Today’s location would be better suited for a Haunted Hollywood post, but because it is set to be torn down by the end of the year, I figured time was of the essence. While spending the week in L.A. last month with my good buddies Kim and Katie (that’s Katie pictured above), a friend named Becky mentioned that I should stalk the abandoned Sunset Pacific Motel in Silver Lake. The property is more commonly known as the “Bates Motel” thanks to both the fact that it sits at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Bates Avenue and that it has been in a decrepit state for decades. The 3-story, 37-room structure was recently painted white as part of a temporary art exhibit, which only serves to make it all the more eerie. Becky thought I would enjoy seeing it in person and she was right! The place did not disappoint!
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From what I can gather from the Historic Aerials website, the Sunset Pacific Motel was built sometime between 1954 and 1964. While the property provided a home away from home for tourists in its early years (it even had a pool that has since been cemented over), by the 1980s it had fallen into a serious state of disrepair and had become a haven for drug use, prostitution and violent crime. A 2002 Los Angeles Times article described it as “one of the city’s most dangerous properties.” Concerned neighbors had been trying to get the facility shuttered for decades, to no avail. Finally, in December 2000, longtime owner Edward Eng was charged with two dozen housing code violations at the property and was eventually forced to close it in March 2002 when the city revoked his operating license. The Sunset Pacific Motel has sat boarded up ever since. You can check out what it looked like during its boarded up phase here and here.
In September 2009, the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Building and Safety voted to raze the motel. Before the demolition took place, though, the site was purchased by Frost/Chaddock Developers with the intent of building a large mixed-use project on the site. Those plans have met with some opposition, though, and while on hold, Frost/Chaddock decided to allow French artist Vincent Lamouroux to paint the property as a temporary art instillation.
In mid-April, Lamouroux began his instillation which he titled Projection. He and his crew used sprayers and hoses to coat every square inch of the Sunset Pacific Motel with an eco-friendly lime wash.
Lamouroux also painted the back of the motel’s billboard;
its sign;
and its palm trees.
It really is a sight to see!
The lime wash will fade over time (it has already begun to disappear from the palm trees) and the motel is slated to be demolished at the end of the year, so if you would like to see it in all of its blindingly white glory, I would get over there as soon as possible.
Don’t forget to check out today’s post for L.A.mag.com, about the Gamble House from Back to the Future. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
Though I am unabashedly a tween at heart, one show that I never got into was Lizzie McGuire. I have always liked Hilary Duff, so I am unsure of why exactly the show remained off my radar. Regardless, I was thrilled when a fellow stalker named Gina posted a comment on my site recently letting me know that she had tracked down the house where the titular character lived with her family on the Disney series. I stopped by to stalk it two weeks ago while my friends Kim and Katie were in town visiting from Kentucky (that’s Katie in the photo above).
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Oddly, while I had heard that the house appeared regularly in establishing shots on Lizzie McGuire, I scanned through several episodes before writing this post and only ever spotted it in the Season 1 episode titled “Pool Party.” (“Pool Party” was the series pilot, but, for whatever reason, was not the first episode to be aired.) As you can see below, the residence looks very much the same today as it did when “Pool Party” was shot in 2001.
Once the series got picked up, a set of the interior of the McGuire home (one that did not match the interior seen in the pilot) was built inside of a soundstage for all subsequent filming.
In real life, the Lizzie McGuire house, which was built in 1990, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 4,466 square feet, and a 0.22-acre plot of land.
The interior of the same pad was also used as the interior of the Burnham home, where Lester (Kevin Spacey), Carolyn (Annette Bening) and Jane (Thora Birch) lived, in American Beauty.
For exterior shots of the Burnham home, producers used the “Griswold House” at Warner Bros. Ranch, so named because it also masked as the Griswold family’s residence in Christmas Vacation.
The Griswold house is regularly altered for film shoots and looks much different today than it did in either American Beauty or Christmas Vacation, as you can see below.
I have a very special post coming to you today – the first of its kind at IAMNOTASTALKER! Sara Johnson, one of my longtime readers, recently headed to Juliette, Georgia for an epic Fried Green Tomatoes stalking trip and was kind enough to write up her experiences to share with my fellow stalkers. So, without further ado, I present to you the first ever IAMNOTASTALKER guest post. Enjoy!
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We drove all night from New Port Richey, Florida to Juliette, Georgia and arrived at the The Old Mill Riverfront Cabins, where we were staying, at around 6 a.m. The first thing you see driving down to the cabins is the train tracks and the Whistle Stop Café on your right and the Juliette Grist Mill on your left. As you pull up to the cabins and shut the engine off you can hear the river just down below. Just a few minutes later, you hear a train coming by with the whistle blowing so close you could throw a rock at it. I close my eyes and I can imagine Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker) and Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson) throwing cans of food off the train to the homeless people.
First thing in the morning we walked over to downtown Juliette which is basically one small little road. The Whistle Stop Cafe wasn’t open yet, but some of the gift shops were starting to open and the tourists were already walking around taking pictures.
There is one small restaurant called Romeo’s in Juliette that was open for breakfast so we decided to stop in and eat. Ladonna, the owner of this restaurant, is also from California. Her father was the baker at a bakery called D’Eliso’s in Whittier and at 72 he is baking bread and muffins for Romeo’s in Juliette. The food there was amazing and the people so friendly that we came back a few times to eat.
This is the third time I have visited Juliette and one thing is for sure, everywhere you go you will meet somebody who has lived there their whole life. As my boyfriend, son and I were sitting talking, a gentleman, named Mark, at the next table overheard us and asked where we were from. We told him Tampa and he pointed to the yellow house across the street and proceeded to tell us that that was his grandmother’s house. Well, you know this opened the door for me to ask a ton of questions about the history of Juliette. He used to own the antique shop, which is now the Whistle Stop Cafe. He has lived in Juliette his whole life and still lives just up the road. He told us how the dam was built in 1920 and that they are currently trying to tear it down, but the town is fighting it. He remembered when the movie crew first showed up in town, looking around and asking questions. In fact, the restaurant where we were eating breakfast was the same place they used to feed to movie crew. The movie crew made the Whistle Stop Cafe the way it is today and part of the deal was the owner requested it be left that way after they were done filming. We were sitting across the street from the Sheriffs station and the Opry House, where they still have concerts once a month. Mark’s church donated some old pews to replace the shaky seats that used to be there.
He also told us the cabins where we were staying were originally made with parking spaces underneath for motorcycles. When we came back to the cabin and saw the space underneath it made total sense. I took some pictures with Mark with the thought that we would see him again before heading home. After all, it is a small town and I’m sure he is a regular at Romeo’s because everybody sure knew who he was.
After leaving Mark, we walked over to the Whistle Stop, which was still closed. The restaurant is only open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, but you can go around back to see Smokey Lonesome’s (Timothy Scott) house and the famous grill.
In a cement slab right by the grill you will find the words, “Here lies Frank Bennett of Valdosta. ‘The secret was in the sauce’ and here!” You can almost smell the BBQ cooking just standing there.
The whole time you are in Juliette, the trains go by often. After leaving the small town we walked back to the cabin along the train tracks and found several railroad spikes, which I collected to bring home. I have had people ask me to bring a rock from Juliette, but I think the railroad spikes are much better souvenirs.
We decided to take a walk up the river towards the dam that Buddy Threadgoode (Chris O’Donnell), Idgie and Ruth walked across right before Buddy got hit by the train. If you ever decide to do this, make sure you wear water shoes because the rocks hurt to walk on. It really is a beautiful sight to see and looks exactly as it did in the movie. You can also see where Idgie sat fishing when Ruth was trying to make friends with her right before they jumped into the train car and threw food to the homeless, and where Idgie sat by the fire with Big George (Stan Shaw) right after Buddy died.
The one thing we had to do was walk across the dam like they did in the movie and I figured out that the water was shallow enough for me to carry my camera to take pics. The view from the dam with the Juliette Mill in the background is a beautiful sight to see.
That night my boyfriend and I took all four kids to eat at the Whistle Stop Café. It’s a pretty busy place on a Saturday night with locals and some tourists. The menu offers good ol’ southern cooking with all the fixin’s, like mac and cheese, greens, stewed tomatoes, creamed corn, and fried okra. I had fried chicken and it was so yummy. My boyfriend Alex had the BBQ pulled pork (“The secret’s in the sauce!”), and, for sure, we had fried green tomatoes as an appetizer.
The inside of the cafe looks almost exactly as it did in the movie, except that the booths are situated a little differently now. After dinner we took all the kids around back to take pics of the BBQ pit and Smokey Lonesome’s house.
After dinner, we went back to the cabins and I hung a sheet off the deck, pulled out my portable projector that I bought from Brookstone and we all sat and watched Fried Green Tomatoes with the trains going by in the background – the perfect way to end to a perfect day in Juliette, Georgia.
Last but not least, we visited the Juliette United Methodist Church where Buddy’s funeral was held.
The sad part is that the Threadgoode house, the train tracks where Buddy was killed, and the club where Idgie and Ruth played poker are all pretty far away from Juliette. I really wanted to see the train tracks where Buddy got his foot stuck.
All in all, this was by far one of the best vacations I have been on. The people of Juliette are all very sweet. I also highly recommend the cabins where we stayed: Old Mill Riverfront Cabins. If you are a Fried Green Tomatoes addict like our family is please make sure you put this on your bucket list.
A huge, special THANK YOU to Sara for writing this amazing guest post!
Be sure to check out today’s post for L.A.mag.com, about the U.S. Bank Tower from Independence Day. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
I deserve a facepalm for today’s location! For ages I had been trying to track down the Los Angeles steakhouse where Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) dined with “Letterman Lew” (Sam Seder) in the Season 3 episode of Sex and the City titled “Sex and Another City.” Because the episode had been filmed over 15 years ago, I figured the restaurant was most likely no longer in existence, but still spent quite a lot of time searching for it regardless. Then in April, I had a brainstorm. I decided to tweet to Sam Seder to ask if he remembered where filming had taken place. Not only was he nice enough to respond, but he did indeed remember the restaurant! As it turns out, it was a place I had stalked before and even blogged about – Musso and Frank Grill, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood! How I did not recognize it is beyond me! Not to mention the fact that I should have realized Sex and the City would utilize one of L.A.’s most historic eateries while filming on location in La La Land. Since my original post on Musso and Frank was written waaaaay back in August 2008, I figured the place was most-definitely worthy of a redux.
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Musso and Frank Grill, or Musso’s as it is commonly called, was originally established by Frank Toulet in 1919 as Frank’s Francois Café in a space located at 6669 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1923, Frank partnered up with Joseph Musso and renamed the restaurant Musso and Frank Grill. French chef Jean Rue created the menu with offerings of classic comfort foods, steaks and French-inspired fare. Amazingly, little of that menu has been changed since.
Despite the fact that Musso and Frank Grill was immediately successful, Toulet and Musso sold it to Joseph Carissimi and John Mosso in 1926. The restaurant continued to be profitable under Carissimi and Mosso’s tutelage and eight years later it was moved to a larger space one storefront east at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard. The following year, the duo opened the Back Room, a private enclave for the movers and shakers of the day to congregate. The room became especially popular with the literary world and such luminaries as William Faulkner, Dashiell Hammett, John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and T.S. Eliot all spent time there. Raymond Chandler is even said to have written The Big Sleep largely from the Back Room. The space was eventually dubbed the “Writers’ Room” and a Los Angeles Times article stated that if you spent enough time there you “…would have seen every living writer you had ever heard of, and some you would not know until later.”
When Carissimi and Mosso’s lease on the Back Room expired in 1955, they moved all of its furnishings, including the bar, wood paneling and wall sconces, to the storefront located next door to Musso and Frank. That space was dubbed the “New Room.” It still bears that name today, despite the fact that it has been in existence for sixty years. The New Room, pictured below, continued its tradition of popularity with writers of the day and Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut and Charles Bukowski were all said to have hung out there.
Musso’s was immensely popular with the Hollywood set, as well. Just a few of the stars who dined there during the early years include John Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Orson Welles, Jimmy Stewart, Rudolph Valentino, Cecil B. DeMille, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Bing Crosby and my girl Marilyn Monroe. Charlie Chaplin was such a frequent patron that he had his own booth. Pictured below, it is the booth located at the front, western corner of the restaurant’s main room. In more recent years, Tom Cruise, James Woods, Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, Francis Ford Coppola, Keith Richards, Sean Penn and Drew Barrymore have all been spotted at Musso’s.
In “Sex and Another City,” Miranda and her old friend Lew head to Musso and Frank Grill to enjoy a New York strip steak. While dining, Miranda learns that Lew is on a special diet in which he chews his food, but doesn’t swallow it. Needless to say, their meal does not end well.
In the episode, Miranda and Lew were seated in the New Room.
Musso’s has popped up in countless movies and television shows over the years. In 1994’s Ed Wood, the restaurant is where Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) has a chance encounter with Orson Welles (Vincent D’Onofrio).
Only the exterior of Musso and Frank was used in the filming, though. Interiors were shot elsewhere.
Musso and Frank’s parking lot masked as the parking lot of the Dresden, where Sue (Patrick Van Horn) got into a fight with “House of Pain” in the 1996 comedy Swingers.
Though the restaurant’s rear awning was covered over to read “Dresden” in the scene . . .
. . . Musso and Frank’s parking lot signage was still visible.
The eatery’s parking lot also appeared in the 2003 comedy Hollywood Homicide.
Musso and Frank was featured twice in 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven. It is first where Danny Ocean (George Clooney) tells Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) about his plan to rob three Las Vegas casinos.
Later in the movie, the two discuss whether or not to bring on an eleventh person while sitting at Musso’s bar.
Musso and Frank is where the Diablo Cartel, Tanaka Yakuza, the Antonioni Crime Family and Seamus O’Grady (Justin Theroux) hand over briefcases full of cash in 2003’s Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
The restaurant popped up several times on the television series Mad Men. It was featured twice in Season 1’s “Red in the Face.” In the beginning of the episode, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Roger Sterling (John Slattery) have drinks at Musso’s before heading to Don’s house for dinner.
Later in the episode, the two return to eat oysters at Musso’s.
Musso and Frank masked as Sardi’s, where Don grabbed a bite with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw), in Season 2’s “The New Girl.”
It was also used twice in the Season 4 episode titled “The Rejected.” It first popped up as the spot where Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) found out from Tom Vogel (Joe O’Connor) that his wife was pregnant.
Later in the episode, it masked as Jim Downey’s Steak House, where Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) confronted Pete about calling him an “all-American idiot who fell into everything.”
In the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “Nerdy Little Secrets,” Marla Templeton (Sally Kellerman) told Annie Wilson (Shenae Grimes) about her life in Hollywood while dining at Musso and Frank.
Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) celebrated his birthday at Musso and Frank with Ivan Schrank (Rhys Ifans) and Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig) in the 2010 drama Greenberg.
In the scene, Greta is wearing a Henry’s Taco’s t-shirt. Henry’s is another historic Los Angeles eatery that I blogged about here.
Musso’s has appeared on the television series Scandal no less than three times as Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her father Eli Pope’s (Joe Morton) go-to restaurant. In the Season 3 episode titled “The Fluffer,” the two get a surprise – and unwelcome – visit from Maya Lewis (Khandi Alexander) while eating dinner at Musso and Frank.
Olivia and her father returned to Musso and Frank in the Season 4 episode titled “Randy, Red, Superfreak and Julia.” It is there that Olivia asks Eli if he had anything to do with Harrison Wright’s (Columbus Short) death.
Father and daughter share a meal at the restaurant once again in the Season 5 episode titled “It’s Hard Out Here for a General,” during which Eli scolds Olivia for breaking up with the president when she “had the Oval.”
In the Season 1 episode of Bosch titled “Chapter 1 – Tis the Season,” Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and Julia Brasher (Annie Wersching) get drinks at Musso and Frank.
Musso and Frank Grill is honestly one of the coolest restaurants L.A. has to offer and I cannot more highly recommend a visit!
Be sure to check out my latest article for L.A.mag.com (it’s in the current print edition, too!), about filming locations from True Detective’s sophomore season.
I was able to check two major items off of my Stalking Bucket List while I was in Sin City this past March. First was seeing Britney Spears’ “ . . . Baby One More Time” costume at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Second was touring the Neon Museum Las Vegas. Both experiences definitely lived up to the hype.
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I first learned about the Neon Museum – aka the Neon Boneyard, aka the Neon Graveyard – years ago while watching the 1989 New Kids on the Block documentary Hangin’ Tough. In the short, Donnie, Joey and the gang visit the Boneyard during a tour stop in Las Vegas. I have never been a huge NKOTB fan so I am not sure how I came to watch the documentary, but I vividly remember drooling upon seeing the Graveyard. I thought it was one of the coolest places I had ever laid eyes upon and had been itching to stalk it ever since.
You can watch the Hangin’ Tough documentary below. The segment filmed at the Neon Boneyard begins at 1:45.
Speaking of boy bands, do my fellow stalkers remember this gem? I was obsessed with this song for a good year – and I was in my mid-twenties at the time! But I digress.
When Hangin’ Tough was filmed in ‘89, the Graveyard was known as the YESCO (Young Electric Sign Company) Boneyard and it was located at 5119 Cameron Street. YESCO was originally founded by Thomas Young in Utah in 1920. The company opened an outpost in Las Vegas in 1945 and went on to create some of the city’s most iconic signage, including that of the Pioneer Club, Golden Nugget, Glitter Gulch, Stardust, and the Silver Slipper. As casinos were torn down or signage replaced, many of the old signs were relocated to a vacant plot of land at YESCO headquarters. That land became known as the Neon Boneyard. It was not open to the public, but was used occasionally as a filming location.
In 1996, the Neon Museum was established to “collect, preserve, and exhibit neon signs, the classic Las Vegas art form.” The museum leased a 2-acre plot of land on Las Vegas Boulevard South to house the signs it had collected, many of which had been donated by YESCO. Tours of the site were given on a by-appointment basis.
When the La Concha Motel, which originally stood at 2955 Las Vegas Boulevard South, was set to be demolished in 2005, its owners donated its former lobby building to the museum to be used as a visitors’ center. The structure was dismantled in 2006 and reassembled the following year on the museum property.
The arresting shell-shaped building was designed by architect Paul Revere Williams in 1961. It was constructed out of concrete and glass, with wings rising 28 feet above the street.
The Neon Museum Las Vegas finally opened to the public on October 27th, 2012.
The facility’s sign makes use of several fonts and symbols featured in famous Las Vegas signs. The first N is modeled after the Golden Nugget signage, the E is a la Caesars Palace, the O is in the style of Binion’s Horseshoe, the final N is from the Desert Inn, and the star is a la the Stardust.
Besides restoring signs to feature in the Boneyard, the museum, along with the City of Las Vegas, has also restored various signs that are now displayed along Las Vegas Boulevard. One such sign is that of the former Silver Slipper.
The Neon Museum actually boasts two different graveyard sites as you can see below. The north one, named the Neon Boneyard North Gallery, is, I believe, used solely for photo shoots and is not accessible to the public.
Tours of the Boneyard, which last an hour, are offered throughout the day and night and run $18 a person. And, let me tell you, they are worth every penny!
With more than 150 signs on display, every inch of the place is just screaming to be photographed. I took over 200 pictures while there and have already bookmarked about 30 that I want to blow up and frame! And I am absolutely itching to go back for a night tour to see the signs lit up in all of their neon glory.
While the photos I took are pretty darn stunning (if I do say so myself!), none of them even mildly do the place justice. The Neon Museum is exponentially cooler in person! I cannot more highly recommend a visit!
A few things to keep in mind before embarking upon a tour yourself – the Graveyard is comprised of gravel pathways, so female stalkers should avoid wearing heels.
It is also HOT out there, so adjust your wardrobe accordingly. We visited the Boneyard in March and it was ungodly warm, so I cannot even imagine what it is like during the summer months.
Tours also sell out regularly, so I would highly recommend booking tickets well in advance.
The skull is situated facing upward, which makes for some pretty cool aerial views of the Boneyard.
Also on display is the former Stardust Resort and Casino sign.
Measuring 216 feet in length and 27 feet in height, at the time of its construction in 1958 it was the largest electric sign in the entire world.
I was especially enamored of the sign from the Moulin Rouge Hotel, which opened to the pubic on May 24th, 1955 and shut its doors by November of that year, a scant six months later.
Both the YESCO Boneyard and the Neon Museum have been featured countless times onscreen. In the 1995 thriller Beyond Desire, Rita (Kari Wuhrer) took Ray Paterson (William Forsythe) for a brief visit to YESCO.
In the 1996 comedy Mars Attacks, Rude Gambler (Danny DeVito) meets his demise at the YESCO Graveyard after running there while trying to escape from Martians.
YESCO was also featured in the 1997 romcom Fools Rush In, in the scene in which Jeff (The Closer’s Jon Tenney) tries to convince Alex Whitman (Matthew Perry) to divorce Isabel Fuentes Whitman (Salma Hayek).
That same year, Audrey Griswold (Marisol Nichols) and Cousin Vicki (Shae D-lyn) attended a party at the YESCO Graveyard in Vegas Vacation.
The Lady Luck sign that Vicki danced on in the movie is visible below. Our tour guide informed us that Shae D-lyn did actually dance upon the actual sign during the filming of the scene.
By the time the Season 4 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “No More Bets” was shot in 2004, the Graveyard had been moved to its current location.
In the episode, the body of a murder victim is found at the Boneyard.
The body is found propped up against a large neon W, which is said to be a former part of the Whisky Town Casino sign in the episode. That W was not a prop, but is an actual sign displayed at the Graveyard, though I am uncertain of what hotel it actually came from.
The W is currently displayed behind the Stardust sign.
Though not immediately noticeable, our tour guide pointed it out during our tour and mentioned its appearance in CSI. Um, LOVE it!
The Boneyard was featured in The Killers’ 2005 music video for “All These Things That I’ve Done.”
You can watch that video by clicking below.
Anthony Bordain visited the Neon Museum in the Season 1 episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations titled “Las Vegas,” which was shot in 2005.
The Graveyard was the site of the 2007 music video for Jimmy Eat World’s “Big Casino.”
You can watch that video by clicking below.
Laura Pausini’s 2013 “Se Fue” music video, which featured Mark Anthony, was also shot at the Neon Graveyard.
You can watch that video by clicking below.
In the 2013 comedy Last Vegas, the Neon Museum was where Billy (Michael Douglas) told Diana (Mary Steenburgen) that he had only ever been in love once.
According to a Las Vegas Review-Journal article, the ending of the 2013 thriller Now You See Me was supposed to take place at the Neon Graveyard, but the production ran out of time and was unable to shoot the full sequence. The cast and crew did film on the premises for half of a day, but needed a good three days to complete the scene. Star Isla Fisher said, “It looked so good. I saw the footage. It’s so magical. You just wanna do a photo shoot out there and capture all the faded, rusted, old, incredible … you know, it’s like being in another world. Another era.” The footage that was shot was thankfully included as a special feature on the Now You See Me DVD.
For the scene, CGI was used to make the Graveyard appear as if it was located in the middle of nowhere.
The La Concha Motel has also appeared onscreen – it was there that Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone) rendezvoused with Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) in the 1995 drama Casino.
Be sure to check out today’s post for L.A.mag.com, about the Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead house. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
