The View from Leonard and Sheldon’s Apartment on “The Big Bang Theory”

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As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post, while doing research on the rooftop where Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch) got married in the Season 5 episode of The Big Bang Theory titled “The Countdown Reflection”, I came across a TBBT forum that was an absolute treasure trove of location information.  I became so entranced by the many debates about where the photograph was taken of the view shown from Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper’s (Jim Parsons) apartment, in fact, that I completely lost track of time and failed to make dinner, so the Grim Cheaper and I ended up having to go out!  (That’s a good trick, actually – I’ll have to remember that one!  Winking smile)  I cannot tell you how often the GC and I would pause episodes of The Big Bang Theory over the years trying to figure out from where that photograph was taken.  We had both come to the conclusion long ago that the view was fake – a fictional composition of a skyline created by TBBT art department.  So imagine my surprise when I read on the forum that the view was actually real!  Not only that, but the photograph of it had been taken from a place that I am extremely familiar with.

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On the forum, a Pasadena resident named “JamesPMiller” posted a comment which detailed his extensive, and successful, hunt across the City of Roses trying to pinpoint the exact spot where the photograph of Leonard and Sheldon’s view was taken.  The lengths that he went to during this venture are nothing short of awe-inspiring.  He is a man after this stalker’s own heart, that’s for sure!  As it turns out, Leonard and Sheldon’s view can be seen from the roof (or Level 6) of the parking structure of the Community Bank building on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.  Ironically enough, the GC has meetings at the Community Bank building on a regular basis and I frequently have to drop stuff off to him there.  So when I read of the location, I really had to mentally smack myself in the forehead as it is a place that I visit almost daily.  Doh!  Maybe all of that blonde hair dye is truly going to my head, as the GC has long suspected.  Winking smile Anyway, once I learned of the location, I ran right over there to take some pics.

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As you can see below, the view from the parking structure matches up perfectly to the backdrop that appears on the show.  It seems that the TBBT producers digitally removed the steeple of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, which is visible in my photographs, but, other than that, the two views are identical.

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The photograph of Sheldon and Leonard’s view was taken from the parking place denoted by the pink “X” in the photograph below.

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The space is the seventh spot over from the southern-most end of the parking structure.

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As JamesPMiller also noted in TBBT forum, the view from the apartment where Penny (Kaley Cuoco) lives was also taken from the Community Bank building parking garage roof, just a few spaces south from where Leonard and Sheldon’s backdrop picture was taken.  So incredibly cool!

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Big THANK YOU to JamesPMiller for finding this location!  I cannot urge you enough to read the story of his search, which begins on Page 5 of The Big Bang Theory forum.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The photograph of the view from Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment on The Big Bang Theory was taken from the roof (Level 6) of the Community Bank building parking garage, which is located at 790 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.  Although the address is 790 East Colorado Boulevard, the entrance to the parking structure is located on South Hudson Avenue, in between East Green Street and East Colorado Boulevard.  The photograph of Sheldon and Leonard’s view was taken from the seventh parking spot over from the southern-most end of the roof, and the photograph of Penny’s view was taken from the fifth parking spot over from the southern-most end of the roof.

Lucky Baldwin’s British Pub and Cafe from “The Big Bang Theory”

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In the recently-aired Season 4 episode of fave show The Big Bang Theory titled “The Irish Pub Formulation”, Sheldon Cooper (aka Jim Parsons) refers to an Old Town Pasadena-area restaurant named Lucky Baldwin’s Pub.  Ironically enough, just a few days prior to watching that episode, fellow stalker John from Northern California had mentioned that very establishment to me in an email.  While John was vacationing in Los Angeles earlier this summer, he had ventured out to Pasadena and stopped by both POP Champagne Bar, my very favorite restaurant, and Lucky Baldwin’s Pub and had written to me to let me know about his experiences there.  Amazingly enough, I had never actually heard of Lucky Baldwin’s before receiving his email, but John said that the place had a good atmosphere so I made a mental note to check it out in the near future.  Well, imagine my surprise when just a few days later I heard the place referenced on The Big Bang Theory!  I am so incredibly thankful to John because had he not mentioned the bar in his email, I would have written the place off as a fictional locale that was created by the writers of the show.  So, once I knew that it was, in fact, a real-life establishment, I just had to stalk the place. 

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Lucky Baldwin’s is an incredibly cool little bar tucked away on a side street of Old Town Pasadena.  It is a low key, down-to-earth place that boasts an extensive menu of British pub favorites, including Bangers and Mash, Fish & Chips, and Pigs in a Blanket.  Because I have always been the type of girl who prefers chicken strips to chicken marsala, a place like Lucky Baldwin’s is truly right up my alley.  The only problem with chicken-strip-serving-type establishments, though, is that they tend to not feature champagne – my drink of choice – on their cocktail menu, but I am VERY happy to report that that was not the case at Lucky Baldwin’s!  A bar that serves pub food AND champagne – that is simply music to my ears!  Lucky Baldwin’s was first founded just over fourteen years ago, in July of 1996, by an Englishman named David Farnworth and his partner Peggy Simonian and was named after Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin, the California businessman who founded Santa Anita Park in Arcadia and who owned the land that now makes up the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.  In 2005, Farnworth and Simonian opened a second restaurant named Lucky Baldwin’s Delirium Pub a few miles away in the sleepy little town of Sierra Madre.  According to the Old Pasadena website, Lucky Baldwins is “truly Old Pasadena’s favorite secret hideaway” and I couldn’t agree with that statement more – the restaurant is definitely a secret.  I’ve lived in Pasadena for over a decade now and had never even heard of the place!  It is definitely going to be a frequent stomping ground for me and the Grim Cheaper in the future, though, because we absolutely loved the place.

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In “The Irish Pub Formulation” episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon discovers that Leonard Hofstadter (aka Johnny Galecki) has spent the night with their friend Raj Koothrappali’s (aka Kunal Nayyar’s) little sister, Priya (aka Aarti Mankad).  To protect Leonard’s secret, Sheldon comes up with an “iron clad alibi” about that night which revolves around the fictional “fun-loving and morally-loose Miss Maggie Magarie”.  Of Maggie, Sheldon says, “You met her at Pasadena’s most popular Irish watering hole, Lucky Baldwin’s, where Maggie spends her nights tending bar with a head full of curls and a heart full of dreams.”  I think it is so amazingly cool that the writers of The Big Bang Theory, which is set in Pasadena, chose a real life locale to refer to in the episode. I love, love, love it when real life places are mentioned in movies and television shows. 

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They did get a couple of things wrong, though.  In reality, Lucky Baldwin’s is British, not Irish, and the restaurant does not currently serve pickled eggs or whiskey (or any other hard alcohol), as Sheldon alludes to in the episode.  But the Big Bang writers definitely did their homework on this one because, according to our waitress, the bar is a popular hangout for both Caltech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory employees.  On the series, Leonard, Raj, and Sheldon all work at Caltech, while Howard Wolowitz (aka Simon Helberg) is employed by JPL.  The Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake, which was also mentioned in “The Irish Pub Formulation” episode of The Big Bang Theory, is also, in fact, a real life locale.  And while it might seem a bit crazy that I stalked this location due to a mere mention on a TV show, as you can see in this Yelp review, I wasn’t the only one to do so! 

You can watch the hilarious “alibi” scene by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for telling me about this location!  🙂

And a BIG shout out goes to fellow stalker Debbie who is celebrating a special birthday today!   Happy Birthday Debbie!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Lucky Baldwin’s British Pub and Cafe, from The Big Bang Theory, is located at 17 South Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.