiled a list of the few non-studio locales utilized on the series and thought it would be fun to chronicle them in a single post. So here you have it, all of the PLL locations that cannot be found at the WB (excluding the Vancouver sites from the pilot episode, which I covered here, here, here, here and here).

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1. Dr. Ackard’s Office – In the Season 1 episode titled “Reality Bites Me,” Hanna Marin (Ashley Benson) begins assisting at the dental office of Dr. Ackard (Paula Cale) as a way to work off the damage she caused by crashing Dr. Ackard’s son’s car. The site that masked as the dental office on the series is actually one of my favorite buildings in all of Los Angeles, one that I have mentioned many times on this blog – the John Ferraro Building, aka the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power located at 111 North Hope Street in downtown L.A. The structure, which I chronicled in a 2010 post, is only used in establishing shots on Pretty Little Liars. The interior of Dr. Ackard’s actual office – as well as the neighboring office of Jenna Marshall’s (Tammin Sursok) psychologist, which Hanna broke into – is a set built inside of a soundstage at Warner Bros. Studio.

2. Rosewood Greens Country Club – In that same episode, Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario) and her father play a “friendly” game of doubles tennis against one of Spencer’s dad’s clients at Rosewood Greens Country Club, said to be located in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, where the series is set. Filming of the club scenes actually took place at the Toluca Lake Country Club, which is located pretty much right next door to Warner Bros. Studio at 6711 Forest Lawn Drive in Burbank. Sadly, the property is closed to the public, so as of yet, I have not been able to stalk it.

3. Ian’s Burial – Ian Thomas (Ryan Merriman) is laid to rest at Rosewood’s local cemetery in the Season 2 episode titled “The Devil You Know.” The burial scene was actually lensed, though, at the oft-filmed Mountain View Cemetery located at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. Countless productions have been filmed at Mountain View and while I covered the place in an October 2010 post, come October I will be doing a redux as I have since discovered numerous other credits that I need to add to its extensive filming resume.

4. A Is Unmasked – In Pretty Little Liars Season 2 finale, which was titled “UnmAsked,” the Liars learn the true identity of A and confront her while on a dark and twisty Rosewood road. Thanks to a helpful crew member, I learned that the scene was shot on Mount Hollywood Drive inside of Griffith Park. Unfortunately though, due to the lack of light and the fact that very little of the surrounding area was shown, I have yet to pinpoint the exact spot where the climactic sequence took place.

In that same episode, Jenna secretly rendezvoused with A at a turnout also located on Mount Hollywood Drive.

5. Fitzgerald Theatre – In Pretty Little Liars’ Season 5 premiere, titled “EscApe from New York,” Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse) and the girls hide out from A at the Fitzgerald Theatre in New York City. In reality, filming took place about 2,800 miles outside of Manhattan at downtown Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theatre, which is located at 842 South Broadway. I covered this locale in a post for L.A. magazine here. Sadly, I have only ever stalked the exterior of the Orpheum, but am hoping to catch a glimpse of its interior at some point by either seeing a show there or by embarking upon a Los Angeles Conservancy Broadway Historic Theatre and Commercial District Walking Tour.

6. The Rosewood Courthouse – In the Season 5 episodes titled “The Melody Lingers On” and “I’m a Good Girl, I Am,” a standing court set at Riverfront Stages, located at 13100 Telfair Avenue in Sylmar, stood in for the Rosewood courtroom where Alison’s trial for the murder of Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish) was held. You can check out some photographs of that courtroom set here. I can’t currently find much information about the facility online, so I am guessing that it might have closed recently. Its sister studio, located at 3061 Treadwell Street in Glassell Park, is still in operation, though. You can see the website for that property here.

7. Hollis College – Although several different areas of Warner Bros. Studio have been used to represent Hollis College over the years, in the Season 5 episode titled “Pretty Isn’t the Point,” production made the short trek over to Warner Bros. Ranch to shoot some campus scenes. I recently wrote about the Ranch, which is located about a mile northeast of Warner Bros. Studio at 411 North Hollywood Way in Burbank, for the Mike the Fanboy website. You can check out that post here. In “Pretty Isn’t the Point,” Spencer grabs coffee with Johnny Raymond (Will Bradley) at what is supposed to be Hollis. The scene was actually lensed, though, in front of the Ranch’s row of picturesque townhouses. Those same townhomes famously appeared each week in the background of the Friends opening credits.

On a fashion side-note – Spencer’s outfit in that scene is one of my favorites of the entire series. So simple, so classy, and oh so cute!

8. Art Gallery – Later in “Pretty Isn’t the Point,” while walking near Hollis, Spencer and Johnny discover that their graffitied artwork has been stolen and is now for sale in a local gallery. That scene was shot just a few feet away from where the two had coffee earlier in the episode, at one of the Ranch’s townhome façades.

A close-up view of that townhouse is pictured below. It is easily one of the most picturesque structures at Warner Bros. Ranch.

9. Gas Station – Later in that same episode, Toby Cavanaugh (Keegan Allen) arrests Johnny for breaking into the art gallery while at a nearby gas station. That gas station is also located at Warner Bros. Ranch, just a bit southeast of the townhome façades, and should look familiar to The Middle fans – it is used regularly as Ehlert Motors on the ABC series.

10. Aunt Carol’s House – In Season 6’s “Don’t Look Now,” Jason DiLaurentis (Drew Van Acker) and the Liars discover the gravesite of Charles DiLaurentis while visiting Jason’s aunt’s house. That clapboard residence is another Warner Bros. Ranch location and is best known as being the Walton family home from The Waltons.

11. Rosewood Community Pool – The Ranch’s large swimming pool also made an appearance as the Rosewood Community Pool, where Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) took Sara Harvey (Dre Davis) swimming in that same episode.

12. Welby State Psychiatric Hospital – In a bonus scene that aired during the Season 6 special titled “Five Years Forward,” Alison and Jason visit Charlotte DiLaurentis (Vanessa Ray) at the Welby State Psychiatric Hospital. One of Pasadena’s most famous properties, the Tournament House at 391 South Orange Grove Boulevard, was used in the establishing shot of the institution in the episode. I wrote about the oft-filmed locale in a recent Los Angeles magazine post.

I do not believe that any actual filming took place at the Tournament House, though. I am fairly certain that all of the scene’s on-location shooting was done at Warner Bros. Studio.

One non-studio locale that I have been unable to track down is the Speed Demon Express exterior that was featured in Season 2’s “The Devil You Know.” Though an address number of 4680 or 4690 is visible above the storefront’s doors, try as I might, I have not been able to find the place. If it looks familiar to anyone, please let me know.

Interestingly, by the time that Season 2’s “If These Dolls Could Talk” was filmed, a different exterior was chosen to stand in for Speed Demon Express. That exterior is located on Warner Bros. Studio’s Midwest Business Street and, in an ironic twist, is the very same exterior that is used regularly as The Brew on the series. It was altered significantly prior to being transformed into The Brew, though, and is hardly recognizable from its appearance as Speed Demon Express. Prior to the remodel, the same façade also masked as Sophie’s Music on Gilmore Girls. You can check out what it looked like at the time on Chas’ It’s Filmed There website. Big thank you to Chas for helping me to ID this one.

If anyone can think of any other instances in which filming took place off the lot, please let me know. 🙂

And on a Pretty Little Liars side-note – my mom and I had the pleasure of meeting Troian Bellisario this past weekend and I can honestly say that she is one of the nicest celebrities I have ever encountered! A complete and total doll! I love her even more now than I did before! Troian is currently starring in a play called The Last Match in San Diego. I’ve heard that it is excellent and am hoping to head back down there to catch it in the coming weeks. If I do, I will definitely review it here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

February 17, 2016
The Palms Motel from “My Name Is Earl”

Another day, another motel location. Today’s is one that has been covered on many other blogs, so I realize I am a bit late to the game. I only just recently stalked it, though, and was shocked to discover that its most recognizable element had been removed! I am talking about the Palms Motel where Earl Hickey (Jason Lee) lived with his brother, Randy (Ethan Suplee), on the television series My Name Is Earl. Up until writing this post, I had never seen a full episode of the show, but my dad is a huge fan, so I had caught many bits and pieces of it over the years. I had also long been familiar with the real life location of the Palms Motel. In actuality, it’s known as the Palm Tree Inn Motel in North Hills. Mike, from MovieShotsLA, first pointed it out to me during one of our many Valley stalks ages ago and, when I was in the area recently, I decided to stop by to stalk it for my dad. I was absolutely shocked upon arriving, though, to see that the hotel’s iconic, murky-watered pool was no longer!

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For those unfamiliar with My Name Is Earl, the series centers around ne’er-do-well Earl, who, after winning $100,000 in the lottery and then promptly losing the ticket, decides to change his ways by adhering to the tenets of karma. He draws up a list of all of the people he has wronged throughout the course his life and proceeds to try to make amends with each of them. I absolutely love Earl’s mantra of “You do good things and good things happen to you. You do bad things and they’ll come back to haunt you.” It’s not a bad way to operate. After losing his winning lottery ticket and being dumped by his wife in the pilot episode (oh, and getting hit by a car – the guy was not having a good week), Earl and his brother move into a low-budget inn named the Palms Motel.

The motel went on to be featured regularly throughout the series’ four-season run. It also appeared each week in the My Name Is Earl opening credits.

The Palms’ dingy, fin-shaped pool was easily its most notable aspect – well, for me, at least.

Before venturing onto the property, I popped into the Palm Tree Inn’s front office to speak with the manager and he could not have been nicer, immediately welcoming me onto the premises to take all of the pictures that I wanted. Before I did so, he informed me that the pool had been filled in a few years prior (I believe around 2010) due to the fact that it was expensive to maintain and rarely used. He pointed me in the direction of the pool’s former location (it now serves as a parking lot addition) and, while distressed over the fact that it was no longer there, I was floored to see that its outline was still visible.

Oh, how I wish I had gotten to see the pool in person, though.

The outline of the circular space where the random blue sculpture once stood is also still visible. I am guessing that area was the site of a hot tub at one point in time.

On the series, the brothers were said to live in Room 231 and that is actually where filming took place.

Room 231 can be found on the second floor of the southeast corner of the Palm Tree Inn Motel.

That area is denoted with a pink arrow in the aerial view pictured below.

While the exterior of Room 231 was featured regularly throughout the series’ run, I believe that the actual (heavily dressed) interior was only used in My Name Is Earl’s pilot episode . . .

. . . and that a set re-creation of it was built for all subsequent filming once the series got picked up. You can check out some photographs of what the Palm Tree Inn’s real rooms look like here.

E & Z Liquor Market, where childhood Earl (Noah Crawford) taught his friend Ralph (Tanner Maguire) about “street piñatas” in the Season 1 episode “Teacher Earl,” is located adjacent to the Palm Tree Inn Motel at 8418 Sepulveda Boulevard.

The Palm Tree Inn Motel was originally built in the 1960s and was known as the Travelyn Hiway Host.

I believe that it did not become the Palm Tree Inn Motel until after My Name Is Earl started filming in 2005, which would mean that the owners re-named it in honor of its TV moniker, the Palms Motel, which is pretty darn incredible! Don’t quote me on that, though.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover while researching this post how much filming has taken place at the 76-room motel over the years.

The Palm Tree Inn appeared very briefly as the L.A. motel where Azamat (Ken Davitian) was living at the end of the 2006 comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

In the Season 1 episode of The Mentalist titled “The Thin Red Line,” which aired in 2008, the motel masked as the Davis Motor Inn in Davis, California, where the CBI team investigated the murder of a state witness.

One of the hotel’s actual rooms, Room 222, appeared in the episode.

A nice view of the pool was also shown.

In the Season 3 episode of Heroes titled “Chapter Four ‘Cold Wars,’” which aired in 2009, the property stood in for the Costa Verde motel where Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) interrogated Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman).

Ironically, Room 231, the very same room where Earl and Randy live on My Name Is Earl, was utilized in the filming.

Or at least the doorway was. I believe the interior of the room that appeared in the episode was just a set.

The Palm Tree Inn Motel was featured extensively in Kesha’s 2010 music video for “Take It Off.”

Though the property was made to appear as if it was located in a remote, mountainous area for the shoot.

An extensive sequence from the video took place in the motel’s pool.

You can watch the “Take It Off” video by clicking below.

Having viewed the many productions filmed at the motel, I’m rather shocked that the owners decided to have the pool filled in. Though, as I mentioned earlier, I was told it was expensive to maintain, it seems that all of the movies and shows lensed on the premises featured it in some aspect. The pool’s unique shape added a certain je ne sais quoi to the property, making it stand out from the countless roadside motels in the area, and no doubt proved attractive to location scouts. Without it, the place looks like every other motel in L.A., which probably explains why it, sadly, hasn’t seen much filming in recent years.

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 Palm Tree Motor Inn, aka the Palms Motel from My Name Is Earl, is located at 8424 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills. E & Z Liquor Market, from the “Teacher Earl” episode, is located right next door at 8418 Sepulveda Boulevard. The areas of the motel that appeared on the series, as well as the liquor store, are denoted in the aerial view below. The Budget Inn of North Hills, aka the Little Miss Sunshine motel, is located a mile north at 9151 Sepulveda Boulevard. The Hometown Inn from the 2002 Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads is located just a bit north of that at 9401 Sepulveda Boulevard.

January 29, 2016
Econo Inn & Suites from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”

Well, I am definitely on a hotel kick as of late, because here I am with my third post in a row of the inn variety. Today’s lodging was featured prominently in the Season 9 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Turn, Turn, Turn,” which just so happens to be the production in which a one Miss Taylor Swift made her acting debut. When the episode first aired in 2009, I had not watched CSI in ages, nor was I a particularly big Swift fan (nothing against her, but at the time I was not familiar with much of her music – that’s no longer the case, today “Blank Space” is pretty much my go-to karaoke song!), so I am unsure of how or why I came to tune in. Tune in, I did, though, and I absolutely loved it. The episode is truly gripping, albeit profoundly sad.

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“Turn, Turn, Turn” centers around Nick Stokes’ (George Eads) dealings with various crimes over a one-year period at a local “Las Vegas” lodging named the Park Pines Motel. Taylor portrayed the manager’s daughter, Hayley Jones, in the episode.

Park Pines was the main location featured in the episode . . .

. . . and it was used extensively throughout.

I spent quite a bit of time searching for the Park Pines location back when “Turn, Turn, Turn,” first aired, but never wound up tracking it down. Then, while watching the Season 2 finale of How to Get Away with Murder, which was titled “What Did We Do?,” I spotted a motel that I thought might be the one I had been looking for. Upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn’t, but I, of course, got the itch to start hunting again. (For those interested, the motel featured in HTGAWM is the Hollywood Premiere Motel located at 5333 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Feliz.)

Thankfully, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” is available for streaming on Hulu – actually all 337 episodes of CSI are! (Side note – the Grim Cheaper and I just got a subscription to Hulu and it is downright amazing! Netflix is for sure the better platform for movies, but when it comes to TV, Hulu can’t be beat! Every single episode of Law and Order: SVU is on there! I mean, come on!) So I re-watched it and was floored to see that the signage of several storefronts was visible across the street from the Park Pines in the episode.

One sign was for a salon named Hollywood Hair & Nails. A quick Google search kicked back a listing for a shop by that moniker located at 10759 Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood. Sure enough, when I went to that address on Google Street View, there was the Park Pines Motel located right across the street! Woot!

Though CSI would have you believe that the motel was located in Las Vegas (gotta love the spectacular use of CGI ) . . .

. . . it can actually be found at 10750 West Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood.

In real life, the 25-unit motel is named Econo Inn & Suites.

Sadly, most of the areas that appeared in “Turn, Turn, Turn” are located at the rear of the property and are not visible from the street.

What can be seen, though, is very recognizable.

Several of the motel’s actual rooms were 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: Econo Inn & Suites, from the “Turn, Turn, Turn” episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, is located at 10750 West Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood.

January 25, 2016
The Garland Hotel from “Parks and Recreation”

A couple of years ago, I drove by a hotel that looked like a little slice of retro heaven and became transfixed. I made a mental note of its name and vowed to research it further. As soon as I got home, though, I realized the name had escaped me and, because I have no sense of direction whatsoever (my mom says I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag!), I did not even really remember where it was located. Then this past November, fate stepped in. While the Grim Cheaper and I were driving to the Valli Tropics apartments from Wicked City, we randomly passed by the hotel and I just about did a dance of joy! This time I took note of its name, The Garland, and vowed to book a stay there in the near future. In a synchronistic twist, fellow stalker Michael of The Golden Spoon Café and Downtown Christmas Shopping District from The Brady Bunch fame, happened to mention in an email just a few days later that he had stayed at the Garland on a recent trip to L.A. and loved it. So when it came time to book a hotel for my and the GC’s Christmas shopping trip shortly thereafter, The Garland was the only hotel I looked into. And it turned out to be even better than I had imagined!

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The Garland stands on a seven-acre parcel of land once owned by Gene Autry. Fillmore Crank, the real estate developer husband of actress Beverly Garland, purchased the large, undeveloped lot in 1970 with thoughts of building an apartment complex there. His good friend baseball player Casey Stengel convinced him to construct a hotel on the land instead. So the couple partnered up with Las Vegas hotelier John Kell Houssels Jr., secured a 20-year deal with The Howard Johnson Company, and in 1972 the Beverly Garland Howard Johnson Motor Lodge opened to the public.

The 155-room hotel was not constructed in the typical Howard Johnson fashion with an angled red roof, but in the Mission style as a nod to its Southern California location.

When the contract with Howard Johnson ended, Beverly and Fillmore ran the hotel independently for a short while before eventually signing on with the Holiday Inn, at which time it was renamed the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn. To locals and frequent guests, though, it was known as the “Beverly Garland” or “The Garland.”

In 2000, Beverly and Fillmore’s son, James Crank, took over management of the hotel, though Beverly could still often be seen flitting around the property, helping guests. When the Holiday Inn contract expired in 2013, James decided to once again operate the site as an independent hotel that he redubbed “The Garland.” He also began a $20-million renovation of the place at that time, the results of which are absolutely spectacular!

From the Instagram-able lobby . . .

. . . to the unique retro touches at every turn . . .

. . . to the lively décor . . .

. . . The Garland is honestly like no other hotel I’ve ever seen.

The Christmas decorations were also majorly on point.

Today, the 257-room hotel boasts a large outdoor pool (which sadly, due to the seriously frosty weather, we were unable to partake of) . . .

. . . countless outdoor spaces . . .

. . . a myriad of activities for families, children and couples, including a foosball table and board games set up in the courtyard. . .

. . . gorgeous vistas . . .

. . . literally everywhere you look (yes, that’s a wall of flying butterflies!) . . .

. . . whimsical design elements around seemingly every corner, which I had fun with . . .

. . . and a massive outdoor garden event space designed by famed landscape architect Jonny Appleseed.

The Garland also offers free shuttle service to Universal Studios and Universal City Walk, complimentary Wi-Fi, a plethora of onsite classes including poolside macramé and garden tai chi yoga, a business center, a gym, a fabulous gift shop that carries all sorts of California- and L.A.-themed goodies, and over 16,000 square feet of meeting and event space.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention The Front Yard, the hotel’s onsite restaurant.

Upon checking in, we received a coupon for two complimentary cocktails at The Front Yard, so we decided to try the place out and wound up staying for dinner. The GC and I both opted for the TFY Burger – a ground short rib burger with a potato bun, truffle dijonnaise, wild mushrooms, Point Reyes toma cheese, and red onion balsamic jam. It was uh-ma-zing! So good that the GC was literally craving it all day the next day and couldn’t wait for dinnertime so that we could rush back there.

Oh, and our room wasn’t too shabby, either. It was the perfect combination of retro and modern, with whimsical touches throughout.

All in all, The Garland is a fabulous hotel and I couldn’t more highly recommend a stay there.

To add to the allure, The Garland is also a popular filming venue! The site has been a location scout favorite from the beginning, in fact. Back in its early days, it appeared in everything from Quincy, M.E. to Falcon Crest to Switch. In the book Beverly Garland: Her Life and Career, author Deborah Del Vecchio quotes Garland as saying, “They’ve also done a Six Million Dollar Man and Police Woman [at the hotel]. In fact, they’ve done just about all the big shows here. They have filmed everywhere in the hotel – inside at the desk area, around in the back, jumping off of balconies – and the guests just love it. Of course, it is a mess when they do film because they’ve got cables running everywhere. They’ve done commercials around the pool and the tennis courts. We always put a sign up saying, for instance, “Universal is filming Six Million Dollar Man here today” so that our guests will know that sometimes they would not be able to get to the front desk for a while or do certain things that they’d like to do. And yet they get a kick out of that. Most people enjoy the fact that they are in Hollywood and that the studios are filming here at the lodge. And it’s good publicity for us and we like it!” Couldn’t have said it better myself, Beverly!

The Garland appeared no less than five times on the popular television series Knight Rider. One such instance was Season 1’s “Forget Me Not.”

The episode made use of the hotel lobby and really gives a feel for what The Garland looked like pre-remodel.

An actual room was also used in the filming. It cracked me up to see how different the rooms were back in 1982 when the episode was shot.

In 2012, The Garland masked as Pawnee Supersuites in the Season 4 finale of Parks and Recreation titled “Win, Lose or Draw.” It was in the hotel’s Garland Ballroom, renamed the Jermaine Jackson Ballroom for the episode (LOL!!!), where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and the rest of the Parks gang waited for the City Council election results.

Very little of the ballroom was actually visible in the episode, though, due to all of Leslie’s campaign decorations.

Nevertheless, it is still recognizable from its appearance.

Pre-remodel, the Garland Ballroom appeared in the Season 2 episode of Knight Rider titled “Speed Demons,” which aired in 1984. The room looks so incredibly different now, it is hard to believe it is the same place where Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) tried to help a down-on-his-luck dirt bike racer.

The “Win, Lose or Draw” episode of Parks and Recreation also made use of one of The Garland’s smaller ballrooms.

That ballroom is pictured below.

In the 2012 comedy The Guilt Trip, The Garland portrayed the Virginia Mountain Motor Inn.

One of the real life rooms was featured in the movie, as well.

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 Garland, from Parks and Recreation, is located at 4222 North Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

January 22, 2016
The L.A. Hotel Downtown from “How to Get Away with Murder”

UPDATE – This hotel is now known as “The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown.”

Sometimes while viewing a television show or movie, I become absolutely transfixed by a location. So much so that I have to pause what I’m watching and track down the locale right then and there. It happens quite often actually – more often than I’d like to admit – and drives the Grim Cheaper up the wall. Such was the case with the hotel where Eve Rothlow (Famke Janssen) stayed while in town to help Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) in the Season 2 premiere of How to Get Away with Murder titled “It’s Time to Move On.”

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One look at the frosted glass art installation hanging above the check-in desk had me drooling and I immediately grabbed my laptop to begin tracking down the hotel.

Fortunately, it was an easy find. Thanks to the ultra-sleek décor, I knew that the hotel was either newly built or newly renovated, so I did a Google Images search using the terms “modern,” “new,” “hotel,” “renovation” and “Los Angeles,” and it was not long before I came across some pictures that matched what had appeared onscreen.

As it turns out, the “It’s Time to Move On” episode was filmed at The L.A. Hotel Downtown, an absolutely gorgeous property that did indeed recently undergo a massive renovation.

The 14-story hotel was originally constructed as a Sheraton Grande in 1983.

In December 1997, it was purchased by CapStar Hotel Company and was transformed into the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown.

The 2007 financial crisis hit the property hard, though, and it went into foreclosure in 2010. The site was subsequently purchased by Hong Kong-based real estate development company Shenzhen New World Group, who began a $25 million renovation of the place and renamed it The L.A. Hotel Downtown. Though it was originally set to operate under the Hyatt Regency brand when the renovations were complete, those plans fell through and today the hotel functions as an independent property.

You can check out some photos of the hotel during its time as a Marriott here, here, here, here, and here. It is absolutely fascinating to me to see how different the place looked then as compared to now. It’s virtually unrecognizable!

The L.A. Hotel Downtown currently boasts 400 guest rooms, 69 suites, 25,000 square feet of meeting and event space, 23 conference rooms, 2 ballrooms, a fitness center, a restaurant, a lounge, a business center, and an outdoor pool.

It is honestly one of the most gorgeous hotels I have ever laid eyes on.

And in person, the glass art installation did not disappoint!

It is literally stunning.

Hot to Get Away with Murder also made use of the hotel’s main entrance.

The property also masked as the Manhattan hotel where David Clarke (James Tupper) stayed in the Season 4 episode of Revenge titled “Repercussions” – which reminds me, I really need to watch the series’ final season!

For whatever reason, Revenge did not make use of the outside of The L.A. Hotel Downtown, but instead chose to film the exterior hotel scenes at the Westin Bonaventure.

In the recently-aired Season 5 episode of Major Crimes titled “Family Law,” the site masked as the Hotel Collage, where Mike Tao (Michael Paul Chan) went undercover to hire a prostitute while investigating the death of a divorce lawyer.

And in the Season 6 episode of Scandal titled “Buckle Up,” which aired in 2016, the L.A. Hotel Downtown portrayed the spot where warring presidential candidates Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani) and Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) stayed while campaigning in Los Angeles.

In the episode, Susan checked into one of the hotel’s Vista Suites . . .

. . . while Mellie stayed in the 932-square-foot, 2-level Grand Suite.

The property’s Presidential Suite was also used as Susan’s Florida hotel room in the episode.

Back in 1987, when the hotel was operating as the Sheraton Grande, it was featured in the made-for-television movie The Last Fling as one of the spots where Phillip Reed (John Ritter) tried to stop Gloria Franklin’s (Connie Sellecca) wedding.

The hotel’s Grand Suite was also used as the apartment of Joanne Preston (Shannon Tweed) in the movie.

The hotel played Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino where Robin Givens (Kristen Wilson) was interviewed about her relationship with Mike Tyson (Michael Jai White) in the 1995 biopic Tyson.

In the Season 3 episode of Melrose Place titled “Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Dinner at Eight,” which aired in 1995, the Sheraton Grande portrayed the New York hotel where Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) and Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear) stayed while in the Big Apple to see a doctor.

The two shacked up in one of the hotel’s Vista Suites in the episode.

The following year, the Sheraton Grande popped up on Melrose Place once again, this time in the Season 4 episode “No Lifeguard on Duty” in which it masqueraded as The Beverly Hilton, where Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis) moved after separating from Billy Campbell (Andrew Shue).

The Sheraton Grande masked as the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, where the NFL Draft was held, in the 1996 romcom Jerry Maguire.

In 2003, when the hotel was operating as the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown, it popped up as the site of the Royalty Airlines job fair in the comedy View from the Top.

In 2005, it appeared in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Another Mister Sloane.”

A dangerous call girl picked up a client in the Marriott’s lobby in the Season 4 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Pleasure Is My Business,” which aired in 2009.

That same year it popped up as the New York hotel where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and the gang attended a meeting in the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Shareholder Meeting.”

The Presidential Suite was also utilized in the episode.

The hotel’s most famous appearance, though, has to be in Fatboy Slim’s 2001 “Weapon of Choice” music video, which starred a dancing Christopher Walken.

The video, which was shot over two days in December 2000 and went on to win a Grammy and six MTV Video Music awards, made extensive use of the hotel and gives a great view of what it looked like during its days as a Marriott.

Though the property looks vastly different today, fans of the video can take comfort in the fact that its set-up is still the same and that the escalators that Walken danced on remain intact.

You can watch the “Weapon of Choice” video by clicking below.

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 L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown, from How to Get Away with Murder, is located at 333 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the property’s official website here.

January 20, 2016
The “Pretty Little Liars” Church

Before we get started, I have a couple of announcements. Some changes will be coming to the blog in 2016. The biggest change will be a major site redesign, which the Grim Cheaper is currently working on and which I could NOT be more excited about. You’ll notice I’ve altered my screen captures a bit in today’s post, which is part of the revamp. My editor at Los Angeles magazine also recently started a new position and until someone is hired to replace her full time, things are a bit up in the air with my Scene it Before column. Regardless of what happens with that, I will be scaling my IAMNOTASTALKER postings down to three days a week (most of the time, anyway), so that I can free up some time to write for other websites (and for my own sanity – throughout most of 2015, I found myself working every weekday plus Sundays, which is no way to operate). One of my new ventures is a monthly column for one of my good friend’s blogs (more info on that to come), which I am thrilled about. So yeah, changes are a-coming. But hopefully my fellow stalkers will embrace them. I have a feeling big things are on the horizon for 2016. And now, on with the post! The winter premiere of Pretty Little Liars, titled “Of Late I Think of Rosewood,” aired last Tuesday night and I have to say it was surprisingly enjoyable. I am really digging the five-year time jump and all of the mysteries that come with it. Well done, PLL! You’ve sucked me right back in, which I wasn’t sure was possible considering the debacle of the whole Big A reveal in August. In honor of the show’s promising return, I am here yet again with yet another Vancouver locale from the pilot episode – Ryerson United Church, which my good friend/fellow stalker Kerry was nice enough to stalk for me during a recent weekend trip to Canada.

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Ryerson United Church was featured at the very end of the Pretty Little Liars pilot. In the episode, it stood in for the Rosewood, Pennsylvania parish where Alison DiLaurentis’ (Sasha Pieterse) funeral was held.

Most notably, it was while standing outside of the church after the funeral that the Liars received their first ever ominous group text message, which read, “I’m still here, bitches. And I know everything. -A”

Being that I had nothing to go on with this one – no visible street signs or address numbers – I thought the church would be tough to track down, but it was a surprisingly easy find. I simply did a Google Images search using the terms “church” and “Vancouver” and, voila, in the fourth row of results, there was a photo of the place I was looking for! Clicking on said photo led me to a page about Ryerson United Church on the Wedding Mappers website.

The actual inside of Ryerson United also appeared in the Pretty Little Liars pilot. You can check out some photographs of the interior here.

Though, as I mentioned in this post, the supposed church stairs shown in the funeral scene are not located at Ryerson United, but in the Vancouver home that masked as Ali’s in the episode.

It is interesting to be blogging about this particular location now, after having watched “Of Late I Think of Rosewood,” being that the episode so closely paralleled the pilot, especially the funeral scene.

Side note – I absolutely loved the line in the premiere in which Caleb Rivers (Tyler Blackburn), when talking about Radley Sanitarium’s transformation into the boutique hotel “The Radley,” said, “Well, people get do-overs, why shouldn’t buildings?” I couldn’t agree more, Caleb! Oh, how I wish people would stop tearing down old and historic structures! I’m looking at you, owners of the Clueless party house!

When Pretty Little Liars got picked up, production moved from Vancouver to Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank and the series began to make use of a structure located on the Midwest Street backlot as Rosewood’s local church. The façade has gone on to appear in countless episodes, including the funeral scene in “Of Late I Think of Rosewood.”

The Midwest Street church is a practical set and its interior also regularly appears on the show, as was the case with “Of Late I Think of Rosewood.”

Back to Ryerson United Church in Vancouver. Pretty Little Liars is hardly the first production to make use of the site. Most notably, the church was the main location featured in the 1983 TV movie The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

The interior of Ryerson United was also utilized in the production.

In the Season 2 episode of The Flash titled “Legends of Today,” Ryerson United Church masked as St. Marks in Central City, where Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) went to track down a consecrated staff.

The exterior shown in the episode was that of a different church, though.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Ryerson United Church, aka the church from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars, is located at 2195 West 45th Avenue in Vancouver.

January 18, 2016