The News Building

Location: New York, New York, USA
Address:  220 E 42nd St
Date: November 2014
Website:  slgreen.com

  The News Building in New York City is known for both its interesting interior and exterior.  From its art deco entrance to its globe filled lobby, it is in a word... super.

  The front entrance includes a huge, three story tall granite carving.  At the top are the words "The News" and near the bottom, just above a crowd of people it says "He Made So Many Of Them".  This quote is from Abraham Lincoln referring to the common people who would be reading the daily newspaper.

     The lobby contains a giant world globe that is sunken into the floor.  This truly is the world news.

   The News Building has also played an important part in movie history.  In the Superman movies it played the part of The Daily Planet.  In the original Superman, Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) walk past the giant globe and out the revolving doors onto 42nd Street.  The exterior of the building is also shown in the movie.  The building exterior plays an increasingly smaller part in the sequels Superman II and Superman III.

    On the floor surrounding the globe are distances to world cities.  We recommend that no matter where you are in the world, you try and find your way to The News Building for a visit.

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Map of Our World
The News Building

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Post # 305

Monsters Mummies & Mayhem

Location: Hollywood, California, USA
Address: 1660 N Highland Ave.
Date: June 2019
Website:  thehollywoodmuseum.com/

    The Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles has so many movie props and memorabilia that they fill every nook and cranny.  Since it is the Halloween season we thought we would revisit their basement and a few classic horror movie icons.

  First off is an old classic, Frankenstein. While the novel was written in 1818, we are talking movies here. This Frankenstein was played by Boris Karloff in the 1931 film and is seen above with his bride from the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein.

  There were life masks of Boris Karloff and Bela Legosi. Bela Legosi had played Dracula and along with Boris was part of Universal Studio's classic monster movies.

   Another early creature that scared audiences was the great ape, King Kong.  The original King Kong was a stop motion model.  The museum had various King Kongs on display.

  Flying ahead a few decades there were some birds from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.  We are not sure if these were just props or former movie stars preserved for future generations.

  While not a movie monster herself, Elvira became very popular in the 1980s as a host presenting B grade horror movies.  Horror movies had never really gone away, but the 80s saw a group of classic horror villains rise to stardom and appear in numerous sequels.

  Michael Meyers changed Haloween night forever and gained his place as one of the greatest characters in slasher film history.  Michael escapes from a sanitarium and visits his hometown for a night of fright and murder.  Jamie Lee Curtis stars as a babysitter that Michael is stalking while wearing a plain white mask.  So far there have been eleven Halloween films.

   The next mask wearer to terrorize teenagers is Jason Voorhees from the Friday The 13th movies.  He drowned as a boy and is best known for wearing his hockey mask while slashing his way through twelve (or is it only eleven?) movies.  This franchise just has to make Friday The 13th: The 13th.

  The next horror franchise to arrive in the 1980s started with A Nightmare On Elm Street.  This movie starred Freddy Krueger who terrorized teenagers in their dreams.  Johnny Depp's Hollywood dreams came true after being one of Freddy's victims.  There have only been nine movies in this series but there was a Freddy vs Jason cross-over movie made.

  In the late 80s came Chucky.  He was a psychotic, knife wielding doll from the Child's Play movies.  Only 8 movies made so far.  He did find love in Bride of Chucky just like Frankenstein did over 60 years before him.  If you have ever seen videos of dogs wearing costumes, and we know you have, the Chucky costume is one of the best.

  The museum is crammed with movie props and costumes from many other films.  There was this stick figure from The Blair Witch Project. The Blair Witch Project grossed almost 250 million dollars on a budget of less than 500 thousand.  It's shaky hand held camera work caused as much tension and fear as it did nausea.

   After having a role in A Nightmare On Elm Street, Johnny Depp spent a lot of time making movies with a Halloween feel to them thanks to director Tim Burton.  Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas is both a Halloween and a Christmas classic.  Johnny's Sweeney Todd costume was on display. 

   We headed upstairs again to escape from the horrors we had seen in the basement.  We did spot a couple more monsters up in a corner.  Mike Wazowski and Sulley from Monsters Inc. are a little less creepy than the hundereds of items you can find in The Hollywood Museum's dungeon.

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Map of Our World
The Hollywood Museum

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Post # 292

Immersive Van Gogh

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address:  1 Yonge Street
Date:  August 2020
Website:  vangoghexhibit.ca

  Vincent van Gogh is one of the world's most famous painters.  His work is world renowned.  Now his paintings are part of an interesting exhibit where his work is dissected, animated and projected onto walls.  The artwork is accompanied by music which brings it all together.  We visited Immersive Van Gogh when it arrived in Toronto.  There is both a drive through and a walk through experience.  We took part in both experiences.

   For the drive through experience we waited on the street outside.  When it was our turn we were directed up to a receiving ramp.  We drove into a white walled room and followed the staff diections to park our car.  It wasn't long until the lights dimmed and the show began.

The music began and the works of Van Gogh started to come to life.  A bright yellow sun moved across the sky.

The sky changed colour in front of us as the day passed by. 

  Van Gogh painted many windmills that he saw in Monmartre, Paris.  During our immersive experience we could see the blades of the windmills turning in the wind.  This is very different from a regular art gallery where you interpret one frozen moment captured in the art.

  During the drive through experience our car was surrounded by the art.  There was Van Gogh on the passenger side.

    There was Van Gogh to be viewed through the front windshield.

    There was Van Gogh out the driver side window too.  We could see it between the parked cars.

    The exhibit features some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings.  Vincent Van Gogh only painted for a period of about 10 years before committing suicide at the age of 37.  In that time he painted over 850 oil paintings.  Some of the best known are The Bedroom (above) and The Sunflowers (top of blog).

    Van Gogh's most famous painting of all is The Starry Night.

 

    We were lucky to see the priceless original hanging in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

 

    Eventually the music and animation stopped and credits rolled up the walls.  The lights turned on and we were guided out into the streets.  We really enjoyed seeing the works of Van Gogh come to life around us.  We would be back again soon as our tickets also included a walk through experience. 

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Map of Our World
Immersive Van Gogh
Museum of Modern Art

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Post # 290

Frasier On The Backlot

Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Address: 5515 Melrose Ave.
Date: June 2019
Website: www.paramountstudiotour.com

  After a successful run on the sitcom Cheers, the character of Frasier Crane was given his own show.  Frasier aired for 11 seasons as did Cheers before it.  We were fans of both shows.

  Kelsey Grammer played the role of Frasier and didn't have far to go between jobs.  Both shows were filmed at Paramount Studios and both shows were filmed on Stage 25.  We took a Paramount Studio tour when we were in Los Angeles.  We were able to see the exterior of this famous sound stage as well as visit a section of the backlot where one episode from the first season of Frasier was filmed.

  The Paramount backlot has a section named SOHO after the New York City area.  In episode six of season one, Frasier purchases a piece from an art gallery.  He is embarrased when the artist comes to his party and declares the work a fraud.  Frasier is angry and further frustrated when the art gallery dealer insists all sales are final.  He stands on the street ready to throw a brick through the gallery window.  Frasier would be standing between the bike rider and the green subway entrance in the photo above.  The subway entrance was removed in order to film the scene.

  A couple walks by and Frasier hides his brick behind his back.  You can see the building above behind them as they cross the street.  Frasier turns to throw his brick but this time his brother Niles pulls up in his car.  Niles tries to calm Frasier by telling him of a time Frasier stopped him from exacting revenge.  Frasier gives Niles the brick and reminds him of how stromg he was despite the nicknames, such as Peachfuzz.  Niles hurls the brick through the window, tosses some money into the gallery and leaves.  

"We may be barbarians, but we pay for our pillaging!"

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See more locations from the Paramount Studios Backlot.

Map of Our World

Paramount Studios (Soho)

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Post # 285

Easter Island Dreaming

Location: New York City, New York, USA
Address: 200 Central Park West
Date: Sept 2007
Website: https://www.amnh.org

  Easter Island remains on our bucket list.  It is a small island located about 3220 km west of Chile and received its name from a Dutch explorer who found it on Easter Sunday 1722.  The island is famous for its large stone sculptures called moai.  Just because we have yet to make it to the island, does not mean that some of the island has not made its way to us.

  At the American Museum of Natural History in New York City there is a plaster cast of a moai statue on display.  The mold was made from one of the real moai during a museum expedition to Easter Island in 1935.  A copy of this cast statue comes to life and was featured in the movie Night At The Museum.  Brad Garrett voices the character that spends most of its time asking for some gum.  Sorry, gum gum.

  Las Vegas always tries to copy everything so it makes sense that it has a replica of an Easter Island statue.  The Vegas strip has its own Eiffel Tower, Venice, New York City and even an active volcano among the copied structures.  The strip used to have two Easter Island statues outside the Aku Aku restaurant which was part of the Stardust casino.  The restaurant and casino are no longer around.

  One of the statues was moved off of the strip and placed in Sunset Park. It sits on an island in the pond at the center of the park.  Not quite Easter Island but it is still an island none the less.

  London, England  has a few replica Easter Island statues as well as the real deal.  There are replica statues sunken in the shark tank at Sea Life London Aquarium.

  Sand Tiger Sharks spend their days swimming around while these giant heads keep a close eye on them.  Unlike these replica statues the real Easter Island statues all reside on land although many have sunk deeper into the soil through the centuries.

  The closest we have ever come to Easter Island is at the British Museum where they have an actual statue that was transported from the island back in 1868.  This statue is called Hoa Hakananai'a.  Easter Island has requested that it be allowed to return home again.  If they let us know, we will gladly accompany it on the ride home and then we can cross another item off of our bucket list.

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Map of Our World

Sea Life London Aquarium
Sunset Park
American Museum of Natural History , British Museum

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Post # 283