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Four ‘N 20 – aka JJ’s Diner from “Parks and Recreation”

A couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker Brandon (the very same stalker who told me about the Skyline Residence from fave movie Crazy, Stupid, Love., which I blogged about here) emailed me a list of over twenty Parks and Recreation locations that he had managed to track down. The one locale on the list that intrigued me the most was the exterior of JJ’s Diner – the local Pawnee-area hangout, known for its superior waffles, that is featured regularly on the show.

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Ironically enough, the exterior of JJ’s Diner is not located in Los Angeles at all, but in Atlanta, Georgia of all places! The restaurant used for the establishing shots of Pawnee’s most-famous breakfast joint is actually the Landmark Diner located at 2277 Cheshire Bridge Road NE. I have no idea how producers came to use an out-of-state eatery on the series, but as you can see below, the (craptastic) Google Street View image of the restaurant matches perfectly to what appears onscreen.

Once I found out that the exterior of JJ’s was located in Georgia, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down the restaurant used for the interior. I ended up finding it thanks to the unique botanical pattern visible on the booths in the background of the many JJ’s scenes. I had a hunch that the eatery was located in or around Van Nuys, where the series seems to do most of its filming, so I began searching through images of cafes in that area on Yelp (which is such a fabulous stalking tool, by the way!) looking for booths with that pattern. Sure enough, it was not long before I came across one on the Yelp page for Four ‘N 20 restaurant in Sherman Oaks. Yay! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place a few days later.

Once I saw the outside of Four ‘N 20 in person, I found it even more odd that producers had opted to use the Landmark Diner for JJ’s exterior because, as you can see below, Four ‘N 20 definitely has a Midwestern feel to it.

The interior also has a Midwestern feel and it is not too hard to see how it came to be used on Parks and Recreation. According to a commenter named Kiwi on the Chowhound website, when Four ‘N 20 first opened in 1969, it was located a few blocks north of where it is now. When that spot was demolished to make way for a car dealership sometime during the ‘90s, Four ‘N 20 moved to its current location, which had formerly been the site of “Chicken, Steak and Chocolate Cake” – a buffet-style restaurant where guests were charged based on their weight! Not kidding! Apparently there was a large scale that diners would have to step on before being rung up! Now if that doesn’t scream “Pawnee” – a city’s whose slogan is “First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity” – than I don’t know what does! A CS&CC-style restaurant so needs to be added to a future storyline! P&R writers, are you listening?

At the time that Four ‘N 20 first opened, it mainly served pies – hence the name, which the GC did not understand. I am not sure who his nursery school teacher was, but he/she obviously did not do a very good job! For those not in the know, the Four ‘N 20 name comes from the “Sing a Song of Sixpence” nursery rhyme, which goes like this: “Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing; Was that not a dainty dish, To set before the king?” Over the years, Four ‘N 20 expanded its menu choices and also opened up a sister restaurant in nearby Valley Village, but the place is still best-known for its pies. CBSLosAngeles even named the diner’s pumpkin pie one of the “Best of L.A.”

The Four ‘N 20 menu is wide and diverse with many comfort food offerings, as well as vegetarian and vegan options – and there’s even a “Fitness Menu” for the Chris Traegers in your life. Glaringly missing from the Four ‘N 20 menu, though, were waffles! I almost fell out of the booth when I realized that the restaurant did not serve them and just had to make a suggestion to the manager that he add them to the menu – stat! Heck, he could even create a whole “Pawnee Specials” section! Man, why do I always have to be the one to think of everything?!? For my lunch, I opted for the Crispy Chicken salad which, as you can see below, was amazeballs! I literally do not think there was one scrap left on my plate by the time I was done with that thing!

The GC and I had a fabulous time at Four ‘N 20 and the staff could not have been more friendly, although I think a few of them found it odd that we were only dining there because of the place’s many Parks and Recreation appearances. (Check out the super-nice cop we met during our lunch who couldn’t stop photo-bombing me! LOL)

Four ‘N 20 has appeared in numerous episodes of Parks and Recreation, including Season 2’s “The Master Plan” and Season 3’s “Flu Season” and “Ron and Tammy: Part Two”, just to name a few. On the show, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) describes JJ’s, which is owned by JJ Lipscomb (Brent Briscoe), as “the unofficial meeting place of Pawnee’s political elite”.

JJ’s Diner and its waffles are also mentioned regularly on the series. In the Season 3 episode titled “Time Capsule”, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) puts one of JJ’s menus in the Pawnee time capsule because, as he says, the restaurant is a “Pawnee institution” and “home of the world’s best breakfast dish, ‘the Four Horsemeals of the Eggsporkalypse.’” Just another item that Four ‘N 20 could add to its “Pawnee Specials” menu section!

Oddly enough, though, a different restaurant – Kountry Folks at 8501 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills, which I have yet to stalk – was used as JJ’s during the show’s first season. As you can see below, it looks nothing like Four ‘N 20.

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brandon for finding the location of JJ’s exterior.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The interior of JJ’s Diner on Parks and Recreation is actually Four ‘N 20 located at 5530 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. The exterior of JJ’s is the Landmark Diner, which is located at 2277 Cheshire Bridge Road NE in Atlanta, Georgia. You can check out the Landmark’s official website here.

June 21, 2012
The “Beaches” Cottage

For Mother’s Day this year, my mom decided that she wanted to take a little weekend getaway to Newport Beach with my dad, the Grim Cheaper and me. I was absolutely thrilled over her choice of destination as while we were vacationing at the Hyatt Huntington Beach, aka the Beverly Hills Beach Club from 90210 (which I blogged about here), for the GC’s birthday last year, I happened to come across an article on South Bay filming locations in an area-attractions magazine that had been put in our room. One of the locations mentioned in the article was the Crystal Cove Historic District’s Cottage #13, which had been featured in the 1988 film Beaches. I was absolutely floored to learn of the locale as I had previously been under the impression that the Beaches cottage was located on the East Coast, near Coney Island where the flick’s opening scenes were lensed. And while I immediately added the address to my To-Stalk list, we unfortunately did not have time to go there that particular weekend. So before checking into our hotel for our Mother’s Day vacay a few weeks ago, I dragged the GC right on over to Crystal Cove State Park to finally stalk the place

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The Crystal Cove Historic District encompasses 12.3 acres of coastal land running along a 3.5-mile stretch of picturesque shoreline. The site was first developed in the late 1800s as a cattle ranch, then later as a sheep farm, and then later still, in a fortuitous twist, as a South Seas-style set for the movie industry. At the time, the property was owned by San Francisco-financier James Irvine (and later his son, James Irvine II), who had purchased it in 1864 from Jose Andres Sepulveda, who, in turn, had acquired it from the Mexican government in 1836. During the early 1900s, countless silent film productions came in, planted palm trees and built thatched-roof shacks for movies such as Treasure Island (1918), The Sea Wolf (1920), Stormswept (1923), White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), Half a Bridge (1928), and Sadie Thompson (1928). Some of those shacks were left behind after shooting wrapped and became homes for the Irvine’s friends and employees.

The Irvines also allowed their friends and employees to build custom cottages on the beachfront site, most with thatched roofs to accommodate film production. Forty-six cottages in all popped up during the 1920s and 1930s, each constructed by hand using salvaged materials, including wooden pieces from a shipwrecked vessel that washed ashore in 1927. Miraculously, thanks to a leasing contract clause and some avid preservationists, each of the 46 original bungalows remains standing to this day. In the 1930s, the Irvine family decided to give their tenants the option of either moving their homes off the land or of transferring over ownership and paying monthly rent on the cottages. For whatever reason, the family added a clause to each lease which stipulated that no portion of the small dwellings was to be altered.

The State of California purchased the land from the Irvines in 1979 and offered all then-tenants a twenty-year lease on their cottages. That same year, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which listed the bungalows as “the last intact example of California beach vernacular architecture”. Once the twenty-year leases had expired in 1999, the state began showing interest in demolishing and vastly restructuring the cottages in order to make way for a large resort hotel. Thankfully, a Pasadena resident/local preservationist named Martha Padve, who regularly vacationed at Crystal Cove, joined forces with several other concerned citizens and formed the Crystal Cove Alliance, which ended up saving the site. Today, the cottages, which recently underwent an extensive two-phase restoration process, are offered to the public as extremely reasonably-priced vacation rentals.

I can honestly say that the Crystal Cove Historic District is one of the most adorable places I have ever visited. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to vacation there! The beachfront enclave features 22 charming vacation rentals, the quaintest little general store/gift shop that I have ever seen, an exhibit center, a park and marine research facility, a Ruby’s Shake Shack, and The Beachcomber Café (pictured below)– a fabulous toes-in-the-sand restaurant where the GC and I grabbed lunch – and some champagne, of course! I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking the site! Setting foot on the grounds is like stepping back to a simpler time – one which definitely encapsulates the Cove’s longtime motto, “Where every night is Saturday night and Saturday night is New Year’s Eve”. Love it!

Towards the end of Beaches, longtime friends Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) and CC Bloom (Bette Midler), along with Hillary’s daughter, Victoria Essex (Grace Johnston), spend the summer at Hillary’s beach house. As you can see below, the cottage looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen in 1988. I am fairly certain, though, that the structure has always been the same basic shape and that set designers added the A-line roof for the filming.

The cottage’s porch area was used extensively during the filming.

The interior of Hillary’s beach house was just a set, though. As you can see below, the real life interior of Cottage #13 is much, much smaller than what appeared onscreen.

Although it does appear that one of the cottage’s actual rooms was used in the filming.

The Beaches cottage, which is currently under renovation and will eventually serve as Crystal Cove’s film museum (how cool is that???), has a plaque on display on its front gate that alerts visitors of its cinematic history, which I was absolutely FLOORED to discover! Why don’t the owners of ALL movie locations do something like this?

I was also floored to discover that the porch area is completely accessible to the public!

Oh yeah, just hanging out at Hillary’s house.

The cottage also boasts some amazing views, as you can see below.

As you can see in this May 2010 picture from the Finding the Famous blog, before the recent renovation the home was in pretty bad shape. Thank goodness for the Crystal Cove Alliance!

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: There is no real address for this location. The Beaches cottage, aka Cottage #13, is located in the Crystal Cove Historic District, inside of Crystal Cove State Park, in Newport Beach. The best way to describe how to get there is to head to The Beachcomber Café, which is located at 15 Crystal Cove in Newport Beach. You will have to park across the street from the park at the Los Trancos Parking Lot, which is located on the Pacific Coast Highway just south of Newport Coast Drive. Parking is $15 per car, but the café does validate. Then either walk or take a shuttle (which costs $2 a person, each way) to the park (I would recommend walking). Reservations are highly recommended for The Beachcomber as the place was absolutely jammed when we were there and the bar area was pretty much standing-room-only. The Beaches cottage is located about 8 houses east of the café. You can visit the official Crystal Cove Beach Cottages Website here.

June 20, 2012
Red Carpet Wine & Spirits from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow stalker named Emily wrote a comment on my post about the Weaver house from fave movie Crazy, Stupid, Love. in which she informed me that the liquor store that appeared in the flick was Red Carpet Wine & Spirits (what a great name!) in Glendale. As fate would have it, I had been looking for that wine shop for what seemed like ages and could NOT have been more excited to read Emily’s comment. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there a few days later and, amazingly enough, our visit turned out to be one of the best stalks of my entire “career”! Thank you, Emily!

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As soon as we set foot in Red Carpet Wine & Spirits, owner H.K. Hedlund walked up to us to ask if he could help us find anything. When I explained the reason behind our visit, he immediately directed us to the exact spot where filming took place and then proceeded to fill us in on tons of behind-the-scenes information. (And yes, I was definitely pinching myself!) H.K. ended up chatting with us for well over an hour, showed us photographs he had taken of the Crazy, Stupid, Love. shoot, dished on some of the celebs who have been spotted in his shop over the years, and told me that I could take all of the pictures of the place that I wanted. Um, yes please! As you can imagine, I was in absolute heaven!

Red Carpet Wine & Spirits was originally founded in 1964 by a man named John Vincenti. Twenty-three years later it was purchased by a retailer named David Dobbs, who, after deciding he wanted to move to Bakersfield, put the place on the market once again in late 2006. Hearing the shop was for sale, many of Dobb’s longtime employees quit and, in a twist of fate, H.K., who at the time owned an importing and wholesale beer business, was brought on to help out during the busy holiday season. H.K. ended up liking the place so much that he purchased it, along with his wife, Lisa, in October 2007. After taking over, the duo, who both grew up in nearby Arcadia, added an adorable wine-tasting room (pictured below) featuring three Enomatic wine dispensers which offer 2-ounce pours for as little as $2. Red Carpet, which boasts a huge and loyal following, hosts numerous onsite events in the wine room each year, including a book signing in July 2010 which featured Jennifer Aniston’s private chef, Jewels Elmore, who authored “The Family Chef: Make Your Kitchen the Heart of your Family”. So incredibly cool! The wine-tasting room can also be booked out for private parties which run from $10 to $20 per person.

Red Carpet, which WineSeller Magazine deemed “One of California’s most renowned wine shops”, currently carries over 1,200 different wines, 1,500 different spirits and 800 different beers, procured from all over the world. Unlike most run-of-the-mill wine stores, the oenophiles who work there actually sample every single libation that lines their shelves, so when I asked for a dry, average-priced champagne recommendation, H.K. was able to speak from experience. The champagne he directed me towards, which I enjoyed on my birthday, was fabulous! H.K. prides himself on his staff’s superior customer service, which I was lucky enough to witness firsthand. When I inquired about the most recent vintage of Marilyn Merlot wine (which you may remember me blogging about here), H.K. informed me that they were sold out, but that he would track down a bottle for me and deliver it right to my door. When I told him that was not necessary, being that I live about ten minutes from the shop and could easily come by to pick it up, he insisted and informed me that home delivery was just one of the many services that he and his team offer, free of charge mind you! Red Carpet is an amazing wine shop and I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking it – or throwing a party there!

In Crazy, Stupid, Love., Red Carpet Wine & Spirits was where Jacob Palmer (cutie Ryan Gosling – sigh!) and Hannah (Emma Stone) shopped for wine before heading to Hannah’s mom’s house for dinner. According to H.K., one of the movie’s producers is a long-time customer of the shop, which is how it came to be used in the flick.

It was while there that Jacob made a phone call to his friend Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) and confided in him that he had met a girl who was a “game-changer”. So I , of course, just had to imitate Jacob talking on the phone while I was there.

H.K. and Lisa even appeared briefly in the background of the scene! How lucky are they?!? You can check out some fabulous photographs that H.K. took during the filming here.

H.K. informed us that Red Carpet Wine had also appeared in the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Crime Doesn’t Pay”, in the scene in which Dave Williams (Neal McDonough), while shopping for wine with his new wife, Edie Britt (Nicollette Sheridan), ran into Father Drance (Don Moss), the priest who performed his then-wife and daughter’s funeral a few years prior.

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Emily for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Red Carpet Wine & Spirits, from Crazy, Stupid, Love., is located at 400 East Glenoaks Boulevard in Glendale. You can visit the store’s official website here.

June 19, 2012
The Levitt Pavilion MacArthur Park Bandshell from “New Girl”

Brace yourselves, my fellow stalkers, because today’s post is going to be a long one! Another New Girl location that my good friend/fellow stalker Lavonna asked me to track down recently was the park where Jess (Zooey Deschanel) held a recital for her “Ensembell” bell choir in the Season 1 episode titled “Bells”. This actually turned out to be a rather fun hunt for me because, in an unprecedented turn of events, the Grim Cheaper became a bit fixated with helping in the search. When the two of us first watched the “Bells” episode a few weeks after Lavonna’s challenge, he thought the park and its unique bandshell looked familiar, but he could not place where he had seen them. So he immediately started doing research on local parks, yet, sadly, came up empty-handed. Then, a few days later while we were out and about stalking, anytime we would happen to drive by a park, he would pull over to see if the New Girl bandshell was there. As luck would have it, he ended up spotting it that same afternoon at MacArthur Park in the Wilshire District of Los Angeles. Whoo-hoo! Thank you, GC! So we pulled right on over to snap some pics.

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The land where MacArthur Park now sits was first developed by the City of Los Angeles as a drinking water reservoir in the 1880s. When the area’s piping systems were later changed around 1890, the reservoir was no longer needed and the site was transformed into a public park known as Westlake Park. The locale, which featured a picturesque lake, a boathouse, and manicured gardens, quickly became a popular recreational destination for the wealthy citizens who lived nearby and the wealthy tourists who vacationed at the many luxury hotels in the neighborhood. During that era, the 32-acre property was known as the “Champs-Elysees of Los Angeles”. Oh, how times have changed! In 1934, it was decided that Wilshire Boulevard, which formerly dead-ended at Westlake’s western border, would be extended and connected to Orange Street in order to run through to downtown Los Angeles. A berm was built which bisected Westlake, and its large lake, into two halves, with the northern portion of the lake eventually being drained, leaving a smaller, 8-acre, 23-million-gallon, 15-foot deep pond on the property’s southern side.

Sadly, during the ‘80s, the site, which in 1942 was renamed General Douglas MacArthur Park in honor of the famed WWII general, became a haven of drug, gang and criminal activity. Despite an attempted revitalization in 2002, the property is still pretty dangerous. Even though we stalked the park during daylight hours, I was still extremely uncomfortable being there. While we were snapping pictures of the Levitt Pavilion bandshell, which was completely renovated in 2007 and now offers over 50 free concerts each summer, some loon jumped onto the stage armed with a huge generator, microphone and boom box and proceeded to put on his very own rap concert. I cannot even imagine what the place is like at night! It sure is picturesque, though!

MacArthur Park is full of shady characters and we also witnessed a few drug sales in the short ten minutes we were there. To quote the Wikipedia page on the location, “Public urination in the park is illegal but commonplace.” Yep, that pretty much sums it up! As you can see below, though, the site does boast some pretty incredible views of the downtown L.A. skyline.

Because the park, which in 1972 was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #100, is so picturesque, it is not hard to understand why it has been the site of countless filmings over the years. The place also inspired the Richard Harris-penned 1968 song for Jimmy Webb titled “MacArthur Park” and Donna Summer’s 1970 remake of it, and it also quite possibly might have been the location of the eponymous bridge in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1992 hit “Under the Bridge”.

In the “Bells” episode of New Girl, MacArthur Park stood in for the fictional “Pershing Park” where Ensembell held their first recital. (The homeless guy fist-fighting the air in the first screen capture pictured below is pretty much a true-to-life description of the types of people one will encounter at the park.)

In the Season 1 episode of Dragnet 1967 titled “The Bank Examiner Swindle”, MacArthur Park was where Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Officer Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) interviewed Fred Gregory (Burt Mustin), one of the victims of a financial scam against the elderly.

In the Season 1 episode of Starsky and Hutch titled “Lady Blue”, MacArthur Park stood in for the fictional “Lincoln Gardens” where Detective Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson (David Soul) and Detective Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) investigated the murder of Starsky’s ex-girlfriend Helen.

And in the Season 2 episode of Starsky and Hutch titled “Vendetta”, the park was where the duo picnicked with their girlfriends before getting interrupted by a “1040” call.

In the Season 5 episode of The A-Team titled “The Grey Team”, MacArthur Park was where Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck (Dirk Benedict) and John ‘Hannibal’ Smith (George Peppard) spied on a Soviet agent named Saroff (Tony Steedman).

In 1993’s Falling Down, MacArthur Park was the spot where William ‘D-Fens’ Foster (Michael Douglas) got into an altercation with a homeless man. At the time of the filming, the lake had been drained and the park was undergoing major construction for the Metro Rail Rail Line addition, so it looked considerably different than it does today.

In 1997’s Volcano, MacArthur Park was the site where seven public works employees were steamed to death while working on a storm drain.

The location was used extensively in 2001’s aptly-titled MacArthur Park.

In 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan) saves her friend Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) from being killed at MacArthur Park.

The music video for Gym Class Heroes’ 2005 song “Cupid’s Chokehold/Breakfast in America”, which starred Katy Perry, was shot extensively at MacArthur Park.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

Gym Class Heroes: “Cupid’s Chokehold/Breakfast in America” Filmed at MacArthur Park

In the Season 6 episode of Numb3rs titled “Hangman”, Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and his FBI team were shot at while setting up security for a political rally at MacArthur Park.

In the Season 1 episode of fave show FlashForward (I am still not over the fact that it was cancelled!) titled “Black Swan”, there is a flashback scene of the blackout experience of a man named Ned Ned (Keir O’Donnell) in which a city bus crashes into the MacArthur Park lake.

In the Season 1 episode of American Horror Story titled “Murder House”, MacArthur Park was where the ultra-creepy Larry Harvey (Denis O’Hare) approached Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott) to ask for $1,000 to get headshots taken.

MacArthur Park has popped up on the television series Southland no less than 3 times. In the Season 2 episode titled “Butch & Sundance”, the park was where Detective Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy) chased a gang member named Orlando (Eddie Maldonado).

In the Season 4 episode titled “Identity”, Detective Bryant and Officer Ben Sherman (cutie Ben McKenzie – sigh!) arrested a teenager for drug possession at MacArthur Park.

In that same episode, MacArthur Park also appeared as the spot where Detectives Lydia Adams (Regina King) and Ruben Robinson (Dorian Missick) tracked down a suspect named Nicole (Chrissy Stokes).

And in the Season 4 episode titled “God’s Work”, Officer John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz – aka Beverly Hills, 90210’s Tony Miller ) talked to his unnamed sponsor, who was played by Lawrence Gilliard Jr., about his partner, Officer Jessica Tang (Lucy Liu), while walking around MacArthur Park’s lake.

In 2011’s Drive, “Driver” (Ryan Gosling) made a deal with Cook (James Biberi) while at MacArthur Park.

And while IMDB claims that the Season 2 episode of the original Melrose Place titled “Till Death Do Us Part” was shot at MacArthur Park, filming actually took place at the similar-looking Echo Park.

MacArthur Park was also featured in the movie Brave New World, but unfortunately I was unable to find a copy of that production with which to make screen captures for this post. And while the location supposedly appeared in 1992’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I scanned through the flick earlier today and did not spot it anywhere.

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Levitt Pavilion MacArthur Park bandshell, from the “Bells” episode of New Girl, is located at 2230 West 6th Street, on the northern side of MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles. You can visit the Pavilion’s official website here. Be forewarned, MacArthur Park is not the safest place, especially at night, so please exercise caution.

June 18, 2012
Taking A Four-Day Break!

I really hate to do this, but unfortunately I have way too much going on this week and am going to have to take the next four days off. My parents are coming to town this afternoon for a short visit, I am doing some stalking on Thursday and on Friday the Grim Cheaper is having a minor surgery – all of which does not leave much time for blogging. But I do promise to be back on Monday with a whole new location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

June 12, 2012
A Birthday Day Off!

I spent all of this past weekend celebrating my birthday (which was fabulous – the GC even bought me a new camera, which I LOVE!), so I was unable to write a new post for today. But I will be back tomorrow with a whole new location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

June 11, 2012
Ann’s House from “Parks and Recreation”

As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post about the Sullivan Street Pit from fave new show Parks and Recreation, during our whirlwind stalking adventure last Friday, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I also hit up the house where Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) lives on the show. Just as it is made to appear on P&R, Ann’s supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area residence is actually located directly behind the undeveloped plot of land in Van Nuys that stands in for the Pit on the series. So, after snapping some pictures of Lot 48, Mike and I walked one block east to do some stalking of the abode. I, of course, found this location thanks to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog – the very same fellow stalker who also informed me of countless other Parks and Recreation locations, including Leslie Knope’s house and the Sullivan Street Pit.

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Ann’s house first popped up in the pilot of Parks and Recreation and has subsequently been featured in pretty much every episode since. During the first season, Ann lived in the one-story residence with her slacker boyfriend, musician Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt), but she ends up kicking him out in the episode titled “Rock Show” after discovering that he had asked his doctor to keep his leg casts on for an extra two weeks because, as he explained to Ann, “I really, really like it when you serve me food.” LOL

In real life, Ann’s house, which was originally built in 1948, boasts two bedrooms, one bath and 1,407 square feet and, thankfully, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it does onscreen in Parks and Recreation. Even the yellow fire hydrant located at the edge of the front lawn is there in real life, which was absolutely shocking to me as I had always assumed that the hydrant was a prop put in place for the show. I mean, has anyone ever seen a fire hydrant situated inside of someone’s front yard before? Will wonders never cease?

The property’s back gate area also appears quite frequently on the show.

And the home’s backyard was featured in the Season 1 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Boys’ Club”, in what was hands down one of my very favorites scenes in the entire series – the scene in which Andy takes a bath in a kiddie pool before chasing his neighbor down the street, while naked and on crutches.

And while I would have bet money on the fact that the real life interior of the home had been used in the filming of the pilot episode before later being recreated on a soundstage (which is a fairly typical scenario), I came across some interior photographs of the residence on fave website Zillow and, as you can see below, it looks NOTHING AT ALL like Ann’s house. So incredibly odd!

While doing research for today’s post, I happened to discover that the apartment complex that formerly stood on the site of the Sullivan Street Pit is actually still visible on Bing aerial maps. LOVE IT!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Ann Perkins’ house from Parks and Recreation is located at 5655 Murietta Avenue in Van Nuys. The Sullivan Street Pit from the series is located directly behind Ann’s house at at the southeast corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Collins Street in Van Nuys.

June 8, 2012
Jess’ House from “New Girl”

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend/fellow stalker Lavonna asked me to track down the residence where Jess (Zooey Deschanel) lived prior to moving into the ultra-cool Binford Building on fave show New Girl. Jess’ former house only appeared once on the series, in the Season 1 episode titled “Kryptonite”, and thankfully I had already tracked down another location from that episode a few weeks prior – John O’Groats Restaurant in Rancho Park, which I blogged about here. I had an inkling that Jess’ former dwelling was most-likely located near O’Groats (since location managers tend to stick to sites in close proximity to each other while filming an episode), so I started searching aerial views of neighborhoods adjacent to the eatery and, sure enough, stumbled upon the home fairly quickly. Yay! So after dragging the Grim Cheaper out to John O’Groats for breakfast in mid-May, we headed right on over to stalk the place.

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In the “Kryptonite” episode of New Girl, Jess – with her eccentric new roommates, Nick (Jake M. Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield) and Winston (Lamorne Morris), and her best friend, Cece (Hannah Simone), in tow – returns to her former residence to demand her television set and clothes back from her cheating ex-boyfriend, Spencer (Ian Wolterstorff). An argument, of course, ensues over one of Jess’ t-shirts, resulting in the ever-hilarious Schmidt slapping Spencer across the face, using his pinky ring for extra force. Gotta love it! As you can see below, Jess’ former house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen. For whatever reason, producers covered over the side porch area with a large fern and removed the hinges and kick plate from the front door, but other than that, the place appears just as it did in the episode.

Even though, in real life, the 1923-era house only boasts a scant three bedrooms, three baths, and 2,200 square feet of living space, it sold this past March for just under $1 million! Welcome to L.A., my fellow stalkers! You can check out the property’s real estate listing here.

Oddly enough, a different residence stood in for Jess and Spencer’s home in New Girl’s pilot episode. While only the interior of a house was shown in that episode (in the scene in which Jess catches Spencer cheating) it is not the same property that was used in “Kryptonite”, as you can see in the screen captures pictured below as compared to the photographs on the home’s real estate listing. [What do y’all think of my photo collage below, by the way? I am trying out some different photography editing websites, like PicMonkey (my favorite so far), and experimenting with different collages, fonts, shapes, etc. in order to step things up. Do any of you have a photo editing site that you would recommend?]

I am ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED with the collage capabilities of Polyvore (a fashion website, on which I made the graphic below) and am looking for a similar site, but one with which I would be able to edit my own photographs instead of simply using site-provided pics – something similar to Photoshop, but easy to use. The GC purchased Photoshop Elements, the dumbed-down version of Photoshop, for me and I could not even get past the set-up screen! #Idon’tgetlayers!

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jess’ house, from the Season 1 episode of New Girl titled “Kryptonite”, is located at 2045 Pelham Avenue in Century City.

June 7, 2012
The Pit from “Parks and Recreation”

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, this past weekend was an absolute whirlwind! It all started bright and early Friday morning when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I embarked upon what turned out to be a nine-hour stalking adventure across the greater part of Los Angeles. One of the stops on our trip – and the most exciting for me – was the Sullivan Street Pit, aka the Pit, aka Lot 48, from my new favorite show, Parks and Recreation. Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, had given me the address to the Pit, along with the addresses of about twenty other P&R locations, a few years back, and when I finally started watching the series last month, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking it. So I added the locale to Friday’s To-Stalk list and dragged Mike right on over there after the two of us grabbed some lunch.

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The story of the Sullivan Street Pit is as follows: Once upon a time in Pawnee, Indiana, a real estate developer purchased a plot of land, into which he dug a huge hole before subsequently going bankrupt and abandoning the property, leaving behind a giant pit. At some point afterward, a musician named Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) fell into the Pit, breaking both of his legs, causing his girlfriend, Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), to complain about the abandoned site at a public forum. When overly ambitious Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) learns of the situation in the series’ pilot episode, she makes it her mission to turn the property into a beautiful public park, and the storylines of Seasons 1 and 2 focus entirely on that (misguided) venture. The Pawnee Pit, which, in actuality, was a giant hole dug by the Parks and Recreation crew at an undeveloped lot in Van Nuys, was featured regularly during the series’ first two seasons.

In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Kaboom”, the Pit gets filled in, thanks to the efforts of Leslie, Andy, and Ann, and that filled-in lot is then also featured in numerous subsequent episodes.

I cannot tell you how absolutely incredible it was to see the Parks and Recreation Pit in person! The site is, hands down, one of the coolest locations that I have ever stalked in all my years of stalking. In fact, I think I am going to have to add it to my Los Angeles Must-Stalk List. And yes, I do realize that the place is basically just an overgrown, vacant lot, but, for some inexplicable and intangible reason, it seems to have a certain hold on people, including me. I think it has to do with the fact that the site played such an important role on P&R. As Owen said, the Pit is almost a character in and of itself. Add that to the fact that the the Pit was once an actual hole in an actual neighborhood and not some manufactured set piece and you have one must-see locale. Mike had never actually watched an episode of Parks and Recreation before Friday, but after stalking the Pit he went right out and bought Season 1 on DVD. And when I mentioned the place to my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog (who could normally care less about locations), she said, “Now that’s one site I would really like to stalk.” See what I mean? The Pit just has a certain allure.

As you can see below, the lot, which is absolutely HUGE in person (much larger than I had expected it to be), is currently completely overgrown and it does not appear as if Parks and Recreation has done any filming there in quite some time. Oh, how I would have loved to have seen the place back when it was still in pit form! You can see some fabulous aerial views of what the location looked like during the filming of Season 1 on fave website Virtual Globetrotting.

According to the sign pictured below, the 1.16-acre lot is currently for sale for a whopping $4,999,999. The site has apparently already been permitted for the building of 26 townhomes, with expenses and fees paid, so I am guessing that the story told on P&R (that a developer purchased the land in order to build condos and then went bankrupt) is pretty much exactly what happened in real life, too. I am hoping against all hope that the property does not sell anytime soon. How fabulous would it be if it was indefinitely left its current state for all of us stalkers to enjoy?

And while Ann’s house is, of course, located directly behind the Pit, I am actually saving that location for a separate post.

On a side-note – I would like to send out a huge CONGRATULATIONS to the love of my life, Matt Lanter, who recently proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Angela Stacy. And while it really should have been me you proposed to, Matt, I guess I am just going to have to be the bigger person here! All kidding aside, here’s wishing you all the happiness in the world!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Sullivan Street Pit from Parks and Recreation is located at the southeast corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Collins Street in Van Nuys. Ann Perkins’ house is located directly behind the Pit at 5655 Murietta Avenue in Van Nuys.

June 6, 2012
Leslie Knope’s House from “Parks and Recreation”

A few months ago, fellow stalker Brandon (the very same stalker who tracked down the Skyline Residence from Crazy, Stupid, Love., which I blogged about back in November) emailed me to ask for some help in locating the Craftsman-style abode where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) lives on the television series Parks and Recreation. And while I had never actually seen the show, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, is a long-time fan and a few years back had sent me a list of several locales from it that he had managed to track down. Thankfully, Leslie’s house just so happened to be on that list and after emailing the address to Brandon, I decided that I should check the place out for myself. Well, let me tell you, once I laid eyes on it, I absolutely fell in love and decided that this stalker seriously needed to start watching some P&R, which I finally sat down to do last month. And I have to say that I am really enjoying it! I am only mid-way through Season 2 right now, but the series just seems to keep getting better and better with each episode and I love the fact that, thanks to Owen, I now have a whole slew of locations from it to stalk. Whoo hoo!

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As far as I know, Leslie’s house has only appeared once on Parks and Recreation (as I said, I am currently only mid-way through the second season) – in the Season 2 episode that was aptly titled “Leslie’s House”. In the episode, Leslie hosts a dinner party to impress her new boyfriend, Justin Anderson (aka Jen Aniston’s real life main squeeze, Justin Theroux), using the help of several Pawnee Recreation Center teachers, which, in typical P&R fashion, leads to her getting called in for a disciplinary hearing on an abuse of power charge. As you can see below, the dwelling looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, minus the fake snow, of course. I find it quite ironic that producers chose to use the property to stand in for Leslie’s supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area residence, though, being that the Craftsman style of architecture is so quintessentially Southern Californian.

As you can see in these real life photographs of the home as compared to the screen captures below, the actual interior of the property (which is stunning!) was also used in the filming.

In real life, Leslie’s house is quite spectacular! The property, which was originally built in 1916, boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,374 square feet, and sits on a 0.30-acre plot of land.

The Grim Cheaper absolutely fell in love with the huge tree pictured below that drapes over the property and could not stop taking photographs of it. So picturesque!

As you can see below, producers had the home’s address number digitally changed from 2358 to 35 for the filming in what I am guessing was an effort to deter us stalkers. Thank goodness Owen is smarter than the average bear, though, and was able to find the place as I am not sure I would have been able to.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! And stay tuned for many more Parks and Recreation locales to come!

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Leslie’s house from Parks and Recreation is located at 2358 Highland Avenue in Altadena.

June 5, 2012