IAMNOTASTALKER

December 11, 2018January 6, 2019

The COMET & CHARGE! December Giveaway

Update – this contest has ended. Congratulations to winner Ronald O.!

Snow is falling, the scent of pine needles is in the air, so it must be . . . time to watch some awesome movies and TV shows on COMET TV and CHARGE!

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Yep, this December the sci-fi and horror classic The Terminator is blasting its way through Comet TV! Check out the classic and the birth of Cyberdyne Systems!

If that wasn’t enough to celebrate the holiday season Babylon 5 has a Christmas marathon! After you sip your egg nog and trim the tree, turn on COMET TV for a spacey Christmas marathon! Starting at 10a/9 C! And don’t forget to check out Area 10! The best in cult classic films are airing all month long on Comet TV!

To top it all off, I am offering one awesome COMET TV viewer a chance to win a prize pack with some exclusive swag!

The Comet TV and CHARGE! December Prize Pack has:

1 – Limited Edition Terminator Muscle Shirt – Show off those guns! Figuratively and literally in this awesome Terminator Tee! Do some flexing and share your pics on the gram with the hashtag #CometTV.

1 – Exclusive Blair Witch Holiday Ornament – Deck the halls and ring in the new year with the Blair Witch! This hand-crafted ornament will bring holiday scares to you and those you love!

1 – Terminator Dog Tag – John Connor is the leader of the resistance and this promo dog tag set will get you ready to battle the cyborgs of the future!

1 – Babylon 5 and Space: 1999 Custom Snack Box – This is the perfect treat to celebrate any trip to space. It might require some popping, but this custom box will satisfy any spacey craving!

Entering is easy – simply click on the link below, follow me on Instagram and then provide your Instagram handle. If you already follow me on Instagram, then simply click below to enter and input your Instagram handle. The contest begins today and runs through January 5th. The winner will be announced on January 6th.

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This giveaway is open to US residents only. Each household is only eligible to win the COMET TV and CHARGE! October Prize Pack via blog reviews and giveaways. Only one entrant per mailing address per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you will not be eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification. The prize will be sent via FedEx or USPS. No P.O. Boxes please.

December 7, 2018December 6, 2018

Nick’s Cafe from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”

It is not everyday that a one-minute clip gets me hooked on an entire television series, but that is exactly what happened with Brooklyn Nine-Nine. A few months back, my friend Kate texted me a hilarious highlight from a Season 5 episode in which Detective Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) leads a group of criminals in a rousing acapella rendition of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” during a police lineup. I had never heard of the show at that point, but, let me tell you, as soon as the first strains of “You are my fire . . . “ hit my ears, I was done for! Any procedural that incorporates boy band music into its storyline is guaranteed to be a surefire favorite with me! The Grim Cheaper and I started watching the series that very night and have been binging it ever since. Not only is the acting superb and the dialogue laugh-out-loud funny, but (bonus!) it is shot in L.A., which means plenty of stalking for me. One of its locales, the small Chinatown eatery Nick’s Cafe, I first spotted in Season 3’s “House Mouses” and then again just a few weeks later on yet another series we are obsessed with, Bosch. So I decided I just had to run out and stalk the place.

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A veritable city institution, Nick’s Cafe (not to be confused with Nick’s Coffee Shop & Deli on Pico) was founded way back in 1948 by Navy vet Nick Viropolous.

In an unusual move, Nick chose to operate the place sans a name for the four decades that he owned it. As longtime waitress Lois Fuentes recalled in a 1995 Los Angeles Times article, “We went 41 years without a name. People would call it the Corner Cafe, the Ham House, all sorts of things. Nick was afraid if he gave it a name it might bring in more people. ‘Then you gotta hire more help,’ he’d say.”

The Ham House moniker, which is still sometimes used today, came about thanks to the bone-in ham, sliced to order, that Nick displayed daily on the eatery’s U-shaped counter.

Amazingly, the original counter is still intact today, seventy years after the restaurant first opened!

In the mid-90s, Viropolous sold the eatery to two LAPD homicide detectives who finally gave the place a name – Nick’s Cafe, in honor of its founder. The duo also installed a train track around the perimeter of the ceiling with a running model train that would circle the diner during open hours. Those tracks remain on display today (you can see them in the photos below), though the locomotive cars no longer operate.

Considering the profession of the new owners, it is not surprising that Nick’s became immensely popular with local police following the change of hands. As such, the restaurant has since been featured on numerous detective shows. But more on that in a bit.

In 2009, the cafe was taken over by a man named Rod Davis and it is still going strong today, largely thanks to the fact that little has been altered over the years. Not only is much of the décor original, but many of Nick’s recipes are still in use today.

I opted for a grilled cheese sandwich during my visit and it was honestly one of the best I’ve ever had. Granted, a grilled cheese is pretty hard to mess up, but the one served at Nick’s is stellar, with perfectly buttered toast and thick layers of two different kinds of cheese.

Most hours of the day at Nick’s are standing-room only, due to both its popularity and small size – the only available seating is at the counter, which is lined by a scant 25 stools, though the outside patio can accommodate an additional 25.

In the Season 3 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “House Mouses,” which aired in 2016, Jake convinces fellow detectives Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker) and Scully (Joel McKinnon Miller) to take over his drug case by buying them lunch at Nick’s.

The restaurant’s filming history far pre-dates Brooklyn Nine-Nine, though.

In 1997, Nick’s was the setting for the Depeche Mode video “It’s No Good,” which you can watch here.

Kensi Blye (Daniela Ruah) and Marty Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) visit Nick’s Cafe while investigating a terror suspect in the Season 3 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles titled “Patriot Acts,” which aired in 2012.

That same year, on yet another procedural, Detective Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy) counsels Officer Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie) about not getting emotionally attached to cases while standing in line at Nick’s in the Season 4 episode of Southland titled “Risk.”

The diner is the site of an armed robbery in DJ Snake and Justin Bieber’s 2016 “Let Me Love You” music video, which you can watch here.

Fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, informed me that the same year Ian Gallagher (Cameron Monaghan) and Lip Gallagher (Jeremy Allen White) lunched outside of Nick’s in the Season 7 episode of Shameless titled “Swipe, F***, Leave.”

As I mentioned earlier, Nick’s also appeared on Bosch. In Season 3’s “Clear Shot,” which aired in 2017, Detective Santiago Robertson (Paul Calderon) discusses a recent case with Terry Drake (Barry Shabaka Henley) at the eatery.

And in yet another police-related production, Ponch (Michael Peña) meets some local CHP officers at Nick’s in the 2017 comedy CHIPS.

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: Nick’s Cafe, from the “House Mouses” episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is located at 1300 Spring Street in Chinatown. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. The eatery closes at 3 p.m. each day, so please plan accordingly.

December 3, 2018August 24, 2020

The Dutch Chocolate Shop from “Castle”

I am an extremely excitable person. A visit to Disneyland, randomly running in to a friend, a surprise sale at a favorite store, unexpected access to an off-limits filming location – all can send me into a tailspin. Such was the case last week when the Grim Cheaper and I were driving to stalk the former Dutch Chocolate Shop – a stunning oft-used locale in downtown L.A. that typically sits hidden away behind an unsightly metal rolldown door. As I ventured past the site looking for parking, I saw that the door happened to be open and got so excited I nearly careened the car into oncoming traffic. After calming down (slightly) and securing a parking spot, I ran back to the store, hyperventilating all the way, and was met by the extremely friendly man that runs it, who, lo and behold, invited us inside! More hyperventilating ensued (obvs). Still, days later as I sit here and write this, I cannot believe I actually got to see the inside of the place. As Yelper Andrew W. recently noted, the Dutch Chocolate Shop is “the Holy Grail of downtown Los Angeles’ – heck, maybe all of Los Angeles’ – historical and artistic sites.”

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I was first made aware of the Dutch Chocolate Shop when writing my post about The Magic Castle in October. While doing research on the historic Hollywood club, I came across a mention on IMDB that it had portrayed the headquarters of the Greatest Detective Society in the Season 8 episode of Castle titled “G.D.S.” I headed right on over to Amazon to download and scan through the episode, but one look at the cavernous space shown onscreen and I knew IMDB had gotten it wrong. The locale was most certainly not The Magic Castle. I was absolutely captivated by it, though, and promptly started trying to track it down, which I did fairly quickly thanks to Castle Wiki. As the website informed me, filming had taken place at a former chocolate shop, of all things, once located at 217 West 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles.

Situated on the ground floor of a rather non-descript (and now graffiti-covered) 1898 building, the confectionary was the brainchild of E.C. Quinby, P.W. Quinby, and W.M. Petitfils of the Chocolate Shop Corporation.

The group leased the four-story structure in 1913 and renovated the street level space to the tune of $40,000. Architecture firm Plummer & Feil was commissioned to carry out the redesign.

The architects secured Pasadena artisan Ernest Batchelder to wallpaper the interior of the Dutch Chocolate Shop (or “the Chocolate Shoppe” as it was sometimes referred to) with his famous tilework, including murals which were to be Dutch in theme.

Per Big Orange Landmarks, “The Shoppe was to serve as a prototype for a whole chain of soda parlors, each with a different European country as its theme. For whatever reason – some say it was the high cost of Batchelder’s work – this never came to pass, and the 6th Street location was the first and last Chocolate Shoppe.”

Ernest’s fees might have been high, but the owners certainly got what they paid for because the finished product is absolutely stunning, with groined arches, tiled pillars, and 21 bas relief murals all depicting imagery of life in Holland.

The space, which is extremely reminiscent of Grand Central Terminal’s Whispering Gallery, is exquisite.

According to a commenter on Curbed Los Angeles, Feil instructed Ernest to fashion the tiles to look like chocolate bars. While a sweet (see what I did there) anecdote, I do not believe it to be true being that not only did Batchelder regularly utilize dark brown hues in his work, but per a different Curbed article and a Los Angeles Conservancy reference manual, the shingles’ current shading is actually an unintentional discoloration caused by shellac.

The Dutch Chocolate Shop, which operated as a confectionary, a soda fountain and a lunch/dinner restaurant, opened to the public in 1914.

You can see what it looked like in its early days here and here.

Though beautiful, the Dutch Chocolate Shop was not successful in the long run and by the early 1920s it was shuttered. The tiled space changed hands several times in the years that followed before being transformed into Finney’s Cafeteria in 1947. The eatery proved highly popular with the downtown set and remained in operation for almost forty years, until it, too, closed its doors in 1986 and was subsequently sold to an investment group.

For some inexplicable reason, the former Dutch Chocolate Shop was transformed into an arcade of sorts in 1997 – its vaulted rooms divided up by stalls, its gorgeous tiling covered over with particle board, and stacks of wares piled in every available nook and cranny. You can see some photos of its tragic appearance from that time period on Big Orange Landmarks. The space then became an electronics/pager store, as the signage hanging outside still attests to.

In 2012, the site, which is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, rather fortuitously wound up in the hands of former furniture dealer Charles Aslan. As reported in a Los Angeles Times article from that year, “The funny thing was that Aslan hadn’t come to the building for Batchelder. The exuberant businessman, born in Singapore, had only recently learned who Batchelder was.” After removing the plywood covering the former arcade’s walls and accidentally unearthing the virtually pristine historic murals and tile work, though, an idea took shape – to revitalize the entire structure by opening an upscale hot chocolate bar on the ground level, a restaurant on the second, artist studios on the third, and a tile manufacturing shop on the fourth. Again, from the L.A. Times – “Soon this man who once sold over-the-top factory furniture from an open lot on La Cienega Boulevard was expressing his devotion to the Pasadena artisan who epitomized the handmade. ‘The whole building is going to be Batchelder,’ Aslan said proudly of the 25,000-square-foot, four-story structure he has leased for the next 13 1/2 years.” Sadly, his intentions to reinvigorate the once grand space have not yet come to fruition. The roadblocks are mainly due to the structure’s lack of a rear exit, which is needed in order to secure a large enough certificate of occupancy to accommodate a restaurant of any sort. Though the building looks to have been put on the market for a brief time in late 2017, there weren’t any takers and current plans for the Dutch Chocolate Shop site seem to be uncertain.

Today, it sits vacant and, outside of the occasional filming, closed up . . .

. . . but thankfully well-preserved.

The “G.D.S” episode of Castle, which aired in 2016, made spectacular use of the Dutch Chocolate Shop. One look at the images below and it should be clear why I became so obsessed with the place.

Interestingly, “G.D.S.” was not the first Castle episode to utilize the site. In 2012, the Dutch Chocolate Shop masked as “the lair of an evil laser-gun-making genius” named Benjamin Donnelly (Armin Shimerman) in the Season 5 episode of the series titled “The Final Frontier.”

The exterior of the building also appeared in the episode.

The Dutch Chocolate Shop’s filming history far predates Castle, though.

Way back in 1918, Sheila Moore (Dorothy Gish) got a job there in The Hope Chest. Sadly, I could not find a copy of the movie with which to make screen captures anywhere, but photos from it appear on both Wikipedia . . .

. . . and The Daily Mirror website.

In the 1980 drama The Hunter, Ritchie Blumenthal (Eli Wallach) convinces bounty hunter Papa Thorson (Steve McQueen) to bring in fugitive Tony Bernardo (Thomas Rosales Jr.) while eating lunch at what was then Finney’s Cafeteria.

The Dutch Chocolate Shop site masks as The Museum of Human Misery: Hall of Low-Grade Crappiness in the Season 2 episode of The Good Place titled “Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent,” which aired in 2018.

And it masquerades as a secret cellar beneath the Sisters of the Divine Path convent in the Season 5 episode of Lucifer titled “Detective Amenadiel,” which aired in 2020.

According to the nice man who runs the place, the locale was also utilized in a Shania Twain video, though I was unable to figure out which video in particular.

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 Dutch Chocolate Shop, from the “G.D.S.” episode of Castle, is located at 217 West 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the space is closed to the public and typically hidden from view.

November 26, 2018January 10, 2020

Woodbury University from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”

Today’s locale, Woodbury University, was originally going to be included in this year’s Haunted Hollywood postings. I first learned about the Burbank college thanks to its appearance in the 2018 horror flick Truth or Dare and ran right out to stalk it, figuring it would fit in perfectly with my annual October theme. It was not until I sat down to research the place that I discovered its incredibly extensive film resume. The school easily has to be one of the San Fernando Valley’s most oft-used locations! From The Wonder Years to The Office, the site has popped up in countless notable productions over the years, including my and the Grim Cheaper’s latest favorite, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Anytime a college is needed for an L.A.-area shoot, it seems, cast and crew head straight to Woodbury. How I had never heard of the place is beyond me! Thinking the university was better suited to a non-horror-related post, I back-burnered it and am thrilled to finally be writing about it now!

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Woodbury Business College, as it was originally known, was founded by entrepreneur F. C. Woodbury in 1884. Initially housed in single-room space at 316 North Main Street in downtown L.A. with a staff of two, the school offered four classes, all related to practical business skills – bookkeeping, English, spelling, and penmanship. It was not long before high enrollment brought about a need to expand and the college took over an entire floor of the Stowell Building located a few blocks away at 226 South Spring Street. The structure, sadly, has since been demolished. In 1924, Woodbury received charter status from the state and expanded its curriculum to include business administration, foreign trade, and marketing courses. As the student body continued to grow, the school moved numerous times until 1937 when it finally set up shop at a Streamline Moderne building designed by Claud Beelman at 1027 Wilshire Boulevard, where it remained for the next fifty years. Sadly, that property was also since razed.

In 1961, the school received full charter status. That same year, its name was officially changed to Woodbury University.

When the need to expand arose once again in the 1980s, administrators acquired the former Villa Cabrini Academy Catholic girls high school, a 22.4-acre Burbank site that was initially built in 1927 as a summer home for orphans and underprivileged youth.

The new Woodbury campus, which opened to students in the fall of 1987, featured landscaped grounds, a gym, a pool, an athletic field, and dormitories. Additional facilities were also built in order to accommodate an eventual prospective enrollment of 2,500.

Woodbury University continued to flourish in its new home and today the school boasts two additional campuses (in Hollywood and San Diego) and offers degrees in over twenty subjects including business, computer information systems, and design.

The college is absolutely beautiful with gorgeous landscaping . . .

. . . tucked away spots . . .

. . . a tree-lined central quad . . .

. . . and both modern design elements . . .

. . . as well as Italian Romanesque, which harken back to the site’s secular roots.

So it comes as no surprise that Woodbury is a frequent screen star. And what fun I had putting together a comprehensive list of its many cameos!

The school’s original gym was used extensively in the 1989 action flick Best of the Best as the spot where Alexander Grady (Eric Roberts) and the rest of the Team USA martial artists regularly practiced.

In 2001, that gym was transformed into the university’s Design Center. Though completely remodeled, the basketball court markings are still intact today, as you can see in photos here and here.

The exterior of the gym also made an appearance in Best of the Best . . .

. . . as did one of the school’s parking lots.

That same year, the gym popped up as the Kennedy Junior High School gymnasium, where Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) took a stand against his best friend, Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano), constantly being picked last for team sports, in the Season 2 episode of The Wonder Years titled “Loosiers.”

In 2001, Woodbury masked as the fictional University of Northeastern California in two Season 1 episodes of Undeclared – “Eric Visits” . . .

. . . and “Hell Week.”

In the Season 5 episode of The Office titled “Business Trip,” which aired in 2008, Woodbury poses as New York’s Pratt School of Design, where Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) tearfully tells Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) that she failed her art class. Filming took place outside of Woody’s Café and the Cabrini Gallery, though very little of either building can be seen.

Woodbury University appears very briefly in the Season 6 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Middle Man,” which aired in 2010, in the scene in which the Behavioral Analysis Unit canvases college campuses in search of a group of serial killers.

In the Season 3 episode of Workaholics titled “Flashback in a Day,” which aired in 2012, Woodbury poses as RC Polytechnic.

The school’s gorgeous library (which originally served as Villa Cabrini Academy’s chapel) masquerades as the Brooklyn Public Library, where Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) chase down a suspect in a deleted scene from the Season 1 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “The Tagger,” which aired in 2013. You can watch that scene here.

Sadly, the library was closed when we visited Woodbury, so we only got to see its exterior.

During the fourth season of Shameless, which started airing in 2014, Woodbury was utilized regularly as the interior of Chicago Polytechnic, where Lip Gallagher (Jeremy Allen White) attended school.

That same year, Woodbury’s School of Business popped up in an establishing shot of the Raviga Capital Management offices in two Season 1 episodes of Silicon Valley – “Articles of Incorporation” and “Third Party Insourcing.”

Colette Kimball-Kinney (Fortune Feimster) and Jody Kimball-Kinney (Garret Dillahunt) attend a Physicians on the Front orientation in Woodbury’s auditorium in the Season 6 episode of The Mindy Project titled “Danny in Real Life,” which aired in 2017.

That same year, the school portrayed Danton College, where JJ DiMeo (Micah Fowler) shot a guest part in Bikini University 3, in the Season 2 episode of Speechless titled “B-I– BIKINI U-N– UNIVERSITY.”

Woodbury popped up as Long Beach Tech in another episode of Speechless, Season 3’s “THE S-T-A– STAIRCASE.”

In the 2018 horror flick Truth or Dare, Woodbury was used extensively as Westlake University, where Olivia Barron (Lucy Hale) and the rest of her doomed friends attend college.

The movie’s first freaky truth or dare challenge – which was featured in the trailer – takes place in the school’s library.

Actor Hayden Szeto, who played Brad Chen in the flick, posted the image below, of the Truth or Dare cast posing on the campus’ fountain, to Instagram the day that filming wrapped in July 2017, so I of course had to replicate it while I was there. Winking smile

Said fountain can be found in the center of campus in the Alumni Quad.

That same year, Woodbury masked as the Mumbai university where Bravo team rescued a group of American students who had been taken hostage in the Season 2 episode of Seal Team titled “Say Again Your Last.”

The school portrayed Howard University, Dre Johnson’s (Anthony Anderson) alma mater, in the Season 4 episode of Black-ish titled “Black Math” that same year.

Woodbury’s library makes an appearance in 2019’s Booksmart.

The school pops up in the Season 4 episode of Lucifer titled “Super Bad Boyfriend” as Callaway Prep, where Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis) and Chloe Decker (Lauren German) investigate the murder of a beloved teacher.

And the library is where Poppy Scoville-Parnell (Octavia Spencer) checks out books for her uncle in the Season 1 episode of Truth Be Told titled “No Cross, No Crown.”

Woodbury has also been featured in episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Community, Felicity, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and Just Add Magic, though I am unsure of which episodes in particular. If anyone happens to know, please fill me in.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Woodbury University, from “The Tagger” episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is located at 7500 North Glenoaks Boulevard in Burbank. You can visit the school’s official website here.

November 21, 2018November 20, 2018

Happy Thanksgiving!

I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. I am taking today as well as the rest of the week off to be with my family. I will be back on Monday with a whole new post. Until then, Happy Stalking! Smile

November 20, 2018December 6, 2018

COMET & CHARGE! November Giveaway!

UPDATE – This contest has ended. Congratulations to winner Dynal R.!

IAMNOTASTALKER is thrilled to present the COMET & CHARGE! November Giveaway!

Thanksgiving is on the horizon and COMET TV has an amazing marathon of the original Flash Gordon serials! Perfect to binge Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 22 starting at 1/Noon C and every Sunday starting at 5/4 C.

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There’s also Area 10! For the best in cult classic films, look no further than Comet TV! If you’re looking to rage, there’s The Rage: Carrie 2 to fire up your night, or how about horror master Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions (which did some filming at The Magic Castle, as I mentioned in this recent post)? If it’s family fun you’re seeking, break out the boom box and head down to Mickey D’s because we have Mac and Me!

Check out the full schedule and get your groove on weeknights on COMET TV!

COMET TV continues to be the home of the sci-fi classic Babylon 5 which airs every day at Noon/11 C and every night at 9/8 C!

And CHARGE! has the classic series CHiPs! Join Ponch and Jon as they cruise the freeways of Los Angeles solving crime . . . back when you could cruise the freeways of Los Angeles!

In honor of the November lineup, I am giving one lucky reader a chance to win a Comet TV and CHARGE! November Prize Pack with:

1 – Limited Edition Babylon 5 Hat: Only available via this promotion, this hat emblazoned with the iconic Babylon 5 logo will make a spacey addition to your collection

1 – COMET TV Flash Gordon Clamshell Pack: If you’re getting ready to check out the original Flash Gordon serials, this clamshell pack, stuffed with binge-worthy popcorn will make even the Ming Merciless’ diabolical plans seem like fun.

1 – COMET TV Babylon 5 and Space: 1999 Confidential Lithograph Set: This set of lithographs are fun exclusives featuring the iconic ships from the COMET TV Space Block. Packaged in a confidential envelope, this set will give you the insiders’ info on your two favorite spacey shows.

1 – Exclusive CHARGE! CHiPs Aviator Sunglasses: How you doin’? When cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway pop on these aviator sunglasses and get into the CHiPs spirit!

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Entering is easy – simply click on the link below, follow me on Instagram and then provide your Instagram handle. If you already follow me on Instagram, then simply click below to enter and input your Instagram handle. The contest begins today and runs through December 5th. The winner will be announced on December 6th.

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November 16, 2018November 16, 2018

Loews Hollywood Hotel from Britney Spears’ “Everytime” Music Video

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I hate change, especially when it comes to filming locations. So I was devastated when the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, one of my favorite Tinseltown lodgings and frequent film star, was sold a couple of years ago, rebranded as a Loews, and extensively remodeled. Though I have yet to visit the place post-facelift, one look at the property’s website shows that it looks nothing like its former self, which is a shame considering its many onscreen appearances. I stalked and very briefly blogged about the Renaissance back in July 2008 and then re-stalked it again in early 2012, but never wrote a subsequent post. While going through my backlog of photos recently, I came across the 2012 pics and felt a pang of sadness knowing I’d never see the hotel in that state again. So I figured it was high time I shared the images and do a more thorough write-up on the place.

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Loews Hollywood Hotel, as it is now known, originally opened in 1970 as the Holiday Inn-Hollywood. At the time, the 23-story building boasted 462 rooms, a pool, free parking, a penthouse chapel that offered weekly Sunday church services, and a revolving rooftop restaurant/nightclub with two stages named Oscar’s. You can see what it looked like during its early years here.

In 2001, the Holiday Inn underwent a major overhaul in conjunction with the opening of the neighboring Hollywood & Highland Center. Not only was the property completely revamped and rebranded as the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa, but an entire second tower was constructed bringing the total number of rooms to 637. As part of the rehab, the revolving rooftop restaurant, then known as Windows on Hollywood, was transformed into the massive 3,594-square-foot Panorama Suite. The plush space, which is pictured below – it’s that round disc-like structure situated on the top floor of the building – boasts 270-degree views of the city, a baby grand piano, a wet bar, a Jacuzzi bathtub, a dining area with seating for ten, and one to four bedrooms depending upon the chosen configuration. You can check out some photos of its interior here and here.

The modernized 560,000-square-foot site also featured 1950s-inspired décor, a restaurant, a pool, a spa, a fitness center, an enormous amount of meeting and event space, Metro Line access, and a spacious lobby with a grand stairwell, a lounge and brightly colored furnishings.

In June 2012, the property was purchased by the Loews Hotels & Resorts chain, renovated to the tune of $26 million, and turned into the Loews Hollywood Hotel. Sadly, it now looks completely different than it did during the Renaissance days, though the Panorama Suite appears to have been left untouched.

The hotel has proven a production favorite in all of its incarnations, which should come as no surprise considering its convenient location right in the heart of Hollywood, sheer size, colorful aesthetic, and that unique rooftop suite.

Its most notable appearance (well, in my mind, at least) was as a Las Vegas lodging in Britney Spears’ 2004 “Everytime” music video, which you can watch here. Many areas of the property were featured in the production, including the front driveway . . .

. . . the entrance leading from the parking garage to the back of the lobby (my photo below shows the doors visible behind the paparazzi from a different angle) . . .

. . . the lobby’s rear hallway, where a newspaper stand was set up for the shoot . . .

. . . and the Panorama Suite.

Kenny Crandell (Keith Coogan) and his stoner buddies partied on the hotel’s rooftop back when it was the Holiday Inn at the beginning of the 1991 comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.

Adam (Brendan Fraser) checks into the Holiday Inn-Hollywood upon leaving his father’s bomb shelter in the 1999 comedy Blast from the Past. The hotel’s exterior . . .

. . . one of its rooms . . .

. . . and the lobby were all utilized in the film.

As you can see, the place looked considerably different during its time as the Holiday Inn than it did as the Renaissance.

Sylvester Clark (Angelo Tiffe) called the Panorama Suite home in the 2004 drama Collateral, though the room’s view was faked for the shoot to make it appear as if it overlooked downtown Los Angeles.

The Renaissance’s lobby masked as the lobby of the supposed Miami-area Lux Atlantic where Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) and Cynthia (Jayma Mays) worked in Red Eye.

The 2005 thriller provides a fabulous glimpse of what the interior of the hotel looked like during the time it operated as the Renaissance.

In the 2008 comedy Yes Man, Carl (Jim Carrey) attends a Yes! Is the New No! conference at the Renaissance. Both the exterior of the hotel . . .

. . . and its enormous 25,000-square-foot Grand Ballroom appear in the film.

The Panorama Suite popped up as the location of a rather grizzly murder in the first episode of American Horror Story: Hotel titled “Checking In,” which aired in 2015. (I blacked out a portion of the top screen capture below as it was a bit NSFW in its original form.)

The lobby also appeared in the episode. By that time, the hotel was operating as Loews and bearing its newly renovated look.

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: Loews Hollywood Hotel, from Britney Spears’ “Everytime” music video, is located at 1755 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood. You can visit the lodging’s official website here.

November 14, 2018November 13, 2018

Krotona Apartments

I have always maintained that I am an equal opportunity stalker. It is not just filming locations that enthrall me, but pop culture landmarks, historical sites, and architectural curiosities. In fact, the curiouser the better. So when I came across a grouping of grandiose Moorish-style structures dotted throughout a small section of the Hollywood Hills while searching for the Swingers party house, my interest was immediately piqued. I headed over to Google and soon discovered that the properties were initially constructed as part of the Krotona Colony, a compound built in the early 1900s by the Theosophical Society religious sect. At the center of the sprawling onetime commune is the former Krotona Inn, a massive complex that originally served as the group’s national headquarters, but today is a bohemian apartment complex. It should come as no surprise that to the top of my To-Stalk List the site, now known as Krotona Apartments, went.

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The rambling Krotona Colony was the brainchild of Theosophical Society follower Albert Powell Warrington who desired to build a U.S. headquarters for the India-based group. He won approval for the project from the organization’s then leader, Annie Besant, and in 1912 purchased ten acres of land in the Hollywood Hills. Of the bucolic locale, he told Besant, “The trolley comes within one long block of our site . . . one can be in the business center of the city in 30 minutes. On the other hand, twenty minutes walk up the canyon will put one entirely outside all building improvements, and tucked in between charmingly wild canyons, one is as if in the wildest and most far-off mountain retreat. I have never known such an extraordinary combination of favorable conditions . . . We can make the spot a veritable Garden of Eden.” He derived the name of his oasis from Crotone, the Italian city where mathematician Pythagoras lived and studied.

Several Victorian-style buildings were already standing on the land at the time that Warrington purchased it and the Theosophical Society members set up shop in them before eventually adding more structures, all with Moorish influences.

The “heart of the commune,” as described by Curbed Los Angeles, was the Krotona Inn, an idyllic stucco complex designed by the Mead and Requa architecture firm in 1912 that boasted a central courtyard with a lotus pond, meandering pathways, a communal dining room, a kitchen, a cafeteria that served solely vegetarian dishes (natch), offices, lecture spaces, dormitories, a rooftop terrace, patios, and a large domed meditation venue known as the Esoteric Room. Two years after the property’s completion, architects Arthur and Alfred Heineman were commissioned to build a 350-seat auditorium directly next door that became known as the Grand Temple of the Rosy Cross. You can see what the two structures looked like in their early days here.

Many of the Theosophical Society’s wealthier members erected private Moorish-themed residences for themselves on the streets surrounding the Colony, ultimately creating a fantastical conglomerate of mystical architecture. The vast majority of the properties, amazingly, still stand.

Despite Krotona Colony’s idealized nature, the Theosophical Society did not remain there for long. In 1924, the group left Los Angeles behind and migrated to Ojai. Following their departure, the Krotona Inn was sold to actor/writer Rupert Julian and his wife, Elsie, who made it their primary residence. You can see some photographs from their time on the premises here. When Rupert passed away in 1943, Elsie moved to a smaller house nearby, at which point her former estate was converted to apartments.

Today, the complex, which was purchased by real estate investor Mayer Moizel in the 1990s, boasts 17 units, a pool, a large parking lot, several courtyards, and an on-site laundry facility. The former Esoteric Room meditation space now serves as a one-room studio apartment, which you can see photos of here.

While we were stalking Krotona Apartments, the friend of a resident happened to stroll outside to smoke a cigarette, struck up a conversation with us, and ultimately invited us into the courtyard for a closer look!

The property could not be more picturesque, with canopied trees, colorful plants, flowering blooms, and sparkling fountains dotting every square inch.

Not surprisingly, celebrities have long been attracted to the place. Per a 2011 Los Angeles Times article, both Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding and Evil Dead II screenwriter Scott Spiegel lived there at different points in time. Quentin Tarantino has even called the place home, crashing on Spiegel’s couch for nine months before selling his first script.

That first script just happened to be for True Romance, which, according to the same Los Angeles Times article, did some filming at Krotona. Supposedly, one of the building’s second-floor units portrayed Dick Ritchie (Michael Rapaport) and Floyd’s (Brad Pitt) apartment in the 1993 drama. Because only a small portion of the space can be seen in the flick and there is a lack of interior photos of the complex available online, I cannot say with any certainty whether or not that information is correct, though.

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: Krotona Apartments, aka the former Krotona Inn, is located at 2130 Vista Del Mar Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. The party house from Swingers can be found right around the corner at 6161 Temple Hill Drive.

November 9, 2018May 3, 2019

Doheny Memorial Library from “Matilda”

Movies have a way of making locations appear more majestic than they truly are, thanks largely to photogenic set dressing, perfect camera angles, and expert production design (anyone who has ever seen a Nancy Meyers film knows exactly what I am talking about). Amazingly, that is not the case with Doheny Memorial Library, which, though featured to spectacular effect as young Matilda’s (Sara Magdalin) sublime sanctuary in 1996’s Matilda, is just as magnificent in person as it was made out to be onscreen. I became transfixed by the site upon first catching a glimpse of it while making screen captures for my August post on the Wormwood home from the flick and immediately set about tracking it down. All of the information I found online seemed to point to filming taking place at Pasadena Central Library (which I blogged about in October), but having lived in Crown City for 15 years and frequenting its book repository regularly, I knew that was incorrect. Pasadena Central Library, though gorgeous, is much less grand than the one featured in Matilda. So I headed over to Google and inputted the words “beautiful,” “library,” and “Los Angeles,” which led me to a 2016 TimeOut post conveniently titled “The Most Beautiful Libraries in Los Angeles.” Third on the article’s list was Doheny Memorial Library on the University of Southern California campus. One look at the photos running with the column and I knew it was the right spot. So I added it to my To-Stalk List, ran right over there shortly thereafter, and was elated to see that it is just as magical in person as Matilda made it out to be.

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Doheny Memorial Library was commissioned by oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny in honor of his son, Ned, a USC alumnus who was shot in February 1929 at Greystone Mansion in what remains one of Los Angeles’ most famous unsolved murder cases.

Construction on the grand space began on June 6th, 1931 and was finished the following year. The library, USC’s first freestanding athenaeum, opened to the public on September 12th, 1932.

Designed by Ralph Adams Cram and Samuel E. Lundon in the Italian Romanesque and Gothic styles, the building cost $1.1 million to complete. Landscape architect A. E. Hanson was responsible for creating the gorgeous gardens surrounding the property.

The result of their efforts is striking . . .

. . . even more so on the inside. Upon stepping through the hand-chased bronze front doors, visitors to the sprawling four-story site are greeted by a massive rotunda boasting intricate chandeliers, travertine flooring, and six towering stained glass windows designed by artist Wilbur Herbert Burnham.

I challenge anyone not to drop their jaw upon entering!

The ceiling alone is enough to render one speechless!

The crown jewel of Doheny Memorial Library, though, is the Los Angeles Times Reference Room, a 131 by 46-foot space featuring shelving for 6,000 tomes, seating for 400 students, and a blue and gold coffered ceiling that rises 27 feet above the floor.

The gorgeous canopy was designed by muralist Giovanni Smeraldi whose work also hangs in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, the Vatican, and the White House.

The site, which underwent a $17-million restoration and retrofitting from December 1999 to October 2001, is easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen – both inside . . .

. . . and out.

There are countless rooms and floors to explore . . .

. . . with every nook and cranny seemingly prettier than the last.

Even the stairs are cinematic!

So it is no surprise that the place has popped up onscreen.

Doheny Memorial Library appears at the beginning of Matilda as the spot where the titular youngster finds refuge from her horrible family.

The movie made great use of the grand building, showcasing the entrance steps . . .

. . . the Los Angeles Times Reference Room (which was altered a bit for the filming) . . .

. . . and the rotunda . . .

. . . which was also altered via the addition of a rounded circulation desk.

The only part of Matilda’s haven that I could not find on the premises was the children’s reading room. I am unsure if that room was a set or a real space located at a different library. If anyone happens to know, please fill me in.

Matilda is hardly the only production to have been lensed at Doheny Memorial Library. In fact, the building is such a popular filming spot, there is no way I can chronicle all of its appearances here. What follows is a semi-comprehensive list.

Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) waits outside of Doheny Memorial Library, which is posing as Berkeley, in the hopes of seeing Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross) in 1967’s The Graduate.

And he later confronts Elaine about her new fiancé inside the Reference Room.

Dustin Hoffman returned to Doheny Memorial Library in 1971 to film scenes for the thriller Marathon Man. It is there that his character, Babe, first meets Elsa (Marthe Keller) at what is supposed to be Columbia University.

Doheny’s lower level masked as the lobby of Brain’s (Harry Dean Stanton) lair in 1981’s Escape from New York. Very little of the building appeared in the film, though – the majority of the scenes involving Brain’s hideout were shot at Hoose Library of Philosophy, also on the USC campus.

Thanks to my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, I learned that Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) was recruited to join the army following his graduation outside of Doheny Memorial Library, which was posing as the University of Alabama, in 1994’s Forrest Gump.

That same year, Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal) and Phil Berquist (Daniel Stern) researched train robberies at Doheny Memorial Library in City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold.

Daniella (Elisha Cuthbert) waits for Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) outside of the building, which is masking as Georgetown, at the end of the 2004 comedy The Girl Next Door.

And in the 2000 film Bread and Roses, Ruben (Alonso Chavez) and Maya (Pilar Padilla) meet up at the front of Doheny Memorial Library.

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: Doheny Memorial Library, from Matilda, is located at 3550 Trousdale Parkway in University Park.

November 5, 2018November 4, 2018

Catherine Willows’ House from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”

I’ll never forget the first time I saw CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. It was back in 2003 and my parents had come home from a random stop at the video store (remember those?) with a DVD of the series’ inaugural season in hand. I had not heard of the show at the time and decided to give the pilot a watch with them. I was immediately transfixed, as were my parents. We proceeded to binge all 23 episodes (the old-fashioned way!) in pretty much one sitting and then ran right back out to the video store to grab Season 2. I continued to be an avid viewer of the procedural (as well as the spin-offs CSI: Miami and CSI: NY) for years. Then somehow it fell off my radar. Nonetheless, I was thrilled to receive an email this past August from a fellow stalker named Sacha who wanted to know if I had any intel on the house belonging to Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) in the series’ twelfth season. I headed over to Hulu to take a look at the residence Sacha was searching for and recognized it immediately. It’s a place I’ve not only stalked, but blogged about before! As it turns out, Catherine’s pad is none other than South Pasadena’s Cox House, which portrayed Oliver Trask’s (Taylor Handley) Palm Springs dwelling on The O.C. Because the property has since gone on to appear in an episode of Ray Donovan, I figured it was due for another write-up.

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The Cox House, named for original owner Paul Cox, was designed by local Pasadena architect John Galbraith in 1959.

The Mid-Century Modern masterpiece is also known as the “Tree House” thanks to the large conifer that grows right through the roof of its entryway.

The one-story pad, which boasts Miesian Modernist and Southern California Regional Modernist elements, features 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,032 square feet of living space, glass and stone walls, a massive tile fireplace, hardwood flooring, a 0.46-acre lot, multiple patios, a pool, and a hot tub.

The property last sold in December 2000 for $641,000.

You can check out some interior photos of it here.

While undeniably striking and cinematic, I am surprised the place wound up on CSI, which is set in Las Vegas, being that it doesn’t really have a Sin City vibe. A different home was actually utilized as Catherine’s in Season 5’s “Weeping Willows” (it’s at 17145 Nanette Street in Granada Hills) and it, too, had a decidedly Mid-Century Modern-style, though, so what do I know?

The Cox House first popped up on CSI in Season 12’s “Zippered,” which aired in 2011. Only the interior of the residence was shown in the episode, in the scene in which Catherine meets up with her old friend Laura Gabriel (Annabeth Gish).

The pad was subsequently featured in the next episode of CSI titled “Ms. Willows Regrets.” In the episode, Catherine returns home from visiting a crime scene and winds up ambushed herself. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior of the property were featured prominently in the episode.

The Cox House appeared again in the following episode of CSI titled “Willows in the Wind,” in which the team investigates Catherine’s attack.

As I mentioned earlier, the home was also featured on The O.C. In Season 1’s “The Links,” which aired in 2004, Oliver invites Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), and the rest of the Harbor School gang for a weekend visit to his parents’ Palm Springs pad, said to be located “right on PGA West.” Now the Cox House portraying a Palm Springs property I can certainly buy. The residence definitely bears that desert look.

While the home’s actual interior appeared in the episode (as well as some of the actual furniture) . . .

. . . the two bedrooms shown were just sets built at Raleigh Manhattan Beach Studios (now MBS Media Campus), where the series was lensed.

Not surprisingly, the Cox House also popped up as a Palm Springs residence on Ray Donovan. In Season 1’s “Black Cadillac,” which aired in 2013, Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight), Bunchy Donovan (Dash Mihok), and Daryll (Pooch Hall) visit Daryll’s mother, Claudette (Sheryl Lee Ralph), at her supposed desert home. Upon arriving, Mickey proclaims, “What the f*ck kinda architecture is this?” It’s called Mid-Century Modern, Mickey! Mid-Century Modern at its finest!