Friday, May 17, 2013

The Office Tour of Scranton

Last night was the final episode of The Office. In memory of the show here is a map of Scranton from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.


The article that accompanies the map gives you some details about some of the sights including the quotes below:

A -Paper Magic
Paper Magic Group, which makes greeting cards, Valentines and other seasonal products, is often confused for Dunder Mifflin. The office building is shown briefly in the show's opening credits, along with a Mulberry Street sign.
And actor John Krasinksi, who plays Jim, visited Paper Magic when he was scouting possible locations and filmed the opening montage of the city from his car.
B - Niko Bella restaurant
Brenda Stanco and her step-father John Xanthis, owners of Niko-Bella restaurant in Scranton, hung a banner outside their restaurant, after one episode had the character of Michael getting a sandwich delivered from the restaurant.
C -Farley's
Farley's restaurant also got a quick mention on the show.
"I want to be to 'The Office' what Monk's Restaurant was to 'Seinfeld,' " said Bill Young, owner of Farley's. A 10-year-old customer suggested a Michael Scott burger, a cheese-slathered burger Mr. Young is going to add it to the menu this fall.
D - City Hall 
A Dunder Mifflin sign hangs outside City Hall in Scranton.
E - Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce
The buzzed-about comedy has also brought Scranton some reverse chic. Mr. Burke of the Chamber of Commerce said his nephew, a comedy writer in Los Angeles, was always teased about being from Scranton. But once "The Office" became a hit, his friends were asking him for Scranton mugs.
So the chamber sends their mugs to West Coast hipsters. Among the Scranton props that Ms. Potis has sent to the show are a blue Chamber plaque, a Froggy 101 bumper sticker plastered on a filing cabinet, and the coats and hats from Niko-Bella restaurant.
The city's history also gets a brief mention:
Scranton, named for industrialist brothers George and Selden Scranton, was the anthracite coal capital in the 1930s and the third largest city in Pennsylvania with 140,000. But as alternative sources of energy were tapped in the 1950s, the coal industry suffered and the city lost about half of its population, said Willis Conover, chairman of the history department at the University of Scranton.
In 1992, the state declared it a distressed city, a designation it still holds. But the Downtown has brightened with a new mall, a Hilton, 12 new restaurants and Sanofi Pasteur , a pharmaceutical company. And the town square has been illuminated with a huge "Electric City" sign, a reference to its designation as the first city with an electric trolley car.

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