A traffic circle plaza ringed by brick and stucco storefronts, with Craftsman and Spanish Revival houses in the blocks around it.
What Old Towne Orange looks like
A traffic circle plaza sits where Chapman Avenue and Glassell Street cross, with a tiled fountain at its center. The fountain is tiled and electrically lit, a 1937 installation. Lawn, palm trees and park benches ring it, with a flagpole rising alongside. Four shopping streets radiate out from the circle, each lined with brick and stucco storefronts set flush against the sidewalk.
The blocks of Glassell Street facing the plaza are closed to cars and used for outdoor dining, with tables and A-frame signs set along the curb. Most storefronts are one or two storeys, with decorative corniced parapets above the ground floor shopfronts. At 102 North Glassell Street, a former Masonic lodge building keeps one of the plaza's taller corniced facades, a bank now on its ground floor. Painted wall signage and striped awnings continue from one storefront to the next.
Away from the plaza, the side streets hold Craftsman bungalows, Spanish Colonial Revival houses and Victorian cottages side by side, most built before 1940. Houses in the bungalow blocks are mostly one storey, set back behind small lawns, porches and low fences. Street signs read Lemon, Walnut, Maple and Cypress, names taken from fruits, nuts and trees rather than numbers.
Shot in Old Towne Orange
That Thing You Do! used two buildings on the plaza for its scenes set in 1964 Erie, Pennsylvania. stood in for the soda fountain where Guy Patterson works, and the Orange Theatre a block north was dressed as the Regent Theatre, marquee and all.
That Thing You Do!
The production used both buildings on the same stretch of Glassell Street to build 1964 Erie, Pennsylvania out of the real plaza.
That Thing You Do!, 1996
Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain
Played a drugstore soda fountain, Erie, Pennsylvania, 1964
Both the exterior and the interior were dressed for Guy's conversation with Faye outside the shop, and the interior was used again for the scene where he hands the Wonders their portable radios. The Benchwarmers later used the same exterior and interior, and the series Medical Investigation used the interior alone for two further scenes. Street View
That Thing You Do!, 1996
Played the Regent Theatre, Erie, Pennsylvania, 1964
The marquee was dressed to read Regent Theatre, with a 1964 film title on the board and a Woolworth sign added to the building next door. It closed as a movie theater in the early 1970s, had a brief run as a live theater, and became a church in 1975. Street View
Main Street in Santa Paula keeps brick and stone commercial buildings from the late 1870s through the early 1900s, including a two storey bank with an arched entry and decorative ironwork over its windows. The street runs through a walkable grid town center much like Old Towne Orange's own plaza blocks. Santa Paula has no traffic circle or central fountain, so a shot built around Old Towne Orange's plaza needs a different anchor point. Try searching brick and stone commercial buildings now.
Old Town Monrovia in Monrovia, California
Myrtle Avenue's brick commercial buildings date from the same early twentieth century window as Old Towne Orange, including the 1897 Banning Block and the 1923 Monrovia Savings Bank building. Craftsman houses on the surrounding blocks give the side streets a similar scale. Myrtle Avenue runs as a straight shopping street rather than around a traffic circle, so a wide establishing shot needs to avoid any plaza framing. Try searching brick commercial buildings now.
North Fair Oaks Avenue in Old Pasadena keeps Victorian commercial brick buildings with arched windows and decorative brickwork, the closest match to Old Towne Orange's own corniced facades. Colorado Boulevard a block over was rebuilt around 1930 in Spanish Colonial Revival, so the look changes from one street to the next. Old Pasadena covers twenty two blocks with heavier pedestrian and vehicle traffic than Old Towne Orange's plaza, so a wide shot needs careful block selection to avoid giving away the scale. Try searching Victorian commercial brick buildings now.
