Ghostbusters California Filming Locations in 1970's Nancy Drew Episode

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries premiered on ABC in January of 1977. Alternating between Hardy Boys stories featuring Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy, and Nancy Drew stories featuring Pamela Sue Martin (later replaced by Janet Louise Johnson), the series ran for three seasons, with the last season (retitled The Hardy Boys) focusing solely on Frank and Joe Hardy. Despite taking place in other locations, much of the series was filmed in California; mostly on the Universal backlot. The second season episode "The Lady on Thursday at Ten" (aired on January 1, 1978) takes place in Manhattan, but was filmed all around California, including at some locations used in the original Ghostbusters films.

Unlike the Ghostbusters crew, the Drew Crew didn't try very hard to hide the fact that this is California, not New York. Let's look at these goofs as the episode makes its way to a showdown at a Ghostbusters filming location, while hiding a famous one in the background.

The geography gaffes start right away when Nancy is driving through Manhattan after dropping off her father at JFK airport, which just for the record, is in a different borough of New York City. She pulls out a paper map - remember those? - in an effort to find her way. For a detective, she's not very smart, as she's looking at a map of New Jersey! The Wanaque Reservoir, a lake in New Jersey, is clearly seen in the middle. New York is only a tiny portion in the upper right corner.


The next day, Nancy visits the Manhattan South Precinct to inquire about a hit-and-run she may or may not have been involved in the night before. If you have any idea of what Manhattan and California look like, watching this episode will drive you nuts as there was zero effort made to make California look like New York. The Drew Crew actually thought viewers would be stupid enough to think that this was Manhattan! Trust me, Manhattan isn't that clean :-)


Maybe viewers were naive enough to not notice that, but surely they noticed the palm trees lining the sides of the road when Nancy is dropped off at the Westlake nursing home. The cars parked on the side of the street have blue California license plates on them, too.


Nancy and her cohorts, which includes a police officer, escape some bad guys by hopping on a passing public bus, which they commandeer. Thank goodness there were no passengers on the bus, or others waiting at stops along the route. It's also a good thing that they never hit a single red light, though that may have been helped by the fact that this is a magic bus. It can seemingly jump around in time and space, as evident by the repeating background footage seen behind them from within the bus. It also has the power to change its appearance. When they board the bus, it's green with a "Chase Manhattan Bank" ad on the side.


Shortly before they get off, it's now blue with a "Catch Yellow Fever" liquor ad on the side. This is stock footage of a different bus driving through Manhattan's Columbus Circle. Yes, this is where Stay Puft walked through.


When they arrive at their destination, it's back to being a green bus, with a "Chase Manhattan Bank" ad on both sides.


The bus stops at the intersection of Winston Street & Wall Street in downtown Los Angeles. Well, at least Manhattan has a Wall Street. It doesn't look like this, but at least the name's accurate. Oh, I'd be remiss if I didn't take a minute to introduce the stars. You might recognize them if you've watched a lot of television in the 1970s and 1980s. From left to right: John Karlen (Lacey's husband in Cagney and Lacey), Nicholas Hammond (Peter Parker in the 1977 The Amazing Spider-Man series, also Friedrich von Trapp in The Sound of Music), Pamela Sue Martin (our heroine Nancy, also The Poseidon Adventure), and Simon Oakland (Tony Vincenzo in Kolchak the Night Stalker).


For fun, here's what the location looked like 45 years in the future, as captured by Google Maps in April 2022.


Nancy and Rocky (Karlen) escape the bad guys by climbing to the roof of the Bixby Hotel (433 South Wall Street), which is the building in the back right. Up on the roof, the Los Angeles (not New York) skyline is behind them, most notably the sign for the Rosslyn Hotel. Since Winston Street is right next to the Bixby Hotel, if you pay attention to the background, and know what to look for, you can see the rear side of Fire Station #23, the building that was primarily used as the interior of Ghostbusters headquarters in the original two films.


If you don't see the back of the firehouse, here is a photo from Google Maps focused on it. Hint: It's the tall green building.


If you need more visual reference, here is a map showing the front (X) and back (Y) of the firehouse in relation to the Winston/Wall intersection (Z).


The big showdown takes place at a museum where a painting of Queen Elizabeth is being unveiled. That museum is actually the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, which was used for the brief exterior and interior of Gracie Mansion in Ghostbusters II. The foreign dignitary arrives with a police escort through the mansion's porte-cochère/portico. The police that brought the Ghostbusters entered from the opposite direction.


Inside, some of Rocky's friends subdue the bad guys. Here, we see some of the distinctive dragon-like railing that was glimpsed from the outside in Ghostbusters II. See my Greystone Shot on Site article for more about that.


After Rocky takes out the bad guy, he celebrates in the goofiest manner possible. One aspect of this series that has been most enjoyable is how campy and bad the acting is, and this moment is a fine example of that. Rocky manages to get his dumb self knocked off the building, giving us this nice view of the Greystone's courtyard below.


Once the bad guys are carted off by the police, the public reveal of the Queen Elizabeth portrait takes place inside the Greystone. The entrance seen dead center in the background is the same one the Ghostbusters entered through; in the opposite direction, of course.


Rocky, Nancy, and everyone else leaves through that entrance, stopping just outside to have a quick chat. That same doorbell behind Nancy would be seen in Ghostbusters II, as per the previously-linked Shot on Site article.


A final joke about Rocky taking Nancy and the dignitary to a roller derby game ends Pamela Sue Martin's run as Nancy Drew. For the remainder of the season, the role would be taken over by Janet Louise Johnson, before being dropped entirely for the final season.

If you'd like to learn more about the series, I recommend the fan-created Wiki, the IMDb, this June 1977 Dayton Daily News article, and this April 2010 Den of Geek article.

If you'd like to see all three seasons of the show, the entire run is available on DVD in three individual season sets - Season 1, Season 2, Season 3 - which are also available in a bundle. Twenty of the forty-six episodes are available on the Peacock streaming service until December 31, 2024. Given that Peacock's parent company, NBCUniversal, owns the show, I have no clue why all of the episodes aren't available, much less why the show is being removed. I can only assume, for the latter point, that the series is being licensed to another distributor.