Rizzoli & Isles – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 11, 2019August 10, 2020

Lacy Street Production Center from “Stitchers”

They say the third time’s the charm, but I attempted to stalk today’s location on no less than ten different occasions before finally being successful! Lacy Street Production Center, the exterior of which portrayed the site of a rave in an episode of Stitchers, is an actual working studio and, unfortunately, each time I showed up for a look-see, production trucks were parked over every square inch of the place, blocking all views of it from the street. So I was thrilled to arrive on a recent Wednesday morning and find the complex free of any and all freighters, meaning I could finally snap some photos. Considering the number of man-hours put into it, this stalk was truly a labor of love!

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It is at Lacy Street Production Center that Kristen Clark (Emma Ishta) and her team investigate the death of a young woman in the Season 1 episode of Stitchers titled “Friends in Low Places.”

One look at the rusted-out smokestack visible in the episode and I was smitten! I had never seen anything like it in Los Angeles and promptly got started trying to identify it. Thankfully, the Seeing Stars website did the legwork for me, chronicling all of Stitchers Season 1 locales, including Lacy Street Production Center, aka the site of the “Friends in Low Places” rave.

The conglomeration of buildings that today makes up Lacy Street Production Center originally served as the home of the Talbert-Whitmore Co., a window shade manufacturer that later became known as Columbia Mills. Initially constructed in 1908, the complex was expanded multiple times over the years as Talbert-Whitmore grew, eventually developing into the largest window shade factory on the West Coast. You can see an image of the plant from its early days here.

I could find absolutely no provenance regarding the American Wrecking Company signage so prominently splayed across the complex’s central structure – not via old building permits, newspaper.com archives or historic resources surveys. I am guessing it is leftover from a shoot, quite possibly an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. But more on that in a bit.

In 1982, the 9-building, 2-acre site was transformed into a de facto movie studio thanks to producer Barney Rosenzweig who was looking for a permanent spot to shoot his new TV series, Cagney & Lacey. The former Talbert-Whitmore warehouse fit the bill perfectly, thanks to the vast open spaces it provided, perfect for building sets, not to mention the low rental rates, much less than those of an actual studio. The show called Lacy Street Production Center home for its full six-year run. When it wrapped, the complex’s owners, Don Randles and Jim Knight, began leasing the space out to other productions.

It proved so popular that when Rosenzweig came back to Randles and Knight a couple of years after Cagney & Lacey went off the air in the hopes of renting out the facility for his new series The Trials of Rosie O’Neill, he was told it had already been booked by another show, Alien Nation. Lacy Street Production Center has continued to be booked regularly ever since, serving as the home to such productions as Catch Me If You Can, L.A. Confidential and Seabiscuit.

Shooting in a converted warehouse does have its drawbacks, though. As author Bob Fisher stated in a 1987 American Cinematographer article about Cagney & Lacey, “The Lacy Street studio does impose some production limitations. There are low ceilings with no room for scaffolds, comparatively small sets with immovable walls, pillars in the middle of rooms and large air conditioning ducts that add to the ambience but present some considerable obstacles to the director of photography who has to light in a comparatively cramped space.” Still, there’s nothing quite like the authentic urban aura it provides. Though not actually abandoned, it definitely has that feel. As Peggy Archer said in a 2007 LAist article documenting Lacy Street’s dilapidation over the years, “Of course, the reason movies, TV and commercials keep shooting here although it’s about to fall over is that the place looks really. f*cking. cool.”

When Lacy Street Production Center came on the market in 2015, there were talks of razing several buildings, gutting interiors, and transforming it into a large-scale mixed-use development. Commercial production company Buck Design eventually stepped in, purchasing the 90,000-square-foot complex for $20 million in August 2017. Thankfully, the firm decided to continue to operate the site as a studio, going to great pains to bring it up to code, all while keeping intact all of the rough elements that make it so insanely shootable. You can check out what the interior looks like post-rehab here.

Lacy Street Production Center is nothing if not picturesque – especially with the blue skies of Los Angeles serving as its backdrop.

The complex is just begging to be photographed, particularly my beloved smokestack which can be found in the center’s main parking lot, very visible from the street (well, at least when film trucks aren’t blocking it from view, anyway).

The vast majority of productions that film on the premises make use of Lacy Street’s interior, building sets in the sprawling empty rooms. A few, like Stitchers, have utilized the outside, though.

The center masks as the Recovery House Youth Shelter in the 1991 horror flick Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.

That same year, the building situated just west of the smokestack portrayed a chop shop in Out for Justice.

That structure is pictured below.

Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) has a showdown with a terrorist in Lacy Street Production Center’s front courtyard in the Season 1 episode of 24 titled “3:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m.,” which aired in 2001.

The property portrayed the Detroit lair of a group of Reptilians seeking to destroy humanity in the Season 3 episode of Star Trek: Enterprise titled “Carpenter Street,” which aired in 2003. In the episode, the “American Wrecking Company” signage is very visible. As I mentioned earlier, I could find no information regarding a business by that name ever operating in Los Angeles, so I am thinking the painted words may have been set dressing installed for the shoot that Lacy Street’s owners decided to leave intact post-filming. Who knows, though.

Several portions of Justin Timberlake’s 2016 “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” music video were lensed at the studio.

That same year, it served as the abandoned mental health hospital where Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander) was held prisoner in the Season 6 episode of Rizzoli & Isles titled “Hide and Seek.”

Lacy Street Production Center is also the site of a huge shootout at the end of the Season 10 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles titled “Better Angels,” which aired in 2019.

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

Big THANK YOU to the Seeing Stars website for identifying this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lacy Street Production Center, from the “Friends in Low Places” episode of Stitchers, is located at 2630 Lacy Street in Lincoln Heights.

February 5, 2018June 5, 2018

Kaldi Coffee and Tea from “Lady Bird”

The Grim Cheaper and I are almost all settled in to our new desert home, so I should be getting back to my regularly scheduled blog programing in the near future. Thanks for bearing with me over the past few weeks. For my first post-move locale, I thought I’d write about a spot I originally covered back in early 2010 – Kaldi Coffee and Tea in South Pasadena, which I was thrilled to see pop up numerous times while watching a for-your-consideration DVD of Lady Bird prior to the SAG Awards in early January. Though I did not particularly like the Greta Gerwig-directed coming-of-age drama, Kaldi has long been one of my favorite San Gabriel Valley cafés, so I figured it was most definitely due for a re-post. Because of our move, I was not able to venture out to South Pas to snap any additional photos of the place, but, thankfully, my parents happened to be in L.A. for a brief visit last week and, while there, my mom did some Kaldi stalking on my behalf. Thanks, mom!

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The handsome brick building that houses Kaldi Coffee and Tea was originally constructed in 1903 as South Pasadena Bank, founded by George W. E. Griffith.

Designed by architect Thomas Preston in what this National Register of Historic Places Inventory calls “typical western storefront style,” the site has the distinction of being the city’s very first bank.

During its early years, the property also acted as a sort of unofficial city hall with its upper floor serving as office space for South Pasadena trustees.

Per the Historic Places Inventory, the building, which is South Pasadena Cultural Heritage Landmark #8, informed the architecture of nearby Mission Street, where most of the structures boast a similar two-story brick aesthetic.

The site’s ground-level corner space was transformed into Kaldi Coffee and Tea in 1995.

The café has been a South Pas staple ever since.

Though sold to new owners Susan and Chanho Park in December 2011, not much of the place has been changed over its two-plus decades in operation. Kaldi still serves up fabulous coffee, espresso specialties, sandwiches, salads, and bakery staples in a bright, sun-filled atmosphere.

So it should come as no surprise that the café is pretty much always bustling, as evidenced in the photos above and below.

Regardless of that fact, Kaldi still makes for a peaceful, quiet spot to enjoy a cup of joe.

Masking as Sacramento’s New Helvetia Coffee Shop, Kaldi is featured numerous times throughout Lady Bird. It first appears in the scene in which Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) goes out with her new boyfriend, Danny O’Neill (Lucas Hedges), and some friends to hear a band play on Thanksgiving.

Lady Bird later gets a job at the café . . .

. . . where she gets into trouble for flirting on her first day.

Kaldi pops up in a few additional scenes, as well.

Lady Bird is hardly the first production to feature Kaldi. In fact, the place is something of a South Pasadena filming landmark, which is not surprising considering its charming Anywhere, U.S.A. look.

Felix Bonhoeffer (Anthony Hopkins) has coffee at Kaldi with his friend Tracy (Lisa Pepper) at the beginning of 2007’s incredibly weird drama Slipstream, though not much of the space can be seen in the scene.

Kaldi pops up a couple of times as Danny (Paul Rudd) and Beth’s (Elizabeth Banks) local coffee shop in the 2008 comedy Role Models.

That same year, the office space directly above Kaldi portrayed a therapist’s office in the horror flick Prom Night, which I learned thanks to the Movie Locations and More website. (South Pasadena’s oft-filmed Library Park – which is situated across the street and which I blogged about here – can be seen through the windows in the second screen capture below.)

As was the case in Lady Bird, Kaldi masks as a Sacramento café in The Ugly Truth. The locale is featured twice in the 2009 romcom – first in the scene in which Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) begins to teach Abby Richter (Katharine Heigl) the way to a man’s heart.

Later, Kaldi is where Abby shows off her new boyfriend, Colin (Eric Winter), to her best friend, Joy (Bree Turner).

The coffee shop also pops up twice on the television series Brothers & Sisters. In the Season 3 episode titled “Owning It,” which aired in 2009, Tommy Walker (Balthazar Getty) meets with Kent Barnes (Scott Klace) at Kaldi to discuss his scheme to buy a vineyard.

And in Season 5’s “Get a Room,” which aired in 2010, Kaldi masks as the coffee shop near Wexley University where Kittie McCallister (Calista Flockhart) meets and flirts with handsome, young barista Seth Whitley (Ryan Devlin).

Kaldi portrays Cup ‘N Cakes Cafe, where Gloria Delgado-Pritchett (Sofia Vergara) gets into not one, but two car accidents in the Season 1 episode of Modern Family titled “Moon Landing,” which aired in 2010.

The café plays Berkeley Coffee, where Jim Kazinsky (Mike O’Malley) works – and gets dumped by Sarah Braverman (Lauren Graham) – in the Season 1 episode of Parenthood titled “The Deep End of the Pool,” which aired in 2010.

In the Season 4 episode of Rizzoli & Isles titled “We Are Family,” which aired in 2013, Kaldi masquerades as Boston’s “College Café,” where Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander) spies on her sister, Cailin Martin (Emilee Wallace).

Kaldi Coffee and Tea also pops up in the pilot episode of Splitting Up Together, which aired in 2018 – only in an establishing shot, though.

All actual filming took place at Habitat Coffee Shop and Cafe located at 3708 North Eagle Rock Boulevard in Glassell Park.

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

Big THANK YOU to my mom for stalking this location for me and for taking the photos that appear in this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Kaldi Coffee and Tea, aka New Helvetia Coffee Shop from Lady Bird, is located at 1019 El Centro Street in South Pasadena.

July 3, 2014August 28, 2014

New “L.A.” Magazine Post – Boston P.D. from “Rizzoli & Isles”

Don’t forget to read today’s Scene It Before post for Los Angeles magazine – about Boston Police Department from Rizzoli & Isles. You can find it here. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

November 17, 2010November 16, 2010

Paramount Studios . . . A Third Time

As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about my second VIP Tour of the Studios at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, I also recently embarked on a third tour of the lot, along with fellow stalkers Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, and Beth, who were all in town visiting from Ohio this past October. And I am very happy to report that my third Paramount tour was just as fabulous as my first two. If you have yet to visit the famed Hollywood studio, all I can say is that you REALLY must! As I’ve stated numerous times in the past, it is simply the best studio tour Los Angeles has to offer. This time our tour group consisted of two guides, the five of us, and only one other gentlemen (who showed up in a business suit with the intention of handing out headshots to various studio executives that we might happen to pass along the way, which was extremely uncomfortable for everyone involved, but that’s a whole other story), so we were very lucky in that our group was not only smaller than normal, but our tour was also very much catered to the places on the lot that Lavonna and Co. were interested in seeing. I should mention here that Paramount guides are very good about customizing tours for each particular group, so if you do happen to embark on a visit to the lot, I highly encourage you to speak up and tell your guide exactly what it is that you are interested in seeing.

Our first stop, as always, was Lucy Park, the history of which I wrote about in last week’s Paramount post. One thing I forgot to mention, though, was that the Chevalier Building, which runs along the eastern side of the park, was used as Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Jefferson High School on the 1970’s television series Happy Days.

Directly across from Lucy Park is the Ball Building, named in honor of actress Lucille Ball, where Tom Cruise’s production offices were formerly housed. Tom’s office is the one with the large bay window denoted with the pink arrow in the above photograph, from which is a fabulous view of the Hollywood sign.

We were then shuttled by Stage 25, which is considered by many to be an extremely lucky stage being that two of the most successful shows in television history, Cheers and Frasier – both of which ran for eleven seasons and both of which starred actor Kelsey Grammar as Doctor Frasier Crane – were filmed there. Our guide told us that Grammar likes to joke that his short-lived television series Back to You, which was filmed elsewhere, would have been much more successful had it been lensed on Stage 25.

Next up was Stage 28 where the Nickelodeon Television series Big Time Rush is filmed. The exterior of that particular stage is used each week for establishing shots of the Rocque Records offices on the show.

Right next door to Stage 28 is Stage 27, where the Grim Cheaper’s favorite movie of all time, The Godfather, was filmed, so of course I just had to snap a photograph of it.

We were then taken inside the set of the apartment belonging to Alex (aka Elisha Cuthbert) on the yet-to-be released series Happy Endings. Alex’s apartment, which we unfortunately were not allowed to take photographs of, but which you can see in the above screen captures, is VERY reminiscent of Monica and Rachel’s apartment on Friends. It was absolutely amazing to be able to see the set in such an up-close-and-personal manner and to discover how truly realistic everything actually was. At one point Lavonna and I wandered into Alex’s bathroom – which according to our tour guide is not going to be used for actual filming but will only be seen in the background of certain scenes – and were shocked to discover how incredibly detailed it was. There was a huge make-up basket filled with actual make-up on the counter, there was a toothbrush and toothpaste by the sink, and the drawers were filled with hairbrushes and other beauty paraphernalia. The attention to detail was astounding, especially considering that the bathroom will only be appearing in the background, if at all! There were also real life bills being stored in Alex’s mail holder and actual books piled on her bookshelves. So incredibly cool!

You can watch the promo for Happy Endings by clicking above.

Up next was my VERY favorite section of the Paramount lot, New York Street, where filming for both Happy Endings . . .

. . . and Community was taking place. I happened to spot cutie Joel McHale walking around the Community set, but I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to snap a photograph of him, which was so unbelievably frustrating I cannot even tell you! UGH!

Paramount Studios was used as the location of the Junior Prom in the Season 1 episode of fave show 90210 titled “Zero Tolerance”. In the episode, Naomi Clark (aka AnnaLynne McCord) and Liam Court (aka Matt Lanter – sigh!) decide to take a break from the dance to walk around New York Street and they wind up sitting on a brownstone stoop where, in a drool-worthy moment, Liam finally admits to Naomi that he has actual feelings for her . . . and then, it begins to snow! So darn cute!

I was absolutely dying to take a picture while sitting on Liam and Naomi’s stoop, but unfortunately I could not remember exactly which one it was, so I ended up sitting a few houses too far to the north.

Liam and Naomi’s actual stoop is located on the Lower East Side portion of New York Street and is the stoop located closest to Washington Square and is denoted with the pink arrow in the above photograph.

The café from Spiderman 3, where Peter Parker (aka Tobey Maguire) tells Harry Osborn (aka James Franco) that Mary Jane Watson (aka Kristen Dunst) is in love with someone else, is also located on New York Street, in the Greenwich Village area.

Much like the jazz club from Spiderman 3 which I talked about in my previous Paramount post, the café is a “practical set”, which means that it is not just a façade, but that it also has an interior area where filming can take place.

We actually got to step inside one of the facades while we were on New York Street, which I had never done before on a previous tour. As you can see in the above photographs, the interior of the facade consists mainly of large metal beams, from which set electricians can hang lights, and open space, where background actors are sometimes held in between takes.

The “Schlemiel, Schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated” segment of the Laverne & Shirley opening credits was also filmed on New York Street, in the Washington Square section.

Interestingly enough, the exterior of Rosalita’s Bar from Happy Endings was dressed a bit differently than it was the last time I visited the lot a few weeks beforehand.

The way it looked on my previous tour is pictured above.

Fellow stalker Beth also somehow managed to snap the above photograph of the interior of the soundstage where Happy Endings is filmed, the door of which happened to be open as we drove by. As you can see, the doorway and part of the exterior of Rosalita’s Bar has also been built inside of the soundstage, which was very cool to see!

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Next up was the famed Stage 14, where fave show Glee is filmed. Because Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, Beth, and I are all diehard Gleeks, we were hoping to have the same star-sighting luck outside of Stage 14 that I had on my previous tour, but alas, that was not to be.

We all just about died a few minutes after driving away from the stage, though, when who should we spot being shuttled around on a golf cart but Miss Lea Michele! I was beyond excited to catch a glimpse of Lea as I had only seen her for a split second during my previous Paramount tour and, aside from Will Schuester (aka Matthew Morrison), Rachel Berry is my favorite character on the show. Sadly though, the experience was not a good one. As Lea’s cart approached, the driver put her hand up to block the actress’ face from us, which was absolutely unbelievable! It’s rude enough when an actor puts up their own hand to block their face from fans, but to have an assistant do it for you is an absolute diva maneuver if I ever saw one! The whole thing was extremely disappointing for us as, prior to that, we had all LOVED Lea. Our tour guide on the the previous tour had told us that Lea was the worst one of the entire Glee bunch and that the studio staff had taken to humming the Wicked Witch of the West theme song from The Wizard of Oz every time she rode past them on her bike, but, even after hearing that, I had still believed she was nice. Sadly that did not seem to be the case, though. Such a shame.

Next up was the exterior of Stage 15 where NCIS: Los Angeles is filmed, which I was absolutely FLOORED about seeing (and which took my mind off of the whole Lea Michele debacle) as the outside of it is used for the filming of the exterior of the NCIS Office of Special Projects on the series. So incredibly cool!

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We were then taken to Paramount’s Production Park, where the Lubitsch Building is located, which was used as Westdale High School on fave show The Brady Bunch.

The Lubitsch Building is located on the east side of Production Park and the doorway which was used as the entrance to Westdale High is denoted with the pink arrow in the above aerial view.

Production Park was also recently used in the Season 1 episode of Rizzoli & Isles titled “Money for Nothing”, in the opening scene in which Detective Jane Rizzoli (aka Angie Harmon) and Dr. Maura Isles (aka Sasha Alexander) are shown stretching before a morning run.

The filming of an episode of Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush had just wrapped when we arrived at the park, which is what the sign reading “Palm Woods Park” was set up for. Filming had involved the cast of the show being in some sort of a mud pit and the crew was covering up the pit while we were there, which is what you see in the above photograph.

We also made a stop at the Paramount Studios Theatre and while we were there our tour guide mentioned that the theatre lobby had been used as a hotel in a certain movie, but when I sat down to write today’s post, I could not for the life of me remember which movie. Enter Lavonna, who CALLED UP Paramount to find out for me! Amazingly enough, who should answer the phone, but our actual tour guide who informed Lavonna that the movie he had told us about was Clear and Present Danger. Thank you, Lavonna! 🙂

Our final stop was the famous Paramount Studios water fountain, which was also featured in the “Zero Tolerance” episode of 90210.

Despite our disappointment over Lea Michele, the tour was still a FABULOUS, FABULOUS experience and I honestly cannot recommend taking it enough! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Paramount is hands down the best studio tour in Hollywood!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Tours are given Monday through Friday at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. and cost $40 per person. Reservations can be made by calling (323)956-1777. Parking for the tour costs $7 per car and the tour lot is located on Bronson Avenue, directly across the street from the studio’s main entrance. I recommend booking your tour at least a week in advance, as they tend to sell out quickly. You can find out more information about the Paramount Studios Tour here.

November 11, 2010November 11, 2010

The Paramount Studios Tour . . . A Second Time

Brace yourselves, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one! Back in September, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I set out on our second VIP Tour of the Studios at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. We embarked on our first Paramount tour just over two years ago, in September of 2008, and I can honestly say that, for me, it was love at first sight! As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, the Paramount tour is hands down my absolute FAVORITE studio tour in all of Hollywood. I love the place so much, in fact, that the Grim Cheaper and I seriously considered getting married there. Well, I should say that I seriously considered getting married there – the GC was against the idea from the start, as he didn’t think a movie studio would be an appropriate venue for a wedding. And while I can definitely see his point – the 62-acre lot is better suited to host a party rather than a wedding ceremony – because the place has such an incredibly rich cinematic history – it has been at its current location since 1926 and is the only major studio still located in Hollywood – for a movie-lover like myself, there is no more hallowed ground. So, when Mike called me up in early September to ask if I wanted to go on another tour of the place, I jumped at the chance.

As they say, no two studio tours are ever the same and I am very happy to report that that was definitely the case with Paramount. After paying for our tickets in the Studio Store, our small group of eight was given a brief history of the 84-year old lot before boarding a golf cart to begin the two-hour tour. Our first stop was the corner of Avenue A and 3rd Street, just southwest of Stage 23, where the ending scene of the final episode of fave show The Hills was filmed, which I blogged about back in September.

Just beyond The Hills finale location is Stage 24, which was home to fellow stalker Owen’s all-time favorite sitcom Family Ties from 1982 to 1989.

Each individual soundstage at Paramount boasts a large plaque which lists all of the major productions which have been filmed on the premises.

And, as you can see in the above photograph, Stage 23’s plaque is somewhat unique. According to our tour guide, actor Ray Romano was (jokingly) a bit bent out of shape that his new sitcom Men of a Certain Age wasn’t considered by Paramount to be a “major” enough production to be named on the plaque, so he took matters into his own hands and, using a label maker, printed out the name of the show and stuck it onto the sign himself. LOL LOL LOL Love it!

As always, the tour made a stop at Lucy Park – a small landscaped area named in honor of actress/producer Lucille Ball, former owner of the now-defunct Desilu Studios which was purchased by Paramount in 1968 and now makes up the western portion of the lot. Lucy had the park built as an exact replica of the backyard of her Beverly Hills home so that she could take publicity photographs there with her children without ever having to leave the lot.

The above-pictured facade, which runs along the northern side of Lucy Park, is an exact replica of the exterior of Lucy’s New York City apartment building, which she had constructed for the same purpose. We also learned that it was none other than Lucy, and her husband Desi Arnaz, who invented the live audience/three camera system that situational comedies still use for filming to this day. Apparently, Lucy much preferred acting before a live studio audience, which, at the time, was not common practice when shooting television shows. So, she and her husband came up with the idea of setting up the stage in the format of a theatre, with an open fourth wall facing the audience, and using multiple cameras to film each scene from different angles. That very system has been in use ever since. The powerhouse couple was also responsible for inventing what is known today as a “re-run”.

My favorite part of Lucy Park has to be its large central tree which was used in the Season 2 episode of The Brady Bunch titled “Where There’s Smoke” as the spot where Greg Brady (aka Barry Williams) smoked his very first cigarette.

You can watch that scene by clicking above.

According to our tour guide, Lucy Park was also used for the Season 2 episode of Glee titled “Grilled Cheesus”, for the close-up shot of Finn Hudson (aka Cory Monteith) cheering after scoring a winning touchdown.

Our next stop was the studio’s Gower Street entrance, which stood in for the entrance to the fictional Woltz International Pictures lot in the 1972 film The Godfather. That entrance and guard shack have, sadly, since been remodeled.

We then made our way over to Stage 31, which is the spot where the Joel McHale television series Community is filmed. It was extremely cool to see that particular stage, as it is one of the only stages on the lot that has a “dressed” exterior. As you can see in the above photographs, the facade of the fictional Greendale Community College Library has been constructed around the exterior of the building. So incredibly cool!

We also spotted Donald Glover, who plays Troy Barnes on the show, while we were there.

Up next was New York Street – my VERY favorite section of the lot and the spot where the Grim Cheaper and I were thinking about getting married. “Street” is actually a bit of a misnomer, though, being that the area measures a whopping five acres, is shaped like a square, and features numerous sections and blocks which were built to resemble different sections of New York, including Brooklyn, Greenwich Village, Washington Square, the Financial District, the Upper East Side, the Lower East Side, SoHo, a typical brownstone neighborhood, and, ironically enough, Chicago. Each time I walk through New York Street, I truly feel as if I am actually in the Big Apple. It’s amazing! Even small details like mailboxes and payphones (pictured above) are so realistic that someone on a tour once put a letter inside one of the fake boxes thinking it was real. 🙂

The Washington Square section of New York Street is featured regularly on the new TNT series Rizzoli & Isles, as the home of Detective Jane Rizzoli (aka Angie Harmon).

Washington Square also appeared in the Season 7 episode of Seinfeld titled “The Rye”, in the scene in which Jerry Seinfeld tries to throw a loaf of rye bread up to George Constanza (aka Jason Alexander) who is waiting on the third floor of his girlfriend’s parents’ apartment building.

The Boston Police Station from Rizzoli & Isles can also be found on New York Street, in the Brooklyn section.

The jazz club from Spiderman 3 is located in the SoHo section of New York Street and is what is referred to as a “practical set”, meaning that it is not just a facade, but also has an interior area which can be used for filming.

Pink’s 2008 Video Music Awards performance of “So What (I’m Still A Rock Star)” was also filmed on New York Street in the SoHo area.

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While walking through the Chicago area of New York Street, our tour guide pointed out the above-pictured building called the “Tin Shed” which he said serves as the dance studio for the cast of Glee. So incredibly cool!

At the time we visited the lot, the Chicago section of New York Street was dressed for the filming of the yet-to-be-released television series Happy Endings, which stars Elisha Cuthbert.

The facade pictured above, which is located at the corner of H Avenue and the Chicago section of New York Street, is being used as the exterior of Rosalita’s Bar, the Happy Endings’ characters’ main hang-out.

That very same facade was also used as the five-and-dime store where Holly Golightly (aka Audrey Hepburn) and Paul ‘Fred’ Varjak (aka George Peppard) stole Halloween masks in fave movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. So, I, of course, just had to take a picture standing in the doorway!

We also got to see the interior set of Rosalita’s while we were on the tour and it actually reminds me a lot of Grayson’s bar from fave show Cougar Town. We weren’t allowed to take any photographs of it, unfortunately, but you can see what the bar looks like in the above screen captures, which I got off of IMDB.

Our next stop was the place I had been waiting all morning to see – Stage 14, where fave show Glee is filmed!

Amazingly enough, our timing could NOT have been more perfect, because right when we arrived at the stage several of the stars drove by on golf carts! We first spotted Harry Shum Jr. (pictured above) who plays dancer Mike Chang on the show. He was on a golf cart with Jenna Ushkowitz (aka Tina Cohen-Chang), who we unfortunately did not get a photograph of.

Immediately after that, a cart carrying Amber Riley (aka Mercedes Jones), Mark Salling (aka Noah ‘Puck’ Puckerman), and Chord Overstreet (aka Sam Evans) drove by. We also spotted Dianna Agron (aka Quinn Fabray) and Lea Michelle (aka Rachel Berry), but unfortunately we did not get photographs of either of them. Before spotting the Glee stars, our tour guide had warned us that the cast wasn’t known to be all that friendly or even particularly nice on the lot. According to him, they have all apparently gotten a bit too big for their britches in recent months. And, sadly, our experience definitely reflected that sentiment. When the actors drove by, our small tour group was the only group of people around. We did not in any way go crazy or walk up to them when we spotted them, but just politely stood in our places and waved. And I am sad to say that not a one of them waved back or even managed to crack a smile. In fact, as you can see in the above photographs, Amber Riley looked as if she wanted to throttle us! I’m telling you, if looks could kill, our entire tour group would have been dead! LOL Mark Salling was the only one of the bunch who had a smile on his face, but it was definitely not directed towards us. He was speaking with Chord Overstreet the entire time and did not so much as even look our way. The whole thing was HIGHLY disappointing and only got worse two weeks later when I spotted Lea Michele while taking the Paramount tour once again with fellow stalker Lavonna and her friends, but I’ll save that story for a future post. 🙂

Our next stop was the Paramount Medical Services building, the back side of which (where you can see the lattice in the above photograph) was supposedly used as Charlie’s (aka Kelly McGillis’) porch in the movie Top Gun.

The final stop on our tour was the famous 516-seat Paramount Theatre, which has played host to several Hollywood premieres and premiere after-parties over the years and has also been the site of some filming, as well.

Just outside of the theatre is the famous Paramount water fountain;

Forest Gump’s bench from the movie of the same name;

and the Bronson Gate – the studio’s former entrance, which was where Norma Desmond (aka Gloria Swanson) entered the lot in the 1950 movie Sunset Boulevard. Legend has it that rubbing one’s hands on the gate while uttering Norma’s famous line, “I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille”, will bring luck in the movie industry.

And with that our tour was over. But just as we were hopping back on our golf cart to head back to the studio store to make our departure, I spotted one of my mom’s all-time favorite actors – David Strathairn – who was nice enough to smile and wave at us after he realized that we had recognized him. 🙂 So incredibly cool!

And while leaving through the lot’s main gate who should drive past us but Glee star Jenna Ushkowitz. You can just barely see her in the black car in the above photograph.

I honestly cannot recommend stalking the Paramount lot enough! It is, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, the best studio tour in existence and I absolutely cannot wait to go on it again!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Tours are given Monday through Friday at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. and cost $40 per person. Reservations can be made by calling (323)956-1777. Parking for the tour costs $7 per car. I recommend booking your tour at least a week in advance, as they tend to sell out quickly. You can find out more information about the Paramount Studios Tour here.