Recently I learned that the TV show Fraiser not only took place in Seattle but in my neighborhood of Queen Anne. Based upon the view Fraiser sees it would place his condo just a few blocks from where I live. I’ve only seen maybe five episodes of the show, so I can’t recall seeing the view on the show.
I went looking for a photo of Fraiser’s view to add to this blog but turned up nothing. Ideally, I would show his view from the show and then try and replicate the same view with a photo I’ve taken. Then I stumbled onto the location controversy.
From IMDB’s page on “Fraiser” (1993) Goofs:
The view of the Seattle skyline from Frasier’s high-rise condo is an impossible view. The angle of the view, with the Space Needle in foreground and the skyscrapers in the background, is from north of downtown Seattle looking south. There are no high-rise condos north of the Space Needle, just one very massive hill, Queen Anne Hill. In order to get the view that he has, Frasier would need to have a ground-level house about halfway up the side of Queen Anne Hill.
Again I haven’t seen the view, but there is at least one high-rise building on the south hill of Queen Anne facing the Space Needle. The Space Needle is southeast of Kerry Park. Below is a photo that was taken from Kerry Park.
Photo Kerry Park: Memorial Day in Seattle by FLICKR user jeffwilcox
User OneHappyHusky on the site MovieMistakes.com says Fraiser did not live in Queen Anne and instead was on the east side of Lake Union. From Fraiser TV corrections:
The sweeping view of Seattle that Frasier has from his living room window would only be possible if he lived atop one of the transmission towers on nearby Queen Anne Hill. [Not True. The physical citi-scape of Seattle proves this wrong, look at any map! The view from “Frasier” is clearly looking westward (note position of Space Needle to the city). Further, the top of Queen Anne Hill is listed (check Wikipedia or Google) at 500 feet above sea level, and the Space Needle is listed at 502′. to add a transmission tower would create an image looking DOWN on the Space Needle. Truthfully, the image of Frasier is looking WEST across Lake Union and not at ALL related to the Queen Anne Hill area at all.
Any of my Seattle readers or Fraiser fans have an opinion on what part of Seattle his fictional condo was at?
aviva
Oct 28, 2008 — 1:49 pm
From Wikipedia:
“No building or apartment in Seattle really has the view from Frasier’s residence. It was created so the Space Needle would appear more prominently. According to the Season 1 DVD bonus features, the photograph used on the set was taken from atop a cliff, possibly the ledge at Kerry Park, a frequent photography location. Only once was there an exterior shot facing Frasier’s apartment building, in Season 4 episode “The Impossible Dream”.”
also on the one box you can see it a bit more clearly:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106004/mediaviewer/rm1724815616
Jenn, aka JeSais
Oct 30, 2008 — 12:50 pm
“fictional” being the operative word….
that01artist
Jul 18, 2014 — 7:38 pm
I have lived in Seattle and have seen just about every place that could be Frasier’s Apartment Tower and I have come to this conclusion. . .It is a made up location that was made for the show in order to keep people from going to a real actual apartment tower. It wasn’t made to be taken seriously as an actual location like Westwood Mall or Pioneer Square or even Pike Place Market. Now I do believe that Pike Place is where Daphne takes Martin on occasion and that his bar he goes to is up around 1st and Pike or Pine or close to that. But I have lived in Queen Anne for a while and and have shopped in Tower Records that was down the hill, when it was around. I do not remember a market, bar or coffee shop in that area. So it could be a fictional neighborhood in a factual city. I love Seattle and if I had the money to move all of my stuff from MPLS I would move back to Seattle in a heartbeat.
Tim Lucas
Nov 11, 2014 — 1:06 pm
I know I’m chiming in late, but I wondered some years ago to the location of Frasier Crane’s apartment and came up with 7 Highland park, Seattle. The building is approximately the right size (7 storey) and has balcony’s very similar to the ones on the show offering a view pretty much the same as the show.
MAS
Nov 11, 2014 — 1:18 pm
@Tim – That sounds about right. It would be the only one to have that view, but the distance is too far, so the view is impossible. But I think you got the angle right.
ad3
Feb 20, 2015 — 7:43 pm
Frasier mentions that his apartment is “on the counterbalance” aka queen Anne (or the queen Anne ave area more specifically) but the needle is too far off to the right to make that a reality. If he was near Kerry park it would be center-left
MAS
Feb 21, 2015 — 8:24 am
@Ad3 – Awesome catch! That confirms it.
tim
Apr 11, 2015 — 2:14 pm
I have figured out how they did it. They created a fictional Seattle based on a Factual Seattle. Nervous coffee shop is on 3rd and Pine. What Is there now is a dunbrothers coffee. Across the street was a Borders Books. That is where the Radio Station was supposed to be. As far as the Frasier view. I think that they took all of the panoramic view from the balcony and moved it together and brought it toward the viewer. It is more spread out in real life. It is a fictional Seattle built on top of the real Seattle.
tim
Apr 11, 2015 — 2:18 pm
What I meant to say was that a Starbucks is in place of Nervosa Caffe
Seth
Aug 25, 2015 — 7:09 am
Frasier specifically says that he lives on the Counterbalance, and the view is from the north looking south. Don’t get so hung up on whether the view lines up perfectly or whether there really is a 20-floor building in that area. The only thing that kind of irks me about the whole debate is that “South Seattle” was mentioned twice on the show (at least through most of season 2). Once in the episode about the book about Frasier’s first time – titled Tango in South Seattle – though that book was about Frasier’s youth so maybe that’s where he grew up. The other time was during the blackout when Martin says “power outage all over South Seattle,” but I’ve reconciled that by assuming he meant that’s where the source of the outage was, or that’s where the power plant was, or something.
Side note – how can you possibly not have seen his view before? I didn’t really even watch the show until recently on Netflix, but when I was a kid I wanted that exact apartment.
MAS
Aug 25, 2015 — 7:13 am
@Seth – Thanks for the info. To answer your question, I did say in the post I had only seen maybe 5 episodes.
Seth
Aug 25, 2015 — 7:19 am
Same here when I was a kid but come on man! That view is iconic!