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The Apartment Building

posted 5 years ago by MAGolding (1231)
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The fictional apartment building where Raven lives is at 352 Hauser Avenue in Chicago.

Here is a link to some pictures of the building used for exterior shots of the 352 Hauser avenue building:

https://ravenshome.fandom.com/wiki/352_Hauser_Avenue/Gallery

The actual building used in various exterior shots is stated to be Thalia Hall at the corner of 18th and Allport in Chicago, Illinois. Anyway, it has four stories.

https://emptybottle.com/about/venues/thalia-hall/

In "head over Wheels", 27 July 2018, Raven's family go upstairs from the lobby to their apartment, thus showing that it is on the second, third, or fourth floor.

In another episode, probably "Winners and Losers", 16 November 2018, Kids from Nia & Booker's school go upstairs past Raven's apartment to Mitch's apartment. That shows that Raven's apartment must be on the third, second, or first floor.

In the most recent episode "School House Trap", 20 September 2019, Mr. Clark is said to reside on the second floor. Since it sounds like the second floor is a different floor than the one Raven's apartment is on, Raven's apartment should thus be on the fourth, third, or first floor.

Since the only floor that is not eliminated by one of those episodes is the third floor, Raven's apartment should be on the third floor.

And in fact this page: https://ravenshome.fandom.com/wiki/352_Hauser_Avenue says their apartment is number 3B on the third floor.

[–] Kowalski (76340) 5 years ago

UM....THANK YOU?

[–] twinA (4921) 5 years ago

Not that this matters, but in American culture, isn't it true that the higher the floor one lives on, the wealthier they are?

~~/o/

[–] MAGolding (1231) 5 years ago

That depends.

In a high rise building built for public housing of the poor, all of the floors would be considered equally low prestige.

I suspect that in multi storied buildings without elevators, the higher floors are considered lower value than the lower floors.

But in high rise buildings with elevators where you don't have to a walk up many flights of stairs, the higher floor are usually considered higher value than the lower floors because of the better views.

Raven's building is only four stories tall, and none of the tenants knew it had a working elevator until the second season episode "Head over Wheels", July 27, 2018. So I doubt if the landlord charged higher rent for the higher floors.

By the way, Raven's apartment has a window in the kitchen at about a 45 degree angle to the window in the living room. So that implies that the apartment could be at a corner of the building. But apparently there are three bedrooms and a bathroom reached through a door leading to the "corner area", which seems far too small for them.

Therefore, yesterday I decided that if the apartment was in a real building whose layout made any sense instead of being sets on a sound stage, the window in Raven's kitchen showing another wall just a few feet beyond would have to be a window in a light well more or less surrounded by the building. That seems like the only way to have enough space beyond the door for three bedrooms and a bathroom.

[–] twinA (4921) 5 years ago

Detailed response as always, MA.

In mid 19th century France, the wealthy live on the lowest floor closest to the building entrance.

In the fictional Star Wars universe, the completely urbanized planet of Corusuant what happened nicest places of living high in the clouds while the lower levels see the standard of living drop, where are all the toxic dump and lack of sunlight was reality, kind of like the Carlton Heston movie "Soylent Green".

It's interesting how the background can reveal so much about the character's personality and traits.

~~/o/

[–] MAGolding (1231) 5 years ago

Another detail about the apartment building.

The Baxters and Graysons live in Apartment 3B with Tess living in Apartment 3C directly across the hallway.

In typical shots of the hallway, Apartment 3A is on the same side as 3B and down the hall toward the window at the end of the hall.

In shots of the inside of Apartment 3B there is a living room wall in the background in the direction of Apartment 3A but apparently not nearly as far in the background as the windows on the end of the hall. So there could be room for Apartment 3A beyond that living room wall.

Except that there are windows in that living room wall that don't show the interior of Apartment 3A but empty space with buildings at a distance beyond.

So the door to Apartment 3A can't lead to an apartment but to a fall down the outside of the building. That dorr better the locked well.

And obviously there can't be an apartment 4A either. There may or may not be an Apartment 1A and maybe also an Apartment 2A. An actual Apartment 2A would mean that the door marked 3A would lead out onto the roof of the section of the second floor containing Apartment 2A instead of to a drop.

This site claims that Apartment 2A is the Jablonski residence. https://ravenshome.fandom.com/wiki/352_Hauser_Avenue. If correct, that means that Apartments 1A & 2A exist, while 3A & 4A are merely doors with fake apartment numbers.

In the August 4, 2017 episode "The Baxters Get Bounced", Phil Jablonski, their landlord, and his mother Mryna live in an apartment in the building. If their apartment has a sign 2A out side then that part o fht building must be two storeis tall.

Of cours eif different flooors have diffferent arrangements of apartment letters this logic might not be valid.

But in any case it seems certain that the door to Apartment 3A leads outside the building, either to a roof or to a fall.

So apparently the building had an eccentric architect or builder. And it what is the date on a plaque near the roof in some shots of the exterior? I think it is 1892, the year of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago. And as I remember correctly H.H. Holmes built a hotel of rather eccentric design in Chicago for the use of Exhibition patrons, his famous "murder castle". That certainly suggests a theme for the next Halloween episode, if there will be another one.

[–] MAGolding (1231) 5 years ago

I just (11-16-19) saw the first part of "The Falcon and the Raven" again.

In one scene Tess on the roof was doing some gardening for Chelsea - carelessly wasting dirt by tossing it off the roof - and tossed a clump of dirt containing "pinky", Raven's pocketbook, with $ 10,000.00 off the roof.

The kids in the apartment saw it fall through the window and looked out and saw "pinky" landed in a batch of fresh cement drying in the sidewalk below. I think they saw it fall and then looked out the living room window. If correct, the sidewalk they saw below should have been where the Jablonski's apartment, number 2A, & presumably apartment 1A below it, was according to "The Baxter's Get Bounced".

Later Raven passed the tape around the wet patch of sidewalk and entered a building by a door, presumably an entrance to their Apartment building. So one entrance to the Apartment building could be be underneath the 3rd floor hallway, down on the first Floor. And possibly Apartment 2A and Apartment 1A have been demolished after "The Baxters Get Bounced" for some reason, and new slabs of sidewalk pavement are being put where they used to be!

In "Crewed Up", there were scenes in a hallway in apartment 3B. They looked down the hallway with two doors that seemed to go off to the left at a 45 degree angle. I think that hallway may have been the space seen between the living room and the kitchen. Booker and Levi's room was on the left and Nia's room was on the right.

As you may remember, Booker & Levi's room has a section of inclined roofing with an inclined window in it, while Nia's room has a window in a vertical wall which Raven once climbed up to! In "Crewed UP" there was brick wall a short distance outside Nia's window. The exterior shots of the apartment building show two sides, and the third floor doesn't have any slanted roof sections in those two sides, so Booker & Levi's room cannot be in either of those two sides of the building.

If the space seen between the living room and the kitchen is the hallway seen in "Crewed UP", it would indicate that Booker's room should have been right outside the kitchen instead of the light well. And the apartment should extended farther than the living room windows, which might show a courtyard. Part of the building(s) seen outside look like the white stone architecture of the apartment building so that could be another wing of it. The ground floor storefronts in "The Falcon and the Raven" indicate there is public access to that courtyard.

I am beginning to think Raven's Home's set designer doesn't care much about making the sets fit into any plausible architectural design. Which is hardly unusual in television.

[–] MAGolding (1231) 5 years ago

I saw "Cop to It" on Dec. 5, 2019.

At the end, Raven and Mitch get in a staring contest in the living room of Apartment 3B. The scene cuts to an exterior view of the building in daylight. Then the scene cuts to an exterior view of the building at night, with light shining through a triple window probably intended to be the window of Apartment 3b. Then the scene cuts back to the interior of Apartment 3B, with Raven and Mitch still staring.

So this scene implies that the triple living room window of Apartment 3B is probably in one of the two sides of the building seen in exterior shots.

That would contradict my deduction in my previous post that the living room windows of apartment 3B should overlook an interior courtyard of the apartment building.

Added 12-06-2019. I just saw today "Bqh Humbugged" in which the Baxters and Graysons celebrate Christmas. It had some different shots of the exterior of the apartment building, with a lot of snow on it.

The building used for exterior shots of the apartment building is Thalia Hall at 18th and Allport Streets in Chicago.

One shot showed the building at night, with a triple window on the third floor lighted up. It is natural to suppose that the lighted triple window would be the one in the living from of Apartment 3B.

According to what I saw in that shot, the window in the real building, Thalia Hall, should be on the West 18th street side of the building and not the South Allport St. side, and thus should face north toward St. Procopius Catholic Church.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Thalia+Hall/@41.8577157,-87.6580154,19z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x880e2cffdb62b721:0x9a4a94db5d09cf36!8m2!3d41.8577157!4d-87.6574682

Photographs of Thalia Hall show that it doesn't have any large projections on either 18th St. or Allport St.

https://www.thaliahallchicago.com/about-1

But according to the sets used, the apartment building should have an extension of tens of feet extending of the sidewalk and the street to contain the hallway outside Apartment 3B on one side of the triple window, and possibly another extension of a number of feet on the other side of the triple window for the bedrooms and bathroom in apartment 3B.

So the apartment building at the fictional address of 352 Hauser avenue in Chicago certainly has some unusual design features (such as sections which are invisible and intangible on the outside but visible and tangible on the inside!) according to the layout of the sets compared to the exterior shots of a real building, Thalia Hall.

[–] Bloodworth79 (5690) 5 years ago

Psycho hes a little bit psycho...la la la

[–] MAGolding (1231) 5 years ago

In "The Story So-fa", April 19, 2020, The apartment where Tess O'Malley lives, right across the hall from apartment 3-C, is seen, and it has a living room window seen in the symmetrical position to Raven's apartment 3-C. It is much closer to the door to the apartment than the windows at the far end of the hallway beyond the staircase. Thus the staircase hallway must stick out about a dozen feet from the wall of the building where the living room windows in both apartments are.

And no view of the exterior of the building shows such a protruding section on the third or any floor.