IAMNOTASTALKER

January 16, 2019January 14, 2019

Kabuki Japanese Restaurant from “Clueless”

OK so I’m totally buggin’! I just found out that Paramount Pictures is in talks to reboot Clueless! This may be way harsh, but all I have to say regarding the news is ‘Whatever!’ The 1995 classic is absolute perfection AS IS and should NOT be touched! Hearing about the project did remind me of several locales from the flick that I stalked long ago, but have yet to blog about, namely Kabuki Japanese Restaurant in Burbank, aka the former Crocodile Cafe, where Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) lunched with her Beverly Hills besties Dionne (Stacey Dash) and Tai (Brittany Murphy). I had been on the lookout for the eatery for ages – pretty much since starting my blog back in 2007. It was not until 8 years later, on June 4th, 2015, that a reader named Jasmine finally solved the mystery when, in response to another reader asking about the restaurant in the comments section of my post on the Horowitz house from the movie, said, “It used to be Crocodile Cafe in Burbank on San Fernando and Orange Grove. But now it’s a Kabuki. I have no idea how I figured this out but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly where it was. The booth they sat at is right behind the hostess/cashier. I sound so stalkerish right now it’s ridiculous.” Jasmine’s comment was quite stalkerish, but in the best way possible! One look at images of the place online told me she was right. I could not have been more thrilled and ran out to stalk Kabuki just a few days later with my friend Kate who was in town visiting from Kentucky. Very shortly after that, author Jen Chaney released her fabulous book As If!: The Oral History of Clueless as told by Amy Heckerling and the Cast and Crew which confirmed Crocodile Cafe’s appearance in the film on page 126.

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The former Crocodile Cafe actually pops up twice in Clueless – first very briefly in the opening “So, OK, you’re probably going ‘Is this, like, a Noxzema commercial or what?’” montage.

It then later appears in the scene in which Cher and Dionne take Tai out for a “calorie fest” to cheer her up after she finds out that snob-and-a-half Elton (Jeremy Sisto) isn’t into her.

Upon walking into the restaurant, I was thrilled to see that despite the changeover from Crocodile Cafe to Kabuki, it was entirely recognizable from its big screen cameo. Unfortunately, someone happened to be sitting in the exact booth utilized during filming, so I couldn’t snap any photos of it, but as you can see in the image below as compared to the screen capture, the booths remain very much the same today as they appeared in Clueless. The cushioning has been swapped out and glass partitions have since been added, but other than that, they are untouched.

The front door and hostess area also largely look the same.

Crocodile Cafe’s bar, which was visible in both Clueless scenes, was apparently gutted when Kabuki took over.

The area where it used to be located is pictured below. Thankfully, the frosted glass blocks formerly situated behind the bar are still intact, as are the wood columns that frame them.

It is not hard to see why the restaurant was chosen for the movie. With its bright pink and green color scheme and 90s-modern vibe, the place fit in perfectly with the splashy, over-the-top visual aesthetic that made up Cher’s world. Interestingly, Crocodile Cafe was not producers’ first choice, though. Per As If!, “Originally the Clueless crew was hoping to shoot the restaurant sequences at California Pizza Kitchen. But once the CPK people saw the final script, and saw how much breadstick-penis talk goes on between Cher, Dionne and Tai, they said no. Says producer Adam Schroeder: ‘I think the whole idea of talking about boy parts in CPK, that made them uncomfortable.” The default location turned out to be ideal, though.

Of Crocodile Cafe’s unique décor, Los Angeles Times writer Max Jacobson had this to say in a 1997 article, “It’s a breezy place with an open kitchen tiled in a pattern that looks like a multicolored snake. The dining room–all brick walls, high ceiling and a gallery’s worth of modern art–is narrow and noisy.” I believe the open kitchen Jacobson mentions (or at least a portion of it), which was not shown in Clueless, serves as the restaurant’s sushi counter today.

The Burbank Crocodile Cafe outpost opened its doors in July 1994, so it was new when Clueless filmed on the premises. (Though I am unsure of the exact day the scenes were lensed, the movie was shot from November 21st, 1994 through February 7th, 1995.) The eatery was the fifth in the CC chain, which was founded in Pasadena in 1987 by restauranteur Gregg Smith as a sort of casual version of his upscale and highly popular bistro Parkway Grill. I was unable to dig up the year the eatery closed, but, per a newspaper ad I came across, the shuttering took place between May 2002 and July 2005, at which time Kabuki Japanese Restaurant was already in operation. Oh, how I wish I could have seen the Croc when it was still open in all of its bright green and pink glory!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Jasmine for finding this location!

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: Kabuki Japanese Restaurant, aka the former Crocodile Cafe from Clueless, is located at 201 North San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. The Downtown Christmas Shopping District from “The Voice of Christmas” episode of The Brady Bunch is located a little over a block away at 100 South San Fernando.

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019

The John Ferraro Building

I was recently interviewed for an exciting new project (more details to come) and in my talks with producers beforehand was asked if I had any ideas about where the interview could take place. They were hoping to meet up at a filming location that I felt best represented the spirt of L.A. I didn’t hesitate in my answer – the John Ferraro Building. The strikingly gorgeous structure is not only an onscreen stalwart and an icon of Los Angeles architecture, but it uniquely serves as both a notable part of the city skyline and one of the best places to view it. I have covered the place countless times on my site – in a 2010 post, on My Must-Stalk List, in the “See” section of my 2015 Guide to L.A., to name a few – as well as for other entities, including my article on the Top 10 Science Fiction Locations for Discover Los Angeles and a blurb about must-see locales for the September 2018 issue of Los Angeles magazine. My love for the John Ferraro Building is prolific. While walking the perimeter of the property prior to my interview last week, I realized that in all my chronicling of it, I had yet to do a deep dive into its vast filming history, so I thought it only appropriate to amend that.

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Designed in 1965 by A.C. Martin & Associates, the Modernist/Corporate International-style structure was “green” before being green was even a thing. Built to house the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the architecture firm innovatively incorporated both elements into the design in the most unique way.

The building, which features concrete slabs cantilevered between towering glass walls, boasts specially-built ceilings on each of its 17 floors that absorb heat from the lighting system, helping to keep the property warm during cooler temperatures (yes, L.A. does get some of those) and at night.

As for water, the dramatic structure sits atop a 625 x 350-foot moat-like reflecting pool containing 2-million gallons of the stuff, portions of which are pumped through the HVAC system to cool the interior, essentially carrying 1/3 of the entire air conditioning load.

The pool and its eight fountains also make for some incredible views, the likes of which can’t be found anywhere else in the city.

I mean, come on!

I challenge you to find a prettier spot in all of L.A.

Last one, I promise.

Originally known as the DWP’s General Office Building (GOB), the property was renamed the John Ferraro Building in 2000 in honor of L.A.’s longest-serving city councilman.

The distinctive 287-foot-tall site is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1022.

Most of my photos in this post come from past visits to the LADWP. While we were there last week, the site was undergoing some sort of maintenance and the typically stunning reflecting pool was dry and the plentiful fountains shut off, as you can see below.

Despite this fact, the building was still dazzling to look at.

Considering LADWP’s beauty, it is no surprise that the place is a frequent film star. What is surprising is all of the misinformation about its various cameos floating around online. But more on that in a bit.

Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) jogs around the building in the 1971 Sci-Fi classic The Omega Man.

Jerry Landers (John Denver) gets interviewed by God (George Burns) at the LADWP, which is said to be located at 1600 Hope Street, in the 1977 comedy Oh, God!, though not much of the building is shown in the scene.

The property portrays a courthouse, where the two young winners of a traffic safety essay contest are interviewed – and mistakenly kidnapped – in the Season 3 episode of CHiPs titled “Kidnap,” which aired in 1980.

Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) explains to Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) what a Terminator is in the building’s parking garage in 1984’s The Terminator. It is the rear side of the parking lot, on 1st Street, that Reese drives in and out of in the scene.

In the Season 7 episode of The X-Files titled “All Things,” which aired in 2000, the John Ferraro Building masks as the exterior of Washington National Hospital, where Dana Scully’s (Gillian Anderson) former professor is being treated.

John Hancock (Will Smith) holds a news conference at the LADWP to announce that he is heading to prison in the 2008 action flick Hancock.

The site appeared regularly as FBI Headquarters on the short-lived television series FlashForward, which debuted in 2009.

During the first season of Pretty Little Liars, which started airing in 2010, Hannah Marin (Ashley Benson) gets a job at her ex-boyfriend’s mother’s dental office, shown in establishing shots to be located at the LADWP, in order to work off the damage she caused by crashing his car.

That same year, the site popped up very briefly as the exterior of a CIA building in the Season 3 episode of Chuck titled “Chuck Versus the Subway.”

Also in 2010, the LADWP served as a dream world in Inception. It is in the building’s reflecting pool that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), conceived reconstructions of homes from their past, which were, of course, just CGI creations.

The interior of the property also appears briefly in the film. As Cobb leads Ariadne (Ellen Page) inside, he says, “We both wanted to live in a house, but we loved this type of building. In the real world, we’d have to choose, but not here.” He then takes her upstairs to his “residence,” which is supposedly located a short elevator ride away, but can actually be found about ten miles north at 215 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena.

Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) randomly run in to each other at a farmers’ market taking place at the LADWP in the 2011 romcom No Strings Attached.

In 2012, Detective Lydia Adams (Regina King) told Terrell (Michael Jace) that she was expecting his baby at the John Ferraro Building in the Season 4 episode of Southland titled “Thursday.”

The locale pops up briefly in some establishing imagery of what is supposedly the Department of Justice in 2016’s The Nice Guys.

Melinda’s (Punam Patel) “fountain unveiling” in the Season 2 episode of Adam Ruins Everything titled “Adam Ruins the Future,” which aired in 2017, takes place at the LADWP.

In The Rookie, which began airing in 2018, the LADWP portrays the Los Angeles Police Department’s Mid-Wilshire Station.

Now that we’ve covered a plethora of the productions that LADWP has been in, let’s debunk some of that erroneous info I mentioned earlier. There is so much of it swirling around the internet that writing this post felt more like a disproving of the false reporting of the building’s film history than a chronicling of its many appearances.

Though several websites claim that the LADWP masked as Washington, D.C.’s Bureau of Internal Revenue at the beginning of 1964’s What a Way to Go!, that is incorrect. Filming actually took place at the Gateway West Building, once located at 1801 Avenue of the Stars in Century City. The structure was demolished in 2015 as part of the Westfield Century City expansion, but you can see what it formerly looked like here.

LADWP wasn’t a courthouse in the Season 6 episode of Adam-12 titled “Clinic on 18th Street,” which aired in 1974, either. That building is actually the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center located just a few blocks away at 210 West Temple Street.

Nor did it portray the 14th Street Precinct in the 1980s television series Cagney & Lacey as has been reported. The confusion on this one is semi-understandable, though, being that filming took place at another downtown L.A. DWP site – the Central District Facility located at 1350 South Wall Street. Sadly, the exact building utilized has since been torn down, though.

It has also been reported that the John Ferraro Building played the Tacoma Police Department in the 1989 comedy Three Fugitives. That location, though, is actually the very same former Central District Facility building from Cagney & Lacey.

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 John Ferraro Building, aka the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, is located at 111 North Hope Street in downtown L.A. The facility’s lobby is open to the pubic each weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

January 9, 2019February 15, 2019

My Favorite Entertainment Finds of 2018

I watch a lot of television and movies throughout the year – as both part of my job and for entertainment. I am also a voracious reader and listen to a copious amount of podcasts. 2018 brought a slew of new finds. Some started out as promising, but completely missed the mark [I’m looking at you The Haunting of Hill House (what was that ending, amirite?), Crazy Rich Asians (which felt about two hours too long), Dirty John (I couldn’t even get through the pilot episode), Home Again (such a snoozefest), and A Simple Favor (again, what was with that ending?!?)], but a few became fast favorites. Taking a departure from my usual posts, I thought it would be fun to corral my most-loved finds of the year into an article so that my fellow stalkers can discover them, too. These productions aren’t necessarily new – some are on the older side, actually – they were just new to me in 2018. So without further ado, here is my list of my best entertainment discoveries of the past year.

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1. Bosch (Amazon original series) – I’ve mentioned my love for this show several times over the past few months. Dark, gritty, thrilling and mysterious, with well-placed noirish undertones, the L.A.-set police procedural, based upon the best-selling series of books by Michael Connelly, makes for a fabulous watch. I don’t know what I love more, Titus Welliver’s compelling take on lead character Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch or the striking locations. Either way, I’m smitten.

Titus Welliver in Bosch (2014)

2. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (currently airing on NBC, past episodes available on Hulu) – I’ve also mentioned my love for this series, which will begin airing its sixth season on NBC this month, several times in recent posts. The Grim Cheaper and I started binging it immediately after our friend Kate sent us this hilarious clip last year and never looked back. The cop comedy, which chronicles the uproarious hijinks of NYPD’s fictional 99th Precinct, is laugh-out-loud hilarious (don’t believe me – watch the aforementioned clip, which has to be one of my favorite television moments EVER) and reminds me quite a bit of fave shows The Office and Parks and Recreation. I was devastated when it was cancelled by Fox in May, but, thankfully, NBC swooped in and picked it up, so fans will be getting their Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Captain Holt (Andrew Braugher) fixes soon. Cool cool cool!

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3. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (book available on Amazon) – This one is a bit of a cheat since I actually read the gripping Joël Dicker mystery novel several years ago. A miniseries based upon it was released this past fall in the UK, though, and it looks captivating! I am absolutely clamoring to watch, but sadly it is not yet available in the U.S. Say whaaaa? Because the book is hands-down one of the best I’ve ever read and since I am guessing the show will be hitting American airwaves at some point in the near future, I thought a recommendation was due.

4. The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat (available on Amazon) – A neighbor recommended this novel to me in the late summer, saying it was one of her favorite books of all time (a hearty proclamation), and I ordered it immediately from my phone while sitting on her porch. I dove right in upon receiving it and was promptly transfixed by the tale of three lifelong friends living in Plainview, Indiana, which is in the same vein as Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, one of my all-time faves. I started reading the book so quickly that I didn’t peruse the synopsis on the back or even taken a good look at the cover and was shocked to learn after finishing that the poignant story about women was actually penned by a man! Edward Kelsey Moore nailed the nuances of female friendship to a T! I promptly ordered copies for my mom and grandma and can honestly say the tome is now one of my all-time favorites, as well.

5. True Crime Obsessed (available on all podcast platforms; bonus episodes on Patreon) – Where have Gillian Pensavalle and Patrick Hinds been all my life? I found True Crime Obsessed, the duo’s podcast which comically recaps true crime documentaries, thanks to a recommended post on Instagram, started listening immediately and haven’t looked back since. It is hands-down the.best.podcast. I’ve ever heard (yes, it’s even better than Serial). Polished, professional and downright hilarious, the GC and I are all in with this one – not only did we become Patreon members so that we could access all of the bonus material, but we even purchased our very own “garbage bell.” Walk, don’t run, to your iPhone and subscribe to True Crime Obsessed immediately! You can thank me later. (My recommendation is to start from the very beginning with “Episode 1: The Imposter.” If you’re just wanting to wet your whistle, though, to get a feel for what Gillian and Patrick are all about, give “Episode 33: My Friend Rockefeller” a go. It’s one of my favorites.)

6. The Bitch Bible (available on all podcast platforms) – The GC and I are massive fans of Vanderpump Rules and its leading lady Stassi Schroeder. As such, we’ve been avid listeners of her Straight Up with Stassi podcast from the beginning. It did not take long for us to also become enamored with her BFF and frequent guest Jackie Schimmel, who is a podcaster herself. For whatever reason, though, we failed to listen to her show, The Bitch Bible, until earlier this year. And I am really sorry we waited because Jackie puts out some of the funniest narrative I’ve ever listened to in my life. She is opinionated, snarky and not afraid to say exactly what is on her mind. And I am here for it – every single minute of it!

7. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (Netflix original movie) – A sweet, sweet tale of teen romance in which two high schoolers fall for each other while pretending to be a couple, à la Drive Me Crazy, a longtime favorite of mine. You can’t help but fall in love with lead actress Lana Condor while watching. Her leading man, Noah Centineo, isn’t too shabby either.

Lana Condor in To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

8. Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. (USA Network) – I’ve made no secret of my love for the first season of this true crime anthology which covers the killings of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace. While rap isn’t really my thing and I knew little of Tupac or Biggie prior to watching, I became absolutely hooked on the show. It is fabulous from start to finish. (The fact that Josh Duhamel stars certainly doesn’t hurt.) I’ve since researched the murders and was pleasantly surprised at the production’s level of accuracy, which is likely thanks to the fact that former LAPD detective Greg Kading, who served on several task forces that investigated the deaths, acted as co-executive producer.

Image result for unsolved the murders of tupac and the notorious b.i.g

9. Last Holiday (available on Amazon) – Definitely the oldest addition on this list, Last Holiday was released in 2006, but I only discovered it this past December. The sweet, uplifting tale of a woman who, after receiving a terminal health diagnosis, cashes in her life savings to take an extravagant, long-dreamed-about trip to Europe and, in the process, learns how to finally start living, is now a staple of our annual Christmas movie rotation. The flick is also responsible for several new spots on my ever-growing To-Stalk List, namely the Czech Republic’s magnificent Grandhotel Pupp where much of the story takes place.

Last Holiday (2006)

10. You (available on Netflix) – Lifetime’s recent thriller series, which has since been acquired by Netflix, is an interesting take on a crime drama. Told from the perspective of the surprisingly sympathetic bookstore manager/psychotic killer Joe Goldberg (encapsulated perfectly by Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley), I almost (almost) found myself rooting for the bad guy and wishing ill on his love interest, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), and her manipulative best friend, Peach Salinger (Shay Mitchell). Who knew Badgley could be so good at playing bad?

You (2018)

11. The Real Housewives of New York City (currently airing on Bravo, past episodes available on Hulu) – Though the GC and I have been devoted fans of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills since its inception, for some reason we never got into its New York City counterpart. That changed this summer. On a whim, we watched the Season 7 premiere and were immediately hooked. We wound up binging the rest of Season 7, as well as Seasons 8 through 10 in about two weeks time and then went back to the beginning to view Seasons 1 through 4. We are still getting through the series and loving every minute of it, though I have to say, without Bethenny Frankel at the helm, the mid-seasons are a bit lacking. Regardless, it is easily the most binge-worthy show I’ve ever seen. RHONY is pure gold – everything reality TV should be. As Michael Rapaport recently said in an interview, “Meryl Streep on her best day couldn’t do what Dorinda Medley does!” So make it nice and go watch!

12. Peppermint (available on DVD or streaming at Amazon) – There’s pretty much nothing I love more than a good revenge flick and Peppermint, Jennifer Garner’s recent foray into the genre, did not disappoint. When her husband and daughter’s murderers get off scot-free due to judicial corruption, suburban mom Riley North (Garner) takes matters into her own hands, bulldozing anyone and anything who gets in the way of her quest for justice. Let’s just say, she kicks a** gloriously.

Jennifer Garner in Peppermint (2018)

13. Book Club (available on Amazon) – This 2018 romcom/friendship tale should not be missed! Hilarious and charming, the movie feels a bit like a re-envisioning of The First Wives Club with a Nancy Meyers element kicked in. All four lead actresses, Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, are pure perfection. Not to mention, they all look fabulous! Bonus – it was set and filmed in L.A., so I even managed to get some good stalking locations out of it!

14. Chappaquiddick (available on Netflix) – I have never really researched the 1969 death of Mary Jo Kopechne, so I am unsure about the historical accuracy of the 2018 drama based upon the tragedy, but it sure made for a fabulous watch. The flick is extremely well-done, well-acted, and well-shot and I found myself fully immersed in the sad story. I also became obsessed with Kate Mara’s (Kopechne) hairstyle in it, which I very quickly emulated.

15. Ocean’s 8 (available on Amazon) – Last year’s all-female reboot of the 2001 caper classic Ocean’s Eleven could not have been more fun! Campy, witty and cinematically stunning, the flick is a fast-paced romp that I enjoyed every minute of. (Though I am seriously peeved that – spoiler alert! – George Clooney’s Danny Ocean was killed off.) The costume design was especially on point, as were the locations. My award for best locale of the year goes to the fabulous urban loft where Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), Lou (Cate Blanchett – who has never looked better!) and their team conspire to steal a diamond necklace, which per production designer Alex DiGerlando was actually the heavily modified interior of the annex of Brooklyn’s Bushwick United Methodist Church.

Sandra Bullock, Helena Bonham Carter, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, and Awkwafina in Ocean's Eight (2018)

16. Going in Style (available on both Amazon and Hulu with a Cinemax subscription) – Though this one came out in 2017, the GC and I didn’t see it until early this year. A buddy heist comedy, in the same vein as Last Vegas, Going in Style centers around three octogenarians who lose their well-earned pensions thanks to a financial restructuring and decide to rob the bank behind it. The movie (directed by Zach Braff, who also helmed Garden State, one of my all-time favorites) is hilarious, heart-warming and downright fun.

Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, and Michael Caine in Going in Style (2017)

17. Set It Up (Netflix original movie) – The Devil Wears Prada meets Cyrano de Bergerac in this cute romcom about two overwrought personal assistants who conspire to make their bosses fall in love in order to alleviate their insufferable workload. I adore anything and everything with Zoey Deutch and this flick was no different. The fact that I spent several years as a personal assistant only added to my enjoyment of it.

18. The Kissing Booth (Netflix original movie) – An undeniably cheesy story of teen love, but an entertaining watch nonetheless. The fact that stars Joey King and Jacob Elordi are together in real life (though there’s speculation they’ve since split) only made it more fun to view.

19. Broken Harts (available on all podcast platforms) – This new investigative podcast, which premiered in December and is still currently airing, hooked me from word one. Covering the March 2018 car crash in which prolific Facebook poster Jen Hart intentionally took the lives of her wife, Sarah, and five of their six adoptive children (though the sixth is believed dead, too), the story is eerie, dark and wholeheartedly perplexing. It delves into the many falsehoods of social media, lifting the veil on an Insta-famous family with whom not everything was nearly as rosy as it seemed.

Image result for broken harts podcast

20. I Was There Too (available on all podcast platforms) – To be fair, I’ve only listened to one episode of this podcast, but it was utterly fascinating and right up my alley. Matt Gourley’s show is a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes of classic movie moments told by people who were actually there during filming, whether it be a day player, an extra, a screenwriter, or a crew member. In the episode I heard (#83), musician Jordan Katz tells of his experience as a 14-year-old extra in the famous “I’d take a flamethrower to this place!” scene from Scent of a Woman. Not only does he spill the tea on the various actors involved and share a few humorous anecdotes from the five days he spent on set (yes, the scene took five days to shoot!), but he divulged exactly where the segment was lensed, which was not at all where I thought it was.

January 4, 2019January 3, 2019

Harry Bosch’s House from “Bosch”

I contemplated chronicling the best movie and television productions I discovered in 2018 as my first post of the new year. Had I done so (and I still might later this month), Bosch would have topped the list. As I mentioned in my recent write-up on Demitasse café, the Grim Cheaper and I started watching the Amazon original series just a few months ago and were immediately hooked. A police procedural with a sarcastic and fabulously deadpan leading man set in Los Angeles – what more could this crime-obsessed, L.A.-loving stalker ask for? The locations used are seriously phenomenal, by the way – none more so than the cantilevered hilltop home of titular character Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch (Titus Welliver). The pad couldn’t be more quintessentially Los Angeles if it tried. So I, of course, ran right out to stalk it shortly after viewing the first episode.

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Bosch is based upon a bestselling series of novels by author Michael Connelly. I have never read any of the books, but have been able to piece together the various info written about Harry’s house in them thanks to a detailed forum on MichaelConnelly.com. In the novels, Detective Bosch is said to live on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills, though his specific address varies from “next to” 7203 Woodrow Wilson in 2010’s The Reversal to 8620 Woodrow Wilson in 2018’s Dark Sacred Night. Per a commenter on the forum, Connelly has apparently stated that Harry’s pad doesn’t exist in real life, but that the site where he placed it in his stories is a burnt-out foundation of a former cantilevered residence that the author stumbled upon in 1992. Additional commenters did some massive legwork on the subject and surmised that the location of said foundation is 7207 Woodrow Wilson Drive. And they’re right – I came across a video of Connelly showing the exact spot where he imagined the home (a still of which is pictured below) and compared it to Street View imagery of that address (again, pictured below) and, sure enough, it’s the spot! You can check out some photographs of the foundation and the land it sits on here.

In Blue Neon Night: Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles, a special limited edition DVD released in 2004 in which, as Amazon notes, the author “provides an insider’s tour of the places that give his stories and characters their spark and texture,” a house located at 7143 Woodrow Wilson is shown to be Harry’s and Connelly describes it as such, “Bosch’s home was fourth from the end on the right side. His home was a wood-frame, one-bedroom cantilever, not much bigger than a Beverly Hills garage. It hung out over the edge of the hill and was supported by three steel pylons at its mid-point.”

When it came time to start shooting the series in November 2013, producers found an even more perfect embodiment of that Blue Neon Night description at 1870 Blue Heights Drive in Hollywood Hills West.

Sitting high atop a hill, the architectural stunner, which was built in 1958, boasts 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,513 square feet of living space, and a 0.26-acre lot.

Per Zillow, it is currently worth a whopping $2,130,000.

The striking pad first popped up in Bosch’s pilot and has gone on to appear in pretty much every episode since. It is the rear of the residence – its cantilevered side, which stands on a cliff overlooking the Sunset Strip, Culver City and beyond – that is regularly shown on the series.

The street side of the house, which is much less spectacular than the rear, was featured briefly in Season 4’s “Devil in the House.”

While situated on a private cul-de-sac, that side of the property can be viewed from a portion of Blue Heights Drive that is open to the public – though there is not much to see.

Just west of the home’s front entrance, though, in an area that is also publicly accessible, is an open expanse of land where views matching those of Harry’s pad can be gleaned.

And let me tell you, those views are absolutely incredible!

I mean, come on!

Last one, I promise.

We know – thanks to this video – that the actual interior of the Blue Heights Drive residence was utilized in Bosch’s pilot. And I am fairly certain that a few additional early episodes were shot on location inside the home, as well (quite possibly all of Season 1). At some point, though, a set re-creation was built on a studio soundstage that has since been used for all subsequent seasons.

How does a cop afford such a stellar pad, you ask? Per the storyline of both the books and the series, Paramount made a movie based upon one of Harry’s cases, for which he was paid handsomely.

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: Harry Bosch’s house from the television series Bosch is located at 1870 Blue Heights Drive in Hollywood Hills West. The best views of the structure can be seen from the 1600 block of Viewmont Drive and the 8800 block of Hollywood Boulevard.

January 2, 2019December 31, 2018

Grand Central Market from “Bosch”

Happy 2019, my fellow stalkers! I was originally going to write about a different locale today, one that was sadly lost in the Woolsey Fire, but decided it would be best to start the year off on a happier note. So instead I’m covering a quintessential Los Angeles spot that I have stalked countless times, but somehow never blogged about – DTLA’s Grand Central Market. The bustling food emporium/retail grocery mart is a virtual city landmark, though I only visited it for the first time while on jury duty in 2007, a full seven years after I moved to Southern California! Upon stepping inside the vibrant marketplace and poring through the rows upon rows of diverse food vendors – an activity that was recommended as part of jury orientation – I was immediately enthralled. The Grim Cheaper and I subsequently popped by countless times in the years that followed to grab a bite to eat or do some specialty grocery shopping, but it was not until spotting the place in a Season 4 episode of Bosch recently that I realized I had yet to dedicate a post to it. So here goes.

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Grand Central Market is situated on the ground floor of what is, interestingly enough, two adjacent buildings. The Homer Laughlin Building, which fronts Broadway, was designed by architect John Parkinson for Homer Laughlin, founder of the Homer Laughlin China Company, in 1897. Eight years later, Harrison Albright was commissioned to build an adjoining structure, facing Hill Street, to enlarge the property. My photos below show the secondary edifice, known as the Laughlin Annex/Lyon Building. Upscale department store Ville de Paris became the first tenant of the two building’s massive street level space, which opens to both Hill and Broadway.

I had always assumed Grand Central was a more recent addition to the Los Angeles landscape, established sometime in the 1990s or thereabouts, and was shocked to discover while researching for this post that it actually opened its doors on October 27th, 1917, just a few months after Ville de Paris relocated to a different location downtown. More than one hundred years later, the market is still a DTLA staple.

Stretching a full city block, the 30,000-square-foot emporium initially housed 90 vendors and catered to the wealthy Angelinos living just up the road in Bunker Hill, who accessed the market via Angels Flight situated right across the street. Today, the locale plays host to more than 25,000 visitors each day – area businessmen and women, tourists and locals alike, all looking for a unique bite to eat or specialty ingredient to take home.

Grand Central Market has been rehabbed a few times throughout its history – first in the 1960s, then in 1990, and then again, to the chagrin of many locals, in 2013. Regardless of the revamps, the site is doing better than ever today. In fact, Bon Appétit magazine named the entire place one of the best new restaurants of 2014! Boasting 38 stalls, the locale offers such varied fare as German currywurst, Japanese bento boxes, fresh oysters, and handmade Salvadorian pupusas. You’ll also find staples like handcrafted bread, gourmet coffees and teas, and artisanal cheeses.

Bright, vibrant and colorful, GCM serves as the heartbeat of downtown. As such, it is no surprise that the site has wound up onscreen in numerous L.A.-set productions.

In the Season 4 episode of Bosch titled “Ask the Dust,” which aired in April 2018, Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) walks through the Broadway entrance of Grand Central Market and is then shown exiting the Hill Street side on his way to Angels Flight, where the murder of a prominent lawyer has recently occurred. Only the outside of the locale is shown in the scene, though.

Back in 1974, Grand Central Market was the site of a lengthy chase and shootout in the comedy/action flick Busting.

Eddie Moscone (Joe Pantoliano) convinces Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) to track down accountant/embezzler Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin) over breakfast there at the beginning of 1988’s Midnight Run.

In 1991, Huell Howser chronicled Grand Central Market in the episode of California’s Gold titled “L.A. Adventures,” which you can watch here.

Gy. Sgt. James Dunn (Keenen Ivory Wayans) takes refuge in the emporium at the end of the 1997 thriller Most Wanted.

Seth (Nicolas Cage) and Dr. Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan) shop for produce there in the 1998 drama City of Angels.

Sam Dawson (Sean Penn) does the International House of Pancakes quiz with a random stranger – and mistakenly gets arrested for solicitation – at Grand Central Market in I Am Sam, though very little of the place can be seen in the 2001 drama.

Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) are very, very briefly shown grabbing pupusas there in the 2016 favorite La La Land.

And in 2018’s Will & Liz, Grand Central Market is the spot where titular characters Will (Nathan Wilson) and Liz (Christine Tucker) go on a date.

Though several sites claim that GCM was also featured in National Treasure, that is incorrect. The 2004 adventure flick’s market scene was actually lensed about 3,000 miles away at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, as I blogged about here.

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: Grand Central Market, from the “Ask the Dust” episode of Bosch, is located at 317 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the emporium’s official website here.

December 24, 2018December 23, 2018

Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a heartfelt Merry Christmas! I will be taking the week off to celebrate with my family. I hope everyone has a safe, fun and fulfilling holiday surrounded by loved ones. I’ll see you back here in the new year!

December 21, 2018August 24, 2020

The Majestic Downtown from “The Holiday”

The Holiday has definitely been on my brain as of late. I wrote about two of the houses used in the 2006 film for the December issue of Los Angeles magazine and recently got to tour Thorne Hall at Occidental College, the setting of one of its most poignant scenes. So I figured it was only appropriate to dedicate a post to another of the movie’s locales, DTLA’s SB Spring building, more specifically its lower level former bank space known as The Majestic Downtown, which masqueraded as the supposed London office of The Daily Telegraph newspaper in the flick. I have blogged about this spot twice before, once in 2010 for my own site and then again in 2014 for L.A. mag. The last time I did some stalking of it, though, an event was being set up and the friendly security guard manning the front door happened to invite me inside for a closer look! I have yet to share the photos I snapped that day, so I decided it was definitely time for a third go-round.

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SB Spring was originally erected in 1924 as the headquarters of the Hellman Commercial Trust and Savings Bank.

Commissioned by Isaias Hellman at a cost of $2.5-million, the Beaux Arts-style structure was designed by the Schultze & Weaver architecture firm.

Featuring an Indiana limestone façade with sweeping arched windows and doors and terra cotta carvings, the 12-story building originally housed offices on the upper levels . . .

. . . and a two-story Spanish Revival-style bank on the ground floor boasting 40-foot-tall hand-painted coffered ceilings, marble columns, stairs and flooring, intricate bronze chandeliers, and a large mezzanine. You can check out a photo of what the grand space looked like during its early days here.

Soon after construction of the property was complete, Hellman Commercial merged with Merchants National Bank and then was taken over by Bank of America shortly thereafter. The 250,000-square-foot structure became the financial institution’s Los Angeles headquarters and, as such, was known largely as the “Bank of America Building.”

When B of A moved its headquarters to a new location on Flower Street in 1972, the upstairs offices of the Spring Street building were leased out to various companies. The ground floor bank, however, remained in operation until its doors were finally closed due to a decline in business in March 1988.

Developer Barry Shy purchased the structure in 2009 and converted the upstairs offices into a 174-unit loft-style apartment building known as SB Spring.

Thankfully, the bank space, now a special events venue known as The Majestic Downtown, has been left largely intact over the years, making it the perfect spot for filming. And locations scouts have definitely taken note!

In The Holiday, The Majestic Downtown is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) works as a newspaper writer.

It is during the paper’s Christmas party at the beginning of the film that Iris learns her total cad of an ex-boyfriend, Jasper Bloom (Rufus Sewell), has proposed to the girl that he cheated on her with.

SB Spring has appeared in countless productions in addition to The Holiday. So many, that it would be impossible to chronicle all of its onscreen appearances here, but below are a few of my personal favorites.

Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) has Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) fill out a signature card under a fake name at the bank in 1990’s Ghost.

The Majestic Downtown masks as the Fourth Reich Bank of Hamburg where Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) provides his financial records in an attempt to secure a dinner reservation at L’Idiot restaurant in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story.

The site portrays Edge City Savings & Loan, where Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) works, in the 1994 comedy The Mask.

Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) applies for a job there in the 1998 romcom The Wedding Singer.

In 2001’s Heartbreakers, Max Conners (Sigourney Weaver) and her daughter, Page Conners (Jennifer Love Hewitt), attempt to withdraw money from their accounts at the bank, but are thwarted by the IRS.

Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) saves a party at The Majestic Downtown by performing the Zombie Dance from Thriller in the 2004 comedy 13 Going on 30.

And, yes, I did, of course, imitate Jenna doing a Thriller move while I was there, but unfortunately the lighting in the building was extremely low, so my photo did not come out. (Many of the images I took that day suffered the same fate, unfortunately.)

The exterior of SB Spring masquerades as Belle en Blanc bridal salon in the 2011 comedy Bridesmaids.

Me doing my best Helen (Rose Byrne) out in front. Too bad the shop’s ornate intercom isn’t actually there in real life.

Though the interior of the salon was a studio-built set, it is outside of SB Spring that the scene’s most memorable moment took place.

It is there that Lillian (Maya Rudolph), ahem, loses her sh*t in the middle of the street.

Had to do it! (Though I accidentally posed a bit too far to the north.)

SB Spring plays Capitol Trust Bank, where Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and the gang attend a Homeland Security counterterrorism drill, in the Season 2 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “Windbreaker City,” which aired in 2014.

In 2018, the exterior of the bank popped up in the music video for the Lil Dicky/Chris Brown song “Freak Friday,” which you can watch here.

And E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) unsuccessfully attempts to secure a loan there in the hopes of saving his practice in the Season 1 episode of the new HBO series Perry Mason titled “Chapter 4.”

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 Majestic Downtown, aka The Daily Telegraph newspaper office from The Holiday, is located at 650 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the venue’s official website here.

December 19, 2018December 20, 2018

Cordon’s Ranch Market from “Christmas with the Kranks”

Christmas with the Kranks has got to be one of the oddest movies I’ve ever come across location-wise. The 2004 holiday flick not only used the backlots of three (count ‘em!) three different L.A. studios to portray Riverside, Illinois, the Chicago suburb where the story takes place (as I chronicled in this post), but the soundstages of yet another area studio, The Culver Studios in Culver City, were utilized for several interior sets. And as I only recently discovered, production also played a bit fast and loose with the store where Nora Krank (Jamie Lee Curtis) finally got her hands on – and then promptly lost – a Hickory Honey Ham for a last-minute Christmas party. (The entire ham storyline is problematic, in fact, but more on that in a bit.) I figured the location trickery would make for a great holiday post, so I ran right out to stalk Cordon’s Ranch Market in Glendale, where the majority of the grocery store scene was lensed.

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Sadly, Cordon’s Ranch Market, which was originally established in 1999, shut its doors in April 2015. If only I had identified the location a few years sooner!

After Cordon’s shuttering, the site underwent a heavy remodel and subsequently re-opened as Moss Supermarket a few months later.

Moss did not last long, unfortunately, closing its doors in October 2017, a little more than two years after opening, and the space has sat vacant ever since.

In Christmas with the Kranks, Nora heads to Cordon’s Ranch Market to buy a ham – not just any ham, mind you, but a Mel’s Hickory Honey Cooked, Boneless, Skinless Ham with Natural Juices and Gelatin Added (um, gross!) – for her annual Christmas Eve party that she and her husband, Luther Krank (Tim Allen), have decided to throw at the very last minute upon learning their beloved daughter, Blair (Julie Gonzalo), is unexpectedly returning home from the Peace Corps to celebrate the holidays with them. Hickory Honey Ham, you see, is Blair’s absolute favorite dish.

The shop’s name and signage are both clearly visible at the top of the scene when Nora is shown parking her car. I always assumed both had been faked for the shoot, though, due to the fact that the sign’s lettering and coloring looked very Christmas-y. Then, on a whim a few months ago, I decided to input “Cordon’s Ranch Market” into Google and was shocked when a result was kicked back for a since-closed grocery store in Glendale! One look at the place on Street View confirmed it was where filming had occurred. What amazed me even more was that the signage that appeared in the movie was real, as you can see in this image of Cordon’s exterior from when it was still in operation! Turns out it wasn’t altered to appear more holiday-ish at all!

Nora’s visit to the grocer does not go well. And neither does the scene’s continuity because as soon as filming shifts to the inside of the market, we are at a different location altogether. The store where Nora races another shopper in an attempt to nab the very last in-stock Hickory Honey Ham before ultimately crashing into a floor display at the beginning of the segment does not match these images I found of Cordon’s. The shop that appears onscreen features a muted color scheme and some sort of a village-scape painted on its upper walls, while Cordon’s operated under the Apple Market brand and, as such, boasted bright red, green, and yellow coloring. The movie market also has a checkered brown and white floor, which does not line up with Cordon’s blue and white tiling.

Unfortunately, I am unsure of what grocery store was utilized for the filming of that portion of the scene.

After Nora crashes into the display and loses her chance at grabbing the shop’s sole remaining ham, she comes across a family in the check-out line who happens to have one and she convinces them to sell it to her for an above-market price. And that’s where things get really weird because that segment was shot at Cordon’s! As you can see in these images of the shop, the cashier stands, general décor, and color scheme match what appeared onscreen perfectly.

The fact that two different market interiors were utilized for the rather brief segment makes me wonder if some of the scene was re-shot. Or if Nora was originally supposed to be shown venturing into multiple stores looking for the hard-to-get ham and, at the last minute, producers decided to combine the bits instead. Your guess is as good as mine, though.

Purchase safely in hand, Nora then heads out of Cordon’s, where she is promptly bumped by a passerby, causing her to drop the ham.

It subsequently rolls through the store’s parking lot . . .

. . . and into the street . . .

. . . where it sits for a brief moment . . .

. . . before getting run over by a big rig . . .

. . . which almost hits Nora in the process.

Though she manages to escape unscathed . . .

. . . the ham does not. (Per production designer Garreth Stover, 26 hams were destroyed during the making of the scene.)

As if the market location switch-up isn’t enough, there’s more! Though Nora returns home defeated and sans ham, a guest named Marty (Austin Pendleton) unexpectedly brings one to the Krank’s party, saving Christmas pretty much, and Nora is shown proudly serving it later in the evening to her future son-in-law, Enrique Decardenal (Rene Lavan). But in an unexpected twist, in one of the movie’s final scenes Luther grabs an uncooked ham off of his kitchen counter and brings it over to his neighbors’ house as a sort of peace offering – which begs the question, where in the heck did that second ham come from? Did another guest bring it? Did Nora reconstruct the ham that was run-over by the big rig? Did it show up as some sort of Christmas miracle? Unfortunately, a DVD commentary was never created for the film, so, short of a sit-down with director Joe Roth, we may never know. It seems to me a pretty huge gaffe, though, especially considering the Hickory Honey Ham storyline is so central to the movie. I am shocked that no one caught it in post-production.

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 former Cordon’s Ranch Market from Christmas with the Kranks is located at 2931 Honolulu Avenue in Glendale. The store is currently closed and vacant.

December 14, 2018December 14, 2018

Thorne Hall from “The Holiday”

If I had to pick a favorite movie character it would be Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) from The Holiday. There’s nothing about him that I don’t adore – his kind heart, his wit, his charm, his championing of Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet). And there’s no scene that makes me cry more than the one in which he is honored by the Writers Guild of America West at the end of the film. When those theatre doors open and he sees that the auditorium is packed, the emotion is overwhelming! And then, just when you think you’ve caught your breath, his theme music – composed by Miles Dumont (Jack Black) – comes tinkling through the speakers and the tears start all over again. So I was ecstatic when, while on a tour of Occidental College with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, a couple of years back, our guide pointed to Thorne Hall on the north edge of campus and informed us that the iconic scene – which you can watch here – had been shot there! Though we didn’t get to see the inside of the building that particular day, thanks to an incredibly nice contact I have at the school who interviewed me a few years ago, I was able to tour it last month, just in time for a holiday post!

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Thorne Hall was the brainchild of Rev. Remsen D. Bird, who served as Occidental’s president from 1921 to 1946. Upon taking office, Bird set out to expand and enhance the campus. Top on his list of wants was a large auditorium capable of hosting the entire student body and staff. The project was finally made possible thanks to financing provided by Charles Thorne, heir to the Montgomery Ward fortune, and groundbreaking took place on May 21st, 1937.

Myron Hunt & H.C. Chambers, the architecture team who also gave us Pasadena Central Library, were commissioned to design the Palladian-style beauty, which was named in honor of Charles’ late wife, Belle Wilber Thorne. The venue opened to the public on July 13th, 1938 with a concert put on by Westminster Choir School.

Little of the landmark site has been altered in the ensuing decades, though it did undergo a $2.1-million renovation in 1989. Spearheaded by architect/preservation specialist Brenda Levin, the project mildly revamped the auditorium’s interior by adding baffling over the stage to allow for better acoustics. As she explained to the Los Angeles Times, “Thorne Hall is one of Hunt’s purest Palladian buildings. Its beautiful Beaux Arts colonnade closes the western end of the main campus axis, and gives it its great sense of calm. I had to try and modernize the hall’s interior without cheapening its relationship to the dignity of its exterior.” A woman after my own heart!

The grand 792-seat venue has hosted countless famous figures over the years including Martin Luther King Jr., Bob Hope, Linda Ronstadt, Harry Belafonte, Edward James Olmos, Richard Nixon, Jane Goodall, Earl Warren, Robert Frost, Amy Tan, Anne Lamott, Cesar Chavez, Desmond Tutu, and Oliver Stone, just to name a few.

According to a 2013 Occidental magazine article, in 1940 Howard Swan, then director of the space, stated “Belle Wilber Thorne Hall today is more than a structure of steel and concrete. Thorne Hall is an institution, fostering activities that reach out and touch many interests and many persons. The donor of the building wished it to receive extensive use; certainly none of us realized that we were so soon to witness the development of an institution of strength, tradition, and power.” Charles Thorne’s hope for extensive use is still being realized today, with the venue serving as the site of such varied events as theatre productions, concerts, lectures, speeches, classes, and dance performances.

Oh, and filming.

It is at Thorne Hall that the Writers Guild of America West hosts “An Evening with Arthur Abbott,” in honor of the legendary octogenarian screenwriter, in The Holiday.

As Arthur walks into Thorne’s lobby with Iris, his worst fears are confirmed – it appears as if no one has shown up for the event.

But when the doors to the auditorium open . . .

. . . a resounding applause breaks out and Arthur is overwhelmed to see a packed house engaged in a massive standing ovation. His life’s work, it turns out, has not gone unnoticed by his peers.

Iris and Arthur proceed down the aisle into Thorne’s auditorium . . .

. . . and Arthur ventures onto the stage where he gives a glorious speech about the showbusiness of yesteryear. It is a heartwarming scene from beginning to end.

Sadly, the stairs he walked up (on his own!) were just set dressing brought in for the shoot.

Thorne Hall’s actual stairs are located on the extreme sides of the stage, as you can see below.

The Holiday is hardly the only production to feature Thorne Hall. In fact, the site popped up in another favorite of mine!

In 1994, Thorne was used extensively as Evans Hall, the California University theatre where Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) auditioned, rehearsed, and performed as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 “Divas,” “Acting Out,” “Truth and Consequences,” and “Vital Signs.” The exterior . . .

. . . the lobby . . .

. . . and the auditorium all appeared in the episodes. (That’s a very young Ryan Hurst, aka Gerry Bertier from Remember the Titans, in the screen caps below.)

In what is actually a leftover establishing shot from 90210, Thorne Hall popped up briefly as “Evans Hall Library,” where Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) investigates the death of her friend, Charlene Hughes (Rebecca Cross), in the Season 2 episode of Charmed titled “Ex Libris,” which aired in 2000. All interiors were shot at DC Stages in downtown L.A., though.

Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) gives a speech on raptors and asks for funding to continue his research on the subject in Thorne Hall in 2001’s Jurassic Park III.

Thorne portrays the Georgetown University auditorium where Tabitha Fortis (Laura Dern) gives a lecture on poetry in the Season 3 episode of The West Wing titled “The U.S. Poet Laureate,” which aired in 2002.

A prop fountain was installed in front of the hall for the shoot to give the locale more of a D.C. feel.

Thorne Hall masks as the U.S. Embassy in Belgravia, where a Marine is killed during a terrorist attack, in the Season 8 episode of NCIS titled “Defiance,” which aired in 2011.

In 2014 and 2015, Thorne Hall was turned into “Nerdvana” for Seasons 2 and 3 of the reality competition series King of the Nerds.

The Grim Cheaper and I happened to be on campus during one of the Nerd shoots and got to see Thorne Hall dressed in all of its Nerdvana glory!

Most recently, the building popped up briefly in the background of the Season 1 episode of The Romanoffs titled “Bright and High Circle,” which aired this past November.

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: Thorne Hall, from The Holiday, can be found at Occidental College, which is located at 1600 Campus Road in Eagle Rock. Please be advised that the theatre is closed to the public and is only accessible to those attending performances and shows on the premises. You can find out about the venue’s upcoming events here.

December 12, 2018June 14, 2019

“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Christmas House

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas – well, as much as it can in SoCal – which means it’s time to start posting holiday locales! I’m kicking off the season with the pad that portrayed the Banks family residence in the Season 1 Yuletide-themed episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air titled “Deck the Halls.” Now you’re probably thinking, ‘But you’ve blogged about the Fresh Prince house already, years ago.’ And you’d be correct. Way back in 2008, I did write about the massive Colonial manse that regularly appeared as the home of Will (Will Smith), Carlton (Alfonso Ribeiro), Uncle Philip (James Avery), Aunt Viv (Janet Hubert), Hilary (Karyn Parsons), and Ashley (Tatyana Ali) on the popular series. (Spoiler! It’s actually in Brentwood, not Bel-Air!) But . . .

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. . . as a fellow stalker named Ashley informed me in August 2013, for whatever reason a different home was utilized as the family’s pad in the “Deck the Halls” episode. Thinking it would make for a great Christmas post, I set out to find the place, which turned into quite a long and tedious affair. I started by scouring the Colonial section of every online location database, then spent hours poring over Google Aerial Views looking for any large properties with a rounded portico – all to no avail. I once even thought I saw the house pop up in the Instagram story of a friend who was attending a holiday soiree at a Colonial-style dwelling. I quickly figured out the name of the party’s hosts and searched property records to find their address, only to discover upon getting a better look at the residence via Street View that it was not, in fact, the right place. Oh, the (admittedly crazy) lengths I go to to bring filming location information to the masses! It was not until this past February (almost five years after my search began!) that an unexpected source came to my rescue.

That month, upon the (very emphatic) recommendation of Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, the Grim Cheaper and I started watching Barely Famous, VH1’s fake reality series about the lives of sisters Erin and Sara Foster, daughters of music producer David Foster (who just so happens to be the man largely credited with discovering Michael Bublé – but I digress). While viewing the pilot episode, I just about screamed as an establishing shot of Erin and Sara’s home came into view. In an instant, I knew it was the pad from “Deck the Halls.” Thank you, Pinky!

Barely Famous not only provided much more expansive views of the residence, but an address placard was also visible in several episodes. Though I couldn’t quite make out the number displayed, it was apparent that said number was five digits, which meant the property was located somewhere in the Valley. Up until that point, I had only been searching the Hollywood/Hancock Park areas and their environs, near Hollywood Center Studios (now Sunset Las Palmas Studios) where The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s first season was lensed, as sitcom location managers typically don’t veer far from the lot when choosing locales. Oops!

Knowing the place was actually in the San Fernando Valley gave me a whole new lease on the hunt! Armed with the information, I headed over to Google Maps and found the Banks’ Christmas house/Barely Famous residence fairly quickly at 10436 Kling Street in Toluca Lake.

The 2-story, 17-room American Colonial Revival-style estate is definitely fit for a king – or the Banks family, as the case may be – with 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,898 square feet of living space, a master suite with a massive walk-in closet, multiple fireplaces and built-in bookcases, a 0.42-acre yard, a pool, a spa, a putting green (!), a detached 3-car garage, and a gazebo. You can see some interior photos of the pad, which was originally built in 1941, here.

In the “Deck the Halls” episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which aired in 1990, Will laments the fact that Aunt Viv and Uncle Phil are less than traditional when it comes to decorating for Christmas. So Viv gives him free reign to adorn their mansion – and soon comes to regret that decision. The Toluca Lake pad was shown a few times in establishing shots of the Banks’ home in the episode.

The property does bear a strong resemblance to the Brentwood estate typically used on the show, as you can see below, but not so much so that eagle-eyed viewers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

All of the interiors from the “Deck the Halls” episode were, of course, shot on a studio set.

The property was only utilized for establishing shots on Barely Famous, as well.

All interiors were filmed elsewhere – I believe at an actual house and not on a set, though I am unsure of exactly where.

The pad is also where Juanita Solis (Madison De La Garza) attends a princess-themed birthday party in the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” which aired in 2008.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Ashley for asking me to track down this locale and to Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, for providing the key that finally helped me find it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Banks mansion from the “Deck the Halls” episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, aka Sara and Erin’s house from Barely Famous, is located at 10436 Kling Street in Toluca Lake. The estate regularly used as the Banks home on Fresh Prince can be found at 251 North Bristol Avenue in Brentwood.