#repeat locations

[samanddeanwerehere]

Fox Fuel

Sometimes Supernatural locations that never seemed like they'd be used again, popped up again year's later. That's the case for this gas station.

The gap between appearances was so long that the real gas station on Marine Dr in Burnaby changed names from Cana Fuel to Fox Fuel in between.

The gas station was first seen in 1x06 Skin.

And then 15 year's later, it was back in 15x06. And shockingly was virtually unchanged in all those years, except for the name.

The place is no longer open, but as of last check is still there, still looking much the same. Next up in this series is a notable spot in downtown Vancouver!

[samanddeanwerehere]

Riverview Hospital, Crease Clinic

As promised, this next post in the series on reused locations continues at Riverview Hospital with another of the distinctive buildings used in Supernatural, the Crease Clinic. For anyone who didn't catch the last post on the West Lawn Building, Riverview Hospital is an old psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam, now mostly decommissioned and heavily used by the film and television industry for filming. Supernatural filmed there so often that if you counted all the buildings and locations on the grounds as a single location, it would no doubt be the most used location on the show.

Now, full disclosure, it is guaranteed that I don't have all the times SPN used the Crease Clinic documented. Most of the uses were interiors and when it comes to all the hospitals, morgues, police stations, offices, and various other insides of buildings, who knows how many more of them may been shot inside these buildings, but I'm sure it's in the dozens. The ones I do have documented are either because some distinctive part of the building was shown or because it was listed on a Call Sheet or similar filming document.

The first known use was in 1x05 Bloody Mary when the boys visit the morgue.

These stairs also seen in the episode are one of the more recognizable features of this particular building.

The first exterior is in 1x10 Asylum, where Crease Clinic stands in for the Roosevelt Asylum.

Interiors are used here too with that staircase making another appearance. I do not know for certain that all of the asylum interiors were shot in this building versus some of the others at Riverview, but certainly many of them were.

The staircase is back again for 2x01 In My Time of Dying, as are many of the interiors of the hospital. Once again, cannot be certain all the hospital interiors were this building but many are.

Changing to non-medical buildings, Crease Clinic is playing the prison in 2x19 Folsum Prison Blues. Following a theme, certainly some of the prison interiors were in this building, if not others at the hospital, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of police station interiors were as well, and probably the location where the boys get arrested.

This is also where we first see the back of the cafeteria building that sits behind the main Crease Clinic.

In 4x06 Yellow Fever, Crease Clinic was both the inside and outside of the assisted living facility where the boys interview the victim's brother. But I'd be willing to bet either this building or one of the others on the property was also the morgue and the police station.

In 4x13 After School Special, Crease Clinic is both the inside and outside of Fairfax County Hospital.

A chunk of 6x10 Caged Heat was shot here for Crowley's lair.

Look, it's those stairs again!

In 7x17 The Born-Again Identity and 7x21 Reading Is Fundamental, the building is used for most of the exterior hospital scenes where first Sam and then Cas are staying. The exception being that the establishing shot of the exterior is of the North Lawn building (and reused from Sam, Interrupted). At least some of the interiors are here too, though I suspect the actual hospital room was a set.

In 8x03 Heartache, Crease Clinic is the police station. Again the hospital from the same ep seems to be the East Lawn building, so there's a lot of bouncing around between buildings once they are on Riverview property.

In 8x20 Pac-Man Fever, the video game djinn dream that Charlie is stuck in is all inside this building. Probably the regular hospital scenes with her mom too if I was to take a guess, but those could be one of the other buildings.

Then there's a big jump and not another known use until S14. But I highly doubt it was actually that long. There were probably multiple interiors in that time that just haven't been confirmed.

In 14x02 Gods and Monsters, the building was once again a morgue.

And then the last known use, though probably not the last actual use, was in 14x04 Mint Condition as the hospital Hachetman is terrorizing in the movie footage. The hospital in the context of the episode seems mostly to be in the East Lawn building through I can't be sure which building houses the morgue.

Someday I'll actually go down a rabbit hole of matching up Riverview interiors to add to this list but the hyper fixation will have to nab me just right for that.

The next entry in this series is going to depart Riverview and look at a location that only appeared twice, 15 years apart!

[samanddeanwerehere]

Dollarton Highway, North Vancouver

There’s a little stretch of Dollarton Highway in North Vancouver that appears in several pieces of driving footage in season one. Like a lot of driving footage, all the shots were probably filmed at the same time and then used periodically in later episodes.

The first appearance is in 1x02 Wendigo, making it very likely that this was the first driving footage shot in Vancouver. The spot is right outside the former Accurate Iron Works which was later used as a location itself, but unfortunately has long since been torn down. 

A slightly different shot appears in 1x03 Dead in the Water, just a few yards down the road, with the Impala driving the other direction. 

In 1x05 Bloody Mary we see both the same shot used in Wendigo, as well as a new one pointed further down the road. It took me quite a while to figure out this was the same spot because the depth of field on this shot is deceptive. It looks like a short section of road, but in fact the signs in the distance are quite a  long way from the foreground.

Then in both 1x07 Hook Man and 1x18 Something Wicked, that same footage from Bloody Mary turns up again.

These driving shots are notable in that they only appeared in the first season, while a lot of others show up over and over throughout the show. But Something Wicked is the last time this footage makes an appearance. 

Next in the series, McNeelys Way in Delta. 

[samanddeanwerehere]

Griffith Park Drive, Los Angeles

Kicking off a new series on filming locations that appeared multiple times in Supernatural, with an unlikely candidate. If the Pilot was the only episode filmed in LA, how did a location from the pilot appear multiple times? Let me show you!

Griffith Park Drive in Griffith Park was the site of the roadside scenes in the Pilot where the Woman in White was picked up on the side of the road, first by Tony...

And later by Sam...

You also see the spot when the boys first drive into town and pass the Jericho sign (also visible in the first screenshot). Note for visitors: The tree behind the Impala in the first shot below is no longer standing.

When the location returns, it’s two years later in Season 3 in driving footage that must have been shot during the pilot. In fact I think it may even be an extended version of the footage of Sam driving through the Woman in White’s ghost, just without the the Woman added in post. 

The same footage appears in 3x03, in 4x04, in 4x18, in 10x20 and finally in 15x04. Which is pretty cool that footage shot on film in the pilot made it all the way to digital edits in the final season.

This is one of three types of repeat locations (though there’s also some amount of overlap between these types). 

There’s ones like this one that are actually just the same footage being used in multiple episodes, but the show only shot at the location once (true of a lot of driving footage). 

There’s ones that appeared in multiple episodes but were playing the same location each time (this would be places like Bobby’s house and Singer Salvage Yard). Given the nature of the show as a road show, there’s not as many of these as one might think in a 15 year series.

And lastly, there’s locations used multiple times and playing a different location in the show each time. 

Next up Pipeline Rd in Stanley Park :-)

[samanddeanwerehere]

Riverview Hospital, West Lawn Building

Back to revisiting locations used multiple times on the show, and stopping by Riverview Hospital for the first time. I had a debate with myself about whether to cover Riverview as a single location or break it up by individual locations on the grounds, and decided to go with the latter, otherwise the post would be far too long.

Riverview Hospital is an old psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam. Many of the buildings have been decommissioned, but some on the property are still used as active medical facilities and others have been repurposed for other organizations. The grounds are open to the public as an arboretum during daylight hours, and there is a wonderful collection of beautiful old trees on site (the horticultural society runs tree tours several times a year for anyone interested). The site is now heavily used by the film and TV industry for filming, and Supernatural filmed at Riverview so often that the cast and crew have joked that it should have been called Stage 5. If you were to count the grounds as a whole, and add in all the times they filmed inside the various buildings (that I know I don't even have entirely accounted for in my records), Riverview would no doubt come up as the most used location on the show.

For this visit, we are going to start with the West Lawn building, first seen in 1x05 Bloody Mary as the Lake Erie Central Hospital. Arguably one of the most distinctive of the Riverview buildings.

To my knowledge, this building was only ever used for exteriors, not interiors. It's the oldest building on the property and I believe the first to close, and is no longer safe due to the state of deterioration. Bloody Mary is just the first of a couple of examples where SPN filmed outside this building and then shot the interiors of the same fictional location in another of the Riverview buildings (in this case, the Crease Clinic).

The building is next seen in the background of this beautifully framed and lit shot from 4x16 On the Head of a Pin, where Cas meets with Anna on the stairs in front of the building.

It's then quite a while before West Lawn makes another appearance, but it's back again in Season 11. First as the exterior to Needham Asylum in 11x06 Our Little World, a location previously established as an interior set, but seen as an exterior for the first time in this episode.

West Lawn next appears in 11x23 Alpha and Omega as Waverly Hills, where Sam and Dean go to collect ghosts. This is the eastern side of the building, to the right of the view in the other screenshots. This is another example where the interiors for Waverly Hills were shot in another building, this time the Centre Lawn building next door.

And then finally, West Lawn is back to playing the Needham Asylum in both 13x12 Various and Sundry Villains and 13x13 Devil's Bargain, where Cas has a confrontation with Lucifer. The fencing seen around the building here is real, and one of the signs of the restricted access for safety.

I've had the pleasure of visiting Riverview a few times, and on my first trip (an organized tour) this was the only building we visited. On later trips I was able to wander around more, though access is always a little challenging as security can be a bit omni-present and parking is permit only on most of the grounds. My most recent visit, I went on a weekend when there were no film crews around and parked at a nearby hiking trailhead and walked in. It ended up being the most relaxed and peaceful day of location exploration I think I've ever had. I'd argue that there is nowhere else where you can feel as much like you are wandering through the sets of Supernatural as when exploring Riverview.

The next post in this series will be back at Riverview again to look at the Crease Clinic.

[samanddeanwerehere]

68th St, Delta

This next set of repeat locations are technically further apart than I might normally consider for one post, but they are all on the same section of 68th St in Delta and I'm reasonably certain they were all shot at the same time as most first appeared in 1x04 Phantom Traveler.

Starting with the location of the plane crash site from Phantom Traveler, the southern most pin on the road. There is both a westward facing piece of driving footage and northern facing footage of the crash that were both shot in the same spot.

The driving footage appears again in 1x08 Bugs unaltered, while the crash footage appears again in 2x14 Born Under a Bad Sign, sans smoke and with the sign edited.

The next most northern pin is driving footage that also first appeared in Phantom Traveler, and was then reused in various snippets in 1x13 Route 666, Born Under a Bad Sign again, 3x05 Bedtime Stories, 10x18 Book of the Damned and 13x02 The Rising Son. I've not been able to absolutely verify but I think there were two passes of this spot shot accounting for the different lighting.

The third pin is yet another piece of driving footage that first appeared in Phantom Traveler, and then was reused in 2x09 Croatoan, while another shot driving the other way in the same spot appeared in 5x05 Fallen Idols. This is another piece of footage with an incredibly long depth of field making the fencing look much closer on the road to the background of the image than it actually is.

Finally, while not technically reused, as this footage only appeared in 1x09 Home, this driving footage is the top pin on 68th St and there's a pretty good chance it was filmed at the same time as the others.

Coming up next in this series is our first visit to Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, specifically the West Lawn building.

[samanddeanwerehere]

Ladner Harbour Park, Delta

Ladner Harbour Park, and more specifically the playground in the park, would be on any shortlist of the most recognizable SPN locations in the series.

The park is located across the Fraser River from the village of Ladner, which was itself used extensively for filming over the years.

The park first appeared in 9x23 Do You Believe in Miracles? when it became the first playground entrance to Heaven.

If you go to the park hoping to enter Heaven via this sandbox, you're likely to be disappointed as the sandbox was a set piece added by production.

The playground is particularly notable for being one of the few locations that appeared multiple times on the show as the same location. The boys don't retrace their steps much but Cas did return to the entrance to Heaven five more times. First in 10x02 Reichenbach.

Then again in 10x10 The Hunter Games. Note that except for the sandbox, the playground equipment is part of the park, making this an excellent spot for reenactment pictures/video.

Back again in 10x17 Inside Man. (Cas' leap here is a particularly good one for reenactment.)

We take a little break for Season 11, and when we return the park is doing double duty in 12x15 Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth and we get to see of some of the park beyond the playground. A section not far from the playground was home to the campsite where the unfortunate boyfriend is attacked by a hellhound.

This picnic shelter where the boys meet up with the cops is between the playground and the spot used for the campsite.

And it's the same spot seen near the end after the hellhound is dealt with.

Turn around and you'll see a familiar sign at the entrance to one of the trails - the actual sign says Swenson Walk but the sign posts are the same.

Down that path where Crowley is headed you'll find the trail where Dean and Crowley went hellhound hunting.

And of course, back at the playground, Cas is headed to Heaven once again.

The final appearance of the park was in 12x19 The Future. But wait, you say, the playground entrance to Heaven appears in Season 13 and 14 too. You would be right, but they used Willard Park in Burnaby for those seasons (reportedly the production was not welcome back to this park after this episode).

If you are visiting the park now, there is a little spring horse right in the spot where the sandbox was placed so be careful not to land on it when making your journey to Heaven. The last time I was there I also saw a beautiful owl so potential for good bird watching in addition to location hunting.

While you are out at the park, be sure to check out the nearby Ladner Slough Bridge on McNeely's Way, which featured in a previous post on repeat locations. And the Ladner Harbour Authority Pier which was also used in 10x02 - it's just past the entrance to the park or accessible from the park trails.

Coming up next in repeat locations is the next set of driving footage on 68th St in Delta.

[samanddeanwerehere]

Harbourside Plaza, Ladner, Delta

Harbourside Plaza is another repeat location that I considered not including in this series because the two times it appears are two separate parts of the plaza, but I decided it counts anyway.

Just across the street from the Delta Barber Shop that featured in the last post, is the Harbourside Plaza in the village of Ladner.

It first appears in Supernatural immediately after the Delta Barber Shop in 1x03 Dead in the Water as the destination Andrea is leading the boys to, the Lakefront Motel.

You can see it again at the end of the episode when the boys are saying goodbye to Andrea and Lucas.

There is a "blink and you'll miss it" appearance of the plaza in 2x05 Simon Said, there the boys are across the street looking at Andy's van and you can briefly see the plaza in the background.

Then fast forward several seasons to 7x06 Slash Fiction and the boys are getting arrested at the other end of the plaza parking lot from the spot used in 1x03.

Aside from some fresh paint, the plaza remains largely unchanged from what you see on screen and is just one of the many locations you can visit in the village of Ladner.

Next up, one of the more iconic repeat locations from the show, Ladner Harbour Park, where you will likely recognize the playground. :-)