I recently guested on The Fantastic Story Society podcast, where we discussed everything from how I got started with this crazy hobby to my favorite Haunted Hollywood locations. You can give it a listen here!
Healdsburg Town Plaza from “Scream”
I was saddened to wake up to the news of yet another fire tearing through Sonoma County last Thursday morning, this one threatening Healdsburg, one of my favorite places in the entire world. Not only is the city idyllic, pastoral and ridiculously charming, but it is a filming location to boot, the main square having stood in for downtown Woodsboro in Scream. Healdsburg Town Plaza was, in fact, the site of one of my very first stalking adventures back in late 1997. I have visited it often in the years since, most notably during my epic October 2016 Scream stalking trek in which I hit up every.single.location. featured in the 1996 flick, down to the warehouse where the production’s few sets were built to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the 55-day shoot (the latter was, sadly, lost to the Tubbs Fire in October 2017). Though Healdsburg remains safe from the Kincade Fire for the time being, the city was evacuated and per a Los Angeles Times article is currently a “ghost town,” a situation eerily reminiscent of Scream’s curfew scene which rendered downtown Woodsboro deserted. I pray that the blaze is controlled soon and my thoughts go out to everyone affected, including my aunt and uncle who were recently evacuated from their home in the area. For now, I thought a post on Healdsburg Town Plaza was in order.
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The city of Healdsburg was originally envisioned by businessman Harmon Heald. After failing to strike it rich mining gold, the native Ohioan built a small home in 1851 on what was then a portion of the Rancho Sotoyome land grant. Figuring the site was perfectly situated between San Francisco and the mining areas north of it and would, therefore, be passed through often, he constructed a general store with a post office soon after. A community surrounding the shop quickly developed and in 1857 Harmon commissioned a surveyor to layout a design for a town square and surrounding streets and, thus, Healdsburg and its central plaza were born. The city was incorporated ten years later.
Today, the bucolic one-acre Town Plaza boasts a gazebo, a central fountain, pathways, Canary Island date palms, and redwood trees, all surrounded by a sprinkling of charming shops, cafés, and restaurants. It is small town U.S.A. at its finest!
The fountain at its center, known as Sandborn Memorial Fountain, was donated by Elmer Sandborn in remembrance of his family in 1961. In the square’s early days, though, a bandstand stood as its focal point. The structure not only drew musical acts, but audiences with alcohol in hand, to the consternation of many locals. The Ladies’ Improvement Club got to work on curtailing the drinking and eventually won permission to raze the bandstand in the early 1900s, with a 13-foot marble fountain installed in its place. The revelers couldn’t be curtailed, though – according to The Healdsburg Tribune, a new bandstand was simply built next to the fountain the following day! Healdsburg Town Plaza also saw raucous times in the 1970s, when the Hells Angels made it their regular hangout. Today, the park is, thankfully, much more low-key.
On any given afternoon, you’ll find families picnicking, couples strolling, and visitors relaxing on the many benches that dot the site.
The space is so idyllic that Travel and Leisure deemed it one of “America’s Most Beautiful Town Squares” in 2013.
The surrounding town isn’t too shabby, either!
The last time I visited, in early December 2018, the city was really flaunting its fall colors.
We just don’t get this kind of Autumn vibrancy in Palm Springs.
Show off!
Healdsburg Town Plaza pops up a couple of times in Scream, most notably as the spot where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her friends eat lunch in an early scene. In the segment, during which Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) utters his famous “Liver alone!” line, the group is sitting on Sandborn Memorial Fountain’s north side with their backs to Matheson Street.
Sadly, the fountain has been renovated a bit in the years since filming took place, with its rock siding removed and built-in planters added to its corners.
Even sadder, the park’s quaint white wooden gazebo, visible in the scene, has since been completely replaced. According to a Press Democrat article, the original structure was a “casualty of dry rot and changing taste.” This photo of its demolition, which took place on March 14th, 2007, absolutely breaks my heart.
The gazebo is also where Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), wearing her infamous neon green suit, reports on the murders plaguing Woodsboro in a news clip that Sidney catches on TV in a later scene.
Fortunately, the original gazebo and fountain were both still in place during my early stalks of the square.
Healdsburg Town Plaza is also seen in an establishing segment in which the sun rises on Woodsboro the morning after Sidney is attacked. That bit was filmed on the corner of Center and Plaza Streets.
Per the sheriff I spoke with during my first Healdsburg stalk, the shot was actually lensed early evening as the sun was setting. Apparently, Wes Craven intended to capture it the morning of the last day of the Healdsburg portion of the shoot, but ran out of time, so he instead grabbed it later that day at dusk, knowing that audiences would be none the wiser.
Finally, the plaza serves as a backdrop for the scene in which Woodsboro townspeople lock up and head home before the newly-imposed curfew. Several shops lining the square are featured in the segment including 104 Matheson Street;
312 Center Street, which was the site of Healdsburg Coffee Company at the time of the filming, but today houses The Nectary juice bar;
and the grassy section of the park directly across from 105 Plaza Street . . .
. . . and 111 Plaza Street.
Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood blog, I learned that Healdsburg Town Plaza also appears a few times as Hartfield, Iowa in the 1943 drama Happy Land.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Healdsburg Town Plaza, aka downtown Woodsboro from Scream, is located at the intersection of Healdsburg Avenue & Matheson Street in Healdsburg.
Broadlind Hotel from “Over Her Dead Body”
Over Her Dead Body is hardly a horror flick. In fact, the only thing scary about it is the reviews, with one critic going so far as to opine, “A deceased bride, a depressed groom and a caterer who doubles as a psychic. Yes, it’s an unlikely love triangle, and it’s even more unlikely that you’ll like this film.” Ouch. The 2008 “ghostcom,” as Roger Ebert called it, centers around would-be-newlywed Kate (Eva Longoria), who, after getting killed in a freak accident on her wedding day, decides to spend the afterlife haunting Ashley (Lake Bell), a psychic who starts to show interest in her former fiancé, Henry (Paul Rudd). (I’m not gonna lie, that would be so be me!) I initially learned of the movie many moons ago when fellow stalker Virginie emailed me a couple of its locations including Long Beach’s Broadlind Hotel, which doubled as the apartment building where Ashley lived and was haunted by Kate. I finally sat down to give Over Her Dead Body a watch this week and was shocked to find it cute, sweet and funny – and though not of the horror genre, considering its subject matter, fully fitting of a Haunted Hollywood post.
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Built in 1928 as a boutique lodging by the Piper & Kahrs architecture team, the Italian Renaissance-style Broadlind Hotel featured 20 rooms as well as a manager’s unit at its inception.
The property’s name was derived from its location on the corner of East Broadway and Linden Avenue in Long Beach’s East Village Arts District.
Featuring handsome brickwork, terra cotta detailing, two-story arches dotting the lower levels, and carved wooden doors, the structure, dubbed “the biggest little hotel in Long Beach,” was mainly patronized by naval officers temporarily stationed at the now-defunct Long Beach Naval Complex in its early days. Amenities included a tiled bath and shower in every room and a barbershop, beauty parlor, and restaurant on the ground floor.
The basement level, now home to the Blind Donkey whiskey lounge, served as a gambling hall and watering hole during the Prohibition years.
The Broadlind eventually transitioned into an apartment facility before falling into disrepair and sitting vacant for many years. Then in 2005, it was picked up by a new owner who made plans to restore it to its original use as a boutique lodging. Those plans finally came to fruition in 2017. Today, the 20-room property, a Long Beach Historical Landmark, is marketed as a European-style “ApartHotel,” meaning it is part apartment/part hotel. Each of the units features many of the comforts of home, including a kitchenette with an oven, refrigerator and microwave, cookware, utensils, a flat-screen television with digital channels, and Wi-Fi. Laundry facilities are also on the premises, as well as a lobby balcony for guests to enjoy their morning coffee. In a unique twist, there is no front desk or on-site reception – vacationers are instead granted access to their rooms via keyless entry codes.
The Broadlind even has a penthouse suite in the tower situated at its northeast corner.
The hotel’s ground floor is currently home to a Thai restaurant and a juice bar. And don’t forget about the Blind Donkey in the basement!
Though the place looks absolutely adorable both from the outside and in its website photographs, sadly the reviews are less than stellar. Yelpers really don’t mince words about the property, with one referring to it as “whipped cream on dog sh*t” and another deeming it the “Fyre Festival of hotels.” Yikes!
It is the penthouse area that Ashley calls home in Over Her Dead Body. Oddly, we only get one establishing shot of it throughout the entire movie.
Though I didn’t take a matching photograph, that’s the penthouse in my images below.
Broadlind’s front entrance also makes a brief appearance in the film . . .
. . . as does its interior stairwell . . .
. . . and its north side, where Thai District restaurant is now located.
The interior of Ashley’s apartment only existed in a studio soundstage, though. You can see what the actual penthouse looks like here. The sole element of it that matches its onscreen counterpart is the perimeter of arched, paned windows.
The hallway leading up to Ashley’s apartment was also just a set. Production designer Cory Lorenzen incorporated elements of the Broadlind’s actual exterior, including arches, tile work and wooden doors, into the design of both, though.
The Blind Donkey has also famously cameoed onscreen. The basement lounge masked as the interior of Seb’s, the jazz club owned by Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), at the end of La La Land.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Virginie for telling me about 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: Broadlind Hotel, aka Ashley’s apartment building from Over Her Dead Body, is located at 149 Linden Avenue in Long Beach. You can visit the property’s official website here.
Susan Berman’s Former House
One location that has confused me for years is the cottage where writer Susan Berman was murdered in 2000 – so much so that despite stalking it back in August 2015, I have put off blogging about it until now. I first learned of the locale from the hit HBO docuseries The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, which chronicles the sordid, twisted, extremely weird tale of multimillionaire Durst and the deaths of three people connected to him, including Berman, his longtime BFF. On the show, much was made about Susan living at 1527 Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. When I headed out to stalk the home located there, though, I was shocked to see that it looked nothing like the pad showcased onscreen. Figuring I might have jotted down the wrong address (hey, it happens to the best of us!), I took photos regardless and started delving into the matter further as soon as I got home. Sure enough, what was shown in The Jinx, specifically the third episode titled “The Gangster’s Daughter,” did not match the house at 1527 Benedict Canyon. I eventually pushed the matter to the back of my mind where it remained until a couple of days ago when I decided to rehash it. Thankfully, this time around I was able to figure things out.
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In The Jinx, we are only shown one full shot of Susan’s former residence. It’s below.
Several close-up images taken the night of the murder are also featured on the series, though the dark-shingled façade pictured in them looks considerably different than the white-washed exterior from the wide shot. Since both consist of wood shake, though, I figured they were one and the same and that Susan likely had the place painted at some point during her tenure. But, as it turns out, the photos are actually of two different properties. The cottage above is a Brentwood residence Susan owned for a time long before she was murdered, while the pad below is her Benedict Canyon rental, where she lived during two different periods of her life, including her final years. Because the latter was remodeled extensively in 2006 and the wood siding removed, it is not very recognizable today, which only added to my confusion.
It was not until coming across the photos here and here that I was able to piece things together. As you can see, though the shiplap has been removed, making the home appear more ranch-like than its former Cape Cod style, it is the same place.
Hedges now obscure much of the dwelling from view, but toggling back to January 2011 on Google Street View provides better imagery. Per the building permits I dug up, besides the wood shake removal, during the 2006 remodel a portion of the patio was also enclosed in order to expand the kitchen and both bathrooms were gutted.
It was in the quaint abode that Berman met her untimely end on December 22nd, 2001 – authorities say at the hand of her dearest friend, Robert Durst. Susan and “Bobby,” as she called him, originally met while attending UCLA in the 1960s and became fast, yet unlikely companions – she a vibrant, talkative extrovert, he an odd reclusive scion of a prominent New York family. They say a picture speaks a thousand words and the image of Susan and Bob below speaks volumes regarding their strikingly different personalities. Regardless, the two were thick as thieves up until Susan’s death. But to understand her killing, we have to go back to 1982, when Robert’s first wife, Kathleen McCormack, went missing. As I explained earlier, it’s a very twisted tale.
Kathleen and Bob’s relationship was by all accounts tumultuous. Married in 1973, Kathie was seeking a divorce by early 1982. On January 31st of that year, after spending the weekend together at their South Salem lakeside cottage, Durst claims he dropped his wife off at the Katonah rail stop, where she caught a train to New York. A doorman reportedly saw her enter the couple’s pied-à-terre at 37 Riverside Drive later that night. The following morning, Kathie called the associate dean of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she was set to begin a clerkship, to say she was ill and would not be coming in. She has not been seen or heard from since. Because Kathie disappeared from Manhattan and Robert never left South Salem that night, he was never regarded as a suspect. At least not officially, though most who followed the case had their suspicions. The investigation quickly went cold and it was not until years later, November 1999 to be exact, that authorities decided to reopen it based upon a tip from a suspect in a different matter. Though said tip turned out to be bogus, it set off a chain of events almost too bizarre to be believed.
Detectives were able to keep the reopening of the case under wraps for a full year before the media caught wind of things. When reports finally started rolling out in November 2000, it sent Robert into a tailspin. He promptly relocated to Galveston, Texas where he rented a small apartment and began posing as an elderly mute woman to avoid detection. Just a couple of weeks later, on December 24th, Susan was found dead at her Benedict Canyon rental. According to a March 2001 New York magazine article, Berman had initially leased the 1935 cottage for a few years upon relocating from NYC to L.A. in 1981. Though small, with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, at the time it was a “lovely, cheerful place.” As you can see below, the 2006 remodel did the exterior of the place no favors. It looked so much better with the wood siding!
After marrying her one and only husband in 1984, Susan moved out of the Benedict Canyon property and into a home she purchased at 12030 Coyne Street in Brentwood. It was that house that was showcased on The Jinx.
An interview was even conducted outside of the Brentwood pad for the series and, in a very confusing twist, it was made to appear as if it was the Benedict Canyon residence! It’s no wonder I was confounded by the location for so long!
Berman’s marriage didn’t last and by 1987, she had a new love, aspiring screenwriter Paul Kaufman. The two eventually attempted to develop a Broadway musical together, using Susan’s finances to do so, but the venture bankrupted her, put an end to the relationship, and the Brentwood house was foreclosed on. Broke and single, she relocated to a condo at 1131 Alta Loma Road in West Hollywood, which was owned by a friend who let her live there rent-free for the next five years. In 1997, as she started to get back on her feet, she moved back into her old Benedict Canyon rental. But by late 2000, she found herself in dire financial straights yet again and reached out to Durst to borrow money. He sent her two checks totaling $50,000. He claims that around the same time she told him that she had been contacted by detectives regarding the re-opening of Kathie’s case and that she planned on speaking with them. It turns out that was not true – something Robert did not find out until much, much later. As recounted in a fabulous Los Angeles magazine article about Berman, Durst was shocked when L.A. Deputy District Attorney John Lewin informed him during a 2015 jailhouse interview, “They had not contacted her. I think that Susan was trying to subtly squeeze you for money.”
By all accounts, Susan never would have squealed on Bobby, though he had good reason to be nervous. Berman, who had casually mentioned to several friends over the years that Durst had something to do with Kathie’s disappearance, had not only provided an alibi for him the night McCormack went missing, but she also acted as his media liaison in the months that followed. And much of what she spewed wasn’t true. As it turns out, no doorman ever saw Kathie the night of January 31st – that was a story fed to the press by Berman. It is also now largely believed that it was Susan, posing as Kathie, who called the Albert Einstein College of Medicine dean the morning after the disappearance. Susan knew where the bodies were buried (quite possibly literally) and police contend that Robert killed her for it.
Authorities believe that Robert flew from New York to San Francisco on December 19th, 2000. He then took another flight to Eureka and, the following morning, drove to Los Angeles. He headed to Susan’s house late on the evening of the 22nd or early the morning of the 23rd and shot her once in the back of the head, execution-style. Police, responding to a call from a neighbor who reported that Berman’s dogs were running loose and barking up a storm, arrived at her residence at 1 p.m. on Christmas Eve where they found the the rear door open and Susan dead on the floor of the guest bedroom. She was 55 years old. A horrific scenario all around, no doubt, but Kathie’s sister Mary Hughes did have this to say in the Los Angeles magazine article about Susan, “Obviously it’s horrible that Berman was murdered by Durst. But we’ll always be mindful that she was Durst’s coconspirator in covering up Durst’s murder of our sister.”
As evidenced in the crime scene photos from The Jinx (the top one I blacked out a portion of as Susan’s body was visible) as compared to the MLS images above and below, the house looks quite different today than it did in 2000. The interior was said to be in shambles toward the end of Susan’s life and the pictures featured on the series certainly attest to that. Apparently, the heat had even been turned off and some of the rooms lacked flooring – there was only cement where the carpeting had once been. The place is in much better shape since the 2006 remodel, during which doors were closed off and relocated and the kitchen opened up, as you can see.
The bizarre story doesn’t end there. On the 23rd of December, a note was sent to the Beverly Hills Police Department that read “1527 Benedict Canyon Cadaver.” Susan’s body had already been found by the time detectives received it, but it did provide them with a clue. Whoever killed Berman must have cared for her in some way and didn’t want her body to go undiscovered.
The murders don’t end there, either. On September 28th, 2001, Durst shot his Galveston neighbor, a cantankerous elderly gentleman named Morris Black, who had discovered his true identity and had been pressuring him financially. Robert then dismembered his body, wrapped the parts in newspaper, put them in garbage bags and dumped them in Galveston Bay. The bags wound up floating though and were discovered by a teen fishing in the area the following day. An address on one of the newspapers led police straight to Durst and he was arrested. He promptly posted bail and then skipped town, successfully avoiding authorities until he was detained in Pennsylvania about six weeks later for attempting to steal a sandwich and a band-aid from a grocery store. You can’t make this stuff up! Robert claimed self-defense at his subsequent trial for Black’s murder and was inexplicably acquitted despite having dismembered the body, though he did serve some time for bond jumping and evidence tampering. He was eventually paroled in 2005, was rearrested for violating said parole, and served another few months.
In 2010, filmmaker Andrew Jarecki’s movie All Good Things, based on Durst’s life, premiered. Apparently happy with his onscreen portrayal, Robert contacted Jarecki and, against the advice of his lawyers and pretty much anyone else with half a brain, asked to be interviewed by him. Over the next few years, Jarecki compiled more than twenty hours of footage of Durst, which is how The Jinx came to be. The series debuted to much fanfare on February 8th, 2015. Building on evidence uncovered by Jarecki and his producing partner, Marc Smerling, police began closing in on Durst, ultimately deciding to arrest him on March 14th, 2015, the day before the final episode hit HBO. That finale featured a chilling segment in which Robert was confronted with a letter he wrote to Susan in 1993, years prior to her death, which bore not only the exact same block handwriting as the “cadaver” note, but the exact same misspelling of the word “Beverly.” In a stunning turn, he then walked into the bathroom of the hotel room where the interview was taking place, still miked, and uttered to himself, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” His trial for Susan’s murder is set to begin in January and something tells me this time an acquittal is not in the cards.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Susan Berman’s former house is located at 1527 Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills.
Nuart Theatre from “Foul Play”
I was hesitant to include today’s locale in with my Haunted Hollywood postings being that the Nuart Theatre is neither haunted nor a horror movie location, per se. But the small arthouse venue did cameo in one of my favorite thrillers/comedies – 1978’s Foul Play – as the site of a murder, no less, so I figured it was fair game. Especially considering I had stalked the place years ago while writing a 2015 article for Discover L.A. about the city’s best places to beat the rain but had somehow never dedicated a post to it. So here goes!
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Commissioned by Forrest W. McManus and boasting terrazzo flooring, 660 seats and a single screen, the Nuart Theatre opened on August 21st, 1930 with a star-studded gala.
Nine years later, the site was remodeled and the neon Art Deco marquee that now stands above the entrance installed.
The Nuart went through several ownership changes over the ensuing decades, first falling under the Fox West Coast Theatres umbrella from 1941 to 1954, then running independently for several years before finally getting snapped up by Landmark Theatres in 1974.
The space underwent a major renovation in 2006 during which the seating was downsized to 303 chaises to allow for roomier accommodations. With beer and wine also served on the premises, today the Nuart easily holds up against L.A.’s many luxury theatres.
Such an arthouse fave amongst Angelinos, in fact, the Nuart consistently ranks as one of the area’s best theatres and has been lauded by such entities as LAist, the Los Angeles Times and Curbed LA. Los Angeles magazine even recognized the place for its “Top-Rated Popcorn” in 2009. The Nuart is also famous for its regular showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which have been taking place since the ‘80s), as well as its many celebrity Q&As with the likes of such luminaries as Harry Dean Stanton, Halle Berry, Burt Lancaster, Ridley Scott, Mel Blanc, John Waters and Mark Hamill. And, of course, it’s also a filming location!
In Foul Play, Gloria Mundy (Goldie Hawn) heads to the Nuart, said to be on San Francisco’s Union Street, one dark and stormy night (because, of course) to meet Bob ‘Scotty’ Scott (Bruce Solomon) for a film noir double feature. During the retrospective, Gloria discovers that Scott has been stabbed to death in his seat. By the time she reports the killing to the theatre manager, though, his body has gone missing (dun dun dun!), setting her off on a path to find the guilty party. Quite a lot of the venue is shown in the movie, including the exterior;
the ticket booth area and front entrance;
and the lobby.
From the way the segment was shot and because various message boards I’ve come across concerning the Nuart mention that its interior was decidedly red in color before the 2006 remodel, I am fairly certain that the inside of the theatre itself also appeared in Foul Play.
Oddly though, in 1976, two years prior to Foul Play, the Nuart was featured in the Season 1 episode of Starsky & Hutch titled “Silence” . . .
. . . but the theatre interior shown did not match what was seen in Foul Play in the slightest, which has me thoroughly confused. I am guessing that Starsky & Hutch must have only utilized the exterior of the Nuart and then shot interiors in a screening room located back at 20th Century Fox Studios where the series was lensed, but that is just a hunch.
The Nuart has appeared in a couple of other productions, as well. Thanks to fellow stalker MM, I was reminded that the theatre popped up briefly each week in the opening credits of the television series Moonlighting, which aired from 1985 through 1989.
Guy Franklin (Alexander Tovar) runs into Heather (Megan Rosati) at the Nuart at the end of the 2016 film Show Business.
And Maddie Kendall (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Howie “Chimney” Han (Kenneth Choi) head to the Nuart for a date in the Season 2 episode of 9-1-1 titled “Buck, Actually,” which aired in 2018.
Though the Nuart is said to be the spot where Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) attend a Planet of the Apes marathon in the Season 1 episode of The Big Bang Theory titled “The Pancake Batter Anomaly,” no filming actually took place there. The episode was instead shot in front of a live audience on a soundstage-built set at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, where the show was lensed.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Landmark’s Nuart Theatre, from Foul Play, is located at 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard in Sawtelle. You can visit the venue’s official website here.
Cole’s House from “The Sixth Sense”
Locations stick with me. They just do. Obviously. One that stuck with me above the realm of normalcy, though, is the handsome brick townhouse where Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) lived in The Sixth Sense.
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Even though I’ve only actually seen the 1999 thriller once, the image of Bruce Willis as child psychologist Malcolm Crowe sitting on a bench while waiting for Cole in the film’s opening sequence is forever seared in my mind. So when we headed to Philadelphia, where the movie was lensed, in September 2016, visiting Cole’s house was a no-brainer. (My photo below is of the wrong bench, unfortunately – I accidentally snapped the one situated directly outside of Cole’s home, thinking that is where Bruce sat, instead of the one across from it.)
The correct bench is pictured below.
Though named the “Garden Court Apartments” in The Sixth Sense, the row of picturesque brick townhomes where Cole lives is actually known as the “Garden Block.”
Centered around a foliage-filled median, the small stretch of road, closed to cars, is pretty darn idyllic.
While the vegetation is much more mature and full than it was when The Sixth Sense was filmed twenty years ago, the block is instantly recognizable from its big-screen cameo – even to those for whom locations don’t stick, like the Grim Cheaper who identified the place immediately.
Unfortunately, the abundance of greenery made it impossible to get a photo matching the screen capture below. The pictured image is the best I could do.
As you can see in this unobstructed view, though, aside from the front door and window trims now exhibiting a bright purple hue . . .
. . . the property looks much as it did onscreen.
The inside of the home is another story entirely. For interior scenes involving Cole’s apartment, a studio set was built, one that, interestingly, looked nothing like its real-life counterpart. Though taken from opposing angles, in the MLS image as compared to the screen capture below, you can see that the real entry does not resemble its silver-screen self in the slightest. The actual entrance to the home is comprised of a narrow hallway that leads directly to a staircase, while the movie version is wide and open and pours into the living room.
To accommodate that wide entry, you’ll notice that filmmakers cheated things a bit with the townhouse’s exterior by making it appear to have a central front door flanked by two windows. In actuality, only the window to the west of the door (denoted with an orange arrow below) belongs to the property.
The window to the east is part of the neighboring townhouse (the front door of which is situated around the corner facing South 23rd Street), something that is quite obvious in person thanks to the differing trim colors.
The real kitchen is also much different from its big-screen counterpart, with lower ceilings, fewer, more modern cabinets, and a narrower footprint. I much prefer the homey, charming look of the set to that of the actual house, which is somewhat bland and cold. But I guess that’s why production designers get paid the big bucks!
You can check out some more images of the townhome’s interior here. The washer/dryer situation leaves quite a bit to be desired, but I digress.
Per an old real estate listing, the 1915 pad is comprised of 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,052 square feet, an eat-in kitchen, a small backyard, and a full basement. There’s no mention of unwanted visitors of the spirit variety, so whether or not the house actually has any remains to be, ahem, seen.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Cole’s apartment from The Sixth Sense is located at 2302 St. Alban’s Place in Philadelphia.
Ontario Airport Inn from “Poltergeist”
In “I must be living under a rock” news, I had no idea that a Poltergeist remake had debuted in 2015 – in 3D, no less! Considering the so-called curse that plagued the OG trilogy, I’d have to think long and hard before signing up to be a part of any sort of reboot! That cast and crew were seriously brave – yet it turns out the only thing plaguing the recent flick was bad reviews. The rumored curse has never stopped me from stalking locales from the franchise, though, including the motel where the Freeling family stayed at the end of the 1982 original. The location was actually a mystery for years, with several sources claiming that filming took place at Hotel Silver Lake in Westlake, and I am not entirely sure who finally pinpointed the correct spot. Whoever did discover that the hotel utilized in the production was the Holiday Inn at 1801 East G Street in Ontario (now the Ontario Airport Inn), I thank you! Since the lodging is situated right off the 10 Freeway between L.A. and Palm Springs, I figured it would be the perfect place for a pit stop on the way home from my last visit to the City of Angels, as wells as a perfect Haunted Hollywood posting.
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The property currently known as the Ontario Airport Inn was originally built as a Holiday Inn in the mid-1960s.
At the time, nothing was surrounding it but vacant land as you can see in the 1980 image from Historic Aerials below.
Aerial views look quite different today, though amazingly the hotel hasn’t changed a bit, structurally at least.
Per ads I came across on newspapers.com, by 1996 the lodging had become the Good Nite Inn which it remained through at least 2000. Today, the Ontario Airport Inn, situated less than a mile from Ontario International Airport, boasts a huge pool, a courtyard with a BBQ, a laundry room, free coffee and fruit available 24 hours a day, a business center, park-and-fly services, rooms with Tempur-Pedic memory foam beds, and a complimentary continental breakfast and airport shuttle. Not bad for rates that start at $69.95!
Before snapping any photographs, the Grim Cheaper and I popped into the lobby to ask permission from the powers that be. A front desk clerk welcomed us and I explained that I was hoping to see the area of the hotel featured in Poltergeist. She retreated to ask the manager if it was alright and when she returned she told me it was perfectly fine and then produced a map of the property, pointed to a building on the southern side and informed me that filming had taken place in front of Room 209. Shocked that she knew the precise spot and figuring her awareness had to be due to the countless requests from stalkers like myself, I said, “Oh, do a lot of people come by asking to take photos because of Poltergeist?”, to which she deadpanned, “Nope, not really.” And here I thought maybe I was in good company! The GC and I could not stop laughing as we headed out the door toward Building 4, where we had been pointed (that’s it below).
Said to be “the Holiday Inn on I-74,” the weary Freelings venture to the hotel after leaving Midwestern suburbia, where their possessed home has just been sucked into a paranormal vortex, at the end of Poltergeist. (That scene was achieved using a 6-foot by 4-foot model of the Simi Valley property that stood in for the family’s residence, the debris of which were, at least for a time, displayed in Steven Spielberg’s office.)
Room 209, where the Freelings check in, can be found on the second floor of Building 4.
I was shocked to discover upon walking up to the Freelings’ door that Ontario Airport Inn not only boasts the same coloring it did onscreen in 1982, with red doors and yellow walls, but that the number placards also remain entirely unchanged!
It is incredible that so little of the hotel has been altered since the filming, especially considering two changes in ownership and the passage of 37 years! Aside from the addition of some hedges and the removal of the Holiday Inn signage, though, the place is frozen in time.
In an interesting twist, the locale is not included in the shooting schedule featured on Poltergeist: The Fan Site which covers all sixty days of principal photography, as well as one day of second-unit photography. That coupled with the fact that Ontario is a somewhat out-of-the-way spot to film, especially considering the rest of the thriller was lensed in Simi Valley, Agoura Hills, Irvine, and Culver City, makes me wonder if the hotel segment was a re-shoot or perhaps a scene added after initial filming wrapped.
Figuring one of the Poltergeist DVD iterations had to feature a commentary of some sort which might provide clarity on the issue, I got to Googling and was shocked to discover via DVD Exotica that is not actually the case. Amazingly, the only home release of the film with any sort of extras about the movie itself (and not paranormal activity in general) is the 1982 LaserDisc which boasts a stills gallery, the original trailer, and a 7-minute making-of featurette (that you can watch here). Sadly, none of the three provide any info on the hotel. An Upland resident named Don J. did inform the Daily Bulletin in 2017 that producers landed on the locale thanks to its classic neon signage, which few Holiday Inns in the area still had at the time. Whether that information is true or not is anybody’s guess.
The Ontario Airport Inn has another claim to fame! The many musicians hired to perform at the California Jam music festival in 1974 were put up there and shuttled back and forth to the venue, the Ontario Motor Speedway, via helicopter. During their stay, the motel’s marquee read “Welcome Western States Police Officers Assn.,” a rather humorous attempt to mislead any fans heading to the property hoping to catch glimpses of the various acts, which included such bands as Earth, Wind & Fire and the Eagles.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Ontario Airport Inn, aka the Holiday Inn from Poltergeist, is located at 1801 East G Street in Ontario. Filming took place in front of Room 209 on the second floor of Building 4. Please keep in mind that the hotel is private property and you need permission to be on the premises. You can visit the lodging’s official website here.
Homer’s House from “The Day of the Locust”
Today’s locale is an oldie but goodie. Way back in October 2010, while in Eagle Rock stalking with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, we passed by a residence at 4911 College View Avenue and Mike informed me that it was featured in The Day of the Locust. At the time I had never heard of the 1975 surrealistic thriller, which was based upon the 1939 Nathanael West book of the same name. I snapped a few photos regardless, but somehow the pad went straight to the back of my mind pretty much as soon as I got the images uploaded to my computer. It wasn’t until organizing my location spreadsheet a few months ago that I was reminded of it. Figuring the home would make for a good Haunted Hollywood post, I finally sat down to watch the movie. Though the name sounds straight out of a horror film, as it turns out it is neither horror nor slasher – nor are there any locusts to be found! The Day of the Locust is instead about several show business hopefuls in 1930s-era Hollywood. Because it is easily one of the oddest, most disturbing flicks I have ever seen, I decided it was still fitting for an October posting.
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In a 1975 review, Roger Ebert explains The Day of the Locust’s odd titling as such, “The locusts are the little people, faceless and sad, who accumulate on the benches of Los Angeles, waiting for a bus that will never come. They’re surrounded by the artificial glitter of Hollywood, which provides dreams that certainly are happier and sometimes seem more real than the America of the 1930s. But one day, the dreams will end and the locusts will swarm and the whole fragile society will come crashing down.” Said “crashing down” occurs in an almost zombie-ish scene at the end of the film in which a bloody riot breaks out in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre during a big Hollywood premiere. Living amongst the locusts in the film are three archetypal Tinseltown characters – talented aspiring art director Tod Hackett (William Atherton), opportunistic blonde starlet Faye Greener (Karen Black – who, in real life, became something of a horror movie queen later in her career), and wealthy, lonely, older recluse Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland) who gets taken advantage of by her. It is the latter’s house that Mike took me to stalk that warm October day nine years ago. (And yep, you read that right – Sutherland appeared as a live-action big-screen “Homer Simpson” twelve years before the infamous animated patriarch made his television debut and quickly became a household name.)
Miraculously, the 1928 pad looks very much as it did onscreen when The Day of the Locust premiered over four decades ago – though there have been a few alterations.
Most notably, the front door is in a different spot. Odd, I know! But in the movie, the home’s main entrance was situated at the southern end of the front porch, facing West Fair Park Avenue which runs perpendicular to College View Ave.
Though it is hard to see in my photos due to a hedge standing in the way, when I stalked the house the front door was situated in the middle of the porch, facing College View Avenue, as the below Google Street View image from May 2009 shows.
In an incredible twist, since my 2010 visit the front door has been relocated again! (In all my years of stalking, this is the first time I’ve come across a house with a front door that has been moved twice!) Per current Google Street View imagery, the door is now situated in the same spot it was during the filming of The Day of the Locust, as you can see in the extreme side view of the property below.
In place of the former front entrance is now a paned window.
The detached garage which once stood at the rear of the property and which was intact when I stalked the place has also since been torn down. In its place is what is referred to in the building permits I dug up as a 528-square foot “recreation room” with a 2-car garage below it. Apparently, in 2012 plans were submitted to the city to subdivide the 0.44-acre plot of land the residence stands on in order to build a secondary home on the northern parcel, but they look to have been denied. I am guessing the “recreation room” was constructed as an alternative.
Per aerial views, the pad also has some sort of guest house/second garage located in the backyard and I am fairly certain that the measurement information supplied by Zillow includes that of the main property as well as the guest cottage and the “recreation room” being that the home itself appears far too small to comprise the reported 6 bedrooms, 5 baths and 3,022 square feet.
I am fairly certain that the residence’s actual backyard was featured in The Day of the Locust . . .
. . . as was its original garage.
The interior of Homer’s house, though, was, I believe, just a set. While the camera angles certainly made it look as if the actual inside of 4911 College View was utilized, because so many scenes took place there, it seems a lot more feasible that a set was constructed on a soundstage for the production.
Said set was seriously (and appropriately) eerie – and reminds me quite a bit of the Canfield-Moreno Estate in Silver Lake – another great Haunted Hollywood locale that I blogged about in 2012.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for showing me this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Homer’s house from The Day of the Locust is located at 4911 College View Avenue in Eagle Rock.
The “Scream” Video Store
Extremely nostalgic by nature, I was recently thinking about the demise of video stores and how many movies would suffer if made today because of it – movies like The Holiday, Clerks and, of course, Scream. Without the scene set at Woodsboro’s local VHS rental spot in the latter, in which Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) schools buddy Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) on the “very specific formula” followed by slasher flicks, much of the tongue-in-cheek nature of the storyline would have been tragically lost. I blogged about Santa Rosa’s Bradley Video, where the segment was shot, back in 2008, though I had never actually stalked it myself, instead sending my aunt Lea, who lives in the area, to do so on my behalf. By the time I next made it up to Sonoma County in 2016, the shop had long since shut down, but I still included it in my Scream stalking itinerary, which encompassed every.single.location featured in the 1996 horror classic down to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the 55-day shoot, as well as the warehouse that served as the production’s soundstage. The vast majority of those sites remain on my To-Blog List and I figured today was the perfect time to get to posting about them, starting with Bradley Video.
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When Lea stalked Bradley Video for me in 2008, the store was still in operation. In fact, it was her local rental place and she and her husband would visit it regularly. Sadly, it went the way of most VHS leasing establishments, initially closing its doors in 2005 after its owner, William Bradley, filed for bankruptcy. There were 11 shops in the chain at the time, all of which shuttered that same year. In a fitting twist, the majority of the company’s outposts, including the one from Scream (located on Marlow Road) were curtained on October 31st! As The Press Democrat reported a few days later, calls to the Sebastopol outlet were met with a message stating, “Bradley Video is closing its stores for good, and this store is closed. Happy Halloween.” Though I am sad it is no longer open, if a horror movie location has to shutter, I can think of no better day to do it than Halloween!
That wasn’t the end of the Marlow Road store, though. In January 2006, the shop was was re-opened by West Coast Video, along with 6 others in the Bradley chain.
The rebirth was short-lived, however, and the Marlow Road BV closed once again in early 2009, shortly after my aunt’s stalk of it.
Amazingly, the space has remained vacant ever since, which is great news for us Scream aficionados as it has resulted in very few changes to the exterior.
The same goes for the interior, which I was thrilled to discover as I peeked through the windows! Despite the passage of 23 years, two separate closures, an ownership change, and an almost-decade long vacancy, the Bradley Video site still looks exactly as it did onscreen!
I cannot express how thrilled I was to see the very same muted fuchsia carpeting that Stu and Randy walked upon still lining the floor of the space! Also visible? Faded markings surrounding the areas where the shelving used to stand!
The rectangular pillar stationed behind Randy throughout the scene also remains intact, though today it is mirrored.
Per Scream’s production notes, Sonoma County was chosen as a backdrop for the lurid tale thanks to its “innocent, familiar” locales which provided the perfect setting for the movie’s more macabre sequences. And no site is more innocent or familiar than a local video store! It is at Bradley Video that Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), Stu, and several other Woodsboro High students head to rent movies after classes are cancelled due to the murder spree taking place in town. While there, we get these choice words from video store employee/resident slasher flick expert Randy, “See, the police are always off track with this sh*t. If they watched Prom Night, they’d save time. There’s a formula to it – a very simple formula! EVERYBODY’S A SUSPECT!” As I was not able to venture inside the former Bradley Video space, my photographs were, obviously, not taken from an angle matching that of the movie, but I believe the image below shows basically the same vantage point, minus the anteroom visible in the foreground.
As for the detritus strewn about, per a commenter named Rich Brasil on the Bloody Disgusting website, the location is currently used to house supplies for a neighboring Chinese restaurant.
Filming of the Bradley Video scene took place on Monday, May 6th, 1996 (the 16th day of production) according to the Scream call sheets, which my friend Ashley of The Drewseum was kind enough to give me copies of. Actors were required to report to the locale at 9:15 a.m. and the weather was “sunny and cloudy, dry, breezy at times” with highs in the mid-60s. There were a total of 40 extras on set (including “2 babes for Billy”) and the shoot was scheduled to wrap at 6 p.m.
And while I am thrilled the Bradley Video space remains so unchanged from that 1996 cameo, at the same time it is a bit disheartening that the site of such a famous cinematic moment exists in such a sad state. I would love to see the place re-open, but with the interior left intact, of course. Scream video store pop-up, anyone?
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to my aunt Lea for initially stalking Bradley Video for me and taking the images dated 2008 that appear in this post. 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Bradley Video, from Scream, was formerly located in the Rosewood Village shopping center at 3080 Marlow Road in Santa Rosa. Its former storefront, Unit A19, is denoted with an orange arrow below and its onetime frontage marked by orange lines.
Mountain View Mausoleum from “Lucifer”
Given my proclivity for graveyards and extensive knowledge of Los Angeles (especially the Pasadena area), it is shocking that I only learned of Altadena’s Mountain View Mausoleum a few months ago. Sure I’ve visited the neighboring Mountain View Cemetery numerous times and even dedicated a post to it, but somehow I never knew about its mausoleum, situated directly across the street on Marengo Avenue. It was only while watching the latest season of Lucifer, which Netflix dropped in May, that I discovered the place. More beautiful than scary, I figure it’s still a perfect spot to include in my Haunted Hollywood blogs. (How fitting is that orb in the photo above, by the way?)
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In the Season 4 episode of Lucifer titled “Somebody’s Been Reading Dante’s Inferno,” Mountain View Mausoleum masks as the church library in Italy where Los Angeles police detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) researches biblical stories about the devil in an attempt to gain clarity on the disturbing things she has recently learned about her partner, Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis).
Producers went to great lengths to transform Mountain View into a library for the shoot, sparing what seems to be no expense on set décor including tables, chairs, desk lamps, red curtains, and large bookshelves filled with tomes to cover the crypts. The result was extremely convincing. While initially viewing the episode, I was sure filming had taken place at an actual area athenaeum. Being that I am something of an aficionado of such spaces (as evidenced here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), I was shocked I had never come across the place in all of my stalkings. It wasn’t until taking a closer look at the scenery while scanning through “Somebody’s Been Reading Dante’s Inferno” the following day that I realized the site where Chloe researched was actually a mausoleum.
From there, it was not very hard to pinpoint the exact spot used. A simple Google search for the terms “ornate mausoleum,” “arched ceilings,” “stained glass,” and “Los Angeles,” led me straight to Mountain View. I finally ran out to stalk it this past weekend.
Though I do intend on penning another post about Mountain View Cemetery (since my previous one was published way back in 2010!), I will only be covering the mausoleum itself in this column.
Designed in 1925 by architects Clarence L. Jay and Cecil E. Bryan (the latter was a one-time student of Frank Lloyd Wright!), Mountain View Mausoleum is a sight to behold!
While certainly compelling from the outside . . .
. . . it is the interior of the Neo-Mediterranean-style structure that is truly special.
Though Bryan designed more than eighty mausoleums throughout his lifetime, he considered Mountain View his pièce de résistance. So much so that when he passed away in 1951, it was there that he chose to be interred. And it’s not very hard to see why.
Unsurpassed beauty is found around every turn.
The mausoleum’s focal point is easily its 180-foot-long Great Gallery featuring an ornate vaulted ceiling hand-painted by artist Martin Syvertsen. The massive mural, depicting a frescoed version of the story of Christianity, took four years to complete and is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
The Mausoleum also boasts stained glass windows created by Judson Studios, surfaces fashioned from more than 64 varieties of Italian marble, and intricate tile work.
It is, hands down, one of the most beautiful spaces in Los Angeles.
I mean!
Sorrow coexists with lightness seamlessly here . . .
. . . and there are plenty of eerie tucked-away corners to explore for those who are so inclined.
At one point, while perusing the mausoleum, I found myself separated from the Grim Cheaper, on a lower floor by myself, sans cell signal and surrounded by a quiet permeating the space so strongly it was almost deafening! In my haste to get back to civilization, I wound up lost and wandered through the basement level for what felt like hours, though I’m sure it was only minutes. Needless to say, I was sufficiently spooked. Those looking for a scary experience can definitely find it here.
Not initially associated with the cemetery, the mausoleum was acquired by Mountain View in 1971 and adopted its name at the same time.
Of the building, Altadena Historical Society President Jane Backman said, “This is Altadena’s own Sistine Chapel. Most Altadenans, even those who have lived here all their lives, have driven past the mausoleum on Marengo but have never gone inside.” It is such a shame that most locals (myself included, until just recently) don’t even know it’s there! Mountain View is a true hidden gem.
There seems to be quite a bit of misinformation floating around concerning the mausoleum’s cinematic history, so I’ve decided to rectify that.
Sebastian Stark (James Woods) gives Jennifer Randolph (Elizabeth Lackey) a stern talking to at the mausoleum in the Season 2 episode of Shark titled “Partners in Crime,” which aired in 2008.
In 2011, D.B. Russell (Ted Danson) and Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda) encountered a distraught Joanna Sapphire (Frances Fisher) there in the Season 12 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Maid Man.”
James Woods returned to the mausoleum in 2013, this time playing Sully Sullivan in the Season 1 episode of Ray Donovan titled “New Birthday,” which I learned about thanks to Geoff, of 90210Locations. He also provided the screen captures that appear below. Thank you, Geoff!
That same year, the mausoleum appeared in Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” music video.
Geoff also informed me that Rick Stevens (Nat Wolff) went to confession there in the 2014 comedy Behaving Badly.
Elizabeth (Lady Gaga) visits the tomb of Rudolph Valentino (Finn Rittrock) at Mountain View Mausoleum – and learns that he’s not actually dead – in the episode of American Horror Story: Hotel titled “Flicker,” which aired in 2015.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) head to the mausoleum to investigate the murder of a Navy lieutenant in the Season 15 episode of NCIS titled “Twofer,” which aired in 2017.
In the finale of the new Netflix series Hollywood, Avis Amberg (Patti LuPone) gives Henry Wilson (Jim Parsons) the green light for his new movie at the mausoleum.
And (spoiler alert!) the funeral for Dick Samuels (Joe Mantello) also takes place in the mausoleum’s onsite chapel, The Chapel of the Gardens.
The mausoleum also appears as the funeral home that Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin) and Della Street (Juliet Rylance) visit in the second episode of the new HBO series Perry Mason titled “Chapter 2.”
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Mountain View Mausoleum, from the “Somebody’s Been Reading Dante’s Inferno” episode of Lucifer, is located at 2300 North Marengo Avenue in Altadena. The property is open to the public daily and photos are not only allowed, but encouraged!