Seinfeld Restaurant in New York City

Tom's Restaurant, the location made famous as Monk's Cafe on Seinfeld, is still attracting crowds of fans from its heyday in the 90s. Only used for exteriors on the TV show, Tom's is still incredibly familiar and fits nicely into a pop culture walking tour of New York City.

Movie Colony Hotel in Palm Springs, California

There's nothing like staying at a unique, trendy and/or historic property to make any location more memorable. I found all of these things at the Movie Colony Hotel in Palm Springs, California. The property is located in the historic Movie Colony neighborhood, named for the numerous homes of movie stars that used to live here in the 1930's to 1960's. Notable residents included Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Cary Grant, Jack Benny, and Bing Crosby to name a few.

Designed in 1935 by famed modernist architect, Albert Frey, the Movie Colony Hotel is a prime example of Desert Modern architecture. It was one of Frey's first projects, and it only seemed to further fuel his love of the Palm Springs area. Among many other notable buildings, Frey also designed both the Aerial Tramway Station and the Palm Springs City Hall.  

The property went on to become a popular hangout for celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. There's even a bit of folklore about Jim Morrison of The Doors leaping off of the balcony of townhouse #29 into the pool here. Today the Movie Colony is a 16 room boutique hotel, and for me, it was my hub for a week during travel shoots for my Roadside California series.

Architect Albert Frey

VHS / Video Store Stickers

I don't quite know why collecting VHS tapes is tickling my brain at the moment, but this hobby is now costing me upwards of $8 a month lol. The video store aesthetic is fully in the sweet spot of being gone just long enough to feel special, but still ordinary enough to be dirt cheap. Anyway, here are some of my video store VHS stickers from my latest haul.