There’s nothing quite like a slice of New York pizza! Just watching characters eat a piece on TV or in a movie is enough to make me drool. So I, of course, had long been dying to stalk the Big Apple pizzeria that appeared in the Season 6 episode of Sex and the City titled “Great Sexpectations.”
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In the episode, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) head to a pizza place for a second dinner after not being fulfilled by their meal at Raw, the hip new “vegan non-dairy” restaurant where “nothing is cooked over 118 degrees.” It is there that Miranda tells Carrie about her love for her new “boyfriend,” TiVo. As she explains, “While I’m eating this slice of pizza, my boyfriend is home taping my favorite TV show. With TiVo, when there’s something I don’t enjoy, I just speed right through it. And he surprises me with things that he thinks I might like, which is how I got hooked on Jules and Mimi.”
I loved absolutely every aspect of the scene – from the opening close-up of the girls’ fabulous shoes to the way the camera panned upwards to their faces to the fact that they were standing at a tall table eating their slices, instead of sitting down. The whole thing just looked so appealing and screamed “New York” to me and every time I watched it, I thought, “Yes, I want to do that!”
Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot for me to go on in tracking this location down. Though some signage was visible in the background of the scene, it was not clear enough for me to make out any words or names. Then, a couple of years ago, I came across a mention of On Location Tours’ Sex and the City Hotspots Tour which stated that Two Boots To Go West Pizza in Greenwich Village was the spot where Carrie and Miranda enjoyed their non-raw meal. So I immediately added the site to my New York Must-Stalk List and, as fate would have it, happened to randomly walk right by it on my way to another must-see locale while I was in NYC last month.
The first Two Boots eatery was originally established by Doris Kornish, Phil Hartman (not that Phil Hartman), and John Touhey at 37 Avenue A in the East Village in 1987. The restaurant, named for the shoe-like shapes of both Italy and Louisiana, served Cajun/Italian fare, including a popular cornmeal crust pizza. Demand for the unique slices was so great that a second takeout location named Two Boots To Go was opened nearby in 1989. Additional branches continued to follow, including Two Boots To Go West at 201 West 11th Street in the West Village in 1995. There are now 15 Two Boots outposts dotted throughout Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn, Connecticut, Baltimore, New Jersey, Nashville, and Los Angeles.
Sadly, we had just eaten lunch a few minutes prior to happening upon Two Boots To Go West (at a different SATC pizza place, which I will be blogging about soon), so we were not able to sample the slices, which is a shame because the pizza looked – and smelled – uh-ma-zing! I am so heading right on over to one of Two Boots’ L.A. branches the next time I am in town.
I did manage to pop in and snap a few quick pics while I was there, though.
Seeing the restaurant in person threw me a bit as it did not look as I had imagined it to. On Sex and the City, only one side of the eatery was shown and the shots were all fairly tight, so I envisioned it to be tiny. In real life, Two Boots To Go West is actually quite large.
I was so thrown by the layout, in fact, that not only did I think for a time that I might be at the wrong Two Boots outpost, but I also failed to to snap photos of the exact spot where Carrie and Miranda dined.
For “Great Sexpectations,” one of the eatery’s tall tables was brought to the center of the restaurant, directly in front of the pizza counter, and that is where Miranda and Carrie stood. In actuality, there are no tables in that spot, as that is where the line is typically situated. You can check out an image taken from the same angle that was shown on Sex and the City here.
My recent trip to New York was nothing short of epic and I somehow managed to stalk a good 100 locales while there. I cannot wait to blog about all of them! The spot I was most excited about visiting was one that had been perched at the top of my NYC To Stalk list for years, but that I had never actually made it to during any of my previous Big Apple vacays. I am talking about Old Town Bar, a historic Union Square-area watering hole that appeared in an early episode of fave show Sex and the City. Fate took hold during this trip, though, as one evening the Grim Cheaper, my friend Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong website, and I happened to randomly find ourselves just a few blocks from the tavern, which also goes by the name “Old Town Bar & Restaurant,” right around dinnertime, so we popped in for a bite to eat. The establishment turned out to be everything I hoped it would be – and more.
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Old Town Bar is the quintessential historic Manhattan watering hole. As author Jef Klein says in his book The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York, “A setting that calls to mind a Scott Joplin tune, the Old Town Bar & Restaurant is absolutely vintage, Gilded Age New York.”
The eatery was originally established in 1892 (yes, 1892!) as Viemeister’s, a German restaurant/bar.
At the time of its inception, the property’s lower level housed a tavern that was only accessible to men, while the second floor (pictured below) was comprised of a dining room that was open to men, women and children.
During the Prohibition years, the establishment operated as a speakeasy known as Craig’s Restaurant. According to The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York, some of the vintage booths still boasts seats that lift, “a “holdover from those days when customers needed a place to hide booze in a hurry.”
When Prohibition ended in 1933, the site was purchased by a man named Claus Lohden and rebranded “Old Town Bar.” Lohden and his children ran the place through 1985, at which time it was taken over by longtime employee Larry Meagher, who started working there in the ‘70s. By that point, the tavern had fallen into a bit of disrepair, so Larry began to restore it. Amazingly, and thanks in large part to his efforts, much of the original 1892 décor remains intact, including the 55-foot mahogany and marble bar, the 16-foot high tin ceilings (which according to The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York were “last painted white on Election Day 1952” and are “stained a dark brown, thanks to years of cigar and cigarette smoke”), chandeliers (once gas-powered that have since been converted to electric), intricate black and white tile flooring, and a 258-square-foot bevel edge plate mirror. Even the property’s dumbwaiters are historic – according to the Old Town Bar website, they are “New York’s oldest active restaurant conveyers.” The urinals are also noteworthy. They hail from 1910 and are the last Hinsdale urinals still in operation on the East Coast. A 100th birthday party was infamously held in their honor in 2010. Yes, Old Town Bar is a place that appreciates and celebrates its history.
Today, the site is run by Larry Meagher’s five children, who work painstakingly to ensure that the watering hole’s history is kept alive. (And yes, I’m really annoyed at the a**hat in the second picture below who ruined my photo.)
Old Town Bar has long been popular with the literary set and has counted such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt, poet Seamus Heaney, journalist Jim Dwyer, Payback author Thomas Kelly, novelist Nick Hornby, writer Nuala O’Faolain, dramatist Brian Friel, poet Billy Collins, screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and columnist Christopher Hitchens as patrons. Artist Andy Warhol was also known to frequent the site.
It’s not hard to see the appeal of the place – not only is the ambiance fabulous and oh-so “old New York,” but the food is excellent! Any restaurant that features chicken strips on the regular menu (not just the kids’) is my kind of spot!
Thanks to its old world aesthetic, location managers have long flocked to Old Town Bar. The sheer amount of productions it has appeared in is amazing! In fact, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started writing this post.
It is there that Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) – in an epic, slow-motion, heart-pounding moment – runs into Mr. Big (Chris Noth) for the first time since their break-up in the Season 2 episode of Sex and the City titled “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Even though the circumstances couldn’t be better for Carrie – she looks fabulous and has the “New Yankee” Joe (Mark Devine) on her arm – seeing Big causes her to break down.
I learned about Old Town Bar’s appearance in the episode thanks to the book Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, in which co-executive producer John Melfi is quoted as saying, “On Sex and the City, we try to have a location make sense for the scenes. We’ll go to a historic location like the Old Town Bar, where Carrie went on a date with the Yankee, and we’ll be careful not to damage the mirrors or the booths because it’s a staple of New York and we want people to know that that’s a real bar. We’re really proud to be able to shoot in these places.”
Old Town Bar was also featured prominently in the opening credits of The David Letterman Show from 1982 to 1993. In the segment, the camera panned the front of the watering hole and then ventured inside and scanned the interior. Sorry for the craptastic screen captures below – the only clip of the credits available on YouTube is of low quality.
You can watch that clip by clicking below.
In the 1990 drama State of Grace, Frankie Flannery (Ed Harris) attempts to offload five cases of Bushmills to a unwilling bar owner at the watering hole.
That same year, Old Town Bar popped up in the drama Q & A as the spot where Asst. Dist. Atty. Aloysius ‘Al’ Francis Reilly (Timothy Hutton) met with Leo Bloomenfeld (Lee Richardson) for a corned beef lunch.
Old Town Bar was used in establishing shots of Riff’s Bar, Jamie Stemple Buchman (Helen Hunt) and Paul Buchman’s (Paul Reiser) regular hangout – where Ursula Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) haphazardly waited tables – on the ‘90s television series Mad About You.
Interior scenes that took place at Riff’s were obviously not filmed on site, but on a set located at The Culver Studios, where the series was lensed.
I was thrilled to spot a letter hanging on the wall at Old Town Bar from one of the Mad About You associate producers that detailed the first appearance of the property on the series.
The music video for House of Pain’s 1992 hit “Jump Around” was largely filmed at Old Town Bar.
You can watch that video by clicking below.
Portions of Madonna’s 1993 “Bad Girl” music video were also lensed at Old Town Bar.
You can watch the “Bad Girl” video by clicking below.
According to the Old Town Bar website, the watering hole also made an appearance in the 1994 comedy Bullets Over Broadway. I believe the scene shot on the premises is pictured below.
Though some elements don’t seem to correlate with the set-up of the actual bar, the paned glass panel pictured behind John Cusack and Dianne Wiest in the screen captures match what was shown on Sex and the City, as does the posted “MEN” sign and the coat hooks positioned next to it.
In 1997’s The Devil’s Own, Rory Devaney (Brad Pitt) meets up with Billy Burke (Treat Williams) at Old Town Bar.
The establishment masks as Rex’s, the restaurant where Alice (Chloe Sevigny), Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), Des (Chris Eigeman) and Jimmy (Mackenzie Austin) go on a group date and discuss feminism, in 1998’s The Last Days of Disco.
In the 2000 drama Boiler Room, Chris Varick (Vin Diesel) and his co-workers get into a fight with some J.P. Morgan brokers at Old Town Bar.
In 2008, the exterior of the site popped up in a brief establishing shot in the drama Life in Flight, though interiors were filmed elsewhere.
Old Town Bar appeared twice in the Season 1 episode of Bored to Death titled “The Case of the Stolen Sperm,” which aired in 2009 – first in the scene in which Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) and George Christopher (Ted Danson) ran into reviewers Richard Antrem (Oliver Platt) and Louis Greene (John Hodgman), and later in the scene in which Richard challenged George to a boxing match.
Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Ben Donovan (David Call) celebrated Valentine’s Day at Old Town Bar in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “It-Girl Happened One Night,” which aired in 2011.
In the Season 1 episode of Person of Interest titled “Matsya Nyaya,” which aired in 2012, John Reese (James Caviezel) and Joss Carter (Taraji P. Henson) had a heart-to-heart about trust – and saved one of their numbers – at Old Town Bar.
And the tavern was where Joey (Jamie Bell) proposed to Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) at the end of the 2012 thriller Man on a Ledge.
Well, I guess it is finally about time that I start blogging about my wedding, but I can’t very well do that without first writing about the place where I got almost all of my wedding planning inspiration – the Studios at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. When Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I embarked on our very first VIP tour of the historic lot back in September of 2008, our fabulous tour guide, Ian, who sadly no longer works at the studio, mentioned that sections of Paramount could be rented out for parties, weddings, and other special events. And even though at that point in time I already knew without a doubt where I wanted to get married, the thought of tying the knot at Hollywood’s oldest continuously operating studio definitely piqued my interest. Especially once Ian told us that it was possible to rent out the New York Street backlot area, which is quite possibly my very favorite place in all of Southern California. So, pretty much immediately after the Grim Cheaper proposed, I called up the Paramount Studios Special Events Department and scheduled a tour of the lot’s various event venues. And, let me tell you, it was an amazing experience! The special events tours are actually very similar to the VIP Tours in that all of the same areas of the studio are shown. The main difference, however, is that the event tours are private, so ours consisted of only four people – my two parents, the Grim Cheaper, and me – which was absolutely INCREDIBLE! The special events coordinator who we dealt with, a super nice man named Craig who I believe no longer works for Paramount, was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the lot and where various filming had taken place over the years, so the entire two-hour affair pretty much became a private, walking tour of the lot which was customized just for me! And, as you can imagine, I absolutely loved every single minute of it!
Events at Paramount can pretty much be held in any section of the 65-acre lot, making the party possibilities absolutely endless. Available venues include empty soundstages, each of which can hold up to 1,500 guests and can be completely decorated and customized based on each particular event;
the B-Tank, which is a 914,023 gallon water tank that can be filled and dressed to resemble any sort of water setting one can imagine;
any of the studio’s park areas, including Production Park;
any of the lot’s theatres, including the historic Paramount Theatre;
and the smaller Gower Theatre;
the famous Bronson Gate and water fountain area, which can accommodate up to 500 people;
and, of course, New York Street.
As luck would have it, a huge breast-cancer awareness fundraiser was being set up in the New York Street section of the lot during our tour, so we were actually able to see firsthand what an event in that space would look like. And I have to say that it was absolutely AMAZING! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been more inspired in my life than I was when I set foot onto New York Street that day and witnessed the extravaganza pictured above.
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Because the fundraising event incorporated three of the things that I love most in this world – New York, Hollywood, and filmmaking – I was completely in awe of the whole thing and my brain immediately started working on overload. All of sudden, idea after idea started pouring into my head and it was at that moment that I decided that the Grim Cheaper and I would be having a movie-themed wedding. Which in retrospect really seems like a no-brainer, but for whatever reason, up until we visited Paramount, the thought had never occured to me.
The most inspired wedding idea that came to me while at Paramount was that we could name each of the reception tables after various movies that had been filmed on New York Street and that, upon arrival, each guest would be given a card with a movie line written on it. Each line would correspond to one of the tables and our guests would have to figure out which movie their particular line came from in order to find where they would be sitting during the reception. And even though we didn’t end up getting married on New York Street, we did use that idea for our tables and our guests absolutely LOVED it, but more on that in a future post.
Even though I absolutely loved the idea of getting married on New York Street, the GC and I ultimately decided against it. As my best friend Kylee said after viewing the above pictures of the breast cancer fundraiser, a wedding – especially one as small as ours (we only invited 80 people) – would wind up getting lost in the spectacle of the space. The venue is much better suited for a party – a ten-year anniversary party, perhaps – rather than a wedding ceremony. Oh, and there was also the little matter of cost! Renting New York Street will run you $12,500, which may sound like a lot, but is, amazingly enough, a fairly average venue rental rate for the L.A. area. (According to msn.com, Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the US to get married!) The New York Street backlot area measures a whopping five acres and can accommodate up to 5,000 people and while it, according to the Paramount Special Events website, can now be customized to suit smaller groups, that wasn’t actually the case when we were thinking about getting married there. Even though we only wanted to utilize a small portion of New York Street, we would have been required to rent the entire five acres, which is actually fine – I expected that. What I didn’t expect, though, and what we were not told until we received the actual proposal, was that we would also have to pay to light the entire backlot as well – at a cost of $12,000!!!! – even if we were, in actuality, only going to light a small section of it. And, mind you, that $12,000 only covered “washing” the street in light, so that the space wouldn’t be pitch black during the reception. If we wanted any sort of specialty lighting, that would, of course, be an additional cost. There was also a fee of $3,500 just to power the event. I’m not kidding! And because Paramount hires only in-house employees for its events, you also have to pay union wages for absolutely everyone who works it – from the lighting technicians to the catering staff to the parking attendants. Besides paying union wages, you also have to adhere to union regulations, the most maddening of which was the fact that every employee must be paid for a minimum of six hours of work, whether they worked a full six hours or not. So, while I knew that getting married at Paramount would be pricey, I had no idea it would be as exorbitant at it actually was. Our proposal came to a whopping $41,000 for a pretty bare bones wedding – no open bar, no appetizers, no specialty food. The GC literally almost choked when that email came through! And keep in mind that that $41,000 did not include a DJ, a photographer, ceremony musicians, a dance floor, flowers, or the mashed potato bar that I had my heart set on. As the old saying goes, though, you get what you pay for, and a party at Paramount would have, no doubt, been nothing short of incredible!
Even though we did not ultimately choose to tie the knot at Paramount, I am so incredibly thankful that we considered it. Our wedding would have been a very different event had we not. And now at least I know where I want to hold our ten-year anniversary party.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. If you are interested in hosting an event on the lot, you can visit the studio’s special events page here or you can call (323)956-8398.
In honor of today’s big premiere of Sex and The City 2, I thought I’d blog about a location from the original movie that I stalked this past October while I was in Manhattan – the New York Public Library. And even though I’ve actually blogged about this location once before, since I did not include any interior photographs, I thought the place was definitely worth re-visiting. In the original Sex and the City movie, Carrie Bradshaw (aka Sarah Jessica Parker) and her fiancé Mr. Big (aka Chris Noth) plan to hold their upcoming nuptials at the library because, as Carrie says, it is “the classic New York landmark that housed all the great love stories”. The New York Public Library was constructed during the years 1902 through 1911 on the site of the former Croton Reservoir and was designed by the architecture firm Carrere & Hastings. The Beaux-Arts structure, which is made of white marble and cost $9 million to build, encompasses two full blocks of New York City land and contains 88 miles of shelving which holds over seven million books. Amazingly enough, any one of those seven million tomes can be requested and delivered to the library’s main circulation desk within a period of ten minutes or less! The New York Public Library, which was named a National Historic Monument in 1965, is a truly amazing piece of architecture and, being that it is symbolic of the two great loves of Carrie Bradshaw’s life – New York City and writing – it is easy to see why producers chose it as the site of her ill-fated wedding.
The library shows up twice in Sex and the City: The Movie. It first appears in the scene in which Carrie, while returning the book “Love Letters of Great Men, Volume I”, spots a wedding being set up in the library’s mezzanine. She immediately decides the place is the perfect location for her own upcoming nuptials.
That first scene was shot in the extremely beautiful McGraw Rotunda, which is located on the library’s second floor.
The New York Public Library next appears in the big wedding scene, during which Mr. Big stands Carrie up at the altar. And I should state here that the wedding scene seriously annoyed me. I mean, honestly, how many times can we expect Big to screw up before Carrie leaves him for good???? The SATC writers really need to come up with a new way of creating tension, because the whole Big-breaks-Carrie’s-heart thing was already getting old way back in Season 3. We should be long past that storyline by now, but I digress.
According to the SUPER nice security guard I spoke with, producers had the McGraw Rotunda intricately decorated with thousands upon thousands of flowers and other adornments for the wedding scene, yet none of it was visible in the movie. The only time any of the wedding decorations can be spotted is in the above-pictured blink-and-you’ll miss it scene in which Anthony Marentino (aka Mario Cantone) tells an assistant to keep all of the wedding guests off of the main stairwell.
The scene in which Mr. Big tells Carrie via telephone that he “couldn’t get out of the car” and that he will not be going through with the wedding was filmed in the library’s Astor Hall area, just off of the main lobby.
Miranda (aka Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (aka Kristin Davis) immediately grab Carrie and rush her out of the library’s northernmost front door.
And, while I was stalking the library, I, of course, just had to reenact the scene in which a devastated Carrie drops her cell phone after finding out that Big has stood her up.
Sex and the City: The Movie was hardly the first production to film at the library, though. The building was also the site of the benefit gala in the Season 3 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Ex-Husbands and Wives”
In the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paul Varjak (aka George Peppard) andHolly Golightly (aka Audrey Hepburn) stop into the library during their “things we’ve never done before” day. And while the real life exterior of the library appeared in that scene, I cannot say for certain that the actual interior was also used. The interior scenes quite possibly may have been filmed on a studio soundstage. The library also appeared in a later scene in the movie as the spot where Paul first tells Holly that he loves her. And I just have to say here that I find it absolutely amazing that Audrey Hepburn’s costumes are still stylish today, almost five decades after Breakfast at Tiffany’s was filmed! I mean, how adorable is the orange jacket pictured above? But, again, I digress.
In the original Spider-Man movie, Uncle Ben (aka Cliff Robertson) drops off Peter Parker (aka Tobey Maguire) at the library, where he is supposedly going to do some studying. Peter instead goes to a wrestling match dressed as Spider-Man. When Ben later comes to pick Peter up, he gets killed outside of the library’s main entrance.
Jenna Rink (aka Jennifer Garner) and Matt Flamhaff (aka Mark Ruffalo) stage part of their “Class of 2004” photo shoot in front of the New York Public Library in fave movie 13 Going On 30.
In 1997’s Picture Perfect, the library was the site of the Gulden’s Mustard party where Kate Mosley (aka my girl Jennifer Aniston) first becomes disillusioned with the advertising world.
And while a large portion of the movie The Day After Tomorrow was set in the New York Public Library, no filming actually took place there. Instead producers built a replica of the library’s interior on a studio soundstage that they later destroyed during the massive flood scenes. According to the security guard that I spoke with, set designers spent weeks taking measurements of the interior of the library so that it could be exactly replicated for the filming.
In The Thomas Crown Affair, the inside of the library stood in for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the Met refused to let any interior scenes be shot on the premises.
The first Ghostbusters movie actually opens with a shot of the New York Public Library and its famous stone lions, who are named Patience and Fortitude. The library has also appeared in the movies On The Town, Pickup on South Street, A Thousand Clowns, The Clock, King Kong, and You’re a Big Boy Now, and in the television series Kings.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The New York Public library is located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 42nd Street in New York City. It is open to the public daily.
The fourth and final Stillwater location that my family and I stalked while in Minnesota two weeks ago was the “Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts” bus stop where Willie Conway (aka Timothy Hutton) was first dropped off upon returning home for his high school reunion at the very beginning of fave movie Beautiful Girls. In real life, that location is not actually a bus stop at all (nor is it located in the fictional town of Knight’s Ridge, either, of course), but a liquor store named Kinsel’s Liquor which, as fate would have it, just so happened to be our very first stalking stop in Downtown Stillwater. It’s pretty darn cool that my parents and I began our Stillwater journey in the exact same spot where Willie began his in Beautiful Girls. 🙂 I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Owen and the highly-coveted Beautiful Girls master locations list which he procured for me before my trip. And even though Kinsel’s Liquor appeared in only one very brief scene in the movie, since we were in the area and since it is the location where the storyline of Beautiful Girls truly begins, I just had to stalk the place.
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The first few minutes of Beautiful Girls actually take place about a thousand miles east of Stillwater, at a New York City lounge named the 1889 Bar & Grill, where Willie works as a piano player. After the 1889 closes for the night, Willie says good-bye to his boss and heads over to New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal where he purchases a one-way ticket to his hometown of Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts. Why a one-way ticket, you ask? Because at that point in the movie, Willie is at a crossroads in his life and is unsure of whether or not he will ever return to the Big Apple. Sadly, though, like so many other Beautiful Girls locations, the 1889 Bar & Grill is no longer. The space which once housed the lounge was torn down in 2006 to make way for a luxury hi-rise condominium building named 100 West 18th. Such a bummer!
Early the next morning, Willie gets dropped off in Knight’s Ridge, at a fictional bus stop located right in front of Kinsel’s liquor, where his high school buddy Michael “Mo” Morris (aka Noah Emmerich) is waiting to pick him up.
After a huge hug, Willie and Mo retreat to Mo’s station wagon, which is parked on the south side of the liquor store, where the two men discuss Willie’s current girlfriend of about a year, Tracy, whom he is unsure if he wants to marry. The men then head to Willie’s childhood home and the story takes off from there. 🙂 So, there it is – today’s post. It’s a short one, I know. In fact, truth be told, being that this location is “just” a bus stop, and not even a real one at that, I hesitated to even blog about it. But because it is the place where one of my all-time favorite movies truly began, it is extremely sentimental to me and I decided I just had to!
Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location for me! 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The Beautiful Girls bus stop is actually Kinsel’s Liquor Store, which is located at 118 East Chestnut Street in Stillwater, Minnesota. The Greyhound bus dropped Willie off on the east side of the store, while Mo’s car was parked on the south side. The 1889 Bar & Grill was formerly located at 108 West 18th Street in New York City.
Update: Well, that was fast! Fellow stalker Billy is the winner of our first ever contest! Even though he has never seen an episode of SATC, he figured out the answer to our challenge in record time! I really thought this was going to be a stumper, but I guess not! Jenna’s apartment building from 13 Going On 30 appeared in the Season 6 episode of Sex and the City entitled “The Perfect Present”. In the episode, the girls walk by Jenna’s building while on their way to Jennifer Coolidge’s purse party. Billy also figured out our bonus question – Jenna’s apartment building was also used as the residence of Paul and Jamie on the series Mad About You. Congratulations, Billy! Mike and I will be hosting locations contests every month from now, so be on the lookout! 🙂
Our friends over at On Location Tours in New York City recently made the kind offer to donate a gift certificate good towards their popular Sex and the City Hot Spots Tour or Gossip Girl Sites Tour to be used as a prize if I ever wanted to host a contest. Well, let me tell you, I got EXTREMELY excited after hearing this and immediately called up Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to see if he wanted to host a movie locations contest with me, which he, of course, did. So, without further ado, welcome to the first ever Iamnotastalker and MovieShotsLA Filming Locations Contest! 🙂
So, what does the challenge entail, you ask? Well, a few weeks ago, while thumbing through fave book Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, I noticed a photograph (pictured above) of Carrie and the girls standing in front of a building located at 51 Fifth Avenue, the very same building where Jenna Rink lived in fave movie 13 Going On 30. (For those of you who own the book, the photograph is located on page 39.) I cannot for the life of me figure out which episode of Sex and the City that particular still was taken from though. So, your mission, should you choose to accept it: Find the episode of Sex and the City that featured 13 Going On 30 building.
As a bonus – If you can figure out what hit 90’s television series also used the 51 Fifth Avenue building as the dwelling of its two main characters, Mike and I will throw in a copy of fave stalking book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide by Richard Alleman, as well. 😉
Good luck, fellow stalkers!
And a big THANK YOU to On Location Tours for sponsoring our first ever contest event! 🙂
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Send your guesses to Lindsay@iamnotastalker.com before February 6, 2010. The On Location Tours gift certificate never expires, so you need not live in the New York area to enter – or win – the contest. 🙂
I’m sticking with my Christmas stalking theme for one more day – even though it’s already December 28th – as I had originally intended to publish this post on Christmas Eve, but, unfortunately, ran out of time. As I’ve said many times before, though, it’s better to be late than never! So, here goes! One New York location that definitely belongs in any collection of Christmas movie locales is Wollman Ice Skating Rink, a spot which appeared in one of my very favorite holiday flicks of all time, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. I had the pleasure of skating at Wollman Rink with my fiancé back in 2004 and absolutely fell in love with the place. With the Plaza Hotel and other New York skyscrapers towering in the background, the rink actually looks more like a picture postcard than a real life location. If you haven’t been there yourself, take my word for it, Wollman Rink is absolutely magical. 🙂
Wollman Rink was originally constructed in 1949 thanks to a $600,000 donation from New York philanthropist Kate Wollman. Kate had the ice skating rink built in honor of her parents, Jonas and Bettie, and her four brothers, William, Morton, Henry, and Benjamin. From the beginning, Wollman Rink was an immediate success, welcoming over 300,000 skaters in its first year alone. Today, it is visited by an average of 4,000 skaters per day.
Like practically everything else in New York, Wollman Rink is currently owned and operated by real estate mogul Donald Trump, who purchased and completely rebuilt the property back in the ‘90s. His name is displayed on almost every square inch of the rink, lest anyone ever forget who it belongs to. 😉 In the summer months, the rink is transformed into a small amusement park named Victorian Gardens. Wollman Rink is not to be confused with the similarly named Kate Wollman Memorial Rink, which was constructed in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park by the William J. Wollman Foundation upon Kate’s death in 1955.
Thanks to its picturesque appearance, Wollman Rink has long been a favorite of location scouts, appearing in countless movies and television shows over the years. In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Harry and Marv, aka “The Sticky Bandits”, plan their robbery of Duncan’s Toy Chest while skating at Wollman Rink. Ironically enough, though, before my first visit to New York, this stalker was under the mistaken assumption that the Home Alone scene had been filmed at the famous Rockefeller Center ice staking rink. It wasn’t until I started making a stalking itinerary for my first Big Apple vacation that I realized my mistake. As it turns out, New York has not one, but TWO cinematically historic ice skating rinks. But I’ll save the Rockefeller Center rink for a future post. 😉
Wollman Rink also appeared in the Season One episode of Gossip Girl entitled “Roman Holiday”, in the scene in which Blair Waldorf (aka Leighton Meester), along with her mother, her father, and her father’s new boyfriend go ice skating just a few days before Christmas.
On a side note – I am absolutely IN LOVE with the skates with the hanging pink pompoms that Blair wore in that scene!!!! I have GOT to get me a pair of those! 🙂
In Serendipity – one of my fave romcoms of all time! – Jonathan (aka John Cusack) and Sara (aka Kate Beckinsale) go for a late night skate at Wollman Rink after sharing a Frrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3 Restaurant.
After their skate, Jonathan draws the constellation of Cassiopeia on Sara’s arm while sitting on the rink’s benches.
And at the end of the movie, the two star-crossed lovers finally reunite at the rink. Wollman Rink has also been featured in Stepmom, Autumn in New York, Love Story, The January Man, The Devil’s Own, Odds Against Tomorrow, Carnal Knowledge, August Rush, A Journey That Wasn’t, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and the 2005 version of King Kong.
Celebrities also often visit Wollman Rink. In December of 2005, Tom Cruise took his then-pregnant girlfriend Katie Holmes there to celebrate her 27th birthday.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Wollman Rink is located inside Central Park, near the corner of Central Park South and 5th Avenue, in New York. Follow the footpath from the Park’s 59th Street entrance over Gapstow Bridge and the rink will be visible on the west. Wollman Rink is open from November through March. You can visit its official website here.
Another Sex and the City location that I re-stalked while in New York last month was Jefferson Market Garden, the spot where the series’ ever-present cynic Miranda Hobbs finally married long-time boyfriend Steve Brady in the Season 6 episode entitled “The Ick Factor”. I first stalked this location back in December of 2006, but at the time had absolutely no idea that it was a filming location and from one of my favorite television shows, no less. My fiancé had dragged me to the garden and it’s adjacent library due to the place’s historical significance, and, while I enjoyed visiting it, I took virtually no photographs while there. So, this year, I vowed to return, camera in hand! And return, I did! Thank goodness my family scheduled this year’s New York trip in early October, though, as I had not previously realized that Jefferson Market Garden is only accessible to the public seasonally, during the months May through October.
Jefferson Market Garden’s name is derived from the fact that in the early 1800’s a produce market, named after former president Thomas Jefferson, existed on the site where the garden and library now stand. In 1873, that market was torn down and a courthouse built in its place. Jefferson Market Courthouse, which opened in 1877, was designed by Calvert Vaux, one of the men responsible for designing Central Park, and architect Frederick Clarke Withers. In 1885, the Gothic-style building (pictured above) was voted the fifth most beautiful in the entire country. In 1931, an eleven story detention center for women was constructed on the lot directly adjacent to the Courthouse. And while the Courthouse served the Third Judicial District of New York from 1874 to 1945 and the detention center even housed a certain famous prisoner named Mae West at one time, by the 1940’s, both structures had fallen into serious disrepair and were threatened with demolition. Thankfully New York preservationists stepped in and convinced the City of New York to renovate the Courthouse and turn the space into a Public Library. They also petitioned to have the dreary detention center torn down and a garden created in its place. Which is exactly what happened. The library opened to the public in 1967, the detention center was destroyed in 1973, the garden was planted in 1974, and the rest, as they say, is history. Jefferson Market Garden, which measures one third of an acre, opened to the public in 1975 and, while owned by New York City Parks & Recreation, remains a community project, cared for by local Manhattanites.
Today’s garden consists of a central lawn, a koi pond, a rose garden, beds of various annuals, and several benches upon which to sit and enjoy the view. It seems like the perfect place to spend a sunny afternoon. In fact, while we were stalking the place, quite a few people were seated on the benches talking and enjoying the warm Autumn weather, while several artists stood nearby and painted the scene on portable easels. It looked like something straight out of a movie. 🙂 Jefferson Market Garden is a truly beautiful place, and not surprisingly, has been the site of numerous nuptials ever since Miranda and Steve tied the knot there back in 2004.
On Sex and the City, the garden first showed up in a beginning scene of the “Ick Factor” episode, in which the recently engaged Steve and Miranda have some issues while walking home after doing their weekly shopping. Not only do Miranda’s shopping bags explode during the scene, spilling their contents onto Greenwich Avenue, but Steve also steps in a wad of chewing gum, causing Miranda to proclaim “We should get married right here in this mess!”, to which Steve replies, “We’re gonna have to if I can’t get this gum off.” LOL LOL LOL Ahhh, I so love Steve!
It is then that Miranda looks up and notices the picturesque garden setting situated right in front of them and announces to Steve that she thinks it might just be the perfect spot for the two of them to get married.
And get married there, they do, in a beautiful ceremony which took place later in that very same episode, which, as I’ve mentioned before, has to be one of my favorite episodes of all time. Carrie’s closing line of “For better or for worse, we were all ourselves that day, just the way Miranda wanted it.”, which she utters just after Samantha’s announcement that she has breast cancer, never fails to bring a tear to my eye!
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On a sad side note – Jefferson, the restaurant where Miranda and Steve held their wedding reception in the “Ick Factor” episode (pictured above), has since been closed. 🙁 Such a bummer, as I had so wanted to stalk that place. You can see photographs of the former Jefferson restaurant here and here, though.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! : )
Stalk It: Jefferson Market Garden is located on Greenwich Avenue, in between Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street. The garden is open every afternoon, except Mondays, during the months of May through October. You can visit their website here. Miranda and Steve’s wedding reception took place directly across the street from the garden at the now-defunct Jefferson restaurant, which was formerly located at 121 West 10th Street.
Yet another Sex and the City location that I stalked while in New York last month was O’Nieals Grand Street Bar, which stood in for Scout, the watering hole owned by Carrie and Miranda’s ex-boyfriends, Aidan and Steve, on the show. And even though I had actually stalked this location during last year’s New York vacation and also blogged about it, because I had not been able to venture inside, it was a place I had always planned on returning to. So, since my good friend Steffi, who is an even bigger fan of Sex and the City than I am (if that’s at all possible) and who has always loved the character of Aidan, accompanied me to New York this year, I decided there was no time like the present! On this particular occasion, though, nothing was going to stop me from journeying inside! 🙂 And, let me tell you, I am so glad I did, because O’Nieals’ interior is nothing short of magnificent.
One look around O’Nieal’s dark Mahogany interior and it’s easy to see why producers chose to use it as the bar that Carrie’s furniture designing former boyfriend built. Upon seeing Scout for the first time on the show, Carrie says “There was no sign of him, but he was everywhere. In the mahogany bar, wood floors, carved ceiling. The whole place looked and felt just like Aidan.” And in real life, that same sentiment is true – the place truly does look and feel just like the character played by John Corbett. So much so, in fact, that it’s hard to believe the bar wasn’t a set built by production designers specifically for the series.
O’Nieal’s decor consists almost entirely of dark, shiny, hand-carved wood and, let me tell you, it is absolutely gorgeous. But my favorite part of the bar had to be its amazingly intricate ceiling, which unfortunately I just could not get a very good photograph of. 🙁 But take my word for it, the ceiling is beautiful. O’Nieals has a definite old New York vibe to it and, I am happy to report, looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Sex and the City. The staff also could NOT have been nicer and allowed me to take all of the photographs I wanted, even though I wasn’t dining at the establishment. On a side note – Being able to take pictures inside of bars and restaurants is just one of the many reasons that I love New York so much. In L.A., unfortunately, there are many venues that don’t allow any sort of interior photography. And, while part of me understands an establishment’s desire to keep stalkers like myself from taking pictures of their celebrity patrons, for the most part I think the whole thing is just plain ludicrous. A few months back my fiancé and I grabbed some cocktails at a place called the Writers Bar in Beverly Hills. The upscale (read: snooty) bar had numerous autographed scripts displayed on their walls and when I went to a photograph in front of one which had been signed by Julia Roberts, the manager came rushing over and demanded that I put my camera away. Dumbfounded, I asked him why, to which he replied “We do not allow cameras here due to our high-profile clients”. LOL LOL LOL Now, if I had been trying to take a photograph of a celebrity sitting nearby (and by the way, my fiancé and I were the only two people in the entire bar at the time), I can totally understand the manager requesting that I put my camera away. But it was very obvious what I was taking a picture of and why and being that we had just shelled out $25 per drink, I found the whole thing highly ridiculous and my fiancé and I vowed never to return. Which we haven’t. But thankfully, in my many visits to New York, I have NEVER EVER – not even once – been told to put my camera away – even in cases when celebrities actually were dining right next to me. 🙂 But, I digress. Anyway, as I said before, O’Nieals is a very hip, absolutely gorgeous little spot and I HIGHLY recommend stalking it.
O’Nieals was featured twice on Sex and the City. It first showed up in the Season Four episode entitled “Ghost Town”, in which Carrie visits Scout to drop off a congratulatory Mulberry bush for Aidan and Steve, just before the bar is set to open.
O’Nieal’s shows up once again later in that same episode, when the girls attend Scout’s grand opening party.
The bar was also featured in the Season Four episode entitled “Time & Punishment”, in which Carrie shows up at Scout only to discover Aidan flirting with a skeezy bartender named Shana. And, even though Steve continued to own the bar throughout the rest of Sex and the City’s six year run, for some reason, it never again appeared onscreen.
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On a sad side note – While in New York, I was also dying to visit Collins Bar, the spot where Miranda first met Steve in the Season 2 episode of Sex and the City entitled “The Man, The Myth, The Viagra” (pictured above). Unfortunately, though, the beloved dive bar closed its doors in July of 2007 and the building that formerly housed it is in the process of being torn down to make room for a new hi-rise condominium development. Such a bummer!!!! You can see some great pictures of the former Collins Bar here and here, though.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Scout, aka O’Nieals Grand Street Bar, is located at 174 Grand Street in New York’s SoHo area. You can visit their website here. Collins Bar was formerly located at 735 Eighth Avenue, near Time’s Square.
This year, while visiting New York, my mom, of course, booked her annual haircut appointment with famed stylist Nick Arrojo, from the TLC makeover show What Not To Wear. As I first blogged back in December of 2007, for years my mom has been absolutely obsessed with the hair guru and had long dreamed of booking a session with him. So, for her birthday two years ago, the whole family got together and surprised her with an appointment with Nick during our annual New York vacation. Well, Nick’s cut turned out so incredibly fabulous that my mom won’t even consider visiting the Big Apple now without also making an appointment with him. It has become one of our annual New York traditions! 🙂 And, of course, this year was no different!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Nick Arrojo is absolutely AMAZING. I don’t know what it is, but he must have some magic dust in that razor of his, because my mom’s hair always turns out absolutely incredible whenever he cuts it. Sadly, we have yet to find a stylist in LA who can even come close to doing whatever it is he does to my mom’s hair. Some people just have an innate talent, I guess, and Nick is definitely one of those people! Not only that, but he has to be one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. He is a total sweetheart and he always makes my mom feel like a movie star when she visits the salon. I honestly can’t say enough about the guy – he’s simply FABULOUS – and I can’t recommend booking an appointment with him enough! Even at $500 a cut – which is truly outrageous – he’s worth every single penny! Which is why I can’t believe that he’s no longer appearing on What Not To Wear. For some incredibly odd reason, Nick was replaced this season by celebrity stylist Ted Gibson, who, in my humble opinion, is just plain BLAH! And the fact that Ted is a former stylist of that little homewrecker Angelina Jolie only adds to my dislike of the guy. UGH! Even though, due to Nick’s absence, my mom no longer watches What Not To Wear, I can pretty much guarantee that no matter what happens with the show, she will still be returning to Nick for a haircut year after year.
Oh, and here’s my mom’s new ‘do! 🙂 Unfortunately, it’s not the best picture of it, though, because just prior to it being taken, she got caught in the rain and her hair, like mine, does not do well in inclement weather. 🙁
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Those of you who read my blog regularly know that last year while visiting New York I was lucky enough to get my hair cut by Nick’s former assistant and Shear Genius Season 2 Second Runner-Up Nicole Obert and she did an absolutely amazing job!!!! And while I really wanted to book another appointment with her during this year’s New York vacation, the Grim Cheaper talked me out of it. 🙁 I swear, why I listen to him I’ll never know!!! LOL Anyway, during my mom’s appointment, my fiancé, fellow stalker Owen, and I stopped in to Arrojo Studio so that I could say hi to Nick and Nicole and, let me tell you, Nicole gave me quite the talking-to!!! She was very disappointed that I had not booked an appointment with her this year despite the Grim Cheaper’s many objections. And, as fate would have it, Nicole just so happened to have an opening in her following day’s schedule. So, I, of course, immediately snatched said opening right up. 🙂 Being that I had just gotten a haircut about ten days prior to leaving for New York, the Grim Cheaper was NOT at all happy about that decision. LOL LOL LOL He kept saying, “Didn’t you JUST get a haircut???”
So, bright and early the following morning, my parents, my fiancé, and I all headed down to SoHo so that I could once again get my hair cut by Nicole. And, let me tell you, I had an absolute blast!!!! Nicole is so much fun to spend time with that I’m fairly certain I would book an appointment with her even if I didn’t like the way she cut hair, just so that I could hang out with her for an hour or so. 🙂 She’s really that much fun! Like me, Nicole just recently got engaged, so the two of us spent a lot of time talking about wedding planning. And, let me just say here that Nicole’s ring, which was designed by her fiancé and features a huge rock flanked by two butterflies made entirely out of diamonds, is absolutely amazing!!! I LOVED it. Oh, and I just about died when Nicole told me that she had run into Cynthia Nixon, aka Miranda from Sex and the City, a few days beforehand on a New York City subway! She said she immediately thought of me when she saw her. Love it! 🙂 And how incredibly cool is it that CYNTHIA NIXON actually rides the subway???? Also LOVE IT!
Nicole ended up cutting quite a bit of length off my hair and once again gave me a whole new look that was completely different from last year’s whole new look! 🙂 I find it incredible that she was able to create two such varying and unique haircuts the past two years when she really didn’t have that much to work with being that my hair was already short! I honestly don’t know how she does it! Needless to say, my hair turned out absolutely ADORABLE. I LOVE it. Nicole somehow always manages to make me look so much hipper and edgier than I normally do! And, amazingly enough, while last year’s cut was pretty hard for me to style on my own, this year’s was incredibly easy. I can safely say that it is the easiest-to-maintain haircut I’ve ever had in my life! In fact, my new ‘do is so simple to style that my getting-ready time each morning has literally been cut in half! So LOVE that! I did have to purchase a new flat-iron because of it, though, much to the Grim Cheaper’s chagrin. When I came home with it, he said “Wow, this haircut is the gift that just keeps on giving, isn’t it?” LOL LOL LOL But even though the GC is not a fan of my new ‘do, everyone else in my life is. The compliments on it have been literally non-stop. 🙂 Oh, how I wish I could go to Nicole regularly. 🙁
Before . . .
. . . and after.
I honestly cannot recommend booking an appointment with either Nick or Nicole enough!!!! They are both incredible stylists and my mom and I feel so fortunate to have found them!
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Arrojo Studio is located at 180 Varick Street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. To book an appointment with Nick or Nicole, you can call (212)242-7786. You can also visit the Arrojo Studio website here. Haircuts with Nick cost $500, but he often runs specials, announced via his website, where you can book them for around $350. A haircut with Nicole will only set you back $68.
– rather than a wedding ceremony. Oh, and there was also the little matter of cost! Renting New York Street will run you $12,500, which may sound like a lot, but is, amazingly enough, a fairly average venue rental rate for the L.A. area. (
