movies – Page 25 – IAMNOTASTALKER

October 22, 2009October 22, 2009

Blair Waldorf’s Gossip Girl Apartment Building

Well, it must be Gossip Girl week here at Iamnotastalker.com because here I am once again blogging about yet another location from the ubiquitous CW series. While in New York two weeks ago, one of the locales at the very top of my stalking list was the Upper East Side building where Queen Bee Blair Waldorf lives on my new favorite show. I found this location, once again, thanks to FanPop’s awesome Gossip Girl page and, because I love me some BW, I just simply wasn’t leaving New York until I had stalked her place. So, after dropping my best friend, his girlfriend, and his mother off at the Guggenheim Museum – because as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t do museums 🙂 – I dragged my fiancé just a few blocks North to do some stalking of Blair’s pad. On a side note: While doing research on Blair’s apartment building for today’s post, I came across this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING website, which lists pretty much EVERY SINGLE location ever featured on Gossip Girl! And, let me tell you, I almost fell off my chair while looking at it! HOW IN THE HECK DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS SITE BEFORE I LEFT FOR NEW YORK! UGH! 🙁 I could have spent my entire trip stalking Gossip Girl!!!!! LOL Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to set that as my goal for next year’s trip! 🙂

On Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf lives in the Penthouse apartment of the ultra-exclusive Fifth Avenue building pictured above. The 15-story building, which houses 43 different apartments, was built in 1925 by architect George F. Pelham, Jr., who also designed the Castle Village apartment complex in Hudson Heights and the residential building located at 1120 Park Avenue. A two-bedroom unit in Blair’s building, which you can take a look at here, is currently for sale for the bargain price of $2,695,000! Besides views of Central Park, the building also boasts a full-time, white-gloved doorman AND a full-time, white-gloved elevator operator. That’s just so Blair Waldorf, isn’t it? 🙂 So love it!

Blair’s building has been featured regularly in establishing shots throughout the series’ two and a half year run. Filming also took place there for the Season One episode entitled “Victor, Victrola”, in which Nate Archibald and his father get into a fistfight on the sidewalk out in front of the building (pictured above).

In the Season Two episode entitled “In the Realm of the Basses”, Blair receives an invitation from the elite Colony Club in which the actual address of the real apartment building used for the filming is displayed. Love it!

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According to fave book Manhattan On Film: Walking Tours of Hollywood’s Fabled Front Lot, Blair’s building was also used in the 2001 Chris Rock movie Down to Earth, as the residence of Charles Wellington, whose body the spirit of Chris Rock inhabits after his untimely demise. The building also has a bit of celebrity history, as well. During their marriage, Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid owned a seven-room unit on the building’s 12th-floor, which they sold in March 2002, almost a year after their divorced was finalized, for a cool $6.5 million.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Blair Waldorf’s apartment from Gossip Girl is located at 1136 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of 5th Avenue and 95th Street, on New York’s Upper East Side.

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!

October 15, 2009October 20, 2009

The Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead House

Thought I’d take a little break today from writing about New York filming locations as there is a movie house that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I stalked a few weeks back that I am just dying to blog about – Christina Applegate’s home from fave movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead! I swear, I’ve wanted to stalk that house for what seems like forever, but could never figure out its location. In fact, Mike and I had become convinced that the house wasn’t really a house at all, but a facade that had been built on a studio back lot somewhere. So, a few weeks ago, I decided to ask fellow stalker Owen for some help in either locating the house or getting a confirmation that it had been just a set. Well, not twenty-four hours later, Owen emailed me back . . . with an address!!!!!!!!!!!!! He had somehow managed to track down a crew member from the 1991 film who confirmed that the house was real. And while he didn’t remember its exact location, he said he had the address written down in one of his files and promised to look it up for us. So, later that day, the guy actually WENT THROUGH HIS FILES and found the address!!!! How incredibly nice is that????? And pretty much immediately after I had it, Mike and I were on our way to stalk the house.

Because the Don’t Tell Mom house had been at the very top of my Must-Stalk list for YEARS, I was practically bursting with excitement the entire car ride there! I’m actually surprised my head didn’t explode or something! LOL And I am very happy to report that, in person, the house did not disappoint! 🙂 Over eighteen years later and it still looks very much the same as it did in the movie. 🙂 The crew member had told Owen that they had roughed up the house a bit for the filming and dressed it to look dingier than it actually was. He also told Owen that, using camera angles, the house was made to look much smaller onscreen than it actually was in real life. Well, I really had to laugh when I heard that, because the one thing I’ve always remembered about the Don’t Tell Mom house was how absolutely HUGE it was. So, for the crew member to say that it was even bigger in person absolutely boggled my mind! Anyway, due to the behind-the-scenes info that Owen was told, I wasn’t really expecting the house to look at all the same in person as it did in the movie. So, you can imagine my surprise when Mike and I pulled up to the house and saw that it was still completely, one hundred percent recognizable from the film! YAY! Because the angle of the house shown in the movie was not the view of the house seen from the street, I was, unfortunately, not able to get great photographs of it. In the movie, the exterior shots of the house were filmed mostly from the driveway area, with the camera facing West. The view from the street, however, which you can see in the above photograph, faces South.

Pictured above is the view of the house from the West, but because of the many trees on the property, not much is visible from that angle. 🙁

Other behind-the-scenes info the crew member told Owen was that the real interior of the home was used extensively for the filming, but that it, too, was made to look dingier and smaller for the production. He also told Owen that the “Dishes Are Done” scene in which Kenny (aka Keith Coogan) stands on the roof of the house with his friends and shoots the dishes instead of cleaning them, was not filmed on the home’s actual roof, but on a fake roof that was built in the backyard area. If you’ll notice in that scene, the camera never pans back far enough to show the whole house, because there wasn’t a whole house to show. The boys were actually standing just a few feet off the ground. 🙂

The crew member also said that the home’s real life backyard and pool area were used for the filming of the fashion show scene. And, as you can see in the above screen capture and aerial image, both look very much the same today as they did in the movie.

And can I just say that I so love the fact that the house was made a part of the Don’t Tell Mom movie poster! So cool!

On an ironic side note: About a year ago I got to meet Christopher Morley, who played the Marilyn Monroe drag queen who stole Christina Applegate’s car in the movie. And even though he wasn’t in any scenes that took place at the house, pretty much the very first words out of my mouth when I met him were “Do you happen to know where the house from Don’t Tell Mom is located?” To which he replied, “Oh honey, I don’t even remember where I filmed my scene, let alone where they filmed scenes I wasn’t even in!” LOL I always find it amazing when people forget things like that. And, while I realize that, as hard as it may be to believe, most people aren’t as interested in stalking locations as I am, I still find it odd when crew members don’t remember the addresses to places where they worked for days at a time. For about a year and a half, I worked as a personal assistant and, I’m telling you, my former boss could call me up today and say, “Do you remember where you bought those sheets for my guest house in May of 2007?” and, even though I’m not particularly interested in bedding, not only could I tell him the name of the store and it’s exact location, but also the color of the sheets I got him and the cost! And that’s not just because that particular store offered me champagne when I walked in the door, either. LOL No, no matter what anyone says, I will just never understand how people can forget something as important as a filming location! 😉

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Big, big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead house is located at 15548 Iron Canyon Road in Canyon Country, near Santa Clarita.

October 14, 2009October 13, 2009

FAO Schwarz

Every year while in Manhattan I drag my fiancé out to Fifth Avenue to stalk the most famous toy store in the entire world – the FAO Schwarz Flagship Store that was made famous in the 1988 movie Big. Because I am a total kid at heart, the shop honestly has to be one of my very favorite places in all of New York. Although, being that the store encompasses three stories and over 65,000 square feet of retail space, I should hardly be calling it a “shop”. It is more of an attraction, or, to be more precise, a sort of hands-on retail playground. Take my word for it when I say that there is no other place like it in the entire world. The first FAO Schwarz store, or Schwarz Toy Bazaar as it was originally called, was opened in 1862 in Baltimore, Maryland by a man named Frederick August Otto Schwarz (hence the FAO in the name) and sold only dolls. In 1870, Frederick moved his store to a location on Broadway in New York City and expanded his selling empire to include a wide selection of high-end toys. When Frederick passed away in 1911, his heirs inherited the company and continued to run it. In 1931, the store, which had become known as FAO Schwarz and had grown to become THE finest and most exclusive toy store in the entire world, moved to 745 Fifth Avenue, just across the street from its current location. But by 1963, Frederick’s heirs had grown tired of running the company and decided to sell it to Parent Magazine. After several subsequent owners, in 1985 the store was sold yet again to the joint partnership of Christiana Companies, businessman Peter L. Harris, and investment banker Peter C. Morse. Harris breathed new life into the company, which had faltered under the high ownership turnover, and in 1986 moved the flagship store to its current location in the former auto showroom of the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue. It was at the grand opening of the new flagship store that the now famous 28-foot tall “Welcome to our World of Toys” singing clock was unveiled.   And it was only two years later that the store would be immortalized by a piano playing Tom Hanks in the 1988 comedy Big. Throughout the ‘90s, the store saw several different ownerships yet again and, under the helm of the Rite Start Company, began to severely falter. In 2003, FAO filed for bankruptcy, not once, but twice, and shuttered eighteen of its twenty-two stores. And on January 26th, 2004, the unthinkable happened – the store’s Fifth Avenue location closed its doors. For the next ten months, the new owners, D.E. Shaw Laminar Portfolios, regrouped, revamped and remodeled the floundering company, and on the day before Thanksgiving 2004, the flagship store re-opened to much fanfare. It has been extremely successful ever since.

And it truly is a wonder to see! The famous singing clock no longer greets customers at the front entrance, but there is now a candy shop, two treehouses, a view of Central Park and the Plaza, an on-call magician, life size Lego displays, and – my favorite area – a Newborn Nursery (pictured above), where kids can “adopt” amazingly realistic looking baby dolls for the bargain price of $80.

And I have to say that, for some odd reason, I absolutely LOVE those Newborn Nursery dolls. Well, truth be told, I actually have a proclivity for any kind of doll, but some of my favorites have to be the FAO Schwarz Newborns. I realize I am a grown woman, but every single time I visit New York, I just HAVE to go to the Newborn Nursery and take a picture with one of the dolls. I must have over ten different photographs pretty much identical to the one pictured above in my collection. LOL I know, I know, I am a total dork!

Believe me, the irony was not lost on me as I posed for the above photograph holding a baby doll . . . on my THIRTIETH birthday. Not kidding. 🙂

Even though FAO Schwarz has since changed ownership several times and was even closed for the better part of 2004, I am happy to report that it is still, for the most part, recognizable from Big.

For those who have never seen the movie, it was at FAO that the now infamous piano playing scene starring Tom Hanks and his boss, Robert Loggia, took place. I sooooo LOVE that scene! “Chopsticks!” 🙂 I can still remember sitting in the movie theatre at eleven years old, watching that scene for the very first time and being absolutely mesmerized over not only the piano dance, but also the toy store in general. My eleven year old mind could not comprehend that a place like that really existed!   🙂

As you can see in the above screen capture, at the time Big was filmed, the foot piano was located on the store’s main floor, near the front door. That area, which is called the Great Hall, now houses FAO’s massive collection of stuffed animals.

Today the Big piano is located towards the back of the store’s second level. And every hour, FAO puts on a Big style piano show, where store employees dance on the keyboard and play games like “Name That Tune” with the audience. So cool! 🙂

And you can even purchase your very own Big piano for the bargain price of . . . $250,000! No, that’s not a typ0 – the darn thing actually costs $250,000!!!!! LOL LOL LOL If I had that kind of money lying around, you can bet I wouldn’t be spending it on a toy piano!

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FAO Schwarz was also featured at the end of 1995’s Mighty Aphrodite as the location where Woody Allen runs into his former mistress, played by Mira Sorvino. The toy store was also featured in the movies For Love Or Money, Big Business, Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew and the Amy Grant documentary entitled Building the House of Love.

Besides being a filming location, FAO Schwarz is also quite a celebrity magnet. On December 15, 2005, Tom Cruise hosted then-girlfriend Katie Holmes’ 25th birthday party at the store after hours.   He even had the place stocked with balloons and cupcakes from Katie’s favorite bakery, Billy’s Bakery, for the occasion. Other celebs who have been spotted at the legendary toy store include Ashley Simpson, Bindi Irwin (daughter of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin), Kate Gosselin, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Kelly Ripa, Britney Spears, Posh Spice, Heidi Klum, Calista Flockhart, Bernadette Peters, Cindy Crawford, Isla Fisher, Brooke Shields, and Conan O’Brien.

I honestly can’t recommend stalking the FAO Schwarz Flagship Store enough! The place certainly has the ability to bring out the kid in everyone, whether you are 9 or 99! 🙂 But if you aren’t planning a trip to the Big Apple anytime soon, you can also cyber-stalk the store from the comfort of your own home here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The FAO Schwarz Flagship Store is located at 767 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

October 13, 2009December 6, 2013

The Carlyle Hotel

Yet another of my favorite New York haunts is the ultra-exclusive Carlyle Hotel, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I blogged about the Carlyle’s famous Bemelman’s Bar, which was featured in Sex and the City: The Movie, after last year’s trip to the Big Apple, but didn’t include much information on the actual hotel itself. So, here goes. The Carlyle Hotel, which was named after author Thomas Carlyle, was built by Moses Ginsberg and designed in the Art Deco style by architects Sylvan Bien & Harry M. Prince. The thirty-five story building first opened its doors in November of 1930 and was actually a residential hotel at the time, with apartments leasing for approximately $20,000 a year. To show you how times have changed, today there is a room at the Carlyle which rents for approximately $15,000 a night! LOL Due to the Great Depression, the hotel did not fare well during the early years. In 1932, it was sold to new owners who managed to keep it afloat and occupied, but failed to really put the hotel on the map. In 1948, businessman Robert Whittle Downing purchased the building with the intent of transforming it into an exclusive, upscale hotel property. And transform it, he did! Shortly after the change of ownership, then-president Harry S. Truman stayed at the Carlyle, and the rest, as they say is, history. Every president since that time has stayed at the Carlyle at least once during their presidency. In fact, JFK owned an apartment at the hotel from 1953 until the time of his death and was such a frequent visitor that during his tenure the Carlyle earned the nickname “the New York White House”. (By the way, I have absolutely no idea what I was looking at when my dad snapped the above picture, but it’s the only one I have of the front of the hotel. LOL)

JFK’s wife Jackie was also a frequent guest at the Carlyle during her lifetime. The hotel honored her patronage by placing the above framed photograph just inside the main entrance. Ironically enough, rumor has it that Marilyn Monroe was also a frequent visitor to the Carlyle – but only when JFK was in town and only when Jackie wasn’t able to accompany him. According to legend, there is a secret tunnel system located below the hotel which allows the rich and famous to enter and leave the property without being spotted by the masses. Thanks to the discretion and privacy that the Carlyle affords, it has long been a celebrity magnet. In fact, the New York Times just recently dubbed it “a Palace of Secrets”. Just a few of the celebs who have been spotted at the hotel through the years include Elizabeth Taylor, Steve Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Princess Diana, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Christian Slater, France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Scarlett Johansson, Jack Nicholson, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Jay Z, Beyonce, Ryan Reynolds, Britney Spears, Swiss tennis star Roger Federer, Kate Bosworth, Victoria Beckham, Kate Hudson, Katie Holmes, and Tom Cruise. And, of course, Sarah Jessica Parker. In fact, SJP and Matthew Broderick are such fans of the Carlyle that they not only honeymooned at the hotel, but hosted an after-after party for the Sex and the City: The Movie premiere there.

The Carlyle is an absolutely beautiful place, with sparkling marble floors, dark wood paneling, crystal chandeliers, and antique elevators complete with real gloved operators. And I highly recommend stalking the place! If you can’t afford to stay there (the average cost of a room is about $525!), you can grab a drink in the hotel’s Bemelman’s Bar or dine in their restaurant, Cafe Carlyle. On our last trip to the Big Apple, we stopped in to the hotel and I asked my dad to snap some photos of of it for me while I went to ask the concierge about the filming that had taken place there over the years. The two pictures shown above were the result of that request. LOL Why he took only two photographs, both of me and not of the hotel, I’ll never know! LOL My apologies! Anyway, to get a better idea of what the Carlyle looks like inside, take a peek at the photo gallery on the hotel’s website. 🙂

The Carlyle is also, of course, a filming location. Woody Allen met ex-wife Tea Leoni at the Carlyle’s Bemelman’s Bar for a drink in the 2002 movie Hollywood Ending. Woody also shot a date scene with Dianne Wiest in the hotel’s restaurant, Cafe Carlyle, for the 1986 movie Hannah and her Sisters.

According to the book New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, the penthouse where Anthony Hopkins lived in Meet Joe Black was actually one of the Carlyle Hotel’s deluxe suites. The exteriors of his building, however, were filmed elsewhere.

Also according to New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, the Carlyle stood in for the European hotel where Glenn Close first met Jeremy Irons in the 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune, but I’m not entirely sure that information is correct. As you can see in the above screen captures, the decor just doesn’t seem to match that of the Carlyle.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Carlyle Hotel is located at 25 East 76th Street on New York’s Upper East Side.

October 9, 2009October 7, 2009

Rye Playland

Another location that fellow stalker Owen visited a few weeks back while spending the day in Rye, New York was the amusement park featured at the very end of the 1988 Tom Hanks movie Big. Rye Playland, which is also called Playland Amusement Park or just simply Playland and is run by Westchester County, New York, is the only government-owned and operated amusement park in the entire United States. In the early 1900s, Westchester County Park Association purchased two beachside theme parks after local citizens became upset over the unruly patrons fraternizing there. The Association tore down the existing parks and built Rye Playland in their place. The Art Deco style park opened on May 26, 1928 after a scant six months of construction. The new park featured an ice skating rink, a boardwalk, a fine dining restaurant, a swimming pool, two beaches, and numerous rides, including the Grand Carousel, which was built by Mangels-Carmel in 1915. In 1987, Playland was declared a National Historic Landmark and it is still in operation to this day, looking much the same as it did when it first opened over 81 years ago.

Due to its quaint, beachside charm, movie producers have made much use of Playland over the years. It is at the Rye amusement park that Tom Hanks finally locates the elusive Zoltar machine and makes his wish to be a kid again in fave movie Big. As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the entrance to the park looks a bit different today than it did in 1988 when Big was filmed. The two white pillars flanking the front gates have long since been removed, as has the pine tree that used to stand in the center island.

Also, at the time the movie was filmed, the large fountain at the front of the park was not in operation. That fountain was in full swing, though, when Owen visited Playland a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, due to all of the spouting water, he couldn’t match up his photograph perfectly to the screen shot, but the two pictures you see above were taken from the exact same vantage point.

Most of the scene from Big took place on Playland’s curved boardwalk, which is located just around the corner from the park’s main entrance and, which, amazingly enough, still looks almost exactly the same today as it did twenty-one years ago when the movie was filmed.

The only thing missing, of course, is the Zoltar machine. 🙁 But notice how the payphone in the above photograph is still in the EXACT same place that it was when the movie was filmed!!

Owen, of course, wasn’t expecting to find a magic fortune telling machine on the pier during his stalk, so imagine his surprise when he discovered that a Pepsi machine was standing just a few feet to the left of where Zoltar was situated in the movie.

So, of course, he just HAD to pretend to kick the machine, like Tom Hanks did in the movie. LOVE IT! 🙂

Rye Playland also showed up in Fatal Attraction, as the spot where Glenn Close took Michael Douglas’ daughter for the day after kidnapping her from school. In the movie, the two are shown riding Playland’s iconic Dragon Coaster, which was built in 1929 and was designed by Frederick A. Church. The Dragon Coaster is 3,400 feet long, rises to 85 feet at its highest point, and is one of only about a hundred wooden roller coasters still in operation in the United States.

Mariah Carey also rode the Dragon Coaster in the 1995 video for her song “Fantasy”, which was filmed in its entirety on location at Playland. The video also made use of the park’s boardwalk and parking lot area.

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Other productions filmed at Playland include Pieta, Sweet and Lowdown, Tenderness, The Muppets Take Manhattan and several episodes of BET Now.

A big THANK YOU to Owen for stalking this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Rye Playland is located at the end of Playland Parkway in Rye, New York. You can visit their website here. Park admission fees range between $20 to $30, but you can access the boardwalk area, where Big was filmed, for free. Parking costs an average of $5, depending on the day. The boardwalk area is located just around the corner from the park’s main entrance. The Who’s the Boss? house is located just a mile North of Playland at 13 Onondaga Street, also in Rye.

October 7, 2009October 4, 2009

Central Park’s Gapstow Bridge

One of my favorite places in all of New York is the tiny, little bridge known as Gapstow Bridge. Actually, I take that back. I think it’s far more accurate to say that the bridge is one of my favorite places in the entire world. 🙂 I am so enamored with it, in fact, that my entire family now refers to it as “Lindsay’s Bridge”. 🙂 Gapstow Bridge and its surroundings are so incredibly picturesque and romantic that I’ve taken about three hundred photographs of it on my various trips to the Big Apple and I go out of my way to visit it at least once each day while in Manhattan. It’s just one of those places that has the ability to calm me and warm me all at the same time. I just can’t get enough of it.

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Part of what makes Gapstow Bridge so beautiful is its surroundings. The bridge spans the northeast corner of the Central Park Pond and overlooks the beautiful Plaza Hotel to the South, Wollman Rink to the North, and the skyscrapers of the Upper West Side to the West. Believe me when I say that there is no other place like it in the entire world. I can’t be sure where Heaven is located, but I’m pretty certain it has a view of Gapstow Bridge. 🙂

The bridge was first built in 1874 by prominent New York architect Jacob Wrey Mould, who also designed Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain and Belvedere Castle. The bridge was originally built out of wood with intricate cast iron railings, but sadly, due to years of wear and tear, the entire thing had to be completely replaced in 1896. The Gapstow Bridge that stands today was designed by Howard & Caudwell, is made out of a sturdy, medium-grade rock known as schist, measures 12 feet tall, and has a span of 44 feet. It truly looks like something straight out of a movie. And, as a matter of fact, it is!

Because Gapstow Bridge is so incredibly picturesque and unique, it’s no surprise that it is one of the most photographed places in all of Manhattan and has, of course, appeared in countless movie and television productions – many more so than I could ever account for here. But just to name a few . . .

The bridge, of course, appeared in an episode of the quintessential New York series Sex and the City. In the Season 6 episode which was entitled “Let There Be Light”, Carrie and new love Aleksandr Petrovsky sit and eat chocolates on a Central Park bench with the Gapstow Bridge in the background.

Gapstow Bridge was also the site of Nate and Blair’s reunion kiss in the Season 2 episode of Gossip Girl entitled “Remains of the J”. In the episode, Dorota mentions that the bridge is Blair’s favorite spot in all of New York. I knew there was a reason why she was my favorite GG character. 🙂

In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, the bridge is the place where Kevin McCallister first encounters the Pigeon Lady.

It is also the spot where, on Christmas morning, Kevin gives her one of his turtle dove ornaments and tells her “I won’t forget you. Trust me.” I swear no matter how many times I see that scene, it always manages to bring a tear to my eye.

In the movie The Devil Wears Prada, the Runway Magazine “Urban Jungle” photo shoot takes place right in front of Gapstow Bridge. In the first screen capture pictured above, the camera is situated just above my bridge, facing South.

While visiting New York last December, my family and I happened to run into the production crew for the television series Rescue Me filming on my bridge! Unfortunately, they were just wrapping up when we got there, so we didn’t get to see any of the actual filming or any of the show’s stars.

According to one of the crew members, though, the scene involved two guest stars having a conversation right in front of the Gapstow Bridge. The above photograph shows one of the crew members removing the actors’ “marks” off of the pavement and thus denotes the exact spot where filming took place.

The day we happened upon the filming was an EXTREMELY cold winter day in New York. If I remember correctly, temperatures were a record low for that year. The poor crew members were freezing their buns off, especially when they had to remove their gloves in order to fiddle with something on a piece of equipment. I felt so bad for them, as they all looked absolutely miserable. 🙁 But, even in the extreme cold, they still could NOT have been nicer and answered all of my silly questions about the filming.

It’s a sad truth that most movie locations look better onscreen than they do in real life. It’s the magic of the camera and all the set dressing, I suppose, or the bigger than life quality that being in a movie gives to something that’s behind it. Gapstow Bridge is one of the rare exceptions to that rule. It’s even prettier and more picturesque in person than I’ve ever seen it come across onscreen and I can’t recommend stalking it enough!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Gapstow Bridge is located in the Southeast corner of Central Park in Manhattan. The best way to reach it is by entering the Park at the corner of Central Park South and Fifth Avenue and following the path that runs along the perimeter of the Pond.

September 28, 2009September 28, 2009

Lou Ferrigno’s I Love You, Man House

Another location from fave movie I Love You, Man that I have been absolutely dying to stalk is the ultra modern, ultra large manse that belonged to Lou Ferrigno in the flick. As always, I enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen in tracking this location down. Ironically enough, though, around that same time, fellow stalker Ashley was visiting the L.A. area and just happened to notice the Ferrigno house in the distance while driving on Fairfax Avenue. She had yet to see I Love You, Man, but because the house was so unique looking, asked her boyfriend to snap a quick picture of it. Well, you can imagine her surprise a few days later, when, while watching the in-flight movie on the way home, which, as luck would have it just happened to be I Love You, Man, she recognized the Lou Ferrigno house as the one she had admired from a distance just a few days prior. So, Ashley immediately emailed me as soon as she got home to let me know of the home’s location. Well, literally that SAME day, I got an email from Owen letting me know that he had also found the house! LOL I guess this was one location that I was really meant to stalk! 🙂

The Lou Ferrigno house shows up a few times in the movie, most notably as the site of the infamous “Open House” scene in I Love You, Man, in which Jason Segel calls out a man not only for attending the event for the sole purpose of impressing a girl, but also for farting while there! LOL When the perpetrator leaves the house he says, “You know what, guy, I like it, but I’m thinking it might be a little bit small.” To which Jason Segel says, “Totally, and it smells like fart.” LOL LOL LOL

Quite a bit of the Lou Ferrigno house was used in I Love You, Man, including the exterior,

the back patio,

the living room,

and the entryway, which, as you can see in these interior photographs of the house, all look exactly the same in real life as they did in the movie.

Ostensibly missing in real life, though, are the Lou Ferrigno statue, artwork, and memorabilia. 😉

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The Lou Ferrigno house, which, of course, does not actually belong to the Hulk star in real life, is no stranger to celebrity. There are rumblings online that the 6 bedroom, 8 bathroom, 9,204 square foot home which sits on over an acre of land has been owned by both Merv Griffin and the Sony Company in the past. I don’t know if that information is true or not, but the house has been the site of some very fashionable Hollywood parties, including one in 2005 for the exclusive New York/London Club the SoHo House and another for the Entertainment Group “House of Hype”.

Sadly, as you can see in the above photograph, besides the large front gate, not much of the house is visible from the street.

But you can catch some great views of it if you head up Hercules Drive . . .

. . . or down Laurel Canyon Boulevard. (Please excuse the power lines! LOL)

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Big THANK YOU to both Owen and Ashley for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Lou Ferrigno’s house from I Love You, Man is located at 1 Electra Court in the Mt. Olympus area of the Hollywood Hills.

September 24, 2009September 23, 2009

The Other 17 Again House

After stalking Zac Efron’s house from the movie 17 Again, I set my sights on finding the home belonging to his zany, long time best friend Ned Gold in the flick. In the movie, Ned, who has made an absolute fortune inventing various software programs, lives in an ultra-modern, ultra-posh pad somewhere high up in the hills above Los Angeles. And I absolutely fell in love with his house the moment I saw it. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not usually a huge fan of modern-style architecture, but, for some reason, as of late it really seems to be growing on me. Since Ned’s house was proving to be somewhat of a difficult find, I had to yet again enlist the help of fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen and Chas. Because we knew that the address number of Zac Efron’s 17 Again house had been changed for the filming, we had a feeling that the address of Ned’s house (which was shown to be 6355) was also a fake. So, we definitely had our work cut out for us on this one.

According to the movie’s production notes, Ned Gold’s house was located “in the hills near Griffith Park”, but exactly where we couldn’t be sure. Thankfully, though, while looking at the above screen capture I had sent him, Owen noticed that a street sign was visible in the distance. But because neither one of us could make out what the sign said, Owen suggested renting 17 Again on Blu-ray DVD to see if it would give us a clearer picture. And sure enough, it did! The street sign in the distance read “Los Encantos Way” – and from there it was simply a matter of using Google Maps Street View to look at houses located near Los Encantos Way in Los Feliz. And it wasn’t long before I had found the house. So, of course, I immediately ran right out to stalk it! 🙂

I am very happy to report that the 17 Again house looks exactly the same in person as it did in the movie – despite just a few minor changes.

When filming at this location, producers went so far as to not only change the address placard on the wall next to the front door, but they also painted a fake address number on the curb in front of the house! Unfortunately, you can only make out the fake curb and sign numbers while watching the Blu-ray copy of the DVD, which my computer is unable to make screen captures of. But if you happen to own the Blu-ray copy of the movie, keep your eyes peeled for the number 6355 in the two areas that I have circled in the above screen cap.

The other difference I noticed was that in real life Zac Efron’s basketball hoop is ostensibly missing from above the garage door.

Other than those two minor changes, though, the 17 Again house looks very much the same in person as it did in the movie. And, let me tell you, it is such a cool house!! With its cement exterior and polished wood details, it is slightly reminiscent of the home from the Showtime series Californication.

As you can see in the above screen capture and aerial image, the home’s real life backyard was used for the high school party scene in the movie. And, from how it appears, I believe the house’s real life interiors were also used for the filming of some scenes.

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On a side note – be sure to check out my new blog page called “Look Who’s Stalking!” where fellow stalkers can send in their photos for me to post. 🙂 I just posted some simply AMAZING photos of the new Sex and the City movie being filmed that were sent to me by fellow stalker Leslie. LOVE IT!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Ned Gold’s 17 Again house is located at 2223 Hobart Boulevard in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.

September 23, 2009September 23, 2009

The 17 Again House

As I’ve mentioned numerous times in the past, I am a total sucker for any sort of teeny-bopper movie. So, a couple of weeks ago when my fiancé surprised me with a copy of 17 Again, I just about died! 🙂 And while I have to admit that I’ve never been a big Zac Efron fan– I mean, have you seen High School Musical??? – and didn’t have very high hopes for this movie, I ended up absolutely LOVING it!! Surprisingly enough, it’s actually a really cute, really funny flick. And Zac Efron is absolutely fabulous in it!!!! Before watching 17 Again, I had never thought of him as any sort of great actor, but he was absolutely hilarious in it and really pulled off playing a 37-year-old dad who wakes up one morning in a 17-year-old body. So, of course, immediately after watching the movie, I called up fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen, and Chas, and asked for their help in locating the house belonging to Matthew Perry and Leslie Mann in the flick. And, sure enough, Mike found it almost immediately. YAY!

While watching 17 Again, Mike thought he recognized the neighborhood where filming took place. He was fairly certain that Matthew Perry’s house in the movie was located somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, and since he used to play in a softball league in that area, thought he may have driven by it on a regular basis while going to and from his games. So, using Google Maps Street View, he retraced the various routes he used to take and found the house almost immediately!! Talk about observant! The fact that Mike remembered pretty much the exact location of a house he used to drive by several years ago that was NOT even a filming location at the time absolutely boggles my mind! I’m lucky if I can even find my way home most days. LOL

As it turns out, this location was actually an amazingly lucky find for us, because as you’ll notice in the above screen capture and photograph, producers changed the address number on the house for the filming! In the movie, Matthew Perry’s address number is 5005, but in real life the house is actually numbered 6610! Honestly, had Mike not recognized the neighborhood, I’m certain this is one location that would have had us stumped for a very long time! Please tell me that changing house numbers like this is not the way of the future! UGH!

Besides the change in address numbers, I am happy to report that the 17 Again house looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did in the movie – except for one major difference. It appears that 17 Again was shot sometime in the late fall or early winter, because as you can see in the above screen capture, the trees in the front yard were quite barren at the time of the filming. Today those trees have filled in quite considerably, blocking much of the view of the house from the street. Other than the trees, though, the house is very recognizable from the movie. The 17 Again house is absolutely GINORMOUS in person (3,409 square feet according to Zillow) – so big, in fact, that I had a hard time fitting the whole thing in my camera lens.

According to the movie’s production notes, producers remodeled the real life backyard of the 17 Again house for the scene in which landscape architect Leslie Mann shows Zac Efron and Sterling Knight the magical garden she has created. And, as you can see on the MovieShotsLA website, the real interior of the house was also used in the filming. The 17 Again house is actually an oft-used filming location. Besides being featured in countless commercials, it has also been seen in the television series Day Break, In Justice, and Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin, and the movies Happy Endings and Something New.

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Big THANK YOU to Mike for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The 17 Again house is located at 6610 Allott Avenue in Van Nuys.