Manhattan restaurants – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 19, 2009November 18, 2009

Scout Bar from “Sex and the City”

Yet another Sex and the City location that I stalked while in New York last month was O’Nieals Grand Street Bar, which stood in for Scout, the watering hole owned by Carrie and Miranda’s ex-boyfriends, Aidan and Steve, on the show. And even though I had actually stalked this location during last year’s New York vacation and also blogged about it, because I had not been able to venture inside, it was a place I had always planned on returning to. So, since my good friend Steffi, who is an even bigger fan of Sex and the City than I am (if that’s at all possible) and who has always loved the character of Aidan, accompanied me to New York this year, I decided there was no time like the present! On this particular occasion, though, nothing was going to stop me from journeying inside! 🙂 And, let me tell you, I am so glad I did, because O’Nieals’ interior is nothing short of magnificent.

One look around O’Nieal’s dark Mahogany interior and it’s easy to see why producers chose to use it as the bar that Carrie’s furniture designing former boyfriend built. Upon seeing Scout for the first time on the show, Carrie says “There was no sign of him, but he was everywhere. In the mahogany bar, wood floors, carved ceiling. The whole place looked and felt just like Aidan.” And in real life, that same sentiment is true – the place truly does look and feel just like the character played by John Corbett. So much so, in fact, that it’s hard to believe the bar wasn’t a set built by production designers specifically for the series.

O’Nieal’s decor consists almost entirely of dark, shiny, hand-carved wood and, let me tell you, it is absolutely gorgeous. But my favorite part of the bar had to be its amazingly intricate ceiling, which unfortunately I just could not get a very good photograph of. 🙁 But take my word for it, the ceiling is beautiful. O’Nieals has a definite old New York vibe to it and, I am happy to report, looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Sex and the City. The staff also could NOT have been nicer and allowed me to take all of the photographs I wanted, even though I wasn’t dining at the establishment. On a side note – Being able to take pictures inside of bars and restaurants is just one of the many reasons that I love New York so much. In L.A., unfortunately, there are many venues that don’t allow any sort of interior photography. And, while part of me understands an establishment’s desire to keep stalkers like myself from taking pictures of their celebrity patrons, for the most part I think the whole thing is just plain ludicrous. A few months back my fiancé and I grabbed some cocktails at a place called the Writers Bar in Beverly Hills. The upscale (read: snooty) bar had numerous autographed scripts displayed on their walls and when I went to a photograph in front of one which had been signed by Julia Roberts, the manager came rushing over and demanded that I put my camera away. Dumbfounded, I asked him why, to which he replied “We do not allow cameras here due to our high-profile clients”. LOL LOL LOL Now, if I had been trying to take a photograph of a celebrity sitting nearby (and by the way, my fiancé and I were the only two people in the entire bar at the time), I can totally understand the manager requesting that I put my camera away. But it was very obvious what I was taking a picture of and why and being that we had just shelled out $25 per drink, I found the whole thing highly ridiculous and my fiancé and I vowed never to return. Which we haven’t. But thankfully, in my many visits to New York, I have NEVER EVER – not even once – been told to put my camera away – even in cases when celebrities actually were dining right next to me. 🙂 But, I digress. Anyway, as I said before, O’Nieals is a very hip, absolutely gorgeous little spot and I HIGHLY recommend stalking it.

O’Nieals was featured twice on Sex and the City. It first showed up in the Season Four episode entitled “Ghost Town”, in which Carrie visits Scout to drop off a congratulatory Mulberry bush for Aidan and Steve, just before the bar is set to open.

O’Nieal’s shows up once again later in that same episode, when the girls attend Scout’s grand opening party.

The bar was also featured in the Season Four episode entitled “Time & Punishment”, in which Carrie shows up at Scout only to discover Aidan flirting with a skeezy bartender named Shana. And, even though Steve continued to own the bar throughout the rest of Sex and the City’s six year run, for some reason, it never again appeared onscreen.

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On a sad side note – While in New York, I was also dying to visit Collins Bar, the spot where Miranda first met Steve in the Season 2 episode of Sex and the City entitled “The Man, The Myth, The Viagra” (pictured above). Unfortunately, though, the beloved dive bar closed its doors in July of 2007 and the building that formerly housed it is in the process of being torn down to make room for a new hi-rise condominium development. Such a bummer!!!! You can see some great pictures of the former Collins Bar here and here, though.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Scout, aka O’Nieals Grand Street Bar, is located at 174 Grand Street in New York’s SoHo area. You can visit their website here. Collins Bar was formerly located at 735 Eighth Avenue, near Time’s Square.

November 13, 2009December 6, 2013

The Central Park Boathouse Cafe

One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in New York last month was a little restaurant named the Central Park Boathouse Cafe, also known as the Loeb Boathouse. And although I’ve stalked this location once before – and even blogged about it – because the restaurant is not open for business during the winter months when we usually visit New York, I’d never been able to actually eat there. Until my most recent trip to the Big Apple, that is. This year, because my parents had only ever seen Manhattan during the cold winter months, we decided to change things up a bit and schedule our annual NYC vacation in early October. And I couldn’t have been more excited, as that meant that I’d FINALLY be able to grab a bite to eat at the famous Boathouse Cafe! 🙂

The first Central Park Boathouse was originally built in 1873 by park designer Calvert Vaux and cost $2,360 to construct. Vaux’s design consisted of a two-story Gothic inspired structure with open terraces lining the second level. For over eighty years, the Boathouse provided park-dwellers with a place to dock and store their vessels, grab a bite to eat, or just simply people-watch. But, in the 1950s it became clear that the eighty year old structure was in desperate need of a renovation. Thanks to a $305,000 donation from American Metal Company founder Carl M. Loeb and a $100,000 supplement from the Parks foundation, the original Boathouse was torn down and a new building was assembled in its place. The new structure, which was dubbed the Loeb Boathouse and was constructed in the neo-classical style by designer Stuart Constable, opened in March of 1954 and remains standing to this day. Although a bit more upscale than its predecessor, the Loeb Boathouse still provides visitors with a place to grab a bite to eat or an evening cocktail, rent a rowboat, or just simply take in the beautiful park scenery.

Because the Loeb Boathouse is so incredibly picturesque, it has, of course, been featured countless times over the years in various movie and television productions. With its lakeside setting, frequent rowboat passersby, and view of of the park and Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance, it’s really no wonder why producers have returned to film there time and time again.

Just inside the Boathouse’s main entrance is a large display of photographs from the many filmings that have taken place there over the years. So love it!

And, let me tell you, I just about died when I noticed an old picture of my girl Marilyn Monroe on the wall! As it turns out, though, according to the hostess that I talked to, the picture was not actually from a movie that was filmed on the premises, but was a candid that was taken while Marilyn rowed a boat one evening on the nearby Central Park Lake. You can just make out the outline of the Boathouse above her left shoulder in the photograph. So cute!

Ostensibly missing from the Boathouse’s picture wall, though, was a photograph of fave show Sex and the City, which filmed a VERY memorable scene from the Season 3 episode entitled “Cock A Doodle Do” at the restaurant. When I asked the hostess about it she said, “Sex and the City was filmed here? Really?” LOL LOL LOL In the episode, Carrie reluctantly agrees to a lunch date with Mr. Big at the waterside cafe, but, as often happens with those two characters, trouble, of course, ensues. Just before Carries enters the restaurant, she stops outside to make a quick call to Miranda on a nearby payphone. During the course of their conversation, Miranda makes Carrie promise that no matter what happens during the lunch she will NOT let Big kiss her. (On a side note – I tried to stalk Carrie’s payphone, but, unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found, which leads me to believe that it was either a prop that was brought in solely for the filming or it was a real payphone that was removed sometime after the filming took place. Such a bummer!)

Carrie then proceeds to enter the restaurant and spots Big waiting for her in the Bar & Grill area, which is pretty much the exact spot where my family and I sat while dining there. 🙂

Upon Carrie’s arrival, Big immediately goes to kiss her and, in backing away to avoid him, Carrie winds up falling into the water, pulling Big down with her. The two immediately collapse into fits of laughter until Carrie realizes that her Christian Dior purse has gone missing, at which point Big screams out “I’ll get it!” and then proceeds to heroically dive under the water to save the purse . . .

. . . with the whole rest of the restaurant looking on. LOL LOL LOL So love that episode! 🙂

So, of course, when I first visited the Cafe back in 2005, I just had to take a picture reenacting that scene. Too bad I couldn’t also reenact Carrie’s Richard Tyler dress from that scene, too! LOL 🙂

The Boathouse is also the spot where Sally lunched with her friends, one of whom was Carrie Fisher, at the beginning of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally.

In the more recent 27 Dresses, the Boathouse figures prominently as the place where Katherine Heigl’s character’s parents were married and where she also intends to someday hold her own wedding. As fate would have it, though, her younger sister gets engaged first and books the restaurant for her wedding instead. Towards the end of the movie, a scene takes place at the Boathouse in which Katherine attends a food tasting for the upcoming nuptials with her secret crush, who also just so happens to be her sister’s fiancé, Edward Burns.

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The Boathouse also appeared in the 2005 movie Little Manhattan and in an episode of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. The upcoming Drew Barrymore/Justin Long movie entitled Going the Distance also apparently did some recent filming at the Boathouse and a fake Boathouse set was even built in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park this past summer for the Tina Fey/Steve Carell comedy Date Night.

Besides being a filming location, the boathouse has also long been a favorite dining spot for celebrities. In recent years, stars like Lindsay Lohan, Becky Newton, Orlando Bloom, and Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr have all been spotted eating at the Cafe. The Boathouse has also played host to numerous celebrity events, including the premiere after-parties for the movies Pride and Prejudice, Mamma Mia, and My Sister’s Keeper.

And while the Boathouse was at the very top of my list of locales to stalk during this year’s trip, as fate would have it, we actually got “stuck” there after being caught in a brief rainstorm while walking through Central Park. Because the Cafe was the nearest shelter we came to and because it was on my stalking list, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and ducked inside. 🙂 Thankfully the rainstorm didn’t last more than a few minutes and once it was over we immediately grabbed seats on the patio in the Boathouse’s Bar & Grill area (pictured above) and ordered up a few cocktails. And, I have to say, the place was A-MA-ZING! It is worth a visit just for the setting alone! I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Boathouse Cafe enough! It has to be one of my favorite places in all of New York. It is the absolute PERFECT place to spend a sunny – or even a not so sunny, as was the case for me – Manhattan afternoon.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Central Park Boathouse Cafe is located at East 72nd Street and Park Drive North in Central Park. The restaurant is seasonal and is only open from April through November. You can visit their website here.

November 12, 2009November 12, 2009

Pete’s Tavern

Yet another Sex and the City location that I stalked while in New York last month was a spot that touts itself as New York’s oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant. And while there are actually quite a few watering holes claiming to be New York’s most long-established, Pete’s distinguishes itself thanks to the fact that it first opened up in 1864 – when Abraham Lincoln was in office! – and has never closed since. Like not ever! Not in the 30’s during Prohibition – when it was disguised as a flower shop – nor more recently during the city-wide blackout of 2003. No, the small tavern on the corner of East 18th Street and Irving Place has been in existence as a drinking establishment of some sort or another for over 145 years! And because it’s also a frequent filming location, I just had to stalk the place!

Beginning in 1852, the space which Pete’s now occupies contained a small grocery store, so while it’s entirely possible that liquor was sold on the premises as far back as that year, the place didn’t officially become a tavern until 1864. The original bar was named the Portman Hotel and it enjoyed a 35 year run, until 1899 when brothers Tom and John Healy purchased the establishment and re-named it Healy’s Cafe. In 1932, a man named Pete Belles came on the scene and changed the bar’s name to Pete’s Tavern, as it has remained to this day. And, thankfully, despite a high rate of ownership turnover, aside from the name, little else at the establishment has been altered since 1864. Even the decor and the original rosewood bar have been left largely untouched since the drinkery’s opening almost a century and a half ago! And I’d say chances are pretty good that a hundred and fifty years from now, Pete’s will still look very much the same as it does today. Love it!

Pete’s Tavern has long been something of a celebrity hotspot. In fact, the watering hole’s walls are absolutely covered in photographs of its many rich and famous clients. I so love it, by the way, when restaurants display pictures of their celebrity patrons on the walls! 🙂 Just a few of the celebs who have dined at the tavern include Ben Stiller, Mike Meyers, Bruce Willis, Natalie Portman, James Gandolfini, Zack Braff, Ed Burns, Harvey Keitel, Jeremy Sisto, Julia Stiles, Johnny Depp, and Tom Cruise (pictured above). The Kennedy family has also long had ties to the tavern. Joe Kennedy was the one who provided the place liquor during Prohibition, JFK dined there with Jackie on more than one occasion during his presidency, and their son, JFK, Jr., also became a regular patron years later.

Pete’s has also appeared in countless film and television productions over the years. Robert Mitchum grabbed a drink there in the 1962 movie Two for the Seesaw and it was also at Pete’s that Kramer set up a sting operation involving Jerry’s nasally accountant in the Season 5 episode of Seinfeld entitled “The Sniffing Accountant” (pictured above).

And while the real Pete’s was used for the establishing shots shown in that episode, the bar’s interior (pictured above) was actually a set that was built on the CBS Radford lot in Los Angeles where Seinfeld was filmed. You can watch Seinfeld’s Pete’s Tavern scene here. Pete’s also popped up in the movies Ragtime, Endless Love, Across the Sea of Time, The Guru, and in an episode of Law and Order.

Pete’s Tavern is probably most famous for its significance in literary history, though. Not only did legendary author O. Henry set his short story “The Lost Blend” at the bar, which he called “Kenealy’s” in the tale, but in 1904 he wrote the “The Gift of the Magi” while sitting in one of the eatery’s booths. That very booth is still in existence to this day and even boasts a plaque commemorating the occasion. Children’s author Ludwig Bemelmans also penned the first Madeline book at Pete’s – on the back of one of their menus, no less! 🙂

Aside from the celebrity patrons and historical significance of the place, I actually wanted to stalk Pete’s Tavern for one reason and one reason alone – because it was there, on the restaurant’s front patio and over $3 beers, that Miranda Hobbs proposed to longtime boyfriend Steve Brady in one of my very favorite Sex and the City episodes of all time – the one entitled “The Ick Factor”. I honestly cannot say enough about that particular episode! It’s just simply one of the series’ best! In fact, I just got sucked into watching the entire thing AGAIN while making screen captures for this post. LOL Sadly, though, because Pete’s front patio was absolutely jam packed while we were stalking the place, we weren’t able to sit in the exact spot where Sex and the City was filmed. But even though I had to settle for indoor seating, I still could NOT have been more excited to finally be dining at Pete’s!

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I honestly cannot recommend stalking Pete’s Tavern enough! The food was excellent, the staff was super-friendly and also quite knowledgeable about the bar’s filming history, and the ambience was one hundred percent old New York! I absolutely loved the place! My only beef with the establishment is the fact that their chicken fingers meal is only made available to those patrons sitting at the bar, which I, unfortunately, wasn’t. 🙁 Being that chicken strips are my favorite food, I was pretty bummed out that I couldn’t order them from where I was seated. So much so, in fact, that I almost made our entire group of seven move over to the bar. LOL Memo to Pete’s staff –chicken fingers are not just a bar food. I mean heck, I’m even serving them at my wedding, for Pete’s sake (and yes that pun was intended LOL)! So, do us all a favor and please, please, please put the chicken fingers on your regular menu for all of us lowbrow foodies to enjoy. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Pete’s Tavern is located at 129 East 18th Street, near Gramercy Park, in Manhattan. You can visit their website here.

November 10, 2009November 10, 2009

Commerce Restaurant

One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in New York this past month was a little restaurant named Commerce which appeared in the very last episode of fave show Sex and the City. Well, truth be told, at the time SATC was filmed, the restaurant was known as Grange Hall, but that space closed its doors back in 2004, shortly after filming took place. A few years later, a nouveau American cuisine restaurant named Commerce opened in the same spot and it is that eatery that I set out to stalk last month. I found this location thanks to favorite stalking book New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, which featured a brief blurb about the fact that Grange Hall was used in SATC’s series finale. Unfortunately, though, it failed to point out what specific scene took place there. So, being the anal stalker that I am, before leaving on my New York vacation, I made it my mission to figure out which part of the episode, which was entitled “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux”, was filmed at the restaurant. And, let me tell you, I really had my work cut out for me on this one! Because several different eateries were actually featured in the finale, I found it virtually impossible to discern which one was Grange Hall. After watching the entire sixty minute finale all the way through, I came up completely empty-handed. But then an idea struck me! I thought that listening to executive producer Michael Patrick King’s DVD commentary about the finale might provide some insight. And, sure enough, it did!

As it turns out, Grange Hall was not actually portrayed as a New York restaurant in Sex and the City ,which explains why I had such a hard time locating it in the episode. In “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux”, Grange Hall stood in for the Paris eatery where Carrie’s French fans threw her a party towards the end of the episode. It is after Carrie shows up late to this party, only to find that her new friends have already left, that she realizes that Paris isn’t turning out quite how she had expected.

I was shocked to discover that both the interior and the exterior of Grange Hall were used in the filming of “An American Girl in Paris”. I had incorrectly assumed that the exterior shown in the episode was actually that of a real French restaurant. In reality, though, producers dressed up the entire street in front of Grange Hall to make it look Parisian, even going so far as to add French street signs and French street lamps (as you can see in the above screen captures). Why they didn’t just film this particular scene at an actual restaurant in Paris is beyond me, especially being that the majority of the finale was actually shot on location there. But that’s Hollywood for you! 🙂

I am VERY happy to report that even though the Grange Hall space has gone through a succession of ownership changes since the SATC series finale was filmed, both the interior and the exterior of the restaurant still look EXACTLY the same as they did onscreen. 🙂 The decor, the booths and tables, and even the wood and glass partition that separates the entryway from the rest of the restaurant are all still very recognizable from the episode. YAY! I can’t tell you how happy I am that Commerce restaurant kept the Grange Hall interior intact for all of us Sex and the City fans to appreciate! 🙂

Commerce restaurant’s name was derived from the fact that it is located on Commerce Street in Greenwich Village. The building that houses the restaurant is actually quite famous in and of itself, aside from the fact that Sex and the City once filmed there. The property has been in existence since the early 1930’s, at which time it housed a speakeasy. In the 1940’s, the Blue Mill Tavern took over the space and quickly became something of a New York landmark. Blue Mill enjoyed a successful run for over half a century, serving such famed customers as Eugene O’Neill and Ethel and Julius Roseberg. In 1992, Blue Mill Tavern closed its doors and Grange Hall opened in its place. Grange Hall quickly became a celebrity hotspot, with regular patrons such as Brad Pitt, Jennifer Esposito, Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler (who hosted her 16th birthday party at the restaurant), and Bill Clinton. Grange Hall also appeared quite a few times on the silver screen. According to New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, besides the SATC finale, the restaurant was also featured in the movies The Brothers McMullen and Anything Else and a commercial for a French cell phone company starring Martin Scorsese. In 2004, due to an increase in rent, Grange Hall was forced to close its doors and, after a few unsuccessful turnovers, Commerce restaurant was opened. Commerce is an absolutely adorable little place and I so, so, so wanted to grab a bite there during this year’s New York vacation, but unfortunately ran out of time. 🙁 It is DEFINITELY on my list of places to dine during next year’s trip, though. 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Commerce restaurant is located at 50 Commerce Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. You can visit their website here. You can read a great article about the former Grange Hall here.