I am taking today and the rest of the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. My mom and I are in charge of dinner this year (it’s my first time ever!), so I’m sure by the time this post is published, I’ll be knee-deep in turkey preparations. I hope all of my fellow stalkers have a fabulous holiday. I will be back next week with new locales. So until that time, Happy Stalking! 
We all have those movies – the ones that affected us so much upon first viewing, they left a lasting imprint on our hearts. Sleepless in Seattle is one such movie for me. As I mentioned in this 2010 post about the houseboat from the 1993 romcom, I still remember exactly where I was the first time I saw it and have my ticket stub tucked away in a box. The film had an immediate visceral effect on me – and still does to this day. So when I found out that the Grim Cheaper and I were heading to Baltimore, where Sleepless was partially filmed, this past September, I started putting together a list of must-see locales from the movie, namely the gorgeous brick townhome where Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) and her fiancé, Walter (Bill Pullman), lived.
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Annie’s residence has been well-documented online for years, so I did not have to do any sleuthing to hunt it down.
Miraculously, the dwelling looks almost exactly the same today as it did 23 years ago when Sleepless in Seattle was filmed.
Even the duck boot scraper visible in the bottom right of the above screen capture is still intact.
Annie’s house was featured several times throughout Sleepless in Seattle.
In real life, the three-story property, which was originally built in 1900, houses 1,995 square feet of space and 3.5 baths.
Though I do believe the structure was a private residence at one point, today it serves as an office, housing the Baltimore branch of Captel, a fundraising and membership development company.
Only the exterior of the site was used in Sleepless in Seattle. While I always assumed that the charming interior of Annie’s home was a set, my friend/fellow stalker David, who is a denizen of the Pacific Northwest, has heard that interiors were shot at an actual residence in West Seattle. So the jury’s still out on that one.
If interiors were shot at a real place, what I wouldn’t give to track it down!
The pier just outside of Annie’s home was also used in the filming.
In one particularly memorable scene (well, to me, anyway), Annie walks to the end of the pier and sits on a bench located there, while Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) does the exact same thing more than 2,000 miles away at a dock in Seattle. (As you can see in my images above and below, a car commercial was being shot on the pier the day we were there! Apparently, Broadway Pier, as it is known, is used for filming quite often.)
Unfortunately, the bench where Annie sat in the scene was just a prop.
But that didn’t stop me from posing for a photo there. 
Broadway Pier was also used very briefly in the “ . . . if she’s not sleeping with you” vignette from He’s Just Not That Into You. The building visible in the background of the scene has been remodeled in recent years and looks quite a bit different today than it did in 2009 when HJNTIY was shot, so I’m using a comparison image below from Google Street View that was taken in 2011.
Broadway Square, which is located just about one hundred feet north of Annie’s house, was also featured in He’s Just Not That Into You, as the spot where Connor (Kevin Connolly) called Mary (Drew Barrymore) to discuss the placement of his real estate ads. In the scene, Connor sat at the southern end of Broadway Square, just east of Admiral Fell Inn.
I recently discovered a couple of other He’s Just Not That Into You locales in the same vicinity. Duda’s Tavern, which is located about 500 feet west of Annie’s house at 1600 Thames Street, served as the exterior of City Supper Club, the bar owned by Alex (Justin Long) in the flick.
And The Waterfront Hotel, located about 300 feet east of Annie’s house at 1710 Thames Street, masked as the exterior of The Huntsman’s Den, where Alex gave Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) some pointers on reading body language.
The entire area around Annie’s house is absolutely adorable.
Unfortunately, we did not get to spend a lot of time there, but I found myself wishing we had stayed at one of the hotels lining the main drag as there are so many shops and restaurants in the cobblestoned vicinity.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Annie’s house from Sleepless in Seattle is located at 904 South Broadway in Baltimore’s Fells Point neighborhood. The spot where Connor sat in He’s Just Not That Into You can be found about one hundred feet north at Broadway Square, just east of the Admiral Fell Inn at 888 Broadway. Duda’s Tavern, which was used as the exterior of City Supper Club in HJNTIY, is located one block west of Broadway Square at 1600 Thames Street. And The Waterfront Hotel, which masked as the exterior of The Huntsman’s Den in HJNTIY, is located one block east at 1710 Thames Street.
Philadelphians really know their filming locations! During our visit to the City of Brotherly Love, the Grim Cheaper and I stalked Reading Terminal Market, an enclosed public emporium and city icon that was featured in a memorable scene in National Treasure. While there, I was determined to figure out the exact area of the bustling 78,000-square-foot space that appeared in the 2004 adventure flick and asked a woman at the Pennsylvania General Store (the cookies there are amazing, FYI!) if she happened to know. Now typically when I ask such questions, the response I receive is along the lines of, “National Treasure was filmed here? I had no idea!” But in this case, the woman told me that she was fairly certain filming had taken place at the Martin’s Quality Meats and Sausages counter. So we headed over there and were delighted to discover that she was correct!
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During Philadelphia’s early days, open-air markets were commonplace in the downtown area, namely on what was then known as High Street. The region was so inundated with the outdoor grocers that the road was soon renamed “Market Street.” By the mid-1800s, though, the markets had come to be seen an unhygienic and the crowds they drew as nuisances, and in 1859 they were outlawed. Shortly thereafter, two indoor bazaars, Franklin Market and Farmers’ Market, opened inside of a large space at 12th and Market Streets. The sites flourished until 1890, when the property was purchased by the Reading Company for the purpose of constructing a new train terminal. The merchants did not take the news of their impending ousting lightly and demanded that an area underneath the terminal be built for them to continue to operate. As a result, Reading Terminal Market was established in 1892. The thriving site boasted 800 stalls, a state of the art refrigeration system, and offered such innovative services as grocery delivery via train.
Though the Reading Company filed for bankruptcy in 1971 and ceased train operations altogether in 1976, the market continued to function. Reading pondered closing the site for a time, but eventually set its sights on a revitalization. The Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority took over ownership of the emporium in 1990 and today, it is a thriving location and one of Philadelphia’s city treasures.
The sprawling space houses over 80 merchants and vendors selling such items as cheese, produce, flowers, ice cream, meat, baked goods, coffee, books, and other specialty merchandise.
In National Treasure, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) and Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) head to Reading Terminal Market while on the run from Ian Howe’s (Sean Bean) goons. In the scene, they enter the market from the Filbert Street side (which I did not get any photos of, so the Google Street View image below will have to do).
During the chase, Riley and Abigail get split up . . .
. . . and Abigail takes refuge behind the Martin’s counter.
I was thrilled to see that, despite the passage of more than a decade, Martin’s Specialty Meats and Sausages still looks much the same in person as it did in National Treasure.
Martin’s has been located at Reading Terminal Market since 1986. Philadelphia magazine describes the shop’s specialty sausages – including such varieties as garlic, apple and pork, and lamb merguez – as “meat porn,” stating “Butchery wasn’t invented here, but it may have been perfected.”
The Martin’s employee I spoke with could not have been nicer when I asked if the kiosk was indeed the spot where National Treasure was filmed. He immediately pointed towards the counter’s half door and said, “Yep! That’s the door Diane Kruger jumped over in the scene!”
Said door has since been painted over and a large red M applied to its front, but otherwise it looks as it did onscreen.
Reading Terminal Market was also featured briefly in the 1981 thriller Blow Out as the spot where Burke (John Lithgow) stalked one of his victims.
Though several sites state that the market appeared in Trading Places, I scanned through the 1983 comedy and did not see it anywhere.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Reading Terminal Market, from National Treasure, is located at 51 North 12th Street in Philadelphia’s Center City. You can visit the market’s official website here and you can see a layout of the vendors here. In the movie, Abigail hides behind the counter at Martin’s Quality Meats and Sausages, which is located in the center of the emporium.
I am not a fan of museums. Like at all. My dislike stems mainly from the fact that, if given the choice, I’d much prefer to be outdoors than indoors. There were quite a few on my list of must-see places in Philadelphia, though, including Eastern State Penitentiary (which I wouldn’t even really classify as a museum – you can read my post on it here), the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (which I will be blogging about soon), and The Franklin Institute. My desire to see the latter was not due to its exhibits or artifacts, but because it was featured in a scene in National Treasure. Not just any scene, either – my favorite scene from the 2004 adventure flick. So the Grim Cheaper and I headed over there during our second day in the City of Brotherly Love.
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The Franklin Institute was founded by engineer Samuel Vaughan Merrick in 1824. Yes, you read that right – 1824. The original headquarters, which was built in 1826, still stands today. Located at 15 South 7th Street, it currently houses the Philadelphia History Museum at The Atwater Kent. The Institute moved to its current home, a Classical Beaux-Arts building (pictured below) located at 222 North 20th Street, in 1934.
Designed by architect John T. Windrim, the looming exterior of The Franklin Institute was constructed out of Indiana limestone and Milford pink granite.
The sprawling four-story museum, which Eyewitness Travel states is “the oldest science and technology institute in continuous use in North America,” is comprised of countless exhibits including a simulated train factory, a 5,000-square-foot interactive Giant Heart, a four-story Foucault’s Pendulum, an air show, three theatres, and a planetarium. The museum is also the site of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial – a 21-foot-tall marble statute of the inventor sculpted by James Earle Fraser that sits perched in the middle of the central rotunda.
The rotunda, also designed by Windrim, was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome and measures 82 feet in height, length, and width.
The space’s impressive domed ceiling weighs a whopping 1,600 tons.
It is at The Franklin Institute in National Treasure that Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) – my favorite character – solves an Ottendorf cipher, along with some help from “Museum Kid” (Yves Beneche) and the Silence Dogood letters. Filming took place both outside . . .
. . . and inside the museum.
Though the Silence Dogood letters are, in fact, a legitimate piece of American history, they are not housed at The Franklin Institute. From everything I have read online, the original letters no longer exist, though you can read their content here. For the shoot, filmmakers altered the rotunda, positioning large wooden cases displaying the letters in between the columns just to the right (north) of the Benjamin Franklin statue.
The area where the display cases were set up is pictured below.
In the scene, Riley waits for Museum Kid across the street from The Franklin Institute at the Aero Memorial in Aviator Park.
Designed by Paul Manship in 1948, the Aero Memorial honors Philadelphia aviators killed in action during World War I.
Though the Kid is shown running back and forth from Riley to the museum via a crosswalk linking The Franklin Institute to the memorial, there is no such crosswalk in real life.
Google Street View imagery from 2007 does show remnants of crosswalk paint in that spot, though. I am not sure if a crosswalk was once located there or if one was painted in for the shoot and vestiges of it remained visible for several years after the fact. It would be pretty darn cool if that was the case, though! [Something very similar happened with the parking spot lines painted in front of the house used as Wendy’s (Courteney Cox’s) residence in Bedtime Stories.]
The Aero Memorial looks a bit different in person, which threw me off completely. I could not for the life of me figure out where Riley sat in the scene. And there was nothing I wanted to do more than pose for a photo in that exact spot!
I knew Riley had been seated on a standalone bench that faced The Franklin Institute in National Treasure, but could find no such bench on the premises. That and the missing crosswalk led me to wonder if Riley’s portion of the scene had been filmed elsewhere and just made to look as if it was shot across from the museum. I needed screen captures to provide clarification, but, unfortunately, had not bought any with me to Philadelphia. Enter my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog. I texted to ask if he had done any research on the location and if he happened to have any screen captures he could forward my way, and he sent over an email immediately, with a slew of screen grabs attached. Thank you, Owen! As it turns out, Riley’s bench doesn’t exist. I am not sure if the bench was a prop brought in for filming or if it was a real portion of the memorial that has since been removed. Either way, it is not there today, sadly.
So while I couldn’t sit in the same spot that Riley sat, I could certainly stand there!
For those wishing to do the same, Riley’s bench in the scene was set up in the southern portion of the memorial, in the area denoted with a pink X in the photograph below.
The Franklin Institute was also the site of a party in the Season 1 episode of Do No Harm titled “Me Likey.”
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for helping me to pinpoint the exact spot where Riley sat. 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Franklin Institute from National Treasure is located at 222 North 20th Street in Philadelphia’s Logan Square neighborhood. You can visit the museum’s official website here. Admission tickets are not required to see the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, where National Treasure was filmed. The spot where Riley sat in the movie can be found directly across the street at the Aero Memorial.
Not every location from He’s Just Not That Into You was a challenge to track down. [As I mentioned yesterday and the day before, both Janine (Jennifer Connelly) and Ben’s (Bradley Cooper) home and Conor’s (Kevin Connolly) row house listing proved to be real thorns in my side.] Case in point, the exterior of the restaurant where Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Conor went on a date in the 2009 flick. That site, which was actually the heavily dressed entrance to two neighboring Mount Vernon eateries named Thairish and The Helmand, was spelled out in a 2007 The Baltimore Sun article that was written while the cast and crew were in town shooting portions of the movie. I came across the piece shortly after I first saw He’s Just Not That Into You and jotted down the addresses in case I ever traveled to Baltimore, an opportunity that finally arose this past September.
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Gigi and Conner’s date restaurant, shown to be named “Red Seven,” only popped up once at the very beginning of He’s Just Not That Into You. As you can see below, due to massive set dressing, the locale looks quite different in person than it did onscreen. For the shoot, the exteriors of Thairish and The Helmand were covered over and made to appear as if they were one large brick and glass-clad space. The Baltimore Sun column states, “While the entrance of Thairish only was covered with cardboard, The Helmand underwent more drastic changes. The Helmand’s manager, Assad Akbari, says contractors with the film changed its sign and swapped out the front door.”
Another Sun article from around that same time went into further detail, stating, “In Mount Vernon, restaurants Thairish and The Helmand were temporarily redecorated Saturday with new lights, a new door and a new name: Red Seven.”
Thairish, a Thai eatery, was shuttered in 2016 and today Khun Nine Thai occupies the space. The Helmand, though, is still going strong. Originally opened in 1989, the Afghan restaurant is something of a Baltimore institution.
Unfortunately, there was a sidewalk fair set up right in front of the two restaurants when we showed up to stalk them, which made getting photographs rather difficult.
The neighborhood where The Helmand and Khun Nine Thai are located is absolutely adorable – and boasts quite a view of the Washington Monument, as you can see below. The Grim Cheaper and I spent quite a bit of time there, exploring the shops and admiring the handsome brick buildings.
Only the exterior of Khun Nine Thai and The Helmand were utilized in He’s Just Not That Into You.
At the time I started researching the movie’s locales, I was unsure where the interior of Conner and Gigi’s date scene was shot. Finding the right spot proved to be a snap, though. One look at photographs of the inside of both The Helmand and Thairish told me that interior footage was lensed elsewhere. My guess was that filming had most likely taken place in Los Angeles, where the majority of the romcom was shot. Red Seven, the name that producers had given to their fictional restaurant, seemed unusual to me. So unusual that I figured it was likely the moniker of a real place – either an actual Baltimore establishment filmmakers wanted to pay homage to or, possibly, the site in L.A. where interiors were filmed. Fingers crossed, I Googled “Red Seven,” “restaurant,” and “Los Angeles” and discovered that there is indeed an eatery by that name in West Hollywood! Images of it matched perfectly to the spot where Gigi and Conor enjoyed a beer and a Ketel-soda. Why the crew went to all of that trouble and did not just use a fake name or no name at all is beyond me, but I’m grateful they did as I might never have found the location otherwise.
As you can see below, filmmakers also went to the trouble of matching the entrance door of their fake restaurant to the actual walls of Red Seven.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The exterior of Connor and Gigi’s date restaurant from He’s Just Not That Into You was created outside of both Khun Nine Thai and The Helmand, which are located at 804 and 806 North Charles Street in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, respectively. Interiors were filmed at Red Seven, which is located at 700 North San Vicente Boulevard, in the Pacific Design Center, in West Hollywood. You can visit Khun Nine Thai’s official website here, The Helmand’s here and Red Seven’s here.
I would like to extend a very heartfelt thank you today to all who have served this great country of ours, including my grandfather (that’s him above during World War II), my dad, my uncle, my father-in-law, my cousin, my brother-in-law, my grandfather-in-law, and several of my friends. I hope we all take a moment to remember the people we are celebrating today and that everyone has a safe and happy holiday.
He’s Just Not That Into You was the thorn in my side prior to my recent trip back east. As I mentioned yesterday, the 2009 romcom is one of my all-time favorites and before heading to Baltimore, where the film was set and partially shot, in September, I got a bit obsessed with tracking down its locales. After a rather long and arduous pursuit to find Ben (Bradley Cooper) and Janine’s (Jennifer Connelly) stately home, I set my sights on the row house that real estate agent Conor (Kevin Connolly) was trying to sell – and that he also wanted to buy for Anna (Scarlett Johansson) – at the end of the movie. It proved just as difficult to locate and, once again, I found myself watching and re-watching the flick, looking for a clue I knew I was missing.
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During my umpteenth re-watch of the one scene involving the house (I saw it so many times, I can pretty much recite it from memory), I spotted a barely-visible address number displayed on the residence next door.
Though the number was not clear in the streamed version of the movie I was watching (which is where the above screen capture came from), I knew it would be via Blu-ray, so I popped in my DVD and, sure enough, there was the address 3104, clear as day. (Unfortunately, I cannot make screen captures of the Blu-ray version of the film as my computer does not have a Blu-ray drive).
It was also clear in the scene that the house was located on a road that ran perpendicular to a one-way street (as you can see in the background below). So I started searching 3100 blocks in Baltimore that abut one-way streets and fairly quickly found the right spot.
Though He’s Just Not That Into You was only filmed six years ago, I was nevertheless thrilled to see that Conor’s listing still looked exactly the same as it had onscreen.
In real life, the property, which was originally built in 1880, just sold to new owners in July of this year for $279,000. Per the listing, the pad boasts 2.5 baths, 1,920 square feet of living space, a brand new kitchen with Caesar stone countertops and stainless steel appliances, updated bathrooms, a brick patio, refinished hardwood flooring throughout, and custom built-ins. The listing information also states that the home has two bedrooms, but from looking at the photographs I believe there are actually four.
I was shocked to discover that the listing even makes mention of the property’s appearance in He’s Just Not That Into You. Really wish I had happened upon it prior to spending so many hours searching for the place!
The real life interior of the home was also used in the filming, as you can see in the screen captures as compared to the real estate listing photos below.
While the kitchen has since been remodeled, its layout remains the same.
Despite the renovation, the built-in ironing board that Anna fawned over in the movie remains intact! Love it! There seems to be some sort of placard affixed to it, too. I wonder if it says something along the lines of, “Scarlett Johansson touched this.” Or “Screen-used ironing board.” Or “Our ironing board is famous.” Man, I wish the real estate listing had provided a close-up photograph of it.
One thing I did spot in the listing photographs – which floored me to no end – was the “For Sale” sign that was affixed to the front of the house in the movie! Apparently the owners were allowed to keep it and chose to display it on their wall, which is so incredibly cool.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Conor’s row house listing from He’s Just Not That Into You is located at 3102 O’Donnell Street in Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood.
You know those crime novels where a main character is trying to solve a case and there is some niggling clue that tugs at them throughout the story – an important piece of evidence that would solve the whole mystery, but which remains elusive until the final pages? That was how I felt while trying to track down the Baltimore row house where Janine (Jennifer Connelly) and Ben (Bradley Cooper) lived in He’s Just Not that Into You. Though the 2009 film was largely panned by critics, it is one of my favorite romcoms of all time and prior to our recent trip to Charm City, I set out to track down its locations, namely Janine and Ben’s handsome brick townhome. Try as I might, though, I could just not locate it. During the tail end of my search, I found myself sitting at my computer staring at a screen capture of the residence for what seemed like hours, aware of the fact that I was missing something, but unsure of exactly what. Then finally, something clicked!
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All of a sudden, I noticed that a fire hydrant was visible on the street corner next to Janine and Ben’s pad. I swear, I started to hear angels sing when I realized that said hydrant was painted red, white, and green. That could only mean one thing – the house had to be located in Little Italy! Not being familiar with Baltimore, I wasn’t even sure if the city had a Little Italy neighborhood, but a quick Google search told me that it does. So I started searching the area via Street View and found the place within minutes.
Throughout He’s Just Not That Into You, Janine and Ben’s dwelling is under extensive renovation.
Because of the work being done, it is not until the end of the movie that we actually get a clear view of the property’s exterior. Aside from the front door being changed, the structure looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.
Something I did not notice until making screen captures for this post (despite my many viewings of the movie) is that Janine and Ben actually owned two neighboring townhomes that were being combined into one, hence the scaffolding on the two residences you see below. (And yes, I realize how blonde that makes me sound being that, as stated earlier, I spent a considerable amount of time staring at a screen capture of the house during my search for it. In my defense, though, I was looking at the grab pictured above, which is from the scene in which the remodel has already been completed.)
Because I did not realize that both properties were used in He’s Just Not That Into You, I only shot photographs of the residence that Janine walked into towards the end of the flick.
Per Zillow, that handsome pad, located at 226 South Exeter Street, boasts 1,508 square feet of living space, 2 bathrooms, a 0.02-acre lot, a fireplace, and a 325-square-foot finished basement.
The property, which was built in 1860 (yes, 1860!), last sold in December 2002 for $135,000.
While the exterior of Janine and Ben’s residence is quite stately, it is the interior that I fell in love with. I mean, #housegoals, right? All of the exposed brick, built-in shelving, and woodwork had me drooling.
Sadly, I am fairly certain that it was all a set built on a soundstage in Los Angeles, where the majority of the movie was lensed. Only two weeks of filming took place in Baltimore, which is far too short a time for the interior house sequences to have been shot at the actual residence. Add to that the fact that, from most of the articles I’ve read, it does not seem that Bradley Cooper, who was present in many of the home scenes, traveled to Baltimore for any filming. I believe Kevin Connolly, Scarlett Johansson, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Jennifer Connelly were the only cast members who were in Charm City for the on-location portion of the shoot.
I have to give major props to the production team for their seriously keen eye for detail. In the scene at the end of the movie in which Ben comes home and discovers (spoiler alert!) that Janine is divorcing him, a panoramic photo of the actual houses located across the street from 226 South Exeter was displayed as a backdrop outside of the set windows. As you can see below, the residences visible through the windows of Janine and Ben’s dwelling match perfectly to the properties located across the street in real life! A generic backdrop featuring random homes could just as easily have been used in the scene, so I am extremely impressed that the production team went to such trouble to be authentic.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Janine and Ben’s houses from He’s Just Not That Into You are located at 224 and 226 South Exeter Street in Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood.
I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how my friend Owen found the basketball court from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (That’s Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for those who don’t read my site regularly.) Back in June 2011, he became bound and determined to track down the court, which was featured prominently each week in the popular NBC series’ opening credits. At the time, it was one of Owen’s top three most-wanted yet-to-be found spots, the two others being the Three’s Company apartment building (which he wound up tracking down in March 2012) and Brooks Memorial Home for the Aged from Miracle on 34th Street (which remains a huge thorn in his side – do any of my fellow stalkers know where it is??). He was fairly certain the court was located in Philadelphia, where TFPOBA was set, and not in Los Angeles where the series was lensed. So he began scouring Google Maps aerial views for basketball courts in Philly and then compared Street View images of the spots he came across to screen captures from the opening credits. After looking at a LOT of different courts, he finally pinpointed the right place – Roberto Clemente Playground at 1800 Wallace Street. It’s not in West Philadelphia, as Will Smith so famously raps in the theme song, but in North Philadelphia – Spring Garden to be exact.
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Because it is not a New York or Los Angeles locale, Owen did not think I would be interested in the court, but he passed along the address anyway. And interested I was! Not only did I love The Fresh Prince growing up, but Philadelphia had long been on the Grim Cheaper’s bucket list of travel sites, so I knew we would be heading there at some point in time. Though it was five years before we actually did so, Roberto Clemente Playground was still high up on my list of Philly Must-Stalks.
The 2.5-acre site, which is also known as Clemente Park and Playground, was named in honor of baseball player/humanitarian Roberto Clemente, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates for 18 seasons, beginning in 1955.
Though the park was a center of drug and gang activity for a time, thanks to the efforts of a woman named Sara Hirschler, who formed the Friends of Clemente group, the property was cleaned up and renovated to the tune of $600,000 in 2011. Such features as a water spray park, a jungle gym, modern fencing, a new entrance, and green space were added during the renovations.
But thankfully, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air basketball court was left intact . . .
. . . and it looks much the same today as it did when the opening credits were shot in 1990. (Yep, it’s been 26 years since The Fresh Prince started airing. I’m not even sure how that is possible!)
So much so that it proved impossible not to sing out, “In West Philadelphia born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days, chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool, and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school . . . “ several times while we were stalking the place.
Amazingly, even the eagle painting visible in the background of the opening is still there, though foliage largely blocks the view of it from the court.
But you can catch a glimpse of it in my photos below. The eagle is painted on the rear side of Laura Weller Waring School, an elementary school that is situated adjacent to the playground.
The park’s small rec center building, which is visible on the right hand side of the screen capture below, also remains intact.
Though it looks a bit different today due to the murals that are painted all over its exterior, it is still very recognizable from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air opening credits.
Most amazing of all, though (to me at least), is the fact that the actual basketball hoops and backboards still look exactly the same! I am shocked – and thrilled – that they weren’t modernized during the renovation.
Alas, there are a few things that have changed over the years. The tall row houses seen in the background of the opening credits were torn down to make way for The Spring Gardens, a community garden maintained by 180 local citizens that was started in 1995.
The benches where “a couple of guys who were up to no good” sat have since been swapped out with new ones. Unfortunately, I did not get a photograph matching the exact angle shown in that portion of the credits, but the area that was visible still looks very much as it did onscreen. The building seen in the background to the left in the below image is the rear side of Enon Baptist Church.
I captured the church on the right hand side of my photos below.
You can watch The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air opening by clicking below.
Boyz II Men also shot their 1992 “Sympin” music video at Roberto Clemente Playground.
You can watch that video by clicking below.
Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Roberto Clemente Playground, aka The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air basketball court, is located at 1800 Wallace Street in Philadelphia’s Spring Garden neighborhood.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times – I hate incorrect filming location information! Case in point – while researching Mannequin locales prior to my recent trip to Philadelphia, I came across a mention online that the movie’s restaurant scene was shot at the now defunct Dewey’s Famous on Locust and 15th. A cursory Google search told me a few things – that the eatery closed at some point in the mid-80s, later became a bank and then an outpost of the Cosi chain – and that it was most definitely not the spot featured in Mannequin. The establishment where Jonathan Switcher (Andrew McCarthy) dined with his ex-girlfriend, Roxie (Carole Davis), in the 1987 flick was extremely elegant and fancy, while Dewey’s was a very casual lunch counter. They could not be one and the same. So I set out to find where filming actually had taken place.
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Though the restaurant was referred to as “Chez Jacques” in Mannequin, during a re-watch I spotted neon signage on the eatery’s overhang, as well as a sign posted by the front door, showing a different name. I couldn’t quite make out what the wording said exactly, but I could see that it started with DiL. So I started playing around with different letter combinations in a Google search, also adding “Philadelphia” and “restaurant,” and it was not long before I figured out that the logo displayed on the canopy was that of DiLullo Centro, a since closed upscale Italian spot formerly located at 1407 Locust Street in Philly’s City Center area. Street View showed that the place now housed a Greek eatery named Estia Restaurant, but that the exterior still looked exactly the same as it had in Mannequin. I held out hope that the interior was still recognizable, as well, and the Grim Cheaper and I headed right on over there for lunch our first day in the City of Brotherly Love.
DiLullo Centro was originally founded by Joseph V. DiLullo in 1985. It was the third eatery established by the Philadelphia native, whose foray into the restaurant industry was rather unusual. While working at a barbershop in Fox Chase at 15, Joseph noticed that the pizza parlor across the street had been put up for sale. The price was $5,000, much more than the young man had to his name, but fate interceded. His mother was in a nursing home at the time and during his visits, Joe made friends with an elderly fellow patient. One serendipitous day, Joe talked about the parlor in front of the man, who offered to loan him the money to buy it. Joseph agreed and at the tender age of 16, dropped out of school and became a restaurateur. On the day Joseph’s Pizza opened, the elderly man showed up, along with his chauffeur-driven limo, to offer some words of encouragement. After telling his young squire, “Don’t worry. You’re going to make a lot of money,” he drove off. Though Joe often tried to contact his benefactor, he never heard from him again.
The man’s prophecy came true, though. Joe did make a lot of money. In less than a year, he had turned a large enough profit to purchase a neighboring space, where he moved Joseph’s Pizza. In 1979, he opened the upscale Ristorante DiLullo next door to the pizzeria and six years later, DiLullo Centro in City Center. Sadly, Joe passed away unexpectedly in 1994 at the age of 45, but his widow, Claire, still manages Ristorante DiLullo (now called Moonstruck Restaurant) and Joseph’s Pizza today.
Claire continued to run DiLullo Centro, for a time, as well. Designed by Alesker & Dundon Architects, the opulent 200-seat site featured etched glass partitions, slate flooring, mirrored paneling, and foliage galore. The photographs below, which I got from the Alesker & Dundon website (where more images of the restaurant can be found), show what the space looked like when it first opened.
In 1999, Claire changed the name of the eatery to “Toto,” in honor of her new husband, Toto Schiavone. When Toto closed in 2005, Estia Restaurant opened in its place.
Our meal at Estia was nothing short of fabulous. I ordered the Cheese Saganaki, aka pan-fried kefalograviera cheese with lemon, which is one of my favorite meals. As expected, it was amazing. I mean, how can you go wrong with fried cheese? The restaurant also serves a special type of hummus made without tahini that was out of this world. The GC and I are still trying to figure out how to replicate it.
In Mannequin, Roxie asks Jonathan to meet her at Chez Jacques in the hopes that she can lure him away from his new window dressing job at Prince and Company in order to come to her department store, Illustra. Jonathan does not have a good reputation at Chez Jacques, though. As he explains to Roxie, he formerly worked at the restaurant and once almost burned the place down. (Spoiler alert: Jonathan, or “Ze Flambé Terrorist,” as the maître d’ refers to him, of course, starts another fire dining this visit.)
Though the décor has changed considerably, the restaurant is still very recognizable from its onscreen stint almost thirty years ago. In the screen capture below, you can just make out the elevator behind Jonathan, which I, unfortunately, shot from a different angle. As you can see, though, the rounded walls that flank it, recessed lighting above it, and the positioning of the column in front of it all match what was shown in the movie.
In the scene, Jonathan and Roxie dined in front of the windows in DiLullo Centro’s main dining room, in the section directly next to the mezzanine level.
The stairs leading up to the mezzanine are visible in the scene. Though none of my images show those stairs, you can see the mezzanine itself in my photograph below.
The building that houses Estia also has an interesting history. Designed by Horace Trumbauer in 1922, the 22-story Gothic-style structure was commissioned by Louis Cahan of the Equitable Trust Company of New York and, as such, is known as the Equitable Trust Building. The property’s ground floor was originally the site of a 1,580-seat theatre named the Fox-Locust Theatre, which opened its doors on March 20th, 1927. According to the Cinema Treasures website, such stars as Al Pacino, James Earl Jones, Ethel Barrymore, Paul Newman, Richard Dreyfuss, Milton Berle, Carol Channing, Henry Fonda, and Anne Bancroft all graced its stage at one time or another. When the theatre closed in 1980, portions of the auditorium were razed in order to make room for a parking lot. The interior that remained intact was remodeled and became DiLullo Centro. You can see some photos of what the theatre looked like when it was still in operation here.
On a side note – I would like to wish my mom a very happy birthday today. I am so thankful I get to call you my mama! Not only do we a share a love of Pretty Little Liars (as evidenced below) she is the one who originally got me hooked on filming locations, for which I will be forever grateful. Love you!
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Estia Restaurant, aka the former DiLullo Centro, aka Chez Jacques from Mannequin, is located at 1405-1407 Locust Street in Philadelphia’s City Center. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.