Blast from the Past – IAMNOTASTALKER

March 29, 2019March 27, 2019

Imperial Western Beer Company from “Blast from the Past”

I absolutely hate losing things – it is one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when the items can’t be replaced. Such was the case with a group of photos I took of Union Station’s former Fred Harvey Restaurant back in June 2009. Upon learning about the site and its appearance as the dance club in fave movie Blast from the Past, I toured it as a possible wedding venue and it promptly became one of my top contenders. Closed since 1967, the historic and strikingly unique venue is a virtual time capsule of 1930’s glamour. Though the Grim Cheaper and I ultimately got married elsewhere, Fred Harvey Restaurant left a mark on my heart and I vowed to do a post on it. Somehow, I forgot and it was not until discovering that the space had been renovated and finally reopened (after 51 years!) as the Imperial Western Beer Company last October that I was reminded. When I sat down to pen my post, though, I could not find my photos anywhere. I still can’t. Though I am deeply saddened not to have those images, the misplacement gave me a great excuse to get back out there to see the restaurant in its revamped state.

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Part of the Fred Harvey Company chain of hotels and eateries, the downtown L.A. Fred Harvey Restaurant, which I’ve also seen referred to as the “Fred Harvey Room” and “Harvey House,” initially opened along with Union Station in 1939.

The popular conglomerate, established in 1876, catered to commuters and travelers by offering quick, tasty meals in upscale locations dotted near train stations all over the U.S. The company was also noted for only employing women who became known as “Harvey Girls.” Per a 2009 Los Angeles Times article (which unfortunately is not online), founder Fred Harvey hired the fairer sex because they were less inclined “to get likkered up and go on tears.”

Union Station’s Fred Harvey outpost was designed by architect Mary Colter in the Art Deco and Spanish Colonial Revival styles.

With a colorful tiled entrance,

a large central lunch counter,

rounded leather booths,

a three-story vaulted ceiling,

a grand staircase . . .

. . . leading up to a mezzanine,

and dazzling patterned flooring,

the space really was a sight to behold – and still is.

Fred Harvey proved so popular that in 1941 the need to expand arose and a bar area was added in what was formerly an adjacent breezeway.

Colter was pegged to design the 2,300-square-foot addition and did so to spectacular fashion in the Streamline Moderne style.

During its glory years, the restaurant served more than 800 meals an hour and more than 100,000 hungry patrons each day, per L.A. Weekly.

As train travel waned following World War II, Fred Harvey patronage died off and the place was eventually shuttered in 1967. It would stay that way for the next five decades, opening only for special events and filming.

Though recent years saw a definite want for a new eatery to open in the space, bringing the site up to code proved cost prohibitive. So it remained vacant. You can see what it looked like during that time here.

Finally, in 2014, restauranteur Cedd Moses of 213 Hospitality (the company also owns frequent film stars Casey’s Irish Pub, and Cole’s French Dip) stepped in with a grand vision to restore the place to its original glory and re-open it as a brewery/gastropub. And thus, Imperial Western Beer Company – named in honor of the Imperial, a Southern Pacific liner that initially ran between Los Angeles and Yuma in the 1930s – was born.

The restoration process took four years to complete and, though the menu was modernized and the property brought up to code, aside from turning the lunch counter into a bar, the furnishings and décor were left pretty much intact.

The 1941 bar addition also got a revamp . . .

. . . and is now known as “The Streamliner.”

Of the finished product, Moses told L.A. Weekly, “To me it’s a love letter to our city. We felt responsible to bring this back in a great way and hopefully do the space justice. My only regret is that my father wasn’t here to see it.” Sadly, Cedd’s dad, artist Ed Moses, who hung out at Fred Harvey Restaurant back in the day and even once dated a Harvey Girl, passed away shortly before the eatery opened.

Considering the property’s immaculately preserved state and years of vacancy, it is no surprise that it wound up in scads of productions.

In the 1999 romcom Blast from the Past, Fred Harvey Restaurant portrayed Club 40’s, where Adam (Brendan Fraser) dazzled Eve (Alicia Silverstone) with his swing-dancing prowess.

The exterior, which was heavily dressed with window coverings, neon lights, palm trees and awnings, made a brief appearance in the scene.

The Streamliner popped up briefly, as well.

In 1998, The Brian Setzer Orchestra fittingly shot their video for the swing classic “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” at Fred Harvey Restaurant. You can watch it here.

Fiona Apple’s 2000 “Paper Bag” video, which was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, made spectacular use of the space . . .

. . . and gives us a great glimpse of what the lunch counter looked like prior to being transformed into a bar.

In the 2003 comedy Anger Management, Fred Harvey Restaurant portrays Mort’s, said to be on 86th Street in New York, where Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler) stages a fake date to make his ex-girlfriend jealous. The exterior of the eatery . . .

. . . as well as the interior . . .

. . . and The Streamliner all make appearances.

In the 2005 thriller The Island, the site masks as the Yucca Amtrak station where Tom Lincoln (Ewan McGregor) and Sarah Jordan (Scarlett Johansson) attempt to catch a train to L.A. . . .

. . . before James McCord (Steve Buscemi) is shot off the mezzanine . . .

. . . and into the bar below.

Fred Harvey Restaurant plays La Noche Cubana nightclub, where Abby (Katherine Heigl) and Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) grab drinks and dance towards the end of the 2009 romcom The Ugly Truth (another one of my favorites).

And in the 2011 drama Atlas Shrugged: Part I, Paul Larkin (Patrick Fischler), Orren Boyle (Jon Polito), Wesley Mouch (Michael Lerner), and James Taggart (Matthew Marsden) discuss taking down Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler) while at Fred Harvey Restaurant.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Imperial Western Beer Company, from Blast from the Past, is located on the southern side of Union Station at 800 North Alameda Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the gastropub’s official website here. The restaurant is open weekdays starting at 4 p.m. and weekends beginning at 12 p.m.

November 16, 2018November 16, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . . and the Panorama Suite.

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

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

. . . one of its rooms . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

July 13, 2009July 13, 2009

The Blast from the Past Strip Mall

Since I was in the area this past week stalking a wedding venue, I decided to pay a little visit to the strip mall featured in fave romantic comedy Blast from the Past. In the flick, which opens up in the year 1962, a nuclear-war-fearing Christopher Walken builds a massive fallout shelter for his wife and unborn son directly underneath his suburban home. When a small plane fortuitously crashes onto his property, Walken fears a bomb has been dropped on America and immediately locks his family in the homemade shelter where they remain for the next 35 years. While the family is living underground, a strip mall comprised of a dive bar, an adult bookstore, and a 50s diner, is built on the spot where their home used to stand. That strip mall is what I set out to stalk last week.

And I am happy to report that it looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did in Blast from the Past. According to fave website Seeing Stars, which is how I originally found this location, all three storefronts used in the movie were vacant at the time of filming. And, after recently re-watching BFTP, I am fairly certain that filming not only took place outside of the empty shops, but inside of them, as well. Pictured above is the storefront used as the dilapidated 50s diner originally named “Mom’s” in the movie. It is this shop that is located directly above the fallout shelter and into which the shelter’s elevator rises through the floor, causing the loopy storeowner to believe an angel has come to save him. In reality, “Mom’s” diner is actually a tattoo parlor.

Directly next door to “Mom’s”, is the storefront that was used as the dive bar “Shangri Lodge” in the movie. Today it is a beauty parlor named “Unlimited Touch Salon” – I don’t even want to know what goes on in there!!! LOL LOL LOL

Next door to the salon is the storefront that was featured as the adult bookstore in the movie. Just before Brendan Fraser makes his first visit above ground, Christopher Walken warns him to stay away from the adult bookstore as there is “invisible, poisonous gas” inside of it. LOL LOL LOL In reality, that shop is now an antique clock store.

The tiki bar that Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser kiss in front of at the end of the movie is in actuality a large bakery and pastry shop.

I find it kind of ironic that, in what is definitely a case of life imitating art, two of the empty storefronts eventually became seedy shops – a tattoo parlor and a salon with a highly suggestive name – much like was the case in the movie. And while I, of course, had fun stalking the strip mall, I can’t say I’d really recommend it to others. It’s kind of in a seedy area and unfortunately there isn’t all that much to see. For fans of the movie, like me, I’d instead recommend stalking Alicia Silverstone’s adorable little house from the film. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blast from the Past strip mall is located at 7218-7222 Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. Mom’s diner, under which Brendan Fraser’s bomb shelter was located, can be found at 7222 Topanga Canyon Blvd. The Shangri Lodge Bar is really the Unlimited Touch Salon which is located at 7220 Topanga Canyon. And the “poison gas” adult bookstore is really Denny’s Clocks, which can be found at 7218 Topanga Canyon. Pastries by Edie, the bakery where Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser kiss in the movie, is located next to the strip mall, at 7226 Topanga Canyon Blvd.

July 8, 2009July 8, 2009

The Blast from the Past House

UPDATE: Just a quick note to let all of you stalkers out there know that tonight at 11 p.m. PST I will be interviewed by radio host Peter Anthony Holder for his talk show Holder Tonight on Montreal’s number one English talk station, CJAD, and on their sister station CFRB, which is the number one talk station in Toronto! 🙂 Those of you who want to listen in to a live stream can do so at www.CJAD.com or www.CFRB.com. The live stream link for both stations is located on the upper left hand side of their homepage. Then tomorrow morning Kelly Green, from Tensessee’s The Farm 100.9, will be interviewing me at 7:20 a.m., but unfortunately it doesn’t look like that station has streaming audio. 🙁 http://www.thefarmradio.com/greenteam.htm Hopefully they will put the interview in the archive section of their website, though, and I’ll be able to post a link. Now on to the post! 🙂

A few weeks ago, I dragged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, out to a location I have been meaning to stalk for quite a while now – Alicia Silverstone’s cute little craftsman house from the 1999 movie Blast from the Past. I had actually been wanting to stalk the adorable house ever since I first saw the movie over ten years ago, but had no idea where it was located. So, when I found out that Mike knew the address and had actually stalked the home several times previously, I begged him to take me there. 🙂

I am very happy to report that the house looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Blast from the Past – right down to the little red car parked out front! I’m not kidding – that red car really was parked out there while we were stalking the place!!!! LOL LOL LOL I was shocked to discover, though, that the Blast from the Past house was located in Los Angeles, because, thanks to its Craftsman style architecture, it actually looks more like a Pasadena area home. Even stranger still is the fact that in the beginning of the movie, when Brendan Fraser leaves his family’s bomb shelter, his mom tells him to seek out “a girl from Pasadena”, because she’s “always found girls from Pasadena to be a little bit nicer”. 🙂 So, basically, the Blast from the Past location scouts went, not to Pasadena, but to Los Angeles to find a Pasadena style home to stand in for a Pasadena girl’s residence. That’s Hollywood for you! 🙂

The house, most notably the front door and front porch area, show up numerous times throughout the movie.

And it is on the street in front of the home that Brendan Fraser runs away from the County Family Services people . . .

. . . and crashes his rented meat truck into the County Family Service woman’s car. LOL LOL LOL

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I was shocked to discover, while doing research for this post, that the same home was also used in the 1974 movie Chinatown as the house where the mysterious Katherine (Belinda Palmer) hides out. It is amazing to me how similar the home still looks thirty-five years later!! According to IMDB, the same house was also featured in the 2000 made-for-TV movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, but I haven’t been able to verify that. I can say for certain, though, that it was not the main house used in the movie.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blast from the Past house is located at 1972 Canyon Drive, just off of Franklin Avenue, in Los Angeles.