TV Locations – Page 7 – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 8, 2020December 31, 2019

Alex Theatre from “You”

The Grim Cheaper and I spent the days after Christmas in full vacation mode – sleeping in late, staying in our pajamas until all hours, and binging countless movies and TV shows, including the second season of Netflix’s You, which, I have to say, I enjoyed even more than the first. Well, up until the abysmal finale that is. The episode seemed to drag on forever and WTH was that ending, amirite? The rest of the episodes, though, were nothing if not engrossing! I especially loved that the production was relocated from New York to L.A. for Season 2. I was thrilled to recognize several spots that I’ve already blogged about including Home restaurant, where Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) spied on Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) lunching with her friends in “Just the Tip,” and the now-defunct Daily Dose Café, where Joe escaped from Candace Stone (Ambyr Childers) in “A Fresh Start.” Another familiar spot featured was Alex Theatre, a historic Glendale venue that I stalked back in 2010 after it made an appearance on Glee, but somehow never blogged about. So here goes!

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Originally known as “Alexander Theatre,” the imposing arena was commissioned by West Coast Theatres chain owner C. L. Langley and named in honor of his son.

The Classic Revival-style property, which boasts Greek and Egyptian influences (and, in fact, with its large forecourt and columns reminds me quite a bit of Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre), was designed by Arthur G. Lindley and Charles R. Selkirk. Opened in 1925, the site initially served as a vaudeville venue and movie house, but it wasn’t long before the nearby studios took notice and began utilizing the space for premieres and screenings.

The Alexander underwent an interesting facelift of sorts in 1940 thanks to architect S. Charles Lee, who was also responsible for the Los Angeles Theatre, Temple Israel of Hollywood, and the Max Factor Building. Though the structure’s original façade and forecourt were left intact during the reno . . .

. . . a 100-foot tower, large marquee and ticket booth, all Moderne in style, were installed in front of them, essentially blocking the initial architecture from view. The space was also redubbed the “Alex Theatre” at that time. Thankfully, the venue’s grand interior was largely untouched and looks just as beautiful today as it did when the site originally opened. Of its unique aesthetic, the Alex’s website states, “The auditorium was designed as an ‘atmospherium’ with an open-air illusion enhanced by the stage-set wall encircling the room, creating the feeling of being enclosed in an ancient garden. The Alex is one of the few atmospheric theatres constructed in Southern California and one of only a handful that still remain.” You can check out some photos of the interior here.

Unfortunately, the Alex suffered from a lack of patronage in the ‘80s and shut its doors. It was finally rescued in 1992 by the Glendale Redevelopment Agency, who poured $6.2 million into a massive revitalization project. It then re-opened to much fanfare on December 31st, 1993. Today, the 1,413-seat venue serves as a live performance space and is one of the area’s most popular spots for comedy shows, theatre events, and, of course, filming.

In the Season 2 episode of You titled “Have a Good Wellkend, Joe!”, Delilah Alves (Carmela Zumbado) confronts her younger sister, Ellie (Jenna Ortega), over some stolen photographs outside of the Alex.

You is hardly the only production to make use of the venue. Back in 1999, Mandy Moore shot her “Walk Me Home” music video at the site.

The pop star even sang a few vocals propped atop the Alex’s marquee, though I think those segments may have been lensed on a studio-built set replica.

Aaron Carter’s 2002 “Do You Remember” music video also took place at the venue.

In the Season 3 episode of Criminal Minds titled “3rd Life,” which aired in 2008, the Behavioral Analysis Unit investigated the case of two teens who went missing from the Alex.

The theatre popped up as the Buckeye Civic Auditorium, where the McKinley High glee club competed in the Western Ohio High School’s Show Choir Sectionals, in the Season 1 episode of Glee titled “Sectionals,” which aired in 2009.

Hugh Hefner (James Franco) hosted a screening of Deep Throat at the Alex in the 2013 biopic Lovelace.

Larry David (Larry David) and Jeff Greene’s (Jeff Garlin) Fatwa! musical is performed at the venue in the Season 9 finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled “Fatwa!”, which aired in 2017.

And Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) attended Dick Casablancas’ (Ryan Hansen) movie premiere at the Alex in the Season 4 episode of Veronica Mars titled “Chino and the Man,” which aired in 2019.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Alex Theatre, from the “Have a Good Wellkend, Joe!” episode of You, is located at 216 North Brand Boulevard in Glendale. You can visit the venue’s official website here.

December 20, 2019December 20, 2019

The Tire House from “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday”

Today’s locale is becoming quite the prolific film star! I’ve blogged about the residence at 800 Adelaine Avenue in South Pasadena previously – twice, in fact. It first came on my radar thanks to its appearance in the 2008 comedy Bedtime Stories, as I chronicled here. Then, in 2015, I noticed it pop up in the pilot episode of the short-lived Fox series Grandfathered and dedicated another post to the place. Pretty thorough coverage, I know. But when I learned that it also cameoed in not one, but two Christmas-themed productions recently, I decided that yet another write-up was in order!

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The picturesque English Revival holds a pretty special place in my heart. I have it to thank for meeting and becoming friends with fellow stalker Owen. Way back on May 20th, 2009, I received an email from him asking for some assistance in tracking down the home belonging to Wendy (Courteney Cox) in Bedtime Stories. That email kicked off the first of many location hunts the two of us have embarked upon. Owen’s comment on my initial post about the place was quite prophetic. He wrote, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Did I say ‘Louis’? I mean ‘Lindsay.’” Oh, how right he was! The two of us became fast friends and remain so today, more than a decade later! The house has fared pretty well, too, cameo-wise.

As mentioned above, it was also featured in the Grandfathered pilot in which it portrayed the home of Jimmy Martino’s (John Stamos) ex, Sara (Paget Brewster). It only appeared in the one episode, though. Once the series got picked up, filming of Sara’s house scenes shifted to a different pad at 12660 Kling Street in Studio City.

Then, last week, while writing my post on the residence where Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) lived in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, I scanned through the 1988 sequel Big Top Pee-wee and the 2016 Netflix film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday to see if the same property was utilized in either. It wasn’t, but I was thrilled to see the Bedtime Stories house in the latter! Though it only popped up briefly, I recognized it immediately as the spot where Pee-wee released a tire from a trailer as part of his extensive morning routine at the beginning of the flick.

Coming full circle, a few days before that discovery, I received a text from Owen informing me that he had attempted to write a comment on my original Bedtime Stories house post, but that my site wasn’t allowing it. (That’s an ongoing issue with old posts that the Grim Cheaper is trying to fix.) Because I knew he had been binging Christmas movies, I figured he was likely wanting to apprise me of the home’s Pee-wee’s Big Holiday cameo. But once the GC finally got comments on the post up and running, I was shocked that Owen was actually clueing me in on a different Yuletide-themed appearance! He wrote, “When I think of this house, I think of you, because our friendship had its genesis in the search for this location. For that reason, I thought I’d let you know that the house recently updated its filming location curriculum vitae, if you will. I saw it pop up again on the “Christmas Spirit” episode of 9-1-1, which aired on Dec. 2. They give the address as 2749 Elmer Ave. in North Hollywood in the episode . . . and then proceed to allow the ‘800’ house number near the front door to be visible five minutes later. You have to do better than that to fool a stalker!” Yeah, especially when it comes to such a well-known locale! In the “Christmas Spirit” episode, the pad is where a mom (Chrystee Pharris) collapses and 9-1-1 operator Maddie Kendall (Jennifer Love Hewitt) talks her young son, Leo (Seth Carr), through performing CPR until the paramedics arrive.

The residence is so idyllic and charming, it is not at all hard to see how it wound up onscreen in so many productions. Built in 1925, the pad has 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,165 square feet, a 0.23-acre lot, and a detached garage. It last sold in January 2004 for $652,500, but Zillow puts its worth at $1,555,821 today! So not only does the property have the ability to foster friendships, but it’s lucrative to boot!

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

Big THANK YOU to Owen for asking me to find this house back in 2009, informing me of its recent 9-1-1 appearance, and, most of all, ten years of friendship.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The “tire house” from Pee-wee’s Big Holiday is located at 800 Adelaine Avenue in South Pasadena.

December 13, 2019December 12, 2019

Bridges Auditorium from “The West Wing”

I am one of the few people in the world who did not watch The West Wing when it was on the air. And boy was I missing out! The Grim Cheaper and I started binging the series on a whim this past January and now can’t get enough! The show is so good, I could cry! It’s literally one of the best productions to ever grace television screens! Early in our binging, I, of course, went on a deep dive to unearth some of its locations and was thrilled to come across a 2012 Architectural Digest article that spelled out one locale in particular, stating “Because The West Wing had not yet acquired an East Room set in time, the series’ second-season Christmas episode, ‘Noël,’ featuring the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, was filmed in the lobby of Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium, in Claremont, California.” Well, believe you me, the venue went straight to the top of my To-Stalk List and I headed out there way back in February, but I’ve held off on blogging about it as I figured it would make for an excellent holiday post.

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The Mabel Shaw Bridges Music Auditorium, as it is formally known, was commissioned by Appleton and Amelia Shaw Bridges in honor of their daughter, Mabel, who passed away while attending Pomona College in 1907.

Designed by San Diego-based architect William Templeton Johnson in the Northern Italian Renaissance style, the venue was constructed from 1930 to 1931 at a cost of $650,000.

Bridges Auditorium was dedicated on September 18th, 1931 and its inaugural concert season officially kicked off the following month, on October 27th, with a performance by Artur Rodziński and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, it has gone on to host a slew of celebrated personalities. Just a few of the luminaries who have set foot on its stage include Steve Martin, Muhammad Ali, Amelia Earhart, Benny Goodman, James Earl Jones, and Bono.

Sadly, the hall was closed when I visited, so I did not get to see the interior.

The exterior is pretty darn spectacular, though, with a towering arched overhang lined with grand columns and topped by a cathedral ceiling.

The auditorium itself, which you can see photos of here, boasts rich red carpeting, seating for 2,494 guests, and a magical ceiling mural spanning 22,000 square feet that was hand-painted by Giovanni Smeraldi, the famed artist who also adorned the ceilings of Doheny Memorial Library’s Los Angeles Times Reference Room, the Pasadena Main Branch of the Bank of the West, St. Vincent de Paul Church, and the Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s South Galleria. (The latter, coincidentally, is also a West Wing locale!)

It is Bridges Auditorium’s lobby that is its real claim to fame, though. Featuring a coffered ceiling, marble columns, and a grand staircase, the versatile space has appeared onscreen as everything from a courthouse to a college admissions office to the White House (twice!). You can take a look at the beautiful room here.

In The West Wing’s “Noël” episode, which aired in 2000, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his senior staff attend a congressional Christmas party during which Yo-Yo Ma performs – and yes, the actual Yo-Yo Ma guest-starred! As mentioned above, the production team transformed Bridges’ lobby into the White House’s East Room for the shoot. Architectural Digest notes, “Although smaller than the actual East Room—the largest room in the White House, primarily used for entertaining—the space, says [production designer Kenneth] Hardy, had the right feeling. He and his production crew hung replica chandeliers and added chairs, flowers, and presidential portraits.” It was a lot of preparation for what essentially amounted to about two minutes of screen time, much of which was interspersed with flashbacks of Josh Lyman’s (Bradley Whitford) shooting from Season 1. Nevertheless, the space did look beautiful in the scene.

The Bridges Auditorium foyer also masked as the courthouse lobby where Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) collapsed in the 1988 drama Beaches.

It again portrayed the White House – this time its grand entry hall – in the 1993 comedy Dave.

And in the Season 3 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Let the Games Begin,” which aired in 2002, the foyer masqueraded as the main administration building at Yale University, where Richard (Edward Herrmann) forced Rory (Alexis Bledel) into an impromptu interview with the Dean of Admissions.

The exterior of Bridges Auditorium also appeared briefly in the episode.

The theatre itself is where the body of a murdered ballerina is found in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better,” which aired in 2018.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bridges Auditorium, from the “Noël” episode of The West Wing, is located at 450 North College Way, on the Pomona College campus, in Claremont.

December 9, 2019April 23, 2020

611 Place from “The Morning Show”

I hope y’all aren’t sick of The Morning Show locations yet, cause I’ve got a few more up my sleeve, namely the site that portrays UBA Studios, where the titular show-within-the-show is filmed on the new Apple TV+ series. At first blush, I thought the locale was most likely in New York, where the program is set and partially filmed. But once I identified the Starbucks at 6th and Grand in downtown L.A. as the spot where Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) is invited to a birthday party in episode 4, “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” I quickly realized that the UBA scenes were lensed right across the street at a towering structure known as 611 Place. Fortunately, I happened to be in DTLA just a few days after my discovery, so I popped by to check it out.

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Constructed as the headquarters for Crocker-Citizens Bank in 1969, the building originally went by the name Crocker-Citizens Plaza.

The formidable modernist structure was designed by architect William Pereira, who also gave us Fox Plaza (aka Nakatomi Plaza from Die Hard), Farralone (aka the former Frank Sinatra estate), and the Disneyland Hotel.

The 42-story cross-shaped tower, which sits atop a four-level block base, boasts vertical steel beaming, 715,000 square feet of office and retail space, a marble-clad lobby, and a ground-floor bank complete with a vault.

At 620 feet, Crocker-Citizens Plaza was the tallest building in Los Angeles at the time of its completion (and only the second to surpass the height of City Hall), a record it held briefly until ARCO Plaza (now City National Plaza) was constructed in 1972.

When Crocker-Citizens Bank vacated the locale in 1983, it was purchased by AT&T and renamed AT&T Center, though many referred to it (and still refer to it, in fact) as the AT&T Building.

AT&T’s tenure ended in 1999, at which point the Chetrit Group, a New York-based development firm, acquired the building and it was re-named once again, this time to 611 Place, in honor of its 611 West 6th Street address.

Per the Urbanize Los Angeles website, the upper floors have been mostly vacant for a decade and, while Chetrit is said to have obtained entitlements way back in 2007 to transform the office spaces into condos, those plans have yet to come to fruition. When I was stalking the place, though, I saw plenty of people coming and going from the elevators, making their way through the large lobby, so I am not sure how empty the building actually is. Regardless, filming is definitely one way the site is bringing in revenue.

611 Place repeatedly pops up as UBA Studios on The Morning Show.

The series makes use of the building’s Grand Avenue side.

Unfortunately, a UPS truck was parked right in front of the Grand Avenue entrance when I attempted to take a matching shot of the screen capture below, so Google Street View imagery will have to do.

It is not hard to see how 611 Place wound up on The Morning Show as it does very much have the look and feel of a New York building, especially with its brass revolving door which Bradley, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) are regularly seen entering and exiting.

Some CGI trickery was employed to add to the building’s NYC feel in episode 4, “That Woman.” As you can see, imagery of the iconic Cartier Mansion on Fifth Avenue was superimposed in the background of a scene taking place outside of 611 Place.

The special effects team wasn’t very thorough, though, because seconds later, the Edwards & Wildey Building, the actual structure located in that spot, is clearly visible where Cartier stood just moments before.

The lobby of 611 Place also regularly appears on The Morning Show.

The friendly security guard on duty during my stalk was nice enough to allow me to snap interior photos of the lobby and even pointed out which areas of it were used! As you can see below, some turnstiles were added to the premises for the shoot, as were sconces above the elevator.

The interior of the actual studio where the show-within-the-show is shot was nothing more than a set built inside of a soundstage on the Sony lot in Culver City.

611 Place is actually a longtime screen star.

Way back in 1973, William Dorn (Chuck Connors) set off a bomb outside of the building, killing himself in the process, at the end of The Police Connection, aka The Mad Bomber.

611 Place served as the headquarters of MacGregor Oil in the 1983 drama Uncommon Valor.

That same year, it popped up as the office building where Caroline Butler (Teri Garr) worked in the comedy Mr. Mom.

Pinball’s (Dave Chappelle) body is tossed from a plane and lands on a car in front of 611 Place in the 1997 thriller Con Air.

It is seen briefly as the casualty of an earthquake in the 2000 disaster flick Epicenter.

The now vacant bank space on the building’s lower level is where Roy Waller (Nicolas Cage) heads to empty his safety deposit box in 2003’s Matchstick Men.

Leland Van Lew (Bryan Brown) base jumps off the neighboring KPMG Center at 550 South Hope Street in the 2004 romcom Along Came Polly, giving audiences a brief view of 611 Place during his descent.

And it recently popped up as the FBI office Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector) visited in the Season 6 episode of Bosch titled “Good People on Both Sides.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: 611 Place, aka UBA Studios from The Morning Show, is located at 611 West 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles. The Starbucks featured in the series’ fifth episode, “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” is right across the street at 523 West 6th Street.

December 6, 2019April 1, 2020

The Wolves from “The Morning Show”

My obsession with The Morning Show is no secret. I’ve blogged about its locations four times already (here, here, here, and here) and it isn’t even on its eighth episode! Readers have obviously taken note because I recently received an email from one who works in downtown Los Angeles informing me that some filming of the new Apple TV+ series had taken place at an area bar named The Wolves. One look at images of the watering hole had me absolutely drooling. Dark, old-timey and full of stained glass and rich woods, it was like no other spot I had ever seen. So to the top of my To-Stalk List it went and my mom and I headed out there just a few days later while in town for a doctor appointment for my dad. It wasn’t long after that The Wolves popped up on the series, appearing in the episodes titled “Open Waters” and “The Interview.”

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The spot that now houses The Wolves was previously home to the rather austere F Square Printing, which, per its signage, served as a copy/business center, art gallery, and karaoke venue all in one. The odd combo shop shuttered in 2013 and sat vacant for a time before being snapped up by restaurateurs Al Almeida, Daniel Salin, and Isaac Mejia, who saw potential in the stark storefront and spent the next two and a half years building it out to create an incredible Belle Époque-inspired bar. The two-story lounge opened its doors last September. Though the stunning exterior feels like a façade straight out of Paris, France, or perhaps Disneyland . . .

. . . the interior is the real sight to behold!

Knowing nothing of the site’s past prior to entering, I was convinced that the magical space, which is situated on the ground floor of the Alexandria Hotel, was some sort of historic ballroom. Owner Almeida, an incredibly friendly Jeremy Renner lookalike whom we had the great pleasure of chatting with, set me straight, though, regaling us with the complete lowdown on the design and background of the unique watering hole. It is incredible to think that just a few years ago it looked like this!

Though the Batchelder tiles that cover the floor are, amazingly, original to the space (you can even see them in this image of F Square Printing), the rest of The Wolves is the result of an incredible collation of antiques.

Inspired by turn-of-the-century Paris, Almeida, Salin, and Mejia sourced pieces from all over the globe to furnish the bar.

The mahogany booths that line the drinkery, authentic 1920s seating formerly situated in a restaurant in Seneca, New York, were a Craigslist find.

The mirrors situated at the back of each booth were also vintage discoveries.

The carved wooden doors are from Argentina circa 1890.

And the pièce de résistance, the dramatic domed ceiling, was an eBay score delivered in panels via flatbed truck that was procured from Paris, Illinois where it formerly canopied a train station.

Initially spanning 22 feet, to fit The Wolves’ 11-foot ceiling, the piece was split in half and the two sections installed adjacent to each other, forming a double arch atop the lounge’s main room.

The Wolves even boasts a secondary bar situated in the rear known as Le Neant (French for “the nothingness”), an intimate room cloaked in deep reds that is utilized for special events, as well as the many tastings and dinners hosted onsite.

Nothing about the bar is typical, not even the name, which is a nod to Martin Scorsese’s 2002 period drama Gangs of New York. Salin, a huge fan of the film, initially wanted to dub the watering hole in honor of one of the gangs portrayed in the story (my memory is failing me now – I’m going to blame the bubbly I consumed while speaking with Almeida – but I believe it was either the “Dead Rabbits” or the “Gopher Gang”), however the moniker just didn’t work for a saloon. So the owners brainstormed other animal names, eventually landing on “The Wolves.”

It is absolutely no surprise that the gorgeous bar found its way to the screen.

In the “Open Waters” episode of The Morning Show, Audra (Mindy Kaling) tries to poach Daniel Henderson (Desean Terry) for her own series over lunch at The Wolves.

The two journalists sit in one of the lounge’s antique booths in the scene.

And in the series season finale, Yanko Flores (Nestor Carbonell) drinks his troubles away at The Wolves after being dumped.

The Wolves was also featured in another recent Reese Witherspoon production! It is at the bar that a young Elena Richardson (AnnaSophia Robb) parties with her boyfriend Jamie Caplan (Luke Bracey) on their last night in Paris in 1976 in the Season 1 episode of Little Fires Everywhere titled “Duo.”

Per Almeida, a couple of photo shoots have also taken place at The Wolves and I have no doubt the bar will be popping up in many more productions in the near future.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Wolves, from the “Open Waters” episode of The Morning Show, is located at 519 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. It is open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily. You can visit the bar’s official website here.

December 2, 2019November 28, 2019

The CalEdison from “The Morning Show”

L.A. never ceases to amaze! Case in point – the CalEdison. Built in 1931, the Art Deco masterpiece is not only a sight to behold, but its grand lobby is open to the public! Somehow though, I never knew about the place until last week when I was researching locations from The Morning Show.

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During my viewing of the new Apple TV+ series’ premiere episode, “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” I became a bit mesmerized with what was said to be the Archer Gray Hotel in New York. With towering marble columns, ornate tile flooring, and intricate wrought-iron windows, the space was striking to say the least. Shocked I had never come across it in all my years of stalking, I immediately set out to track it down. Because The Morning Show is largely filmed in L.A., with only a few exteriors shot in NYC, I knew the Archer Gray had to be somewhere in SoCal. Its seemingly historic architecture led me to look first in the downtown area. But Google searches for “historic building,” “grand lobby,” and “marble columns” did not bring up images that even remotely resembled the place.

It was not until episode 5, “No One’s Going to Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” aired that I was able to pinpoint it. In a scene at the close of the episode, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) attempts to secure the room number of her boss Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) from an uncooperative Archer Gray front desk clerk, during which a massive mural is visible behind her, as well as what appeared to be a coffee bar of some sort. Adding those elements to my search terms led me straight to The CalEdison, a historic office building in the heart of downtown. I was elated to discover upon researching the place further that it is open to the public! My parents just happened to be heading into L.A. a few days after my discovery and had booked a room at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, located right across the street from The CalEdison. So I, of course, tagged along and ran right over to stalk the building immediately upon check-in.

The 14-story structure originally served as the headquarters of Southern California Edison and was known, appropriately, as the Southern California Edison Building.

Designed by the Allison & Allison architecture firm (who also gave us the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and UCLA’s Kerckhoff Hall), the property’s gorgeous exterior features a limestone and terracotta façade, bas-reliefs sculpted by artist Merrell Gage, and a towering two-story entry portico.

It is the interior that is the real stunner, though!

The expansive lobby boasts over 17 varieties of marble, 30-foot coffered ceilings, a mural painted by Hugo Ballin, and stunning friezes above each elevator.

Even the trash cans are elegant! And those building directories!

The CalEdison is more than just a pretty face, though. As the first seismically-retrofitted building in L.A., as well as the first to be electrically heated and cooled, it was incredibly technologically advanced.

Boasting 250,000 square feet of office space, The CalEdison cost a whopping $2.5 million to construct.

When SoCal Edison sold the place in 1972 in order to relocate to Rosemead, it was renamed One Bunker Hill. Its stellar architecture was mutilated in the decade that followed – its ceilings dropped, walls removed, and large fourth-floor patios enclosed with glass casings. I actually really like the look of the latter, which have been described as “greenhouse-like structures.” You can see what they looked like here. Thankfully, the lobby was left untouched during the renovations.

In October 2015, the grand building was bought by Hermes Investment Management of London, Limestone Investments and Rising Realty Partners for $92 million. The group renamed it The CalEdison and set about bringing the site back to its original glory, as well as renovating the many upstairs office spaces into creative work sites. The patio casings were also removed as part of the project. Though I wish those casings had been left intact, the rest of the work performed can only be described as perfection.

GreekOak Real Estate bought out both Hermes and Limestone earlier this year for $140 million, though Rising Realty continues to hold on to its share of the property.

While walking around the vast lobby, I couldn’t help but think how fabulous is it that this masterpiece exists and that it is open to the public for Angelinos and tourists alike to enjoy.

On The Morning Show, the Archer Gray Hotel is where network exec Cory checks in upon arriving in New York to deal with the fallout from the firing of Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell). Bradley also moves there in episode 5 after being relocated from The Standard, where she was initially put up. Only the lobby of the building is featured on the series. (My photo below is a little off on the angling, but shows the same area of The CalEdison as is pictured in the screen capture.)

Bradley’s room . . .

. . . as well as Corey’s are both just studio-built sets.

And the exterior of the Archer Gray Hotel is a building in New York that I have yet to identify.

The Morning Show is not CalEdison’s only claim to fame!

The building is also seen briefly in the 1953 noir The Bigamist in the scene in which Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) first arrives in L.A.

The property was used for interior shots of the office building Davey Osbourne (Henry Thomas) and Kim Gardener (Christina Nigra) try to infiltrate in 1984’s Cloak & Dagger.

Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) gets arrested for robbing a bank at The CalEdison before being rescued by Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) in the 2001 thriller Ocean’s Eleven.

Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) almost gets arrested there in the Season 8 episode of 24 titled “11:00am-12:00pm,” which aired in 2010.

That same year, the building served as the office of Victor Racine (Michael Ironside) in the Season 2 episode of Castle titled “Den of Thieves.”

Narcy (Paz Vega) heads to the bank on The CalEdison’s lower level to empty her dead husband’s safety deposit box in the 2015 Lifetime television movie Beautiful & Twisted.

During the second season of Big Little Lies, which aired in 2019, the offices of Scheper Kim & Harris LLP, located on CalEdison’s 12th floor, portrayed the office of lawyer Ira Farber (Denis O’Hare), as I detailed in this post. (I learned this tidbit thanks to a reader, but because only the 12th floor appeared in the episodes, I never took a look at images of the lobby or the rest of the building, which is why I was unfamiliar with it prior to trying to track down the Archer Gray.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The CalEdison, aka the Archer Gray Hotel from The Morning Show, is located at 601 West 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles. The building’s lobby is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

November 27, 2019April 23, 2020

The Starbucks from “The Morning Show”

I love a good Starbucks location! I mean, what’s better than stalking and being able to pick up a great cup of coffee at the same time? So I was thrilled to recognize an outpost of the java giant while watching the fifth episode of The Morning Show, titled “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” recently. As it turns out, the café is a place I’ve visited countless times over the years and even blogged about once back in 2013. Situated on the corner of West 6th Street and Grand Avenue in downtown L.A., the coffee shop is just steps from the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, where the Grim Cheaper and I regularly used to check in when seeking a staycation while living in Los Angeles. As fate would have it, my parents booked a room at the property just last week, so I, of course, tagged along in order to do a little Starbucks re-stalk.

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The Starbucks at 6th and Grand has been a staple of the neighborhood for more than a decade.

Before that, the space, situated in the southwest corner of the ground floor of the picturesque PacMutual building, housed a Grand Central Coffee outpost and then a Tully’s Coffee.

The Starbucks looks quite a bit different today than when I originally stalked it six years ago thanks to an extensive remodel that took place in late 2017 during which the interior was gutted, the front doors moved from the store’s south to west side, and the café expanded into the unit next door which formerly housed a deli.

The result is a massive, modern space with plenty of seating, a huge front counter, and wraparound windows.

I love the muted green color scheme and concrete design elements which give it a bit of a different feel than a typical Starbucks.

It is at the coffee shop that Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) runs into her co-workers Hannah Shoenfeld (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Claire Conway (Bel Powley), who invite her out to celebrate Claire’s birthday, in “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around.”

By only showing one small corner of the café in the scene and none of the familiar Starbucks signage, it seems that producers went out of their way to make the place appear to be a random coffee house and not an outpost of the retail giant. Had it not been for the green umbrellas visible outside the window, as well as the view of the Edwards & Wildey Building (now known as Milano Lofts) across the street, I might not have recognized the location. It’s a good thing I know my Starbucks!

The 6th and Grand outpost is actually a frequent film star.

It appeared very briefly in the background of the 1999 drama Fight Club in the scene in which The Narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) blew up an electronics store.

Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker) discussed welfare reform at the site back when it was a Tully’s Coffee in the Season 3 episode of The West Wing titled “Posse Comitatus,” which aired in 2002.

Though the Tully’s signage was left intact on the front doors, the space was utilized to portray the fictional “Phil’s Bar” in the 2004 romcom Little Black Book. In another odd move, the imagery of the bar’s exterior was also flipped in the scene, as I detailed in my 2013 post.

The 6th and Grand Starbucks is also where Martin Bohm (Kiefer Sutherland) tried to talk to Walter King (Robert Patrick Benedict) in the Season 1 episode of Touch titled “Safety in Numbers,” which aired in 2012.

Recently, Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector), Brad Coniff (David Marciano), and Detective Julie Espinosa (Jacqueline Pinol) grabbed coffee there and discussed a case in the Season 6 episode of Bosch titled “Good People on Both Sides.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Starbucks from the “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around” episode of The Morning Show is located at 523 West 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles.

November 20, 2019May 2, 2020

Bradley’s Mom’s House from “The Morning Show”

The Morning Show really threw me for a loop, location-wise (as I mentioned in this recent post). Set in NYC, I got through the entire first episode of the new Apple TV+ series thinking it was shot in the Big Apple, as well. I did have a couple moments of hesitation in that belief while watching, one when an overhead shot of the dining room of downtown L.A.’s famous Cicada restaurant was shown and the other when Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) pulled up to the home belonging to her mother, Sandy (Brett Butler). The foliage, setback, and architecture of the latter had a definite San Gabriel Valley feel to it. In fact, it looked ripped right off a leafy Pasadena-area street! I even turned to the Grim Cheaper and said, “Huh, they must have Craftsman-style houses like that in the suburbs of NYC, too!” D’oh! As soon as I realized while watching episode 2 that The Morning Show was actually lensed in L.A., my first order of business was to find Sandy’s house. Thankfully, it turned out to be a fairly easy endeavor despite some trickery by the production team.

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In the series’ premiere episode, titled “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” Bradley heads to her mother’s supposed West Virginia home to confront her brother about his early release from rehab. A fake address number of 1624 was added to the residence’s mailbox for the scene and, while it thwarted my identification attempts for a bit, ultimately I prevailed. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool me! Winking smile

Due to the home’s seeming ruralness, I figured it was most likely located just north of Pasadena in the unincorporated community of Altadena and began my search there. Thanks to its unique orientation – it sits perpendicular to the road with its side facing the street, which is apparent when Bradley parks in the scene – I pinpointed it rather quickly via aerial views as 2874 Santa Anita Avenue, about a mile northwest of the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210.

In real life, the handsome 2-story Craftsman, built in 1915, boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 1,673 square feet, and a detached garage.

Not to mention one grand front porch!

It is on the front porch that Hannah Shoenfeld (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) convinces Bradley to go to New York to be interviewed by Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) in the episode.

Set back from the road, the home sits on a large corner 0.41-acre lot.

Though the front of the property is visible from the street, not much else of it is thanks to the massive amount of foliage surrounding it.

I am 99.9% certain that the inside of the pad also appeared in “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” but, unfortunately, I could not find any interior photos with which to verify that.

It is also from the house that Hal (Joe Tippett) calls Bradley to inquire about her new morning show gig in episode 3, titled “Chaos is the New Cocaine.”

And it is from there that Sandy is interviewed during Bradley’s hosting debut in episode 4 “That Woman.”

The residence is actually no stranger to the small screen.

Thanks to IMDB, I learned that it also portrayed the Harvest, Alabama-area dwelling where David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and his team investigated a double murder and kidnapping in the Season 4 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Bloodline,” which aired in 2009.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Sandy Jackson’s house from The Morning Show is located at 2874 Santa Anita Avenue in Altadena.

November 18, 2019November 17, 2019

“The Unicorn” House

The Fall 2019 television season is chock full of fabulous new series! The Grim Cheaper says the deluge brings him right back to the Must-See TV days of the ‘90s. A few of our favorites include The Morning Show (as mentioned here), All Rise, Bluff City Law, Prodigal Son, and The Unicorn. The latter, based on a true story, centers around widower Wade Felton (Walton Goggins) and his attempts to move on with life a year after his wife’s death via a little help from his friends. While it doesn’t sound like it’d be a great premise for a comedy, I find myself laughing throughout each episode. And bonus – though set in Raleigh, North Carolina, it’s shot in Los Angeles! So I, of course, set out to find the home where Wade lives with his two young daughters, Grace (Ruby Jay) and Natalie (Makenzie Moss), on the show. (Pardon the selfie above – I stalked the house while by myself on a quick visit to L.A. last week.)

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I had seen the trailer for The Unicorn months before the series’ debut in September and immediately recognized the residence that appeared in it as the Partridge House, located at Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank. The picturesque Colonial, a practical set situated on the backlot’s Blondie Street, has appeared in countless productions over the years, as I detailed in this 2016 post for Mike the Fanboy. So named thanks to its regular appearance as the Partridge residence on The Partridge Family, it also portrayed the Thatcher home on Life Goes On and the Kravitz pad on Bewitched and is currently where MeeMaw (Annie Potts) lives on Young Sheldon.

By the time the pilot of The Unicorn aired, though, a different property had been selected to portray the home of the Felton family. When I first laid eyes on the Craftsman-style pad, I was convinced it was located in Pasadena, but searching around Crown City and its environs yielded nothing that matched.

Episode 2, titled “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” thankfully provided additional clarity via an address number of “138” visible on the house next door to the Felton’s. That number gibed more with the Hancock Park area than Pasadena, so I started searching there and found the Felton home within minutes at 132 Wilton Drive in Windsor Square.

The exterior of the handsome home appears regularly in establishing shots of the Felton residence, as well as in some on location filming of outdoor scenes.

Only the exterior of the property is featured on The Unicorn. The interior of the Felton pad – described by Wade’s friend Delia (Michaela Watkins) as being “like the Disney Channel version of Grey Gardens” in the first episode – is just a set that exists inside of a soundstage at Paramount Studios where the series is lensed. It looks nothing like the actual inside of 132 Wilton Drive, which you can check out some photos of here. Interiors for the pilot episode (pictured below), though, were shot at the Partridge House at Warner Ranch, which, as I mentioned above, is a practical set meaning that both the inside and outside of it can be utilized for filming.

I’ve been fortunate enough to tour the Partridge House a few times, which is where the photos above and below come from. Unfortunately, my angles are just slightly off from what was shown in The Unicorn’s pilot.

The inside of the Partridge House is basically just an empty shell that productions can come in and change or outfit as needed. As you can see below, the kitchen area does not even have cabinets when not being used for a shoot.

Again, my angle is a bit off, but pictured below is the kitchen nook that served as the Felton’s dining area in the pilot. You can just see the Partridge House’s living room fireplace through the opening in the wall in my photo.

A full view of the living room is below. The kitchen stands just behind the “built-in bookcases,” which were removed for The Unicorn pilot in order to make the space more open.

Though I did not snap a photo of the living room area looking out toward the staircase, I did capture the stairs themselves during my visits to the Partridge House.

The Partridge House also boasts a functional backyard and The Unicorn producers made use of it in the pilot.

The alcove where Wade keeps his freezer – a focal point of the episode – is an actual element of the house, situated between the rear door and the detached garage, as you can see below.

When The Unicorn got picked up, filming moved to Paramount Studios, where the Felton residence interior set was then built from scratch. It looks virtually nothing like the interior from the pilot, though Wade’s freezer alcove was a holdover. You can just see it outside of the door to the left of the stairs in the lower screen capture below.

While I initially assumed that the show made use of 132 Wilton Drive’s backyard for all episodes beyond the pilot, that turns out to be incorrect. The Feltons’ backyard is actually part of the Paramount set, situated inside of a soundstage on the lot.

In real life, the Wilton Drive house, which was built in 1917, boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,200 square feet of living space, and a 0.13-acre lot.

The property last sold in 2011 and looked quite different at the time, with a rounded Colonial-inspired portico attached to its façade, as you can see below. In recent years, the new owners widened the steps leading down to the sidewalk, swapped out the lower-level windows and front door, and removed the portico, adding a large porch in its place. The result is a home that is much more Craftsman in style.

Not to mention much more photogenic! As such, it is no surprise that it wound up onscreen as the residence of the Felton family.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Felton home from The Unicorn is located at 132 Wilton Drive in Windsor Square.

November 8, 2019November 18, 2019

Cicada from “The Morning Show”

I don’t know what all the hullabaloo regarding The Morning Show being terrible is about. The Grim Cheaper and I trepidatiously tuned in earlier this week and, considering all the jeers reviewers are spewing, were shocked at how much we enjoyed the new Apple TV+ series! We devoured the three episodes that have aired so far in one sitting and literally loved every second! So artfully done and intriguing is the show that it even managed to pull one over on me, locations-wise! Set in NYC, I assumed all filming had taken place there as well. While I did have a few “That looks like L.A.” moments throughout episode 1, it was not until Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) walked up the instantly recognizable split staircase of downtown’s iconic Cicada restaurant at the start of episode 2 that I realized my mistake! A quick look at the drama’s Wikipedia page confirmed that it was largely lensed in Los Angeles, with a few exteriors shot in the Big Apple. Hoping to throw a little love The Morning Show’s way, I figure it is the perfect time to blog about Cicada, a spot I stalked ages ago (while scouting wedding venues prior to my 2010 nuptials!) but somehow have yet to write about.

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Any article about quintessential Los Angeles restaurants will undoubtedly feature Cicada. Initially established as Rex iI Ristorante in 1981, the landmark eatery sits on the ground floor of the Oviatt Building in the heart of downtown. The 13-story structure was the brainchild of James Oviatt, a famous clothier who outfitted the likes of Clark Gable, John Barrymore, and Gary Cooper during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Originally employed as a window dresser at Desmond’s Department Store, Oviatt partnered with fellow employee Frank Alexander in 1911 to open their own haberdashery, the exclusive Alexander & Oviatt. It was an instant success. A 1925 visit to Paris’ International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (which introduced Art Deco to the world) inspired James to construct a gilded architectural marvel of his own in L.A. Thus the Oviatt Building was born in 1928.

Designed by Albert Walker and Percy Eisen, the exquisite structure featured maillechort detailing, hand-carved wood paneling, more than 30 tons of glass artworks created by René Lalique, and an arcade with an ornate frosted-glass ceiling courtesy of artist Gaetan Jeannin (pictured below).

Sadly, much of both Lalique and Jeannin’s pieces were later sold off and have since been replaced with facsimiles, though some of their original works remain, like the doors below.

The building’s pièce de résistance was easily its street-level salon which housed the new Alexander & Oviatt haberdashery. Gilded, grand and absolutely striking, the boutique featured a large open sales floor flanked by wooden cabinets filled with the finest clothes money could by, a magnificent split staircase, a mezzanine which was home to the women’s department (aka the Salon des Elegances), and an outdoor palm grove, where patrons could experience the wares in natural light.

Though L.A.’s premier place to shop for fine clothing for decades, Alexander & Oviatt saw a decline in patronage in the 1960s and closed its doors in 1967. The once-popular boutique subsequently sat vacant for years. By that time, the building was showing its age. Enter Wayne Ratkovich and Don Bowers, developers who, seeing potential in the once-grand structure, made an offer to buy it in 1977 and subsequently dedicated $5 million into a major renovation. A huge part of that renovation was a reimagining of the former Alexander & Oviatt space, which was transformed into an exclusive eatery courtesy of Mauro Vincenti. Because the Oviatt had been declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1978, the nuts and bolts of the boutique’s interior, thankfully, couldn’t be changed, but the Rome-born restauranteur outfitted it with décor and design elements inspired by a dining room from the 1930s-era Italian cruise ship the SS Rex. Mauro dubbed the place “Rex il Ristorante,” which translates to “Rex the Restaurant.” The gorgeous site was soon the spot to dine in L.A.

Vincenti sadly passed away in August 1996 at the untimely age of 53. His widow kept his famed eatery open until the following January when the lease on the site expired. Stephanie Taupin subsequently took over the 14,000-square-foot space and re-located her West Hollywood restaurant Cicada there.

Though the interior was given a bit of a facelift, the ceiling painted with gold leaf and much of the décor swapped out, thanks to its Historic-Cultural Monument status, the former boutique still looks not only much as it did when Rex was in operation but Alexander & Oviatt as well!

It is easily one of the most gorgeous places in L.A.!

I mean!

In the first episode of The Morning Show, titled “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” Corey Ellison (an absolutely brilliant, but utterly unrecognizable Billy Crudup) and Chip Black (Mark Duplass) dine at what is supposedly the Archer Gray Hotel in New York, where they discuss future strategy for their program after one of the hosts, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), gets fired for sexual harassment. It is the top screen capture below that gave me that initial “That looks like L.A.” moment while watching and I actually turned to the GC and said, “Wow, that place is the spitting image of Cicada.” Facepalm!

It took Bradley venturing up the staircase and around Cicada’s mezzanine at the top of the second episode, “A Seat at the Table,” for the pieces to fall into place for me.

The Morning Show is hardly the only production to feature Cicada. In fact, the restaurant is practically royalty when it comes to Hollywood! So much so that it would be impossible for me to chronicle all of its cameos here, but read on for a list of some of the more significant.

In easily its most famous appearance, Viviane Ward (Julia Roberts) tosses an escargot shell across the Rex il Ristorante dining room in the 1990 classic Pretty Woman.

Rex also served as a locale in another Richard Gere film – the 1992 thriller Final Analysis. It was there that Heather Evans (Kim Basinger) suffered from an extreme bout of pathological intoxication while out to dinner with her husband, played, ironically enough, by Julia’s brother, Eric Roberts.

David Murphy (Woody Harrelson) confronts Diana (Demi Moore) and John (Robert Redford) outside of Rex in the 1993 drama Indecent Proposal.

Longfellow Deeds (Adam Sandler) takes Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) on a romantic date at Cicada that ends in a massive fight with other diners in the 2002 comedy Mr. Deeds.

The following year, Cicada popped up as the spot where Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) brought girlfriend Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston) to tell her that he was finally given the anchor job in Bruce Almighty.

Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah) teaches Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) to dance there in the 2003 comedy Bringing Down the House.

John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) share a seductive tango at Cicada in 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Mad Men utilized the restaurant in no less than three episodes. In Season 1’s “New Amsterdam,” which aired in 2007, it was both the restaurant where Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) dined with his wife and her parents . . .

. . . and where he later met clients for a drink.

The following year, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) tried to convince his daughter to have a big wedding over dinner at Cicada in Season 2’s “Three Sundays.”

And Don Draper (Jon Hamm) won a Clio Award at the restaurant in Season 4’s “Waldorf Stories,” which aired in 2010.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) overhears some unkind words from Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) while at Cicada in the 2011 film The Artist.

In 2015, the exterior of Cicada, as well as that of the Oviatt Building, portrayed the outside of Hotel Cortez in American Horror Story: Hotel.

Though no filming actually took place inside, Hotel Cortez’s lobby was very closely modeled after the interior of Cicada.

Cicada occasionally masked as the entrance to Lux nightclub during the third season of Lucifer, which began airing in 2017.

Cicada also masquerades as the restaurant where Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) dines while filming on location in Italy in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which is not yet out on DVD so I am unable to make screen captures of that scene), as well as the bar from which Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino) calls him (which is shown briefly in the trailer as pictured below).

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Cicada, aka New York’s fictional Archer Gray Hotel from The Morning Show, is located at 617 South Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.