Real name/location of the Arcadian
December 28, 2011 3:14 AM   Subscribe

What is the real name/location of The Arcadian building in the TV show "How I met Your Mother"?

Maybe it is just a set, but it seems like parts of it are real photos. It features a large lion head gargoyle on the center of the 3rd floor on the main facade.
posted by yticmic to Media & Arts (7 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
You can see it in this YouTube preview of the episode at 0:30.
posted by smackfu at 6:01 AM on December 28, 2011


Like Friends, it looks like all the NYC street scenes in HIMYM look fake and part of a Hollywood set.
The picture of the Arcadian just looks like a photoshopped composite of old timey type of buildings still around.
posted by stavx at 7:05 AM on December 28, 2011


It has also done time as the Royal Diner in Bones.
posted by holgate at 8:02 AM on December 28, 2011


That Corner Diner/Royal Diner set is on the Fox lot in Century City, perhaps an eighth of a mile from the sound stage where they shoot HIMYM. Most of the time, it looks like holgate's Bones photo.

yticmic, I'm not convinced your photo shows the same exterior. In the years I worked on the lot, I never saw the exterior of that set dressed so elaborately.
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:05 AM on December 28, 2011


The Royal Diner definitely showed up at the foot of the Arcadian for the demolition episode, but early appearances look more like video composites based upon buildings in the Fox backlot.
posted by holgate at 9:52 AM on December 28, 2011


Using Bing and some Flickr photos, I'm pretty satisfied that particular cornice is not present at Fox Studios (quite apart from any ground-level taping). The view, in my capacity as an amateur architectural historian, is a genuine building with a photoshopped sign. It's just that much more elaborate than any generic "New York" set would be, especially along the roofline, and it betrays at least one major remodeling of the penthouse, which most of the New York set building fronts don't. It's also a bit more worn and dirty than the set fronts generally show.

There's a pretty good chance it's a real building in New York, but I wouldn't say it's impossible for it to be in LA, either. (Ultimately, it could be from any number of US or Canadian cities.) But without some sort of insider info, or someone having a flash of recognition and posting about it somewhere, finding it might be impossible.
posted by dhartung at 10:38 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh, I should have mentioned that this shot also looks like a real building (with the Royal Diner 'shopped in, slightly misaligned), and may even be the same building as in the sign/cornice shot, but it's been monkeyed with to make something fit. Among other things, you will notice the lack in this shot of the corner bay rising above the diner, clearly visible in the backlot photo.

I will also add: That's no hotel. The upper stories were probably constructed as a factory of some type.
posted by dhartung at 10:46 AM on December 28, 2011


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