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Lux Nightclub from “Lucifer”

The recent network television cancellations left me reeling. Four – yes, four – of my favorite shows – Lucifer, Scorpion, Timeless and Brooklyn Nine-Nine – were given the ax. Though the latter was promptly rescued, I am still waiting for the #savescorpion, #savelucifer and #savetimeless cries to be heard. If not, the Grim Cheaper and I will have practically nothing to watch next season! Thank God Vanderpump Rules is still on the air, otherwise I’d be completely confounded! To cheer myself up, I recently did some stalking of the three spots that mask as Lux nightclub on Lucifer and, in the hopes of possibly persuading some of my readers to become viewers (hint, hint), thought it was the perfect time to blog about them.

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Though I gave a brief synopsis of Lucifer in my January post about the SmokeHouse restaurant, I figured it best to recap it once again here. The Fox series (or should I say “former Fox series”?) centers around Lucifer Morningstar (played to delightfully wicked perfection by Tom Ellis), aka the devil (yes, the actual devil) who has decided to leave Hell in order to lead a hedonistic existence in – where else? – Los Angeles. Through a random turn of events, he winds up joining the LAPD as a consultant and, using his unique gifts and otherworldly talents, helps detectives catch the city’s bad guys – all while running his successful night club, Lux, which he lives above in a decadent penthouse. Lux first appeared in Lucifer’s pilot and went on to become the show’s most prominent locale. In the inaugural episode, as well as several subsequent episodes, the El Capitan Theatre and Office Building in Hollywood masqueraded as the exterior of the opulent lounge.

The six-story Spanish Baroque-style structure was designed by the Morgan, Walls & Clements architecture firm in 1926 and in real life is comprised of the El Capitan Theatre and Disney Studio Store/Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop on the bottom floor and office space on the upper floors.

Only a small portion of the building was ever shown on Lucifer, with a doorway situated down an adjacent alley on the eastern side of the property masking as Lux’s main entrance. (I did not get a great shot of that door while I was stalking the place, so please pardon the Street View image below.)

To help give the site a club-like appearance in establishing shots, signage reading “Lux,” a succession of velvet ropes, and a long line of patrons were positioned outside.

Starting with the series’ third episode, titled “The Would-Be Prince of Darkness,” West Hollywood’s Sunset Tower Hotel was used in wide-angle establishing shots of both Lux and Lucifer’s penthouse. From that point on, imagery of the Sunset Tower was intermingled with imagery of the El Capitan on the show, though the former was utilized far more often than the latter.

I have written about the Leland A. Bryant-designed Sunset Tower numerous times. The Art Deco masterpiece even made My L.A. Must-Stalk List and My Guide to L.A. Hotels. The 1931 lodging is one of the prettiest spots in all of Southern California. Considering its striking architecture, it is no surprise that producers chose to feature it as the home of Hell’s most famous former denizen on the series.

The exterior of the Sunset Tower was altered quite a bit with CGI for the show. As you can see in the establishing shot as compared to the aerial view below, a floor was added to structure just below the penthouse level. The penthouse was also covered over with a wide roofline and another floor and large spire were added to the top of the building.

While the Sunset Tower does boast a penthouse suite (you can take a peek at it here), it was not utilized on Lucifer. The devil’s sleek penthouse is actually just a soundstage-built set.

Though I recognized both the El Capitan Theatre and the Sunset Tower Hotel upon seeing them on Lucifer, the interior of Lux was not familiar to me at all and because the space was so grand, so opulent and so massive, I assumed it was the stuff of a set designer’s imagination and not a real place. So I was shocked when I came across a forum on the Previously TV website in which a commenter named vampdetective mentioned that an actual Hollywood nightclub named The Emerson Theatre portrayed Lux in Lucifer’s pilot (images from that episode are pictured below) and that a set based upon it was constructed for all subsequent filming.

The set re-creation, which was built on a 2/3 scale by production designer Stephen Geaghan, is pictured below.

Though Hollywood clubbing is not at all my thing, I think I would have enjoyed spending time at The Emerson Theatre. Sadly, the site, which opened in January 2103, was shuttered in April 2015 and remains closed today, so I only got to stalk the outside of it.

The brainchild of interior designer Mark Zeff and SBE hospitality company, The Emerson Theatre was built to resemble a 1920s burlesque club and featured a sunken dance floor, large banquette style booths, a grand double staircase, strung Edison lights, two bars, a photo booth, and a patio area. More than just a nightclub, The Emerson Theatre also hosted live performances, hence the name. During its scant two years in operation, such stars as Paris Hilton, Vin Diesel, Trey Songz, Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, Wiz Khalifa, Khloe Kardashian, Lamar Odom, Ashley Tisdale, James Franco, Chris Brown, and Dallas Austin were all spotted hanging out there.

You can check out some photos of The Emerson Theatre from the time it was still open here and here. Man, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that place!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lux Nightclub from Lucifer is a mashup of three different Los Angeles locales. The Sunset Tower Hotel, which is located at 8358 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, is used as the exterior of the club. The entrance to Lux is the east side of the El Capitan Theatre and Office Building located at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. And the interior is based upon the now-closed The Emerson Theatre, formerly located just down the street at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard.

May 30, 2018
Enter to Win a Copy of “Daphne & Velma” on Blu-ray!

UPDATE – Thanks to all who entered. The winner of the Blu-ray is Ashley! Congratulations!

**Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.**

Jinkies! The smart and resourceful women of the iconic Scooby-Doo franchise come to life in an all-new mystery with the release of Daphne & Velma from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The film stars Sarah Jeffery (Disney’s Descendants: Wicked World) and Sarah Gilman (ABC’s Last Man Standing), and follows the first mystery-solving adventures of Scooby-Doo’s leading ladies.

It’s an adorable film that the whole family will love!

In honor of Daphne & Velma’s release on Blu-ray and DVD last week, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has given me a Blu-ray copy of the film that one of my lucky readers can win via the contest below.

But first … Daphne and Velma, need your help! Use the embeddable Mystery Video Decryptor & Soundboard blog app to decrypt exclusive clips from the new hit film!

• Help Daphne & Velma solve their latest case by helping them decrypt the footage! Dial the knob and meters to just the right position to unlock the footage and move to the next challenge.
• Trigger fun & spooky sounds right from the movie in this fun soundboard.

PLUS! Watch the Daphne & Velma Slime Lab Video and learn how to make four different kinds of Daphne & Velma slimes featuring Velma herself, Sarah Gilman! Kids of all ages will love the gooey slime fun!

To enter to win one (1) Blu-ray copy of Daphne & Velma, simply click on the link below and then comment on this post as to who your favorite Scooby-Doo character is. The contest runs today through June 11th and is open to residents of the US only. The prize will be sent via FedEx or USPS. No P.O. Boxes please.

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May 29, 2018
Happy Memorial Day

I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a happy Memorial Day. I hope that everyone has a safe holiday and takes a moment to remember those who gave their lives fighting for our country. I will be back tomorrow with a special giveaway and on Wednesday with a new location, so be sure to check back.

May 28, 2018
Hotel Normandie from “Vanderpump Rules”

Vanderpump Rules is like a fine wine – it just keeps getting better with age. Six seasons in and the show still hasn’t peaked! Well, in my opinion, at least. Not only do the storylines continually get more and more compelling (and ridiculous – “My boyfriend can hang a TV in under seven minutes. I timed him!”), but the series consistently provides great stalking locations. I recently visited one of its earlier locales, Hotel Normandie, which was the site of a brief, but notable moment during Season 4. I originally learned about the historic lodging back in July 2015 thanks to a Cupcakes and Cashmere blog post that featured the property. Completely taken by the gorgeous detailing visible in the background, I promptly included the place on my To-Stalk List and the Grim Cheaper and I headed out there shortly thereafter. At the time, I did not think the hotel had appeared onscreen, so I did not snap any photos and was shocked to see it pop up just a few weeks later on VR. Though I instantly re-added the site to my To-Stalk List, it was not until last week that I finally made it back out there.

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Hotel Normandie, named for its location on the corner of 6th Street and Normandie Avenue in Koreatown, was originally constructed by architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen in 1926.

A newspaper ad from that year described the locale as “a delightful hotel for permanent and semi-permanent guests.”

Decidedly Renaissance Revival in style on the outside . . .

. . . Walker and Eisen gave the interior a Spanish Colonial Revival feel.

Hotel Normandie was popular from the start, becoming especially well-known for its $1 Sunday-night turkey dinners, homemade by culinary supervisor Mrs. H.F. Bruner.

Several notables lived on the premises during the hotel’s early days, including author Malcolm Lowry who penned portions of his 1947 novel Under the Volcano onsite. The work has since been called one of the most influential books of the 20th Century.

In 1964, the property was purchased by hoteliers Paul and Adelaide Stockhammer who completely overhauled the site with a $250,000 modernization.

Sadly, much of the hotel’s original detailing was covered over as a result of the project.

It was not long before the place fell into disrepair. In the ‘80s, the building was transformed into low-income housing and then it later had a short stint as a “pot-tel,” aka a pot-friendly hotel (whatever that is).

Thankfully, in 2011 Jingbo Lou stepped in. The Pasadena-based architect/preservationist was initially introduced to the aging hotel by a realtor relative who brought him in to advise a potential buyer on a possible renovation. The buyer was turned off by the costly rehab estimate Lou provided and stepped away from the deal, at which point Lou turned around and made an offer himself. As a 2015 article in the Commercial Observer notes, the purchase was a labor of love. Reporter Michael Kaplan states, “Why else would an ordinarily rational architect from Pasadena, Calif., buy a 1926 Renaissance-style hotel loaded with drug addicts and prostitutes and situated on a dodgy stretch of downtown Los Angeles’s pre-gentrified Koreatown? The property, after all, had been hanging in foreclosure and was ultimately bailed on by the previous owner.” As Lou explains, though, “When I first walked in and saw the ceiling height, the chandeliers, the columns, a wood-burning fireplace in the lobby, the grandness of it all, I knew it could be something special.” With Jingbo’s guidance, that is exactly what it became.

Embarking upon a massive restoration, which took 3 years to complete at a cost of $5 million, Lou saw to it that the unsightly drywall and carpeting that covered much of the building’s original design elements were removed, the myriad broken windows were replaced, and the original Mansard roof, which had been dismantled in the 1950s, was re-constructed. Stucco that had long since marred the hotel’s exterior brickwork was also extracted – well, for the most part. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy website, the southeast lower-level corner of the structure (visible on the bottom left of my photo below) was left ensconced “as a nod” to the property’s “long history of alterations.”

The reinvigorated space opened to the public in February 2014.

The 4-story property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1013, boasts 91 sleek but comfortable rooms, a large ballroom, meeting space, a gym, and countless retro details throughout.

#barcartgoals, amirite?

Hotel Normandie is also home to four onsite restaurants and lounges, including The Walker Inn, le comptoir, The Normandie Club, and Cassell’s Hamburgers.

The later is an L.A. institution that was originally established by Alvin Cassell in 1948. (Special thanks to my friend Katie for providing the photo below!)

After a change in ownership in the ‘90s, the eatery saw a decline in quality and, subsequently, patronage. The site was eventually shuttered in 2012.

Figuring the Normandie would be the perfect spot to re-establish the historic burger joint, Jingbo partnered with chef Christian Page and opened a re-invigorated version of Cassell’s on the ground floor of the hotel in December 2014.

To ensure the restaurant would be on par with the Cassell’s of Alvin’s day, Jingbo brought in many of the original furnishings, including vintage signage and Al’s former Hobart grinder. He also reverted back to the menu used during the eatery’s early years which featured homemade mayonnaise, fresh produce, and absolutely no French fries because, as Cassell explained to Oui Magazine in 1972, “The more things you do, the less chance there is of reaching perfection.”

Cassell’s Hamburgers was the site of James Kennedy and Lala Kent’s first – and last – date in the Season 4 episode of Vanderpump Rules titled “Cock of the Walk.” Both the outside of Hotel Normandie . . .

. . . and the inside of the restaurant were shown in the episode. During their early evening meal, the duo discuss James’ ex-girlfriend, Kristen Doute, and toast to “making music and babies.” (Insert major eye roll emoji here!) Though the date goes well, Lala calls it quits the very next episode after discovering that James has slept with one of her friends. (He’s such a catch!)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Hotel Normandie, from the “Cock of the Walk” episode of Vanderpump Rules, is located at 605 Normandie Avenue in Koreatown. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

May 23, 2018
Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden from “Pure Genius”

The Grim Cheaper and I are finally getting around to landscaping the backyard of our new house, so to say I’m into gardens lately would be an understatement. If I knew how to use Pinterest (I swear I cannot figure that site out), I’d be pinning foliage design ideas left and right. Instead I’ve been visiting gardens IRL and snapping copious photos. One idyll that I only just learned about thanks to a brief mention in the March 2018 issue of Los Angeles magazine is Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, a bucolic space tucked away on a sleepy residential street in Pasadena. When I discovered upon further digging that the spot is also a filming location, I decided I had to visit it stat for both backyard inspo and blogging purposes.

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Originally commissioned by Charles Storrier Stearns and his wife, Ellamae Sheppard, on the grounds of their sprawling Pasadena manse (which you can see a photo of here) in 1935, the 2-acre glen took a whopping 7 years to complete.

The couple called upon landscape architect Kinzuchi Fujii to design the picturesque space.

Sadly, shortly before completing the project, Fujii was sent to an internment camp where he remained until the end of World War II. Though he considered the garden his crowning achievement, he never returned to see his vision finalized.

What he created is nothing short of magical, with walking paths;

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two large ponds;

a 15-foot devil’s bridge made of granite,

a teahouse that was initially constructed in Japan and then taken apart before being shipped to Pasadena, whereupon it was reassembled at the garden;

numerous footbridges;

and a plethora of plant varieties including Japanese maples, Chinese elms, and redwood trees.

Upon Ellamae’s death in 1949, the Storrier Stearns estate was sold at auction to an antiques dealer named Gamelia Haddad Poulsen. Though she subdivided the vast property into seven separate parcels and razed the massive mansion, she held onto the Japanese garden as well as an adjoining plot on which she built a modest home.

Gamelia cherished the tranquil space, caring for and maintaining its beauty until the state declared imminent domain on a 1/3-acre portion of it in 1975 as part of the Interstate 710 expansion. With the fate of the garden in flux, she left it to deteriorate. The ponds eventually dried up, the plants shriveled, and the teahouse burned down.

When Gamelia passed away in 1985, her son, Jim Haddad, and his wife, Connie, inherited the garden and the home. The 710 expansion had still yet to see fruition by that time, so the couple finally decided to restore the property. The painstaking project took 15 years to complete, but the ponds were eventually filled, the teahouse was rebuilt to exacting specifications, the foliage was replanted, and Fujii’s vision was restored.

The Haddads kept the garden, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, mainly private, opening it up to the outside world solely as a special events venue and for filming.

It was not until 2016 that the couple made the site available to tour.

Today, Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden is open to the public every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and the second and last Sunday of each month.

Thanks to the Pasadena Star-News, I learned that the pilot of Pure Genius (originally named Bunker Hill) was lensed on the premises in 2016. (Though the article misreported the location of filming as Arlington Garden, which is situated across the street, one quick scan through the episode told me that shooting had actually taken place at Storrier Stearns.)

The garden appeared throughout the episode, masking as the grounds of the supposed Palo Alto-area Bunker Hill Center for the Advancement of Medicine.

As you can see in the screen capture below, the exterior of a Bunker Hill building was digitally added to the background of one of the scenes featuring the garden.

While I know that Storrier Stearns must have been utilized in other filmings over the years, I was unable to dig up any other productions it appeared in.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, from the pilot episode of Pure Genius, is located at 270 Arlington Drive in Pasadena. The property is open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and the second and last Sunday of each month from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $10. You can visit the garden’s official website here.

May 21, 2018
Sorry For the Delay . . .

Sorry to have been M.I.A. for the past week. We had friends in town visiting and I was a little remiss in my blogging duties. I did do a ton of stalking while they were here, though (we even ran into Ken Todd while stalking TomTom, as you can see above!), so a bunch of new locations will be coming your way starting Monday. See you then!

May 18, 2018
Voletta Wallace’s House from “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G.”

I have never been a fan of rap. My musical tastes tend to run far more tepid (read: Michael Bublé, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and ‘80s pop). The Grim Cheaper likes to joke that my iPod song list hasn’t been updated since I first got the device back in 2001. Regardless, when I heard about Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G., the recent USA series that chronicles the respective 1996 and 1997 killings of rappers Tupac Shakur (Marcc Rose) and Christopher ‘Biggie’ Wallace (Wavyy Jonez), I was completely enticed. Granted, anything having to do with true crime is pretty much guaranteed to pique my interest, but when I learned that the show was shot in Los Angeles and starred Josh Duhamel, I was all in! Thankfully, it did not disappoint. The GC and I were hooked from episode 1. Presented via a sequence of ever-switching timelines, Unsolved is both thoroughly dynamic and a marvel of historical accuracy. I knew little of either murder case prior to watching, but fell down a rabbit hole of research after each episode aired and was thrilled at the level of precision and veracity displayed. I was also thrilled to recognize the supposed Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania home where Biggie’s mom, Voletta Wallace (Aisha Hinds), lived as the very same dwelling featured in the infamous opening sequence of the 1955 classic Rebel Without a Cause, which I had stalked back in 2012, but never blogged about.

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The residence only appears once on Unsolved in a particularly heart-wrenching scene at the end of the final episode in which Detective Greg Kading (Duhamel) visits Voletta at her home in the Keystone State to explain in person why police are no longer looking into her son’s case.

As soon as Kading walked into Voletta’s yellow-hued kitchen, I immediately recognized it as the kitchen from the Rebel Without a Cause house. As fate would have it, the pad recently hit the market as a fully-furnished rental and I had come across the listing, which mentioned its 1955 cameo, a few weeks prior and, of course, perused photos of the interior. For whatever reason, the images of the kitchen stuck with me. (What can I say, ingraining film locations into my memory is my super power.) More particularly, the home’s huge hood situated above the center island stuck with me, as did the woven bamboo shades hanging in the window. (The GC was on a kick to purchase very similar window coverings for our new house, but I found them a bit too tiki-inspired for my taste and finally convinced him to go with more neutral-colored blinds. Thanks to our many back-and-forth debates on the subject, shades are definitely something I take notice of lately.) Certain Voletta’s kitchen was the very same one I had seen in the MLS photos, I quickly pulled up the Rebel Without a Cause pad’s listing and was floored to see that they were, indeed, a match – right down to the wall clock, bar stools, and mounted television set!

The exterior of Voletta’s residence has proved harder to track down. I did discover that the imagery shown of it is actually stock footage from Shutterstock of “a slow aerial approach and flyover of a Pennsylvania farm house in the Autumn.” The home is apparently very popular in the stock footage world as I found a second reel featuring it, this one titled “A high angle flyover of a typical snow-covered farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania in the winter.”

In real life, the Rebel Without a Cause dwelling, which was originally built in 1912, features 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4,398 square feet, a formal dining room, a sun room, a large veranda, multiple decks, a pool, a barbeque area, a detached gym with a steam shower, and a 0.24-acre lot.

According to my buddy E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle called the place home for a time in the 1920s.

Though the Southern Colonial-style residence is often counted among Los Angeles’ most iconic film locations due to its appearance in Rebel Without a Cause, not much of it can actually be seen in the movie. The lower portion of the pad is just barely visible in the beginning scene in which Jim Stark (James Dean) lays down in the street while playing with a toy monkey shortly before being arrested for “plain drunkenness.”

The property has a couple of other cameos under its belt, as well. In the 1959 sci-fi film Teenagers from Outer Space, it portrays the home of Alice Woodward (Sonia Torgeson).

I am 99.9% certain that the scenes taking place in and around Alice’s pool were shot at a different location altogether.

Not only do building permits show that no pool existed at the property until 1993, as you can see in the screen captures as compared to the MLS photos above and below, the pool that was eventually built is much smaller than the one that appeared in Teenagers from Outer Space. It is also situated in a different position with regards to the residence than what was shown onscreen.

The dwelling also pops up as the Kappa Omega Psi fraternity house where Michael Ryan (C. Thomas Howell) and his friends crash a party in the 1985 comedy Secret Admirer.

The interior of the home also appeared in the movie.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Voletta Wallace’s house from Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G. is located at 7529 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood Hills West.

May 9, 2018
Big and Carrie’s Apartment from “Sex and the City 2”

Apparently I did a lot of stalking during my April 2016 New York vacation because there are some places I do not even remember visiting. Case in point – while organizing my photos from the trip a couple of days ago, I came across several images of the stately building above which I had no recollection whatsoever of taking – nor did I have any clue what production the structure was from. Thankfully “1030 5th Avenue” was painted on the awning, otherwise I might never have figured it out! Address in hand, I scanned through my NYC stalking list and was shocked to discover that the locale was actually where Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mr. Big (Chris Noth) lived in the 2010 flick Sex and the City 2. How I did not recognize it right off the bat is beyond me! I guess I have to chalk it up to some major stalking overload.

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The handsome 13-story property was designed in 1925 by J.E.R. Carpenter, the prolific architect/developer who was not only responsible for more than 25 buildings on the Upper East Side, but was dubbed “the father of the modern large apartment here in New York” in 1932’s The Real Estate Record & Guide.

The stunning 16-unit pre-war building is chock-full of modern amenities.

Deemed a “white-glove” property by StreetEasy, the neo-Italianate-style co-op features a fitness center, an elevator with an operator, a full-time doorman, a canopied entrance, a spacious lobby, and a laundry room.

Situated on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 84th Street, the structure also boasts stunning views of Central Park and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Each apartment is appointed with spacious dimensions, a multitude of rooms, high ceilings, and wood-burning fireplaces.

Considering its tony location and gorgeous trappings, it is not surprising that quite a few celebrities and public figures have called the place home over the years, including Academy-Award-winning producer Wendy Finerman, actor Robert Redford, journalist Diane Sawyer, director Mike Nichols, and CoreComm CEO George S. Blumenthal.

1030 Fifth Avenue pops up twice in Sex and the City 2. It first appears in a beginning scene that shows Carrie leaving her apartment and heading out to meet the girls at Bergdorf Goodman . . .

. . . before transitioning to a flashback of Carrie’s arrival in New York in the ‘80s. As you can see in my photographs as compared to the screen captures above and below, the building’s canopy was swapped out for a striped one during the shoot.

1030 Fifth is featured again a few scenes later when Big and Carrie return home from Stanford (Willie Garson) and Anthony’s (Mario Cantone) wedding.

In the movie, the building is said to be the same place where the couple purchased a penthouse in the first film. As Carrie narrates, “After Big and I sold the extravagant rooftop penthouse we thought we were meant to live in, we decided that maybe we needed to come a little more down to earth. So we did. Twelve floors to be exact.” In reality, the structure featured in the first flick is located two blocks south at 1010 Fifth Avenue. I blogged about that locale last July. The two sites do bear a striking resemblance to each other, though, as you can see below.

As to why the shift in locales was made from the first to second film, I am uncertain, but producers sure did find an extremely similar replacement.

In Sex and the City 2, Carrie and Big are shown to live in unit 12B.

In reality, the interior of their apartment was just a set built inside of a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in Queens where much of the movie was lensed. You can check out some photographs of what the actual twelfth floor unit, which takes up the entire level, looks like here. The stunning 6-bedroom, 6-bath space is currently for sale for a cool $38 million.

The last time I took a tour of Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, I was thrilled to see Carrie and Big’s “good” couch on display in the Property Department.

And their ottoman . . .

. . . where Carrie is sitting when Big gives her a black diamond wedding ring, which is my favorite scene in the movie. I absolutely love when Carrie says, “It’s gonna be just us two. Are we enough?” And Big responds, “Kid, we’re too much!”

1030 Fifth Avenue also pops up in the 2010 comedy The Good Guy as the building where Tommy Fielding (Scott Porter) lives. (Please pardon the graphics on the images below – I had to snag the captures from the movie’s trailer.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Carrie and Big’s apartment from Sex and the City 2 is located at 1030 Fifth Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side.

May 4, 2018
Tom’s Restaurant from “Seinfeld”

Considering it is one of New York’s best-known film locations, you’d think I would have stalked Tom’s Restaurant, aka Monk’s Café from Seinfeld, ages ago. That was not the case, though. While the Morningside Heights eatery had been on my To-Stalk List ever since my first visit to Manhattan back in 2005, due to the fact that it is located all way at 112th and Broadway, it kept getting pushed to the back burner. Then, while doing research prior to my April 2016 trip to the Big Apple, I came across the following passage in the book The Best Things to Do in New York – “As a rule, comfort food gets better the father uptown you go, and the melts, shakes, and fried chicken at Tom’s are close to perfect.” Near-perfect fried chicken? Say no more! I was not going to pass that up! So straight to the top of my To-Stalk List the restaurant went and the Grim Cheaper and I headed right on over there with our friend Lavonna one of our first days in town.

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Tom’s Restaurant was originally founded way back in 1940 by Greece native Tom Glikas.

He didn’t hold onto the place for long, though. A scant six years later, Glikas sold his namesake eatery to the Zoulis family who continue to own and operate it to this day.

Still situated on the same busy corner on which it was originally established, little of the restaurant has changed throughout the course of its almost 80-year history.

The quality Greek and American offerings, massive menu, affordable prices, and late-night hours turned the diner into a neighborhood staple from the get-go and it remains such today, with locals, tourists, and students from nearby Columbia University alike all popping in for superb comfort food, most of it made from scratch.

Even celebrities have been known to drop by. Over the years such luminaries as William Hurt, John McCain, Larry David, Madeleine Albright, Christopher Reeve, Mike Tyson, Richard Dreyfuss, Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, and Barack Obama have all been seen dining on the premises.

Considering Tom’s long history in New York, it is not surprising that the place found its way onscreen. On Seinfeld, the restaurant popped up pretty much weekly as the regular hangout of Jerry Seinfeld (played by himself), Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George Costanza (Jason Alexander), and Kramer (Michael Richards). Though it is arguably the show’s most iconic location, its familiar exterior did not make an appearance until the Season 2 premiere titled “The Ex-Girlfriend.”

Prior to that, the outside of the gang’s favorite coffee shop was only featured on one occasion – in the pilot. For that episode, titled “The Seinfeld Chronicles,” a different exterior was utilized. Located at 208 Varick Street in the West Village, the site is currently home to a McDonald’s (pictured below via Google Street View), but it housed an independent diner at the time that the series started filming. Though the signage shown on Seinfeld reads “Pete’s Luncheonette,” I am fairly certain that was not the establishment’s actual name.

The same restaurant was also utilized in the 1984 comedy The Muppets Take Manhattan as the spot where Kermit the Frog lands a day job while trying to get his Manhattan Melodies musical onto Broadway. In looking at the imagery of Pete’s from both productions, I am fairly certain that what was shown in “The Seinfeld Chronicles” was just recycled footage from The Muppets.

Back to Tom’s. As you can see in the screen capture as compared to the photograph below, though some aspects of the eatery’s exterior, including the windows and wood framing, have changed since Seinfeld was shot, the place is still very recognizable from its onscreen stint. The interior is another story, however.

Only the outside of Tom’s Restaurant appeared on Seinfeld. As is the norm with sitcoms, which are shot in front of a live audience, all of the show’s interior filming took place on studio-built sets. In this case, the Monk’s Café scenes were lensed on a soundstage (Stage 19 during Seasons 1-3 and Stage 9 during Seasons 4-9) at CBS Studio Center, located at 4024 Radford Avenue in Studio City.

I got to see portions of the Monk’s set, including a booth and a wall, when I visited the Warner Bros. “Television: Out of the Box” exhibit at The Paley Center for Media in 2012. (Though, considering many of the items on display weren’t exactly authentic, I cannot say with certainty that the artifacts pictured below are indeed legit.)

The actual interior of Tom’s does not resemble the Monk’s set in the slightest, which made seeing the restaurant in person rather jarring.

Though the place does have a counter . . .

. . . and booth seating, it looks nothing like the spot made famous for its big salads.

While not a big restaurant by any means, Tom’s is also significantly larger than Monk’s. Regardless of the disparities, it was still a huge thrill to finally see the site in person.

And I am happy to report that the assertion made in The Best Things to Do in New York was not wrong. While I opted for chicken strips instead of the fried chicken meal (I never pass up chicken strips when I see them on a menu), they were outstanding – as was the ranch dressing they were served with!

For those wondering how the name “Monk’s Café” came to be, per an article Jerry Seinfeld wrote for New York magazine, the moniker was rather uninspired. He says, “We called the coffee shop Monk’s because there was a Thelonious Monk poster in the office where Larry [David] and I were writing, and we just needed a name.”

Tom’s Restaurant also appeared in the Season 3 episode of The Bionic Woman titled “Long Live the King,” which aired in 1978.

Because The Bionic Woman was filmed in Los Angeles, the eatery was only utilized for establishing shots in the episode. The scene taking place inside the restaurant was lensed elsewhere – either at a actual L.A.-area café or a studio-built set.

Italian director Gian Franco Morini made the eatery the subject of his 2014 film, Tom’s Restaurant – A Documentary About Everything.

That same year, Jerry Seinfeld paid homage to his former series by shooting a Season 3 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee at Tom’s along with fellow alums Jason Alexander and Wayne Knight.

The episode, titled “The Over-Cheer,” finally gave us a shot of George and Jerry sitting inside the actual Tom’s.

Not only is the eatery a filming location, but it also inspired a popular song – Suzanne Vega’s 1987 ditty “Tom’s Diner.” As the singer explained to The Guardian in a 2016 article, “When I was at college in Manhattan in the early 1980s, I used to go to Tom’s Restaurant on 112th and Broadway for coffee. I liked its ordinariness: it was the kind of place you’d find on any corner. One day, I was in there mulling over a conversation I’d had with a photographer friend, Brian Rose, about romantic alienation. He told me he saw his life as if through a pane of glass. I came out of Tom’s with the idea of writing a song about an alienated character who just sees things happening around him. I was walking down Broadway and the melody popped into my head. The line about the actor ‘who had died while he was drinking’ was true: William Holden’s obituary had been in that morning’s paper. The ‘bells of the cathedral’ were those of St. John the Divine up the street, though I made up the bit about the woman ‘fixing her stockings’ and changed ‘restaurant’ to ‘diner’ to make it rhyme.” A fan named David Hammar did a deep dive into figuring out the exact day Vega penned the song (a man after my own heart!) and posted the results of his quest on Suzanne’s official website. Parsing through old newspaper archives and weather reports, Hammar pinpoints the date as November 18th, 1981. Well, sort of. The article makes for a fabulous read. You can check it out here. (For whatever reason, the photo below was not actually taken at Tom’s Restaurant, but at a different establishment.)

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Tom’s Restaurant, aka Monk’s Café from Seinfeld, is located at 2880 Broadway in New York’s Morningside Heights neighborhood. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

May 2, 2018
The Disney Garage

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am obsessed with all things Disney – especially Disneyland. I can hardly pass by the “Disneyland Drive” sign on the 5 Freeway without feeling a twitch. Not surprisingly, whenever I find myself in Orange County, my only interest is visiting the park and spending every waking moment there. I am definitely a show-up-before-opening-stay-until-closing-and-then-spend-an-extra-hour-on-Main-Street kind of girl. As such I’ve never really ventured out to do much stalking in the area. One local spot I’d been dying to see for ages, though, was the Disney Garage, aka Walt Disney’s very first animation studio which is on permanent display at the Stanley Ranch Museum in Garden Grove about two miles south of the Happiest Place on Earth. I finally got my chance last March thanks to a doctor appointment in the OC that I accompanied my dad to. While there was not enough time during our quick trip to allow for a Disney day, I made sure to schedule a stop at Stanley Ranch and we headed right on over there upon arriving in town.

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I briefly covered the story of the Disney Garage in a May 2014 Scene it Before post for Los Angeles magazine, but a more thorough recap is in order here. Upon returning home to Missouri after serving in World War I, Walt secured a job at the Kansas City Slide Company which produced both live-action and animated film advertisements. The work fascinated the 18-year-old and it wasn’t long before he was creating his own animations using a borrowed camera in his father’s garage. (Garages seem to be a theme in young Walt’s life.) In 1921, Disney partnered with cartoonist Ub Iwerks and under the label Laugh-O-Gram Films started producing shorts including one about a live-action character named Alice who lived in a cartoon world. The company failed after less than two years and in July 1923 Walt headed west to Los Angeles, where he rented a room at $5 a week from his uncle Robert who lived at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in Los Feliz. (That’s Uncle Robert’s house pictured below.) Of the move, he said, “I packed all of my worldly goods – a pair of trousers, a checkered coat, a lot of drawing materials and the last of the fairy-tale reels we had made – in a kind of frayed cardboard suitcase. And with that wonderful audacity of youth I went to Hollywood, arriving there with just 40 dollars.”

After a brief stint trying to break into the production world, Walt returned to his original passion, transforming his uncle’s small detached garage into a make-shift animation studio, which Robert charged him an additional $1 a week to use. Fashioning a cartoon stand out of lumber and plywood boxes, Disney got to work creating cartoon gag reels with the hope that he could sell them to the Pantages Theatre chain to play before movies. You can check out some historic photos of the garage, which was formerly located down the driveway on the home’s east side, here and here.

The Pantages plan was abandoned when producer Margaret Winkler tapped Disney to create more Alice cartoons (which later became known as the Alice Comedies) in October 1923. In conjunction with the deal, Walt partnered with his brother, Roy, and moved his studio out of his uncle’s garage and into the back of a real estate office located down the street at 4651 Kingswell Avenue. By February 1924, the brothers needed more space and secured a lease on the storefront next door at 4649 Kingswell. Today, that spot, which has since been renumbered 4647, houses a print shop named Extra Copy (pictured below). It is the Kingswell building that The Walt Disney Company officially recognizes as Walt’s first studio. He wasn’t there long, though.

A little over a year later, the brothers put down a deposit on some vacant land on Hyperion Avenue in Los Feliz and proceeded to build a small single-story studio which they moved into in January 1926. As the company grew, so did the space. In his book The Art of Disney: From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms, Christopher Finch says, “It was constantly being expanded.” (Sadly, that site was torn down in 1966 and a Gelson’s Market currently stands in its place.) The brothers eventually ran out of room to expand any further at that location and switched their sights to Burbank where they purchased 51 acres and began construction on a much larger studio. The company moved to their new digs at 500 South Buena Vista Street about a year later. The Walt Disney Company still calls the site home today. I was lucky enough to tour it in July 2009. The photos below are from that visit.

But back to the garage. In 1981, a foamer named Paul Maher was perusing old photographs of historic sites and came across an image of Uncle Robert’s garage. A stalker at heart, Maher decided he had to see the place in person and headed over to Kingswell Avenue the next morning. What he found shocked him. Not only was the bungalow undergoing a renovation in order to be turned into a rental, but the famous garage was set to be razed. Thankfully, Paul stepped in. He quickly tracked down the residence’s owner who offered to sell him the standalone, single-car structure for $6,400 – if he agreed to also become her new tenant. He moved in shortly thereafter. Maher soon ran into financial problems, though, and had to vacate the premises. He subsequently put the garage up for auction for $10,000, but incredibly there were no takers. As fate would have it, Art Adler, the senior contractor for the purchasing department at Disneyland, happened to be at the auction and couldn’t bear the thought of Walt’s former studio being lost to the ages. He started chatting up other auction-goers asking them to chip in funds to save the structure and quickly had $8,500 in hand thanks to a band of 8 people who were promptly dubbed “Friends of Walt Disney.” The group later grew to 18 members, all of whom worked tirelessly to preserve the garage.

All the Friends of Walt Disney needed now was a place to display the structure. The group contacted several museums, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, but none could guarantee the garage a permanent exhibition space. Art finally approached the Stanley Ranch Museum, run by the Garden Grove Historical Society, and the organization was thrilled to accept the piece.

The historical society quickly got to work in preparing the 12-by-18-foot structure for its new home. A concrete slab was poured, broken slats were replaced, protective weather coating was added, and Disney memorabilia was set up inside. (You can take a peek at the interior here). The restored garage was dedicated on October 20th, 1984.

Even though Walt technically created the first Alice short in his father’s garage and even though The Walt Disney Company doesn’t officially recognize it, Uncle Robert’s garage is though of by most fans as Walt’s first studio. Of the structure’s importance, Adler said, “He may not have done a lot of work here, but this is where he started – and that’s what counts. It is important that this garage be preserved so children can look at the humble beginnings of a man who would later create an empire that brought happiness and joy to children all over the world. It’s a way to tell kids that you can start from nothing and, in a relatively short time, achieve great things.”

In the interest of being thorough – and to provide some armchair tourism for those who can’t make it out to Stanley Ranch Museum themselves – I snapped photos of each of the garage’s four sides. That’s its west side below.

There’s the rear.

And the pics below are the best I could get of the east side.

The Disney Garage is hardly the only historical structure located on the grounds of the Stanley Ranch Museum.

The open air site was originally the family home/ranch of horticulturist Edward G. Ware. In 1970, Ware’s daughter, Lillian Agnes Stanley, donated the two-acre parcel to the Garden Grove Historical Society. The following year, Stanley’s son gifted the group Ware’s original 1892 residence, a barn, a tank house, and his own Craftsman-style pad. And thus, a museum was born.

Since that time several of the area’s most historic homes and structures have been donated and moved to the site. The museum now boasts 17 buildings, including one of the city’s first post offices, originally opened in 1877;

a former Main Street storefront that housed an electric shoe store and a barber shop at various times;

a replica of a firehouse once located on Garden Grove Boulevard;

. . . and many others.

Cloaked in history, Stanley Ranch Museum is a fabulous place for both Disney and non-Disney fans alike to enjoy a sunny Southern California day.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Stanley Ranch Museum, the home of the famous Disney Garage, is located at 12174 Euclid Street in Garden Grove. Tours are offered the first and third Sunday of every month at 1:30 p.m., so plan accordingly. Robert Disney’s house, where the garage was originally located, can be found at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in Los Feliz. Extra Copy, aka Walt Disney’s first official studio, is located just three blocks west at 4647 Kingswell.

April 30, 2018