Gossip Girl locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

July 16, 2013July 16, 2013

Ladurée from “Gossip Girl”

Ever since watching the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Juliet Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”, in which Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) was shown in a bubble bath eating a box, ahem, boxes of Ladurée macarons, I have been just slightly obsessed with the Paris-based confectionery. Since the chain’s only U.S. outpost is located in New York, though, and since it did not open until August 2011 and my last trip to the Big Apple was in 2009 (yikes!), I had never had the chance to sample any of the bakery’s iconic pastel-colored wares. So when my best friend, Robin, informed me that Ladurée had a shop in Zurich, I just about passed out from excitement and added the place to my Switzerland Must-Stalk list – even though, being that nothing has been filmed there, it is not technically a stalking location.

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Ladurée was originally founded as a small bakery at 16 rue Royale in Paris in 1862 by a miller from the southwest of France named Louis Ernest Ladurée. In 1871, the shop was burned in a fire and Louis subsequently built a larger pastry store in its place. He commissioned French painter/poster artist Jules Cheret to design the interior, which was bathed in a celadon hue. It was not until 1930, though, when the shop started serving its now legendary macarons, that Ladurée gained its immense popularity. There are several differing accounts as to who actually created the macaron as it is known today, but, according to the Ladurée website, Louis’ grandson, Pierre Desfontaines, is the responsible party. Although a single-decker variety of the meringue cookie had been in existence since the 1500s, it was not until Pierre came up with the idea of cementing two of those wafers together with a ganache paste that the contemporary macaron was born. The rest, as they say, is history.

Shortly thereafter, Pierre, acting upon an idea from Louis’ wife, Jeanne Souchard, decided to open a female-friendly tea salon on the premises. At the time, the fairer sex was not allowed inside of Paris cafes. As you can imagine, the Ladurée tea room quickly became a massive hit.

In 1993, the father and son duo of Francis and David Holder purchased the bakery with the hopes of taking it global. And that they did. The second Ladurée opened on Paris’ prestigious Champs-Élysées in 1997. Thirteen additional French stores quickly followed. Today the company has boutiques in twenty different countries, including Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Hong Kong, from which it sells a whopping 15,000 cookies per day.

The interior of Ladurée (which we, unfortunately, were not allowed to take photographs of) is like a cotton-candy dreamworld! It is absolutely adorable and filled to the brim with pastel-colored boxes, which have become collectors items among macaron aficionados.

Robin’s mom, Doina, and girlfriend, Steffi, and I opted for the bakery’s vanilla-flavored macaron variety and it was pretty much the best thing I have ever eaten! As someone who has sampled quite a few different macaron brands in her day, I can honestly say that Ladurée puts them all to shame! If there was a California branch, I wouldn’t be able to stay away! Thank God there is not, otherwise I would be in permanent diabetic shock. 😉 Amazingly enough, at most Ladurée outposts in other countries, the cookies are not made onsite, but flown in daily from Paris! That is not the case with the shop in Zurich, though, so Doina, Steffi and I were lucky enough to taste fresh cookies made right on the premises.

Gossip Girl is hardly the first production to make use of Ladurée macarons. Not only were the cookies featured in Marie Antoinette . . .

. . . but the confection actually formed the basis of the color palate for the entire 2006 movie. As stated in an article from London’s The Times Magazine, “At the start of pre-production, [director Sophia] Coppola handed [costume designer] Milena Canonero a box of pastel-coloured macaroons from the Ladurée pastry house. ‘She told me, “These are the colours I love”,’ recalls Canonero. ‘I used them as a palette.’” Love it!

And while a few websites have stated that the final episode of Sex and the City did some filming at the Ladurée store in Paris, I scanned through the episode yesterday and did not see the bakery pop up anywhere.

Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for even more stalking fun! And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Swiss outpost of Ladurée, Blair Waldorf’s favorite macaron shop on Gossip Girl, is located at Kuttelgasse 17, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland. You can visit the official Ladurée website here.

November 9, 2011October 16, 2011

Charlie’ Apartment Building from “Gossip Girl”

Well, it certainly looks as if it is shaping up to be Gossip Girl week here at IAMNOTASTALKER.com because here I am yet again with yet another location from the fabulous teen drama series – this time the apartment building where con-artist Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) lived with her chef boyfriend, Max (aka Brian J. Smith), in the Season 5 episode titled “Beauty and the Feast”. This location was once again found by fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website who has somehow managed to track down all of the Los-Angeles-area locales featured in the two episodes of the series that were filmed on the West Coast this past August. Thank you, Geoff! So, I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to West Hollywood to stalk the place, shortly before grabbing cocktails at Eveleigh Restaurant a few weeks back.

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The exterior of Charlie’s apartment building is featured three times in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl. It first pops up in the scene in which Charlie and Max discuss the difficulties of trying to make it as an actor in Los Angeles.

It next shows up in the scene in which Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) waits outside for Charlie in order to confront her about her bounced rental deposit check.

And finally it appears in the scene in which Serena arrives via limo to pick Charlie up to take her to their grandmother’s house in Montecito.

No filming took place inside of any of the actual apartment units, though. The interior of Charlie and Max’s dwelling was, I am fairly certain, just a set that was most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed, as was the case with Diana Payne’s bedroom which I talked about in yesterday’s post. You can check out some photographs of what the interior of the real-life apartments actually look like here and here. As you can see, they do not match up at all to what appeared onscreen and do not have nearly the same amount of charm that Charlie and Max’s apartment had.

I really had to laugh when Serena tried to convince Charlie to move out of the apartment building by saying, “But you can’t live here!” LOL While the outside of the place is a bit bland, I actually thought the interior of Charlie’s pad was kind of cute and not nearly the dump that Serena made it out to be. And I absolutely fell in love with her little kitchen alcove, which is pictured above. As my friend Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, “It’s adorbs!” But then again, I did not grow up on the Upper East Side, so what do I know? Winking smile

In real life, the exterior of Charlie’s apartment building looks pretty much exactly the same as it did on Gossip Girl. I am totally kicking myself, though, as I SO wished I had leaned against the entryway to pose for a picture as Serena had done in the episode! I do not know WHY I did not think of it at the time. UGH! Ah well, I will just have to drag the GC back there sometime to re-stalk the place.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Charlie’s apartment building, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1009-1015 North Croft Avenue in West Hollywood.

November 8, 2011October 16, 2011

Diana Payne’s House from “Gossip Girl”

Another Los-Angeles-area location from fave show Gossip Girl that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, tracked down recently was the home belonging to Diana Payne (aka Elizabeth Hurley) in the Season 5 episode titled “Yes, Then Zero”. Because Gossip Girl is primarily filmed on the East Coast, I was beyond excited when the cast and crew descended upon Tinseltown in early August to lens a few scenes and was positively itching to stalk absolutely everything and anything from the New-York-based series that I could. And being that I had fallen in love with Diana’s Mid-Century-modern-style abode at first sight while watching the episode, I just about died of excitement when Geoff emailed me to let me know that he had somehow managed to track the place down. So I, of course, promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the dwelling the very next day.

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In the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, recent Los-Angeles-transplant Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) invites her visiting friends Nate Archibald (aka Chace Crawford) and Chuck Bass (aka cutie Ed Westwick – sigh!) to attend a show biz party at the hilltop home of media mogul Diane Payne. And I just have to say here that the “Yes, Then Zero” episode featured one of my very favorite lines ever uttered on the series – when Serena’s boss, Marshall (aka Ethan Peck), speaks to her in a condescending manner, Nate says, “Well, the zip codes may be different, but douchebags are the same no matter where you go!” LOVE IT! But I digress. Anyway, several areas of Diana’s abode were featured in the Hollywood party scene, including the front exterior;

the amazing backyard;

. . . and some of the property’s interior.

I am fairly certain, though, that the bedroom that was shown in the episode was just a set (most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed) as it does not match up to any of the bedrooms featured on the home’s real estate website.

It, in fact, even reminds me a bit of Serena’s former bedroom at her mother’s house (which you can see more pictures of here) where Cousin Charlie (aka Kaylee DeFer) is now living, which makes me wonder if the same space was redressed to be used for the filming of the scene at Diana’s house. But who knows.

Diana’s home pops up a second time in the “Yes, Then Zero” episode, in the scene in which Nate returns to the residence in order to retrieve his phone, which he accidentally left behind the previous evening. The areas featured in that scene include the front exterior;

the backyard;

and the main entrance.

I am very happy to report that Diana’s house is just as cool in person as it appeared to be onscreen. In fact, it is exactly the type of place I imagine Frank Sinatra used to hang out at back in the heyday of Hollywood. I can so picture Ol’ Blue Eyes kicking back there, looking out at the view, listening to LP records, and mixing up martinis for the rest of the Rat Pack. Ironically enough, the property, which was first built in 1972, was not originally designed in the Mid-Century-modern-style you see pictured above, but as a French-ranch-style abode!

As you can see in the aerial views pictured above, Diana’s abode was given an extensive facelift in recent years, whereupon it was transformed into the Mid-Century modern marvel that it is today. Bonura Building Architects & General Contractors, along with CTW Engineers and Mark Schomisch Design, handled the remodel, during which an infinity edge pool was added, walls were taken down, and an open floor plan was created. As you can see in these pictures, the result was nothing short of spectacular! The home, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and approximately 3,300 square feet of living space, currently features cantilevered stairs, travertine flooring, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls. And, according to fave website The Real Estalker, the property also has a celebrity connection! In February of 2007, American-Idol-creator Simon Fuller purchased the dwelling for a cool $7,650,000 to use as an interim residence while his Beverly Hills manse was being renovated. He then sold the place in May of 2008 for $8.5 million.

There is an ABSOLUTELY amazing home visible from the front of Diana’s house that the GC and I became just a wee bit obsessed with while there. The home is located at 1474 Blue Jay Way and it was apparently only built just recently. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to live there!

You can watch a video which showcases that house by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Diana Payne’s house, from the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1407 Tanager Way in the Hollywood Hills.

November 7, 2011October 16, 2011

Eveleigh Restaurant from “Gossip Girl”

Fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, emailed me a few weeks back to let me know that he had tracked down the open-air-patio-ed restaurant where Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) and Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) ate lunch in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Beauty and the Feast”. And while that lunch was supposed to have taken place in Los Angeles and some scenes from that episode were actually filmed in the SoCal area, I had been absolutely convinced that Serena and Charlie’s restaurant was located in New York. Not only did the place just look like a Manhattan-style eatery to me, but in the previous episode, which was titled “Yes, Then Zero”, Colonie, a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, had been made to appear as if it was located in L.A. So when I received Geoff’s email alerting me to the fact that Eveleigh Restaurant in West Hollywood had been used in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode, I practically jumped for joy and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it. Because I was in the thick of my Haunted Hollywood postings at the time, though, I had not been able to blog about the place until today. So here goes!

I can honestly say that Eveleigh, which opened on November 1st, 2010 in a space that used to house a Kenneth Cole shoe store, is easily one of the coolest places I have ever been! From the outside, the restaurant does not look like anything out of the ordinary. In fact, with its large hedges, unmarked doorway, and sidewalk street sign that screams “Sunset Blvd”, the eatery could not seem any more “Hollywood”. But when you step inside, it is a different story entirely.

From Eveleigh’s airy front patio . . .

. . . to its cozy fireplace, complete with armchairs . . .

. . . to its central bar and wood-beamed ceilings . . .

. . . to its couch-like and antique school-chair seating . . .

. . . to its exposed wood tables and chalkboard menus . . .

. . . to its sweeping views . . .

. . . to its large, tented back patio – all I can say is, we are certainly not in Los Angeles anymore, Toto! As you can see in the twenty-some-odd pictures I took while there, Eveleigh, named for a suburb in Australia, is entirely unique. It is a little bit country, a whole lotta New York, with a dash of California thrown in for good measure. And I absolutely fell in love with the place on site. The GC and I ended up only having cocktails while there, though, as the menu was a bit too extravagant for my low-brow tastes. The offerings are definitely geared toward “foodies” and not this stalker, who much prefers hot dogs, mac & cheese, and chicken strips to the upscale culinary feasts served at Eveleigh, which include duck rillettes, jidori chicken liver pate, roasted natural bone marrow salad, and crisp sonoma pork belly. We will definitely be stalking the place again, though, and if I am feeling more epicurean-ly brave, I will surely branch out and sample some of the fare.

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In the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, Serena and Charlie, a fraud who is posing as Serena’s cousin, meet up at Eveleigh and discuss life in California and possibly living together.

In the scene, the two sit on the restaurant’s tented patio, near the back bar.

After their meal, they walk past Eveleigh’s main bar, through the front patio area, and out onto Sunset Boulevard.

And our super-nice bartender informed us that the cover shoot for the Fall 2011 issue of Viva Magazine, which featured Paula Abdul, also took place at Eveleigh.

Besides being a filming location, Eveleigh is also something of a celebrity hot-spot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the past year include Ashley Greene, Paula Patton, Nicky Hilton, Nicole Richie, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Dakota Fanning, Kimora Lee Simmons, Lisa Edelstein, Marcia Cross, Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O’Connell, Robin Tunney, Ashley Simpson, Ali Fedotowsky, Sasha Alexander, Jordana Brewster, Pete Wentz, Samantha Ronson, Amy Smart, Rachel Leigh Cook, Dianna Agron, Jamie King, Jessica Capshaw, Busy Phillips, Elisha Cuthbert, Mindy Kaling, Nia Vardalos, Idris Elba, Pierce Brosnan, and Armie Hammer. And the restaurant also has one more celebrity connection. While researching this post, I discovered that back when the place was a Kenneth Cole shoe store, the front patio area was the site of the Kenneth Cole Walk of Fame – a take-off of the iconic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre forecourt in Hollywood. At the KC Walk of Fame, such stars as Elizabeth Taylor (and her dog Sugar), Richard Gere, Matthew Modine, Patricia Arquette, Elizabeth Glaser, Rosie O’Donnell, Julianne Phillips, and Leeza Gibbons all placed their bare feet into blocks of cement outside of the store, with Kenneth Cole promising to donate a portion of sales on the day of each participating star’s birthday to AIDS research. Sadly, when the store closed, the footprints were removed and I can find no information whatsoever about where they are now located. I cannot tell you how said I am that I never got to see them!

On a side-note, I would like to wish my mom a VERY happy 60th birthday today! I love you, Mom! Smile

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Eveleigh Restaurant, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 8752 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

May 27, 2010June 16, 2011

The New York Public Library from “Sex and the City: The Movie”

In honor of today’s big premiere of Sex and The City 2, I thought I’d blog about a location from the original movie that I stalked this past October while I was in Manhattan – the New York Public Library. And even though I’ve actually blogged about this location once before, since I did not include any interior photographs, I thought the place was definitely worth re-visiting. In the original Sex and the City movie, Carrie Bradshaw (aka Sarah Jessica Parker) and her fiancé Mr. Big (aka Chris Noth) plan to hold their upcoming nuptials at the library because, as Carrie says, it is “the classic New York landmark that housed all the great love stories”. The New York Public Library was constructed during the years 1902 through 1911 on the site of the former Croton Reservoir and was designed by the architecture firm Carrere & Hastings. The Beaux-Arts structure, which is made of white marble and cost $9 million to build, encompasses two full blocks of New York City land and contains 88 miles of shelving which holds over seven million books. Amazingly enough, any one of those seven million tomes can be requested and delivered to the library’s main circulation desk within a period of ten minutes or less! The New York Public Library, which was named a National Historic Monument in 1965, is a truly amazing piece of architecture and, being that it is symbolic of the two great loves of Carrie Bradshaw’s life – New York City and writing – it is easy to see why producers chose it as the site of her ill-fated wedding.

The library shows up twice in Sex and the City: The Movie. It first appears in the scene in which Carrie, while returning the book “Love Letters of Great Men, Volume I”, spots a wedding being set up in the library’s mezzanine. She immediately decides the place is the perfect location for her own upcoming nuptials.

That first scene was shot in the extremely beautiful McGraw Rotunda, which is located on the library’s second floor.

The New York Public Library next appears in the big wedding scene, during which Mr. Big stands Carrie up at the altar. And I should state here that the wedding scene seriously annoyed me. I mean, honestly, how many times can we expect Big to screw up before Carrie leaves him for good???? The SATC writers really need to come up with a new way of creating tension, because the whole Big-breaks-Carrie’s-heart thing was already getting old way back in Season 3. We should be long past that storyline by now, but I digress.

According to the SUPER nice security guard I spoke with, producers had the McGraw Rotunda intricately decorated with thousands upon thousands of flowers and other adornments for the wedding scene, yet none of it was visible in the movie. The only time any of the wedding decorations can be spotted is in the above-pictured blink-and-you’ll miss it scene in which Anthony Marentino (aka Mario Cantone) tells an assistant to keep all of the wedding guests off of the main stairwell.

The scene in which Mr. Big tells Carrie via telephone that he “couldn’t get out of the car” and that he will not be going through with the wedding was filmed in the library’s Astor Hall area, just off of the main lobby.

Miranda (aka Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (aka Kristin Davis) immediately grab Carrie and rush her out of the library’s northernmost front door.

And, while I was stalking the library, I, of course, just had to reenact the scene in which a devastated Carrie drops her cell phone after finding out that Big has stood her up.

Sex and the City: The Movie was hardly the first production to film at the library, though. The building was also the site of the benefit gala in the Season 3 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Ex-Husbands and Wives”

In the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paul Varjak (aka George Peppard) and Holly Golightly (aka Audrey Hepburn) stop into the library during their “things we’ve never done before” day. And while the real life exterior of the library appeared in that scene, I cannot say for certain that the actual interior was also used. The interior scenes quite possibly may have been filmed on a studio soundstage. The library also appeared in a later scene in the movie as the spot where Paul first tells Holly that he loves her. And I just have to say here that I find it absolutely amazing that Audrey Hepburn’s costumes are still stylish today, almost five decades after Breakfast at Tiffany’s was filmed! I mean, how adorable is the orange jacket pictured above? But, again, I digress.

In the original Spider-Man movie, Uncle Ben (aka Cliff Robertson) drops off Peter Parker (aka Tobey Maguire) at the library, where he is supposedly going to do some studying. Peter instead goes to a wrestling match dressed as Spider-Man. When Ben later comes to pick Peter up, he gets killed outside of the library’s main entrance.

Jenna Rink (aka Jennifer Garner) and Matt Flamhaff (aka Mark Ruffalo) stage part of their “Class of 2004” photo shoot in front of the New York Public Library in fave movie 13 Going On 30.

In 1997’s Picture Perfect, the library was the site of the Gulden’s Mustard party where Kate Mosley (aka my girl Jennifer Aniston) first becomes disillusioned with the advertising world.

And while a large portion of the movie The Day After Tomorrow was set in the New York Public Library, no filming actually took place there. Instead producers built a replica of the library’s interior on a studio soundstage that they later destroyed during the massive flood scenes. According to the security guard that I spoke with, set designers spent weeks taking measurements of the interior of the library so that it could be exactly replicated for the filming.

In The Thomas Crown Affair, the inside of the library stood in for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the Met refused to let any interior scenes be shot on the premises.

The first Ghostbusters movie actually opens with a shot of the New York Public Library and its famous stone lions, who are named Patience and Fortitude. The library has also appeared in the movies On The Town, Pickup on South Street, A Thousand Clowns, The Clock, King Kong, and You’re a Big Boy Now, and in the television series Kings.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The New York Public library is located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 42nd Street in New York City. It is open to the public daily.

December 28, 2009December 28, 2009

Wollman Ice Skating Rink

I’m sticking with my Christmas stalking theme for one more day – even though it’s already December 28th – as I had originally intended to publish this post on Christmas Eve, but, unfortunately, ran out of time. As I’ve said many times before, though, it’s better to be late than never! So, here goes! One New York location that definitely belongs in any collection of Christmas movie locales is Wollman Ice Skating Rink, a spot which appeared in one of my very favorite holiday flicks of all time, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. I had the pleasure of skating at Wollman Rink with my fiancé back in 2004 and absolutely fell in love with the place. With the Plaza Hotel and other New York skyscrapers towering in the background, the rink actually looks more like a picture postcard than a real life location. If you haven’t been there yourself, take my word for it, Wollman Rink is absolutely magical. 🙂

Wollman Rink was originally constructed in 1949 thanks to a $600,000 donation from New York philanthropist Kate Wollman. Kate had the ice skating rink built in honor of her parents, Jonas and Bettie, and her four brothers, William, Morton, Henry, and Benjamin. From the beginning, Wollman Rink was an immediate success, welcoming over 300,000 skaters in its first year alone. Today, it is visited by an average of 4,000 skaters per day.

Like practically everything else in New York, Wollman Rink is currently owned and operated by real estate mogul Donald Trump, who purchased and completely rebuilt the property back in the ‘90s. His name is displayed on almost every square inch of the rink, lest anyone ever forget who it belongs to. 😉 In the summer months, the rink is transformed into a small amusement park named Victorian Gardens. Wollman Rink is not to be confused with the similarly named Kate Wollman Memorial Rink, which was constructed in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park by the William J. Wollman Foundation upon Kate’s death in 1955.

Thanks to its picturesque appearance, Wollman Rink has long been a favorite of location scouts, appearing in countless movies and television shows over the years. In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Harry and Marv, aka “The Sticky Bandits”, plan their robbery of Duncan’s Toy Chest while skating at Wollman Rink. Ironically enough, though, before my first visit to New York, this stalker was under the mistaken assumption that the Home Alone scene had been filmed at the famous Rockefeller Center ice staking rink. It wasn’t until I started making a stalking itinerary for my first Big Apple vacation that I realized my mistake. As it turns out, New York has not one, but TWO cinematically historic ice skating rinks. But I’ll save the Rockefeller Center rink for a future post. 😉

Wollman Rink also appeared in the Season One episode of Gossip Girl entitled “Roman Holiday”, in the scene in which Blair Waldorf (aka Leighton Meester), along with her mother, her father, and her father’s new boyfriend go ice skating just a few days before Christmas.

On a side note – I am absolutely IN LOVE with the skates with the hanging pink pompoms that Blair wore in that scene!!!! I have GOT to get me a pair of those! 🙂

In Serendipity – one of my fave romcoms of all time! – Jonathan (aka John Cusack) and Sara (aka Kate Beckinsale) go for a late night skate at Wollman Rink after sharing a Frrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3 Restaurant.

After their skate, Jonathan draws the constellation of Cassiopeia on Sara’s arm while sitting on the rink’s benches.

And at the end of the movie, the two star-crossed lovers finally reunite at the rink. Wollman Rink has also been featured in Stepmom, Autumn in New York, Love Story, The January Man, The Devil’s Own, Odds Against Tomorrow, Carnal Knowledge, August Rush, A Journey That Wasn’t, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and the 2005 version of King Kong.

Celebrities also often visit Wollman Rink. In December of 2005, Tom Cruise took his then-pregnant girlfriend Katie Holmes there to celebrate her 27th birthday.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Wollman Rink is located inside Central Park, near the corner of Central Park South and 5th Avenue, in New York. Follow the footpath from the Park’s 59th Street entrance over Gapstow Bridge and the rink will be visible on the west. Wollman Rink is open from November through March. You can visit its official website here.

November 16, 2009November 16, 2009

Bethesda Fountain and Terrace

Just around the corner from the Central Park Boathouse Cafe, which I blogged about on Friday, is another New York landmark known as Bethesda Fountain and Terrace. Because the area is one of my favorite places in all of New York, I’ve actually stalked it numerous times during my many trips to the Big Apple, but, for some reason, never thought to blog about it. Which is actually quite ironic being that the fountain has been immortalized in countless movie and television productions over the years. So, with the mindset of ‘it’s better late than never’, today I thought I’d give it a go. 🙂 The first time I visited Bethesda Fountain and Terrace was back in 2004 during my very first trip to Manhattan. My fiancé and I happened upon the fountain while walking through Central Park and I immediately recognized it from an episode of fave show Sex and the City and just about flipped out. Since that time, I’ve made it a point to visit the area at least once whenever I’m in New York. On a side note – Due to the below freezing temperatures, fountains in Manhattan are turned off during the winter months, which is why Bethesda Fountain is not running in the above photograph which was taken in December of 2004.

Bethesda Fountain, which measures 26 feet tall and 96 feet in diameter and is one of the largest fountains in New York, was the only sculpture that was included in “The Greensward Plan”, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s original design blueprint for Central Park. In the plan, the fountain and terrace area were intended as a gathering place for park-dwellers, a picturesque spot for Manhattanites to congregate and socialize.

The statue that flanks the top of the fountain is named “Angel of the Waters” and was designed by Emma Stebbins, sister of Central Park Commissioner Henry G. Stebbins. The statue, which was built in Germany, took over seven years to construct and wasn’t unveiled until 1873, an additional five years after its completion. The idea behind the neoclassical statue was based on “The Pool of Bethesda”, a man-made bath in Jerusalem, which, as legend had it, was often frequented by angels who could cure the ailing. The fountain was built in commemoration of the Croton Aqueduct, Manhattan’s very first fresh water system, which had been completed thirty years prior. The statue’s largest angel measures eight feet tall and holds a lily in one hand symbolizing the purity of New York’s water, while blessing the waters of the fountain with her other hand.

The four cherubs which stand beneath the main angel represent Peace, Purity, Temperance, and Health.

British architect Jacob Wrey Mould designed the two large staircases which flank the terrace, as well as all of the area’s ornamental details, which include wildlife carvings and over 16,000 intricate Minton tiles.

The Terrace and Fountain area quickly became the focal point of Central Park and even boasted an outdoor restaurant at one time. But during the 1970s, Central Park fell into a terrible state of disarray and, sadly, remained that way for over a decade. When my parents checked into the Plaza Hotel during their very first trip to New York back in 1980, the concierge told them in no uncertain terms NOT to enter the Park under any circumstances. Today, Central Park is so incredibly beautiful and picturesque, that it is EXTREMELY hard for me to imagine it ever being a scary place. During that time, Bethesda Fountain became a haven for the homeless and drug addicted of New York and was even given the nickname “Freak Fountain”. It wasn’t until 1980, when the Central Park Conservancy stepped in with their plan to restore the Park to its original grandeur, that things began to change. The Conservancy’s first step was to renovate the fountain, which had actually been left dry for over a decade. A few months after the fountain was restored, the Terrace area was also renovated. Today, Bethesda Terrace is so grand and so tranquil that it’s hard to believe at one time it was one of the most dangerous areas of the park.

Because it is so incredibly picturesque, Bethesda Terrace is one of the most photographed areas of Central Park and has long been a favorite of movie producers. As mentioned above, I first recognized the area from a Season 2 episode of Sex and the City. In that episode, which was entitled “The Freak Show”, Carrie meets a “normal” guy while sitting by the fountain one spring day and, in an unprecedented move, gives him her unlisted phone number.

In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Kevin is chased onto Bethesda Terrace by Harry and Marv, aka the “Sticky Bandits”. He just narrowly escapes them by hiding in the trunk of a horse drawn carriage.

Not only does Nate run near the fountain in the Season 1 episode of Gossip Girl entitled “Poison Ivy”,

but in that very same episode the fountain shows up as the spot where Serena and Blair have a much needed heart-to-heart.

The Terrace is also the site of the grand finale of the “That’s How You Know” song and dance number from the movie Enchanted.

In Elf, while Will Ferrell is trying to save Christmas, Santa’s sleigh knocks off the tip of the “Angel of the Waters” statue and almost crash-lands on the Terrace’s top level.

The fountain is also the location of the New York City Junior Science Fair from which Mel Gibson and Rene Russo’s son is kidnapped in the 1996 movie Ransom.

It’s also the spot where George Clooney, Michelle Pfeiffer, and their two children frolic in some puddles while on their way to a soccer game in the movie One Fine Day.

The music video for the They Might Be Giants song “They’ll Need a Crane” was also shot in its entirety at Bethesda Fountain.

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The fountain has also been featured in the movies The Producers, The Way We Were, Deconstructing Harry, Sunday in New York, Eyewitness, Stuart Little 2, Hair, Godspell, Everyone Says I Love You, Angels in America, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Tommy Boy, Bullets Over Broadway, It Should Happen to You, It Could Happen to You, Madigan, Green Card, and The Manchurian Candidate, and in episodes of TV’s The Amazing Race, Law and Order, and Lipstick Jungle.

Bethesda Fountain and Terrace is an absolutely beautiful spot and I honestly can’t recommend stalking it enough! It has long been considered “the heart of Central Park” and is definitely a New York must-see!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bethesda Fountain and Terrace are located just off of 72nd Cross Street Drive in Central Park.

October 19, 2009October 19, 2009

Nate Archibald’s Townhouse

Rather than suffer through the re-run abyss airing on most television networks this past summer, my fiance and I instead decided to purchase and watch the first two seasons of the hit CW series Gossip Girl, which neither of us had ever before seen. Even though Mike, from MovieShotsLA, had been telling me for months that I would love the show, I steered clear of it as I had been under the incorrect assumption that it catered mostly to the teeny-bopper set. But, let me tell you, once we finally sat down to watch, it didn’t take long for my fiance and I to become totally and completely hooked!!! As much as it pains me to admit, there were literally whole weekends spent watching back to back episodes, the two of us never once leaving the couch! LOL Needless to say, I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with the show . . . and its locations. And, even though Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass are the two GG characters I love the most, the locale I was most excited about stalking while in New York two weeks ago was the absolutely beautiful Neoclassical townhouse belonging to Nate Archibald (aka Chace Crawford) on the show. I found this location – and a few others – thanks to this awesome website. So, bright and early on our very first morning in NYC, I dragged my parents and my fiance out to finally do some Gossip Girl stalking! 🙂

Ironically enough, when we arrived at the townhouse, I almost didn’t recognize the place thanks to the fact that it was COMPLETELY covered in Halloween decorations. LOL But being that Halloween is my favorite holiday, I really didn’t mind. 🙂 The six story townhouse, which was built in 1910 and measures 11,296 square feet, is absolutely beautiful in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it as the residence of the Archibald family – heirs to the Vanderbilt fortune – on the show.

As fate would have it, while we were taking photographs of the townhouse, the real life owner happened to walk outside, so I, of course, had to ask him a few questions about the filming. He was SUPER nice to us, but was very nonchalant about Gossip Girl, as if the filming of a hit television show on his property was an everyday occurrence, which I suppose, for him, it actually is. LOL Besides telling us that Chace Crawford is very nice in person, the owner also mentioned that the real interiors of his house are used for the filming of the interiors of the Archibald home, as well. So cool! 🙂

Even cooler is the fact that in the Season 2 episode of Gossip Girl entitled “There Might Be Blood”, the real life address of the home is shown as Nate’s return address on the letter he mails to Jenny! 🙂 Love it!

And thanks to fave book Manhattan on Film: Walking Tours of Hollywood’s Fabled Front Lot, I found out that the Archibald townhouse was also used as the office of therapist Susan Lowenstein (aka Barbra Streisand) in the 1991 movie The Prince of Tides.

And, from how it appears in the movie, I am pretty sure the real life interiors of the home were also used in the filming.

AND, according to this article, the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, rented this very same house for about six months back in 1999 for the bargain price of $75,000 a month while recording his “Invincible” album. SO COOL!

I honestly can’t recommend stalking Nate’s townhouse enough! It is such an amazing piece of property, that even if it wasn’t a filming location, I’m pretty sure I’d still be obsessed with it. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Nate Archibald’s townhouse from Gossip Girl is located at 4 East 74th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Located right around the corner at 25 East 73rd Street is Via Quadronno, my very favorite place to eat breakfast in all of New York. Their croissants are out of this world!