New York – Page 3 – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 9, 2018April 6, 2018

Gray’s Papaya from “Sex and the City”

You will never catch anyone calling me a “foodie.” My palate leans much more toward comfort than epicurean with meals of choice consisting of chicken strips and ranch dressing, turkey and mashed potatoes, and hot dogs. I am a hot dog fanatic. My favorite spot to grab a ‘furter is Gray’s Papaya in New York. Their franks are simply sublime! I’ve sung the chain’s praises a couple of time on this blog – first in 2007 and then again in 2009. I got a bit of my reporting wrong in the later, though, when I stated that a scene from the Season 5 episode of Sex and the City titled “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number” had been lensed at the company’s Upper West Side outpost. A reader named Sabrina corrected me, commenting that SATC had actually been shot at the Greenwich Village Gray’s. As she explained, “You can see the phone box right next to the exit Carrie uses.” So I took a closer look at the episode and Sabrina was indeed correct! In “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number,” Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) grabs a dog at the GP located at 402 Sixth Avenue. So I immediately added the address to my New York To-Stalk List. Sadly, by the time I finally made it there in 2016, the eatery had closed and a Liquiteria juice bar had taken its place. I still figured it was worth blogging about, though.

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For those who have never had the pleasure of downing a Gray’s Papaya frank, it truly is an experience. The no-frills, walk-up hot dog stand was originally founded in 1973 by Paul Gray – a former employee of rival chain Papaya King – on the corner of Broadway and West 72nd Street on NYC’s Upper West Side. The eatery quickly became a hit with New Yorkers who loved the quality of the dogs and the bargain prices. It wasn’t long before additional outposts popped up around Manhattan, including the one at 402 Sixth Avenue which opened its doors in 1986. Though I never visited it, you can check out what it looked like when it was still in operation thanks to the archived Google Street View images from June 2011 below.

Sadly, though still insanely popular (you’d be hard-pressed to find any Gray’s location that is not crammed with people 24/7), the Greenwich Village outpost shuttered in January 2014 due to a rent hike. It followed the closing of another Gray’s at 539 8th Avenue in Midtown in February 2011 for the same reason, leaving the UWS eatery as the chain’s sole locale.

Things appear to be on the upswing, though. Not only is the flagship UWS outpost still flourishing 45 years after its inception, but a new Gray’s was opened in 2016 at 612 Eighth Avenue in Midtown. Customers have been lining up for the popular Recession Special – two dogs and a papaya juice drink or soda for $4.95 – ever since.

In “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number,” which aired in 2002, a “palpably lonely” Carrie attends the party for her book release sans a significant other. While heading home from the soiree, Carrie’s limo driver (Dena Atlantic) learns that Carrie has just written a book and insists on taking her somewhere to celebrate. The two hit up Gray’s Papaya (long known for being open 24 hours) and when the driver informs the man taking their order about Carrie’s new book, he insists on giving them the dogs for free. The scene was inspired by SATC writer Cindy Chupack’s first Emmy win. Of the experience, she is quoted in Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell as saying, “I didn’t have a date for the Emmys the year we won, and I lost our Sex and the City people at one point during the night, so I felt very ‘minus one’ until my driver said, ‘You won an Emmy? We have to celebrate this!’ and took me through a McDonald’s drive-through and told the guys in the window, ‘She won an Emmy!’ They gave me a free chocolate shake. The limo driver we cast in the episode was very much like the driver I had – although in the episode, Carrie goes to Gray’s Papaya, which is more New York and is actually a favorite place of Sarah Jessica’s.”

Though very little of Gray’s exterior is visible in the scene and what is shown is only via a blurry camera pan, as you can see in the screen captures below as compared to the Google Street View images, the restaurant’s red trim . . .

. . . as well as the location and configuration of the side doors are a match to what appeared onscreen.

And, sure enough, there’s that phone box that Sabrina mentioned.

The Greenwich Village Gray’s has popped up in a couple of other productions, as well. In the 2008 comedy Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Thom (Aaron Yoo) calls Nick (Michael Cera) while standing outside of the eatery to let him know that he has lost Caroline (Ari Graynor).

And Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) takes Stan (Alex O’Loughlin) to grab take-out there in the 2010 romcom The Back-up Plan.

The other Gray’s outposts are popular filming locales, as well. In the Season 3 episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations titled “New York City,” which aired in 2007, Bourdain heads to the now defunct Gray’s at 539 8th Avenue (which you can see a photo of here), his “favorite local eatery,” for a late-night Recession Special. While there he extols the restaurant, saying, “But man, when I start missing New York, you know, this is one of the things I miss. Ah, come on! A good Gray’s dog!”

It is the original Gray’s Papaya on the Upper West Side (pictured below) that is the most popular with location scouts, though.

The Warriors encounter members of rival street gang The Baseball Furies outside of the Upper West Side Gray’s in the 1979 crime drama The Warriors.

Doug Ireland (Michael J. Fox) brings Andy Hart (Gabrielle Anwar) there for a quick bite in the 1993 romcom For Love or Money.

In 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance, John McClane (Bruce Willis) and Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) take a phone call from Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons) at the payphone across the street from the UWS Gray’s.

Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) briefly dines with Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) there shortly before heading out to meet NY152 at the end of 1998’s You’ve Got Mail.

The last time I visited New York, my friends Kim, Katie, Lavonna and I tried to pose for a photo a la Kathleen and Joe in Gray’s front window, but the reflection wreaked havoc with the image. If you look closely at the screen captures above, it actually appears that the restaurant’s window was removed for the filming of the You’ve Got Mail scene.

Lance Barton (Chris Rock) takes Sontee Jenkins (Regina King) for a meal at the UWS Gray’s in the 2001 comedy Down to Earth.

The eatery was shown in an establishing shot in the Season 1 episode of How I Met Your Mother titled “The Limo,” which aired in 2005, though no actual filming took place there.

Michael J. Fox returned to Gray’s in 2013 to shoot a scene for the pilot episode of his self-titled series The Michael J. Fox Show, in which Mike Henry (Fox) and Harris Green (Wendell Pierce) discuss the possibility of Mike returning to work while standing across the street from the restaurant.

The restaurant chain was also mentioned in the Season 4 episode of Glee titled “Makeover” and was a pivotal plot element in the 1997 romcom Fools Rush In, though neither production did any filming on the premises. And while several websites claim that the Season 3 episode of Louie titled “Telling Jokes/Set Up” and the 1998 romance Crossing Delancey were filmed at Gray’s, both were actually lensed at Papaya King outposts.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Gray’s Papaya from the “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number” episode of Sex and the City was formerly located at 402 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Today, the site is home to a Liquiteria. The Gray’s that appeared in Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations was formerly located at 539 8th Avenue in Midtown. That spot now houses a Cohen’s Fashion Optical. The Upper West Side Gray’s, from You’ve Got Mail, is still in operation and can be found at 2090 Broadway. A second Gray’s outpost is located at 612 8th Avenue in Midtown. Gray’s Papaya restaurants are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

November 17, 2017November 17, 2017

The Many Apartments of Carrie Bradshaw on “Sex and the City”

While it is quite common for locations to shift after the pilot episode of a television series is shot (as I’ve mentioned countless times before on this blog), changes are typically few and far between from that point forward. The vast majority of my favorite shows tend to play fast and loose with their locales, though. On Beverly Hills, 90210, for instance, not only did two different pads portray the residence of Dylan McKay (Luke Perry), but three exteriors were used to represent both the family home of Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) and that of Andrea Zuckerman (Gabrielle Carteris). Then there’s Sex and the City, which completely thumbed its nose at any sort of location continuity. Though said to be at 245 East 73rd Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, no less than five properties were utilized as the apartment building where Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) lived during the program’s six-season run. The initial site, a third-floor flat situated above a café (complete with a very New York-style neon “coffee” sign), which appeared in the series’ first two episodes, has long been a craw in my side. Despite many attempts to track it down over the years, I could never seem to do so. Then, a couple of months back, I decided to do a deep dive into identifying it and was finally successful. As fate would have it, my good friend Kim visited NYC shortly after my discovery and graciously agreed to stalk the place on my behalf. Thank you, Kim! When I sat down to write a post on the spot earlier this week, I got a little obsessed with pinpointing the four other properties used, as well, and, after countless hours scouring the internet, managed to ID all but one! So here I present to you a round-up of Carrie Bradshaw’s many Sex and the City apartments.

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Mention Carrie’s apartment to any SATC fan and visions of a grand brownstone with an idyllic stoop will undoubtedly come to their mind. But the spot initially used as her dwelling was not a walk-up at all, nor did it have any sort of stoop. Instead, Carrie was first shown living on the third floor of a rather non-descript building housing a coffee shop on its ground level, as I mentioned above. The structure pops up twice in the pilot – first in an opening scene and then again in the episode’s closing when Mr. Big (Chris Noth) drops Carrie off at home after running into her at a club. It is on the sidewalk in front of the property that the duo’s now iconic exchange takes place, during which Carrie asks Big, “Have you ever been in love?” to which he responds, “Absof*ckinglutely.”

As was portrayed on Sex and the City, while the bottom two levels of the building are commercial space in real life, the upper floors house apartments.

Though the apartments appear to have been modernized in recent years (as you can see here and here), I am fairly certain from the way the episode was shot that one of the units was utilized as Carrie’s in the pilot.

As you can see in the stills above from the pilot as compared to the ones below from the series’ second episode, “Models and Mortals,” Carrie’s apartment interior looked completely different in the inaugural episode than it did during the rest of the series.

In “Models and Mortals,” an establishing shot of the building appears twice. While scrutinizing the shot, I noticed a sign situated below Carrie’s apartment in which the word “Clea” and partial word “Col” could barely be made out. After a ridiculous amount of time Googling that phrasing along with “New York,” I finally landed on a mention on The Knot website of Clea Colet, a now defunct bridal wear vendor formerly located at 960 Madison Avenue. A quick look at that address on Street View confirmed that it was, indeed, Carrie’s original apartment building. Amazingly, while the second level windows were changed at some point in the 19-plus years since the first season of Sex and the City was filmed, the edifice otherwise looks much the same as it did onscreen. Though there is an eatery named 3 Guys Restaurant situated on the bottom level (it’s been there since the ‘70s!), I am fairly certain that the coffee sign visible next to Carrie’s window was not a real feature of the property, but a prop brought in for the filming.

As Kim noticed while stalking the place, a Christian Louboutin store is fittingly located right across the street.

After “Models and Mortals,” the exterior of Carrie’s apartment building is not shown again until the twelfth episode of the series, Season’s 1 finale titled “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.” By that time, shooting had shifted from the Madison Avenue building to a new spot – a handsome brownstone with a picturesque stoop. In the episode, Carrie and Mr. Big break up – for the first time – outside of the structure after he refuses to tell her she is “the one.” Oddly, the site was only utilized in the one episode and while quite a bit of it was shown, I had a heck of a time tracking it down.

While doing my due diligence, I noticed that an address number of what I thought was “56” was visible on the building next door to Carrie’s brownstone in “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.” I examined pretty much all of the Upper East Side, as well as Greenwich Village, looking for properties numbered 56 that matched what appeared onscreen to no avail before finally calling in my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for an assist. Though he put in a Herculean effort, spending hours perusing the Upper West Side, as well as re-tracing my searches of Upper East Side and West Village neighborhoods, he could not find the pad either.

Then fate stepped in when, while hunting for the place via Google Street View, it struck me that the number on the building next door might actually be “36.” I dragged the little yellow man to the Upper East Side once again and started scrutinizing blocks in the 30 range for the right spot. It was not long before I came across 36 East 62nd Street. I had to do a triple take, though, because while the structure at that address matched what appeared on Sex and the City to a T, there was no brownstone adjacent to it. Instead, as you can see in the Street View image below, situated directly next to the building is a vacant plot of land. As I later learned thanks to this The New York Times article, a brownstone did once stand in the vacant space at 34 East 62nd Street, but it was blown up on July 10th, 2006 by its owner, who was involved in a bitter divorce and wanted to not only commit suicide, but to seek revenge on his ex in the process. The blast incinerated the structure, as you can see in images here, here, and here.

A photo of the home from when it was still intact is pictured below via Property Shark. Hard to believe it is just gone.

Carrie’s apartment doesn’t show up again until the third episode of Season 2, titled “The Freak Show.” Well, it sort of shows up. In the episode, Carrie walks in front of a row of brownstones at the end of her non-date with Ben (Ian Kahn) and at one point stops and says, “This is me,” but the exterior of a building is never actually visible. All that is visible is a rather fuzzy view of several walk-ups with iron porch railings.

A few episodes later, in “The Caste System,” Carrie walks with performance artist/bartender Jeremiah (Sam Ball) to a row of brownstones and heads up a set of stairs, but, again, no real exterior is shown. All that is visible is a row of buildings.

In Season 2’s “La Douleur Exquise!,” we finally get a definitive look at an exterior, though it is an overhead shot of Big leaving Carrie’s apartment – after yet another break-up – in which virtually nothing of the property is shown. I believe the same set of brownstones was utilized in all three episodes, but since so little is visible, I cannot say that with any certainty, nor can I even begin to guess where they might be located.

In Season 2, episode 14, “The F*ck Buddy,” Carrie’s apartment exterior is shifted yet again – this time to a brownstone at 64 Perry Street in the West Village. I found this locale thanks to a 2016 post on the StreetEasy Blog which mentioned the property’s use during the series’ early years.

Though very little of the exterior of Carrie’s brownstone is shown in “The F*ck Buddy,” thanks to its distinctive porch railing and some landmarks visible in the background, I was able to discern that 64 Perry was indeed the spot used.

64 Perry also appeared in Season 2’s “Was It Good for You?”

If the address sounds familiar, that is because the brownstone utilized as Carrie’s from the Season 3 premiere, titled “Where There’s Smoke . . . “, onward can be found right next door at 66 Perry Street. Why production decided to shift locales yet again to a brownstone located literally one door away from the previous one used is a mystery.

Though 66 Perry is undeniably charming and picturesque (that’s a picture of me on the stoop taken way back in 2004) and it is not hard to see how it came to be used on the series, as why it wasn’t chosen for filming during Season 2 instead of its neighbor . . . well, your guess is as good as mine.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Kim for stalking Carrie’s first apartment for me and to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for helping in the hunt for her second apartment! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment from the first two episodes of Sex and the City is located at 960 Madison Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. The brownstone used in “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” was formerly located at 34 East 62nd Street, also on the Upper East Side, but no longer stands. Her home from the latter part of Season 2 can be found at 64 Perry Street in the West Village. And the brownstone used from Season 3 on is right next door at 66 Perry.

October 25, 2017October 24, 2017

The Well from the Manhattan Well Murder of 1799

Oh, do I love a good ghost story! Back in 2014, my friend Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, sent me an article about a well in New York that was the site of an infamous 1799 murder. The seven-foot by five-foot well, situated in the basement of a SoHo building that housed a restaurant for many years, but at the time of the article’s printing was being transformed into a COS clothing store outpost, was cited as one of the most haunted spots in the U.S. With the clipping came a note from Owen, saying, “If you come to NYC, maybe you can get access to the basement for a future Haunted Hollywood post.” As you can imagine, reading the blurb had my tongue wagging. I immediately added the address to my Manhattan To-Stalk List and began researching the case, despite the fact that I had no plans of traveling to the Big Apple. Flash forward to April 2016. Shortly before the Grim Cheaper and I headed to New York for a last minute trip, I started madly combing through my list of area locales to compose a coherent stalking itinerary. (Said itinerary was even color-coded! I kid you not.) One of the spots I, of course, looked into was the well. By then, COS had opened and I was thrilled to discover, via countless photos on the boutique’s Yelp page, that the well was no longer located in an inaccessible basement, but in the men’s department on the shop’s lower level!

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For those not familiar with the case, here’s a brief breakdown. On the evening of December 22nd, 1799, Gulielma Elmore Sands, or “Elma” as she was better known, walked out of the Greenwich Street boardinghouse where she lived, never to be heard from again. Though she had informed her cousin, Catherine, that she was planning to elope with her rumored boyfriend, Levi Weeks, that night and the two were later spotted by several witnesses riding on a sleigh together, at some point things took a sinister turn. When Elma failed to return home, Catherine asked Levi about the events of the evening, but he claimed not to have been with her. It wasn’t until eleven days later that her body was discovered thanks to some boys who noticed a piece of clothing floating at the top of a Manhattan Water Company well near where they were playing and notified police. Using grappling hooks, detectives probed the well and quickly uncovered Elma’s waterlogged corpse. Her neck showed the telltale signs of strangulation. Levi was charged with her murder shortly thereafter. But the young defendant had a trick up his sleeve. Thanks to his wealthy brother, Ezra, he secured Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (yes, that Aaron Burr) as his legal counsel. The two-day trial that followed, the first recorded murder trial in U.S. history, became a maelstrom of media reports and public scrutiny. It was definitely the Trial of the Century – the 18th century.

The case was considered a slam-dunk for the prosecution. Not only was Levi reported to have been in a romantic relationship with Elma and the last person to see her alive, but Sands was rumored to be pregnant, which pointed to a motive. Public outcry against Weeks hit the zenith point. Hamilton and Burr were no slouches, though. They painted Elma as a woman of highly questionable morals and fingered pretty much every other man in the county as possible culprits, creating a massive amount of reasonable doubt. After just minutes of deliberation, the jury found Levi not guilty. Sounds a lot like that other so-called Trial of the Century. In fact, many articles about Elma’s murder refer to Burr and Hamilton as the “original Dream Team.” The events that followed the verdict also parallel the O.J. proceedings, with Week’s lawyers faring about as well post-trial as their 1995 counterparts. Hamilton was killed in a famous duel in 1804, shot by former legal partner Burr, which destroyed the one-time Vice President’s political career. Rumor has it the judge who presided over the trial just up and vanished one day, never to be seen again. And Weeks was so hated, he was forced to skip town. Elma never found justice via the court system, but maybe karma stepped in on this one. Amazingly, the case is still talked about today, more than 200 years after the fact. That is in large part thanks to a restaurant named Manhattan Bistro.

In 1954, the four-story Federal-style building that had been erected on the site of the well in 1817 was purchased by the DaGrossa family, who opened up a Franco-American eatery on the lower level. Manhattan Bistro became a local favorite and in 1980, the family decided to excavate the basement in order to create space for an office. During the project, a large brick well was unearthed. I am unsure of how its connection to Elma Sands was determined and, while some dispute its affiliation with the famous case (you can read their thoughts here and here), it did not take long for stories about the murder to spread once again. Tales of the building being haunted by a woman followed and soon patrons were asking to be shown the well while dining. The rest, as they say, is history.

In 2010, the well was even detailed in an episode of the Travel Channel series Ghost Stories – Season 2’s “Elma Sands,” which you can watch here.

Restaurant manager Thomas King tells of many instances of hauntings in the episode. One such tale, which was also chronicled in the book Ghosthunting New York City, had me shuttering. As King tells it, one evening he ventured down to the basement to grab a bottle of wine from the large cage that contained the eatery’s liquor. He unlocked the space, left the key in the lock, and stepped to the back wall to grab the bottle. When he turned around a few minutes later, he saw that the gate had been locked behind him and the keys placed on a box just out of reach. It was an hour before anyone noticed Thomas missing and headed downstairs to rescue him.

While Manhattan Bistro looks like it was a cute little spot, it was shuttered in 2013 after more than five decades in business for reasons I am not aware of. Perhaps Elma cursed the place. I mean, its Yelp reviews were downright terrible! In May 2014, Schimenti Construction was hired to gut and reconstruct the building as a COS (short for Collection of Style) clothing store. According to the article Owen sent me, though the overhaul was major, Schimenti was asked to preserve the site’s windows, façade, and infamous well. The boutique opened its doors in December 2014.

COS’ head of communications Atul Pathak touted the site’s famous past in a 2015 The Village Voice article and described the lengths the company went to in preserving the well, saying, “The historic prevalence of the space only adds to its appeal, as we are a brand that is committed to maintaining and restoring the original aspects and individual features of all of our buildings. At COS, we appreciate the importance of incorporating our core aesthetic of modern, timeless, and functional design into our store interiors. Prior to the store’s opening in December 2014, repairs were made to some of the bricks and mortar and the left side of the well, which was broken, was repaired.”

What’s odd is that, for a company that went to such pains to restore the well, the employees could not have been less interested in speaking about it, to the point that they were downright rude. When I first arrived at COS, I ventured up to one of the women working on the main level to ask if she could point me in the direction of the well. She rolled her eyes and said it was downstairs. I asked if she happened to know any tidbits about the restoration or why the company had been so keen on salvaging it and she told me she had no idea what I was talking about. Still hopeful (I’m nothing if not an eternal optimist), I then ventured downstairs, where I happened to come across another employee and a manager of some sort. They had just about as much interest in speaking with me as the woman upstairs and claimed not to have any idea why the well had been kept intact. Their demeanor was rather surprising considering this sentence in The Village Voice: “Just like the diners of yore, the store, Pathak expects, will have some inquisitive customers — and he says COS is pleased to provide a setting where the structure can be a focal point of the store’s interior.” Sadly, that was not my experience.

In fact, the employees were almost hostile in their attitude toward me, so much so that the Grim Cheaper, who literally never shops (especially at pricier places like COS – he didn’t earn that nickname for nothing!), had been looking at a blazer while we were there and was shockingly about to purchase it (had it in his hands and was heading to the counter) when he overheard my interaction with the manager. As I walked over to him, he turned on his heel, returned to the rack, hung the blazer back up, and said, “No way I’m patronizing this place.” Judging from the Yelp reviews, I am hardly the only one who has had a bad experience at the store. Maybe Elma really has cursed the building, condemning any business that operates there to a lifetime of bad Yelp reviews! Regardless of the rather unfriendly employees, I was still thrilled to see the haunting relic in person.

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

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: COS is located at 129 Spring Street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. The well from the Manhattan Well Murder of 1799 can be found in the men’s department on the store’s lower level.

September 11, 2017September 9, 2017

New York’s Paley Park

New York has no shortage of “secret” places. I blogged about one – Grand Central’s Whispering Gallery – on Friday. Another that the Grim Cheaper and I are fond of is Paley Park, located in NYC’s Midtown East neighborhood. We happened by the site while wandering along 53rd Street during our very first visit to the Big Apple in 2004 and were so struck by its beauty that we had to pop in for a closer look. We now make it a point to stop by at least once during every trip. Though not a filming location (at least that I know of), Paley Park is such a stunning spot, I decided it was most definitely worthy of a blog post.

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Paley Park is one of many pocket parks or vest-pocket parks, i.e. small landscaped spaces open to the public, located on the island of Manhattan.

The pocket park concept was first proposed by landscape architecture firm Zion & Breen Associates during a 1963 Architectural League of New York exhibition. A couple of years later, broadcast giant William Paley submitted a spot to built the prototype – a 40×100-foot plot of land he owned that formerly housed one of New York’s most preeminent nightclubs. Sherman Billingsley’s Stork Club, as it was known, stood at 3 East 53rd from 1934 to 1966 and, during its heyday, played host to such guests as Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Lucille Ball, John Barrymore, Charlie Chaplin, Carmen Miranda, Judy Garland, Ernest Hemingway, Tallulah Bankhead, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Grace Kelly, Ronald Reagan, Spencer Tracy, and Elizabeth Taylor. The Stork was shuttered in October 1965 due to financial losses from a longtime labor dispute and the building that once housed it was razed the following year after being purchased by Paley. Soon after, plans got underway to construct the park.

Designed by Zion & Breen partner Robert Zion, along with input from Paley, the miniscule park is situated on a scant 1/10 of an acre (only 4,200 square feet!) that is set back from 53rd Street in a tucked away spot surrounded by buildings on three sides. The east and west sides, covered in English Ivy, were dubbed “vertical lawns” by Zion.

At the rear of the park stands a 40-foot-wide, 20-foot-tall waterfall that pumps 1,800 gallons of water per minute. The white noise it creates completely drowns out the din of 53rd Street which sits just steps away. The result is a peaceful oasis – a tiny and unexpected respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. The idyll also features moveable tables and chairs (designed by Eero Saarinen and Harry Bertoia, respectively), 12 honey locust trees, and a small café, all set atop granite paver flooring.

Named in honor of William’s father, Samuel Paley, the park opened to the public on May 23rd, 1967.

Paley Park is easily one of the most beautiful spots on the island of Manhattan. As such, I was certain it had to have been featured onscreen numerous times. Try as I might, though, outside of William H. Whyte’s 1980 documentary The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, I could not find one single instance. The Stork Club did pop up in a couple of movies, however, including 1947’s Daisy Kenyon and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 noir The Wrong Man (pictured below).

Located just a half a mile away, at 217 East 51st Street, is another gorgeous pocket park that the GC and I only discovered on our most recent trip to Manhattan last April. Known as Greenacre Park, the bucolic spot was designed by Sasaki, Dawson, DeMay Associates in 1971.

The 60×120-foot park also boasts a waterfall, this one rising 25 feet. Sadly, no photographs are allowed at the site, so I was only able to snap a few from the street.

On a stalking side note – my good friend Kerry (you may remember her from her fabulous guest post about the farmhouse from All of My Heart) has just started her own filming locations blog, I’ve Scene It On Hallmark. As the name suggests, she will be chronicling locales featured in the popular Hallmark Channel movies and series. Her guest post really resonated with so many of my readers and I know her new blog will, too! So, go check it out! Congratulations, Kerry!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Paley Park is located at 3 East 53rd Street in New York’s Midtown East neighborhood. Greenacre Park can be found at 217 East 51st Street, also in Midtown East.

September 8, 2017September 8, 2017

Grand Central Terminal’s Whispering Gallery

New York is a magical place. I always describe it as such. It is not just the abject filming locations, gorgeous architecture, and surplus of history that make the city so majestic, but the little, notable things that seem to be tucked around every corner. Take for instance the Whispering Gallery at Grand Central Terminal. On the lower level of the landmark train station is a small alcove framed by four pillared archways. Commuters and tourists rush through it everyday, hurriedly passing underneath the tiled bows, taking no note of its symmetrical beauty or its acoustic secret. Linger a few minutes in the 2,000-square-foot chamber, though, and you will undoubtedly see friends enter together, wander to opposite corners, turn to face the pillars, and then either immediately proclaim “How cool!” or start giggling. Their exuberance is due to the fact that the curvature of the Gallery’s ceiling provides a seamless path for low-level sound to travel up one side and down the other, arriving in the ear of a listener 50 feet away.

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I first read about the phenomenon shortly before my inaugural visit to New York in 2004. The guidebooks I purchased in preparation for the trip didn’t specify exactly where in Grand Central the Whispering Gallery was located, though, and I somehow got the impression that it was part of the Main Concourse. So, on our first sojourn to the station, the Grim Cheaper and I excitedly headed to opposite corners of the grand room, turned and faced the walls, and, like a couple of idiots, proceeded to whisper to each other. Neither of us heard a peep, outside of the hustle and bustle of commuters, and walked away from the experience thoroughly confused, I am sure drawing quite a few laughs from Manhattanites in the know. Thinking the Whispering Gallery was a hoax, we never re-visited the search on any of our subsequent trips to the Big Apple. I did not even think about the site until years later, in fact, when I happened to mention our failure to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, during our first meet-up, which took place in NYC in 2009. Owen was quite familiar with the Whispering Gallery, knew of its exact location, and assured us it was real. While he wanted to show it to us that day, unfortunately we ran out of time. But he vowed that on our next visit, he would take us there. Though it took 7 years for that visit to materialize, Owen made good on his promise.

As he showed us, the Whispering Gallery is located on Grand Central’s lower level, in the Dining Concourse, just outside of the iconic Oyster Bar.

The rotunda, which is actually a convergence of three commuter corridors, was constructed, along with the rest of Grand Central Terminal, in 1913. The vaulted space was designed by Rafael Guastavino and his son, Rafael Guastavino, Jr., of the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company. The duo, who also created domed masterpieces at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the City Hall subway station, and the Bronx Zoo Elephant House (just to name a few), utilized their signature technique to create the Gallery. As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority website explains it, “Guastavino’s method of arch construction uses layers of thin, glazed terracotta tiles set in mortar in a herringbone pattern. The tiles are naturally fireproof and as strong as steel or wooden beams but weigh much less.”

The result is a dazzling display of gilded masonry.

And yes, a scientific curiosity. Thanks to the laws of physics and the Gallery’s parabolic-curved ceiling, two friends can stand at opposite corners of the room, face the wall, whisper to each other, and those whispers will magically be heard. The GC and I tested it out, with Owen acting as our guide, and I am happy to report that the phenomenon is absolutely real – and so incredibly cool.

There are differing beliefs as to whether or not the Guastavinos intended the effect. The New York Times quotes architect Frank J. Prial, Jr., who worked on the 1990s restoration of the terminal, as describing the acoustical occurrence as “a happy coincidence.” Apparently, during the restoration project, Prial’s firm, Beyer Blinder Belle, did not come across any evidence that the sound effect was deliberate. But author Lisa Montanarelli states in her book New York City Curiosities that the Guastavinos “designed the whispering gallery based on architectural principals that have been used for centuries worldwide – from the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing to the Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur, India.” Regardless if the phenomenon was accidental or intended, the Whispering Gallery is a fabulous “secret” site, one that I cannot more highly recommend visiting and testing out for yourself.

The Whispering Gallery is also a filming location! In the 2011 remake of the movie Arthur, Naomi (Greta Gerwig) shows the unique spot to Arthur (Russell Brand) during their first date and he proceeds to officially ask her out – via whisper, of course – while there.

My friend Katie, who runs Matthew Lillard Online, let me know that Cereal (Lillard), Dade (Jonny Lee Miller), Kate (Angelina Jolie) and the gang skated through the Whispering Gallery at the end of 1995’s Hackers. Thanks, Katie!

The Gallery is also said to have been featured in the 1996 romcom Breathing Room, but unfortunately I could not find a copy of it anywhere with which to make screen captures for this post.

The Oyster Bar, also designed by the Guastavinos, has been featured in a couple of productions, as well. Though we did not venture inside the historic eatery during our Whispering Gallery stalk, I figured it still bears mentioning here. The restaurant popped up a couple of times in the 2016 thriller The Girl on the Train.

That same year, Prairie Johnson (Brit Marling) dined there with Dr. Hunter Aloysius ‘Hap’ Percy (Jason Isaacs) in the Season 1 episode of The OA titled “New Colossus.”

Though a scene in the Season 1 episode of Mad Men titled “Red in the Face” was set at a supposed New York City oyster bar, the specific oyster bar wasn’t mentioned. Countless websites state that filming of the segment took place at Grand Central, but that information is erroneous. The AMC series was shot almost in its entirety in Los Angeles and the “Red in the Face” scene was lensed at Musso and Frank Grill in Hollywood, as detailed in this post. Being that Musso’s (as the eatery is commonly called) looks nothing like Grand Central’s Oyster Bar (as you can see below), I am unsure of how the confusion came to be.

Another “secret” spot in Grand Central that we checked out while in New York last April was a section of dirty ceiling in the Main Concourse. When the room’s massive rooftop mural was cleaned in the mid-90s (a job that took 6 months to complete at a cost of $1 million!), the John Canning Company, the group that performed the restoration, left one small 9×18-inch patch tainted. That patch can be found near the crab’s claw in the hall’s northwest corner. While most websites (and even Grand Central tour guides) claim that the dirt was caused by nicotine tar from the hundreds upon hundreds of commuters who puffed in the Concourse before cigarettes were banned, JCC disputes this fact, stating that the grime, which boasted a 2-inch thickness in some spots, was actually created by air pollutants, including car and truck exhaust and soot emissions from area industrial plants. JCC left the small patch of dirt intact for future study. According to the company’s website, such patches “provide the complete environmental history of the building’s interior.”

Though the dirty ceiling patch was referenced in Arthur, it wasn’t shown. A close-up view of it can be seen below, though.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend/fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for showing me this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Grand Central Terminal is located at 89 East 42nd Street in the Midtown East area of New York. The Whispering Gallery, from Arthur, can be found just outside of the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant, which is on the Lower Level in the Dining Concourse. The dirty ceiling patch is located near the crab’s claw in the northwest corner of the Main Concourse.

September 1, 2017May 19, 2020

The Francis F. Palmer House from “Gossip Girl”

A Gossip Girl tour of New York wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Constance Billard School for Girls/St. Jude’s School for Boys, the elite preparatory academy attended by Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), and the rest of “Manhattan’s elite” teenage set on the CW series. The only problem is that four different locations (yes, four!) actually portrayed the learning institution. I visited (and blogged about) the most recognizable of the bunch, the Museum of the City of New York, while in NYC back in 2009. And while I desperately wanted to stalk the second-most recognizable spot, the Francis F. Palmer House, aka the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (try saying that one five times fast!), I wasn’t able to get around to it on that trip. So there was no way I was missing it during my latest Big Apple vacation last April.

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The Francis F. Palmer House was originally constructed from 1916 to 1918 on a corner plot of land located at East 93rd Street and Park Avenue that was once the site of an 1847 residence built by Winfield Scott, a war hero who served as Commanding General of the United States Army from 1841 to 1861.

Commissioned by wealthy banker Francis Palmer, the Georgian Federal-style estate was designed by the Delano & Aldrich architecture firm, who employed brick and Tuscan marble in the construction. At the time of its inception, the five-story pad boasted a Mansard roof, a Juliet balcony, a library, a myriad of fireplaces, and a large formal garden courtyard situated on its west side.

When Palmer passed away in 1926, his widow sold the residence to George F. Baker, Jr., the son of a well-to-do banker. Baker snatched up three surrounding properties, as well, razed them and hired Delano & Aldrich to build a garage with servants’ quarters and a large secondary wing complete with a ballroom in their place. The new structures were all situated around the garden courtyard, making it the focal point of the dwelling.

In 1959, Baker’s widow sold the sprawling mansion to the Synod of Bishops (aka the administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia), who transformed it into their headquarters. While the property underwent a few modifications to make it functional as a workplace, not much was altered, thankfully, and the changes that were made honored the original design. As part of the transformation, the Synod opened up the large brick wall surrounding the central courtyard (allowing it to be visible from the street) and added a gorgeous wrought iron gate. A towering Imperial staircase was also installed at the rear of the courtyard in order to grant easier access to the second floor. Today, the site is comprised of an administration building and two churches, the Cathedral of the Icon of Our Lady of the Sign and St. Sergius Church.

The Francis F. Palmer House was only utilized as Constance Billard School for Girls/St. Jude’s School for Boys during a portion of Gossip Girl’s inaugural season, first appearing in the episode titled “Poison Ivy.”

The site’s 93rd Street exterior . . .

. . . as well as its courtyard and stairwell made numerous appearances during Season 1 and should be immediately recognizable to GG fans.

Eagle-eyed viewers undoubtedly know that a second school courtyard was also featured during Season 1 and throughout the end of Season 2. That spot cannot be found at the Francis F. Palmer House, though. It was actually just a set built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in Queens where the series was lensed.

Most interior school scenes were also shot on a studio-built set at Silvercup.

The inside of the Palmer House did pop up a few times as the interior of Constance Billard/St. Jude’s during Season 1, though, including in the episodes “Poison Ivy” and “A Thin Line Between Chuck and Nate.”

“A Thin Line Between Chuck and Nate” was actually the last time the Palmer House made an appearance on Gossip Girl. For whatever reason, beginning with the episode that followed, titled “The Blair Bitch Project,” the Museum of the City of New York started standing in for the gang’s school and the Palmer House was never to be seen again.

Then, inexplicably, at the beginning of Season 2, locales shifted once again – this time to The Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, though establishing shots of the Museum of the City of New York were still often utilized.

Despite the Palmer House’s rather brief stint on Gossip Girl, it is still, in my opinion, one of the most recognizable locations from the show, not to mention a gorgeous example of New York’s early 20th Century architecture. I highly recommend a visit if you are in the area.

The Palmer House also stands in for The Briarton School, where Jamie Burns (Matt Bomer) teaches, on the third season of The Sinner.

And it popped up as the home of Nicholas Endicott (Dermot Mulroney) in the Season 1 episode of Prodigal Son titled “Like Father . . . “

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Francis F. Palmer House, aka the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, aka Constance Billard School for Girls/St. Jude’s School for Boys on Gossip Girl, is located at 75 East 93rd Street on New York’s Upper East Side. The other locations utilized as the gang’s academy on the series are the Museum of the City of New York at 1220 Fifth Avenue, also on the Upper East Side, The Packer Collegiate Institute at 170 Joralemon Street in Brooklyn, and Silvercup Studios at 42-22 22nd Avenue in Long Island City.

August 30, 2017August 29, 2017

The Empire Hotel from “Gossip Girl”

My friend Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, always teases me for being a huge fan of “Hollywood randoms,” i.e. stars he has never heard of. One of my favorites of the so-called randoms is Ed Westwick, who played Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl. Out of all the male TV characters I’ve ever come across, Chuck is hands-down my most-loved. (Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock runs a close second.) The Grim Cheaper and I were obsessed with Gossip Girl when it was on the air, but haven’t seen the CW series since it wrapped in December 2012. Out of the blue, he put on the pilot last night and I can’t tell you how great it was to once again hear that famous intro speech narrated by Kristen Bell. You know the one – “Gossip Girl here – your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite.” Watching the episode got me to thinking about the Empire Hotel, which was owned by Chuck on the series and which I stalked while in New York last April. Somehow I had never gotten around to blogging about the place. So here goes.

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The Empire’s history dates back to 1893 when construction began on a large 7-story lodging at the corner of West 63rd Street and Broadway on New York’s Upper West Side. The Hotel Casa Alameda, as it was set to be called, was never completed, though, and the property went into foreclosure. It was eventually sold, the construction finished and, in 1889, re-opened as the Empire Hotel. Nine years later, the Empire was purchased by Herbert DuPuy, who had lofty goals for the site. He had the building razed in 1922 and replaced it with a new, larger, 15-story hotel. The re-imagined Empire opened to the public on December 5th, 1923.

Its now iconic rooftop sign was erected at the same time.

Though Hotel Online states that the sign is “one of the first ever and longest standing neon billboards in the United States,” according to Curbed New York, it was actually replaced in the 1960s. I am unsure which site’s information is correct, but, regardless, the “Hotel Empire” sign makes for some amazing photo opportunities, as you can see here and here.

In December 2003, the Empire was shuttered after being slated for a condominium conversion project, but the plan was halted by a group of permanent residents who filed complaints with the city.

Instead, the hotel underwent a massive 3-year renovation, re-opening in August 2007.

The interior of the 413-room property was reimagined by interior design firm Goodman Charlton.

The result of their efforts is a very Old Hollywood-esque tapestry of golds, blacks, oranges, and the occasional zebra print.

The sweeping two-story lobby is marked by swaying curtains, tall cushy sofas, and a massive staircase.

It is not at all hard to see how the Empire wound up on Gossip Girl. Its design is so very, very Chuck Bass.

The site first showed up in the Season 3 episode of GG titled “The Lost Boy,” in the scene in which Chuck announces to his longtime girlfriend Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) that he has cashed in all of his Bass Industries stock in order to purchase the Empire.

The hotel’s next appearance on the series was in “How to Succeed in Business,” also from Season 3, in which Chuck opens a speakeasy on the premises.

The Empire then went on to be featured regularly in both establishing shots . . .

. . . and in various on-location shoots throughout the remainder of the series’ 6-season run.

The penthouse suite Chuck called home was just a set, though, located on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios East in Queens, where the show was lensed.

According to a January 2010 CNN Entertainment article, the Empire saw a 5-10% increase in bookings and a 50% increase in website traffic due to the filming – at a time when most hotels were experiencing a decrease in numbers. John A. Fox, a senior vice president at hospitality consulting group PKF, noticed the spike in bookings, but “had not thought to attribute it to the hotel’s guest appearance in a television show.” Um, hello! Thankfully, David Bowd, president of the hotels division of Amsterdam Hospitality, the company that owns the Empire, had more foresight. Of his reasoning behind the decision to allow filming on the premises, he said, “I think that teenagers can dictate where their parents stay over vacation and we saw a lot of that over the Thanksgiving holiday and into the bookings for Christmas and New Year’s.” Serious kudos to the Empire! So many hotels, restaurants, and businesses I’ve come across consider filming a nuisance and aren’t too keen on broadcasting their onscreen appearances, which I’ve never understood as cinematic stints can be such a massive draw for potential customers.

Gossip Girl is not the only production to have utilized the Empire. In the 2010 flick Sex and the City 2, the after-party for the premiere of Smith Jerrod’s (Jason Lewis) new movie is held in the property’s lobby, though the hotel is not mentioned by name. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) simply describes the place as “the VIP room at the after-party.”

It is in the Lobby Bar that Carrie catches Mr. Big (Chris Noth) flirting with the Senior Vice President of the Bank of Madrid, Carmen Garcia Carrion (Penelope Cruz).

As its name suggests, the Lobby Bar is located in a tucked-away corner of the Empire’s lobby.

In the Season 1 episode of Power titled “Not Exactly How We Planned,” which aired in 2014, James ‘Ghost’ St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) and Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) met with Felipe Lobos (Enrique Murciano) at the hotel.

The Empire masked as the Wooster Hotel, where SVU detectives Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T) and Dominick Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino) investigated the rape of aspiring Olympic pole vaulter Jenna Miller (Kim Morgan) in the Season 18 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit titled “Heightened Emotions,” which aired in 2016.

The Empire was also supposedly featured in the Season 2 episode of The Equalizer titled “Solo,” which aired in 1987, but I could not find a copy of it anywhere to make screen captures for this post.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Empire Hotel, from Gossip Girl, is located at 44 West 63rd Street on New York’s Upper West Side. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

July 31, 2017August 1, 2017

Carrie and Big’s Penthouse from the “Sex and the City” Movie

I know I am in the minority when I say that I like the 2008 Sex and the City movie. Was it the greatest flick ever? No. But I did enjoy it. Seeing it was like being with old friends again, friends I’d missed ever since the HBO television series went off the air in early 2004. The more I watch it, the more it grows on me. Though, again, I know I am in the minority. One aspect of the movie that audiences did pretty much unanimously adore was the exquisite penthouse apartment that Mr. Big (Chris Noth) purchased for longtime girlfriend Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). So last April, while visiting New York, I, of course, was all about stalking the Ziegler House, which was used for interior shots of the penthouse. And, oh, what an interior it was!

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Before I get to the Ziegler House, though, I thought I should mention 1010 Fifth Avenue, the Upper East Side building that served as the exterior of Carrie and Big’s penthouse. I covered the property in a brief post back in 2008, but, in the interest of being thorough, figured it would be appropriate to detail it once again here.

The 15-story prewar building was designed by real estate developer Frederick Fillmore French in 1928.

The Italian Renaissance-style property, which was converted to a co-op in 1979, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.

Located across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the tony site is just the type of place I’d picture Mr. Big calling home. You can check out what a unit in the building looks like here.

1010 Fifth Avenue is also where Chuck Rhoades, Sr. (Jeffrey DeMunn) lives on the Showtime series Billions, though, as you can see below, the address is changed to “10101 Fifth Avenue” for filming.

Now back to the penthouse interior! As soon as Carrie and Big step over the threshold of 1010 Fifth, they are standing in the Ziegler House, located about 20 blocks south at 2 East 63rd Street. I first learned of the locale thanks to a reader named Allie, who wrote a comment on my 2008 post tipping me off about where the inside shots were lensed.

The historic residence was originally built in 1921 for William Ziegler, Jr., heir to the Royal Baking Powder Company fortune.

Designed by architect Frederick Sterner, the ornate 4-story, 75-foot wide pad is laid out with all of the rooms surrounding a central brick courtyard with a fountain. Along with said courtyard, the property boasts a grand entrance hall, two rear gardens, a library, a 25-foot by 40-foot living room, a formal dining room, a servants’ dining room, a massive kitchen that almost looks to be commercial-grade, two master suites (each with its own dressing room), and fireplaces galore. You can see some interior photos of the place here.

For whatever reason, Ziegler and his then wife, Gladys, only lived in the home for a year before moving out and putting it up for sale in 1925. The dwelling finally sold in 1929 to Norman Bailey Woolworth, of Woolworth five-and-dime fame. He owned the property for the next two decades before donating it to The New York Academy of Sciences, a scientific society that was originally founded in 1817.

NYAS put the house on the market in 2001 and it sold four years later to billionaire financier Leonard Blavatnik for $31.25 million. Blavatnik never moved in, though. Instead, the site, which today goes by the name “Academy Mansion,” is mainly used as a special events venue and for filming. While I really wish I could have taken a peek at the property’s stunning interior, I have to admit that the exterior is nothing to shake a stick at.

Seriously, the photo below looks like a postcard!

The Ziegler House popped up twice in Sex and the City. It first appeared in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Carrie and Big go apartment-hunting with their real estate agent at 1010 Fifth. Sadly, the wrought iron and glass doors that Carrie and Big walk through in the scene cannot be seen from outside. You can check out a photo of them here, though.

The doors are actually located inside the home, behind the massive wooden entry doors pictured below.

In the scene, the Ziegler House’s palatial entrance hall masked as the lobby of 1010 Fifth. You can see a photo of what the entry hall looks like in real life here.

The elevator situated at the rear of the lobby was faked for the movie. In actuality, there is a doorway located in that area, as you can see here and here.

That doorway leads to the Ziegler House’s stunning living room, which actually looks more like a grand ballroom. It is that room that Carrie first sees upon entering the penthouse, causing her to exclaim, “Oh my God, I have died and gone to real estate heaven!” You can check out some pictures of the living room here, here, and here.

Carrie is next shown the penthouse’s rooftop terrace. In actuality, that space is the Ziegler House’s central courtyard and it is located on the ground floor of the property, not on the roof. You can see an image of it here.

The penthouse’s master bedroom was just a set built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in Queens, where much of the movie – and the television series – was lensed. You can check out images of the real Ziegler House bedrooms here, here, here, and here.

The Ziegler House was also utilized in the scene at the end of the movie in which Carrie returns to the penthouse to retrieve her never-been-worn $525 Manolos.

Though Carrie and Big have sold the penthouse by that point and broken up, when she sees him standing in the closet he built for her, all is forgiven, the two embrace, and Big gets down on one knee to propose. Heartbreakingly, Carrie’s spectacular custom closet was just a set. You can see what the Ziegler House’s dressing rooms look like here, here, and here. They’re not too shabby, either!

On a side-note – I actually have a version of the Timmy Woods Eiffel Tower purse that Carrie, ahem, carried in the scene in which she and Big first toured the penthouse! A dear and incredibly thoughtful friend named Marie gifted it to me for my birthday last year. I didn’t have it at the time I stalked the Ziegler House, sadly, otherwise I so would have posed with it outside! Winking smile

The Ziegler House has been utilized in a couple of other productions besides Sex and the City. In the Season 2 episode of White Collar titled “Point Blank,” which aired in 2010, the property masqueraded as the Russian Heritage Museum.

For the shoot, the Ziegler House’s living room, aka Carrie’s piece of real estate heaven, was dressed as a gallery and looked considerably different than it did in SATC.

“Point Blank” also gave us a great view of the property’s terrace.

In the Season 2 episode of Person of Interest titled “Masquerade,” which aired in 2012, the Ziegler House portrayed New York’s Brazilian Consulate.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The exterior of Carrie and Big’s penthouse from the Sex and the City movie is located at 1010 Fifth Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. The film featured the building’s canopied main entrance, which can be found around the corner on East 82nd Street. The interior of Carrie and Big’s penthouse, aka the Ziegler House, aka Academy Mansion, is located at 2 East 63rd Street, also on New York’s Upper East Side.

May 10, 2017May 9, 2017

Soup Burg from “Sex and the City”

I am the first to admit that I get fixated on the most random things. A few years back, I became obsessed with identifying the diner featured at the very end of the Season 1 episode of Sex and the City titled “Models and Mortals.” Though the eatery only appeared briefly, I was consumed with tracking it down. What can I say? I love a good diner. It took some legwork to find the place, but find it, I did. Sadly, by that time, Soup Burg, at 922 Madison Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side, had long since closed its doors. So while I never got the chance to eat there, I still ran right out to stalk its former location during my trip to the Big Apple last April.

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In “Models and Mortals,” Mr. Big (Chris Noth) and Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) run into each other at a fashion show after-party and strike up a conversation, during which he asks her where she writes her “cute” weekly newspaper column. She responds, “Well, about half the time, I’m at my apartment and the other half I’m over at this coffee shop on 73rd and Madison.” Flash forward to the episode’s final scene. Big surprises Carrie by randomly showing up at said coffee shop, where they discuss men who date models. During their brief conversation (he’s late for a meeting, you see), he informs her, “First of all, well, there are so many goddamn gorgeous women out there in this city. But the thing is this – after a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh.” For those not well-versed in all things Sex and the City, Big is speaking about Carrie. The two get together just a few episodes later.

While scrutinizing “Models and Mortals” for clues as to the coffee shop’s whereabouts, I noticed that a sign reading “Soup Burg” was very briefly visible behind Mr. Big when he first sat down . . .

. . . as well as on the door when he left the restaurant.

So I headed to Google and quickly came across a Yelp page for a defunct eatery by that name which stated its former address as 1095 Lexington Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. Eureka, right? Wrong. It was not long before I figured out that while Soup Burg was a longtime UES staple dating back to the ‘40s, during its heyday the restaurant actually boasted three outposts, none of which was still in operation. The Lex Ave location did not open until 2004 and the third iteration at 1026 1st Avenue was also established around that same time. Since “Models and Mortals” was lensed in 1998, I knew the episode could not have been shot at either of those two spots. Filming had to have occurred at the original Soup Burg. So back to the drawing board I went. Another Google search led me to this 2014 The New York Times article which noted that the restaurant’s inaugural site was on the corner of East 73rd Street and Madison Avenue – exactly where Carrie had said it was in the episode! D’oh! The article also mentioned that the space was now home to a cashmere shop. From there it was easy to pinpoint the eatery’s exact former address of 922 Madison.

Soup Burg was originally established at the Madison Avenue site way back in 1948. I am unaware of who initially founded it, but in 1964, the café was purchased by Greek native Peter Gouvakis, who had worked on the premises since 1958. Soup Burg thrived under Gouvakis’ tutelage, becoming a veritable New York institution.

During the 1970s, Peter’s son Jimmy started working at Soup Burg, eventually taking it over, along with his brother, John, and their brother-in-law, Timmy Vlachos. The trio further grew the business and perfected the recipes. Soup Burg became known citywide for its burgers, which Time Out NY rated as the third best burgers in all of Manhattan in 2004. Though the two sister cafes were opened, the Madison Avenue location remained the best-loved. Of the site, New York magazine had this to say, “There are a few places on the East Side with this name, each as small as your first – or current – apartment, each looking like it was built in two days, each routinely buffed to a high Formica shine, and each with a menu big enough to daunt the banquet kitchen at the Marriott Marquis. Ignore all of them but the one at this address.”

In July 2006, Jimmy was informed that the rent on the Madison Avenue site was increasing from $21,000 a month to $65,000. Sadly, Gouvakis could not afford the increase and the restaurant (which, by that time, had been operating in the same space for 58 years!) shuttered later that month. By November, the upscale Manrico Cashmere boutique had moved in. You can see what the Madison Avenue Soup Burg looked like while it was still in operation here, here, here, and here. And you can read two great articles on its closing on the Doktor Weingolb blog here and here.

By that time, the 1st Avenue location had also closed its doors. And though the Lexington Avenue outpost remained open and extremely popular with New Yorkers as one of the only spots in the neighborhood to get a decent, affordable meal, it, too, faced a rent hike in 2014 and shuttered in June of that year. The increase was a pretty dumb move on the landlord’s part if you ask me, being that, per Google Street View, the space is currently vacant and does not look to have ever been occupied since Soup Burg moved out.

Many mourned the loss of the last operating Soup Burg. The New York Times journalist Anne Barnard had this to say about the closure, “The Soup Burg is – was – the archetype of what in today’s homogenized, all-American city is usually called a diner. Premillennial, pre-Starbucks New Yorkers would call it a coffee shop. Not the kind where you get a latte, though that item was grudgingly added to the menu. The kind where you get a burger bigger than its bun, or home fries with sweet peppers and onions, or a chicken orzo soup with saltines. Where you can sit down and eat for $10, with a bottomless, not distractingly good $1.50 coffee, and where they know your face, your order and sometimes even your name.”

I’m really sad I never got the chance to dine at any of the Soup Burg restaurants, but at least the original is forever immortalized onscreen thanks to Sex and the City.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Soup Burg, from the “Models and Mortals” episode of Sex and the City, was formerly located at 922 Madison Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. The space currently houses Manrico Cashmere. Via Quadronno, one of my very favorite Big Apple eateries, is located right around the corner at 25 East 73rd Street. It also appeared in “Models and Mortals.” You can read my post on the restaurant here.

April 28, 2017April 28, 2017

June’s House from “White Collar”

Sometimes the work and detail that go into creating certain locations absolutely boggles my mind. Case in point – the house belonging to June (Diahann Carroll) on the USA series White Collar. The imposing residence is actually an amalgamation of three different places – a spectacular estate on New York’s Upper West Side, the rooftop terrace of an ornate Murray Hill building, and a studio-built set. While in Manhattan last April, I stalked the estate, known in real life as the Schinasi Mansion, which is used in all of the establishing shots of June’s pad on the show.

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The sprawling Schinasi Mansion was originally built for Turkish-born cigarette magnate Morris Schinasi in 1909. Designed by William B. Tuthill of Carnegie Hall fame, the spectacular French Renaissance-style residence, which boasts Turkish influences, is often touted as being New York’s only remaining stand-alone single-family manse.

Though undeniably striking, Schinasi wasn’t altogether impressed with Tuthill’s final product and refused to pay the architect his $5,655.65 fee, which resulted in a lawsuit.

It’s hard to imagine what Schinasi found fault with. The exterior of the 4-story, 41-by-73-foot structure, which sits overlooking the Hudson River on a plot of land boasting 3,400 square feet of gardens, is a masterpiece of white marble and green-tiled roofing.

The exterior pales in comparison to the interior, though, which is a virtual work of art.

The 12,000-square-foot home features 12 bedrooms, 11 baths, a teak-paneled library with a fireplace and built-in window seat, a smoking room with ceiling frescos and gold leafing, a formal wood-paneled dining room with stained glass windows, a drawing room with carved ceilings, an English basement, two kitchens, a hall made entirely of ornate Egyptian marble, and an entry hall with a sweeping grand staircase and an almost-unbelievably-intricate honeycomb ceiling constructed of wood. The inside of the residence honestly has to be seen to be believed. You can check out some fabulous photos of it here and here.

When Schinasi passed away in 1929, his widow Laurette sold the mansion, at which time it became a finishing school known as the Semple School for Girls. Upon headmaster Rosa Semple’s death in 1965, the property was bought by Columbia University and was transformed into a daycare facility named “The Children’s Mansion.” Under Columbia’s ownership, the residence was also utilized as an Episcopal school and the offices of the Digest of Soviet Press. In 1979, the site transitioned into a private residence once again upon being purchased by Columbia University law professor Hans Smit for $325,000. Hans spent the next twenty years renovating the property, though when he put it on the market in 2006, the real estate listing noted that it still needed major rehabbing.

Originally listed at $31 million, the pad, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a New York City Landmark, received no bites. The price was slashed to $20 million in 2012 and the dwelling eventually sold for $14 million in 2013. The new owners immediately set about revitalizing the structure. The renovation was still in full swing when I stalked the place last Spring, as evidenced by all of my photos.

My dad has a saying he likes to use about people with uncanny good luck – “He could fall into a pile of sh*t and walk out with a brown suit.” That pretty much sums up the character of con man Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) on White Collar. In the series’ pilot, Neal is released from jail into the custody of the FBI’s White Collar division, where he is to act as a consultant, helping agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) catch art thieves and forgers in return for his partial freedom (though he is able to live on his own and move freely, he is forced to wear an ankle bracelet). When Neal scoffs at the seedy apartment the FBI has secured for him, Peter informs him that the low class digs cost $700 a month and if he can find more suitable accommodations for the same amount, he is welcome to move. While shopping for clothes at a nearby thrift store in the scene that follows, Neal meets a wealthy widow named June (Diahann Carroll) who is donating her late husband’s designer suits. Neal and June strike up a conversation – and an unlikely friendship (turns out June’s late husband was a con man, too!) – that ends with Neal moving into the idyllic attic apartment (complete with a large rooftop terrace) of June’s massive mansion, said to be located at 87 Riverside Drive, for the bargain price of $700 a month.

The exterior of the Schinasi Mansion was shown regularly in establishing shots of June’s palatial pad throughout White Collar’s six-season run.

The home’s actual interior was also utilized in several episodes, including the pilot (pictured below).

Neal’s fabulous attic apartment, unfortunately, does not exist in real life, but was a studio-built set. You can see what the Schinasi Mansion’s attic area actually looks like here and here.

I’ve recently decided that if the Grim Cheaper and I ever buy a place and have the means to have it professionally decorated, we are so hiring a set designer rather than an interior decorator! Ammiright?

While Neal’s uh-ma-zing terrace was also a studio-built set, I was thrilled to discover while researching this post that the patio scenes from the pilot were shot at an actual place – one of the penthouses at the Windsor Tower residential building, which is located at 5 Tudor City Place in Murray Hill. You can see a photo of one of the actual Windsor Tower penthouse terraces here and a video of another one here.

The set re-creation of Neal’s terrace, which very closely resembles the Windsor Tower terraces (albeit a much smaller version), is pictured below.

White Collar is hardly the first production to make use of the Schinasi Mansion.

In the 1994 comedy Bullets Over Broadway, the dwelling masked as the home of actress Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest).

In the Season 3 episode of Damages titled “Your Secrets Are Safe,” which aired in 2010, the mansion was the site of the Tobin family’s Thanksgiving dinner.

It, along with another massive mansion, was used as the residence of Spencer Fisher (Kyle Bornheimer) in the Season 2 episode of Royal Pains titled “Spasticity,” which also aired in 2010.

In the 2014 thriller Innocence, the property portrayed the home of Tobey Crawford (Graham Phillips).

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Schinasi Mansion, aka June’s house from White Collar, is located at 351 Riverside Drive on New York’s Upper West Side.