Adrian Monk is probably the best known TV detective from the 2000s. The show Monk originally ran from 2002 until 2009, and featured Tony Shalhoub as a former San Francisco police detective who (due to his various phobias and compulsions) now works as a crime scene consultant.
Pretty soon (December 8th 2023 to be exact) fans of the show are going to be treated to a movie sequel titled “Mr. Monk’s Last Case” (to be released via Peacock TV). The movie sequel was first announced back in March 2023, and filming took place in and around the Greater Toronto Area throughout May of that same year.
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While some may be surprised to find out that the sequel to a show famously set in San Francisco was filmed in Toronto, many fans of the show are already aware that, before filming was moved to California starting with Season 2, the entirety of Season 1 was filmed in Canada. Specifically, the pilot movie “Mr. Monk and the Candidate” was filmed in Vancouver BC, while the remaining 11 episodes of Season 1 were all filmed in Toronto ON and surrounding areas.
I must say I was excited to find out it was once again filming in the city where I live, but unfortunately I found out a bit too late. This meant that I missed out on seeing some of the filming in person — even though on at least one occasion it was taking place only a few blocks from the office where I was working.
Nonetheless, I thought it would be fun to revisit Season 1 of Monk and document its Toronto filming locations ahead of the release of the movie sequel next month. I start this post by looking at the locations that were reused in multiple episodes, before moving on to episode-specific locations.
Recurring locations:
There were four locations that appeared multiple times throughout the season. They were: the Police Station; Monk’s house; Sharona’s house; and the waterfront park.
Police Station
Establishing shots of the police station exterior appear in at least 5 of the episodes, and the location is used extensively in the episode “Mr. Monk and the Red Headed Stranger” as the setting for multiple press conferences.
While the film crew did a good job generally obscuring any major hints as to its real world location there is at least one sign that clearly gives it away — the red lettering that reads “tiptoplofts presentation centre” on the glass above the entrance. The building itself is located at 637 Lake Shore Boulevard West. It’s currently a condominium building that was once the headquarters of Tip Top Tailors — a menswear retailer.
One thing I found interesting in a funny sort of way when re-watching this season is how the set designers seemed to overcompensate for the Canadian filming location by inserting as many USA flags as they could into the scenes. This is particularly apparent in the news conference that Captain Stottlemeyer gives in “Mr. Monk and the Red Headed Stranger” where one scene starts with the camera zoomed in on the American flag in the background.
Adrian Monk’s house
The exterior of Mr. Monk’s house appears only in establishing shots and there aren’t any scenes that actually take place outside his building.
Nonetheless, while re-watching the season, I was excited to find that I recognize the particular townhouse complex as it is a neighbourhood I frequently walk through. The complex in question is located just south of Casa Loma and next to the George Brown College campus. The specific unit used to stand in for Monk’s house is at 237 Walmer Road.
Sharona’s house
An establishing shot of Sharona’s house is briefly used in the episode “Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale”, but the location is used again (and this time more extensively) in the episode “Mr. Monk and the Earthquake”.
The precise location is at 308 Adelaide Street West in downtown Toronto and happens to be not far from other filming locations used during the first season.
Waterfront park
One final location that popped up in three of the earliest Monk episodes is a waterfront park where Adrian and Sharona go for walks. These appear at the end of the episodes “Mr. Monk and the Psychic”, “Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale”, and “Mr. Monk Goes to the Carnival”.
The precise location used is Marie Curtis Park, which is located at the shore of Lake Ontario and straddles the Etobicoke Creek — the dividing line between the former city of Etobicoke and the city of Mississauga.
I must say, recognizing this location was tricky. Even though I grew up living nearby and visited the park often, I still didn’t recognize it when I first watched Monk on TV back in 2002. In fact, back then, I didn’t even realize that Monk was filmed in Toronto. And while re-watching the show this time around I realized that the reason for this is because San Francisco scenery would sometimes be digitally added into the background. In the case of the screenshot above, the Golden Gate Bridge and a distant mountain was added in. In the case of the final scene in “Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale”, the San Francisco skyline was added to peek out above the treetops. In other episodes I even noticed that the views outside the windows were being manipulated.
Once I realized these little tricks, it really made me view other on-screen locations with a more discerning eye.
Episode specific locations
Below, I take a closer look at the specific locations used in each of the episodes.
Mr. Monk and the Psychic
In another example of San Francisco landmarks being added to the background, this episode begins with a scene on a beach near a cliff with what appears to be Alcatraz Island visible in the distance. In reality of course the scene was filmed on the shores of Lake Ontario and the island was digitally added to the scene.
More specifically, the scene of the crime was filmed at Bluffer’s Park in Scarborough. The cliffside scenes (as depicted in the top left of the collage below) were filmed at the western edge of the park; whereas street scenes (as depicted in the top right of the collage below) were filmed on Brimley Road South, which offers the only access to the park. Specifically, we can see that Monk and Sharona were standing at the bend in the road close to an “escape lane”.
Another exterior location used in this episode include a parking lot near some shops (as seen in the bottom right of the collage above). I love this screenshot in particular because you can see a TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) bus passing by in the background (visible between Monk and Sharona’s heads). This parking lot scene was filmed at Alderwood Plaza at the corner of Evans Avenue and Brown’s Line. This is not far from and almost directly north of Marie Curtis Park (where other scenes in the show were filmed).
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It is also the same plaza where we see Monk and Sharona digging through the hardware store’s trash bin (as seen in the bottom left of the collage above). This scene appears to have been filmed at the south edge of the plaza as I can just about recognize the buildings across the street visible in the very distance at the bottom left of the screen.
There are a few other scenes and establishing shots filmed at various private residences around Toronto. According to a contributor to IMDb, the killer’s home is at 2346 Doulton Drive in Mississauga; whereas the psychic’s home is at 417 Lake Promenade in Etobicoke.
Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale
Beyond a few establishing shots and recurring locations (such as Sharona’s house and the waterfront park), there aren’t too many exterior locations used in this episode. The majority of the action either takes place inside Dale the Whale’s apartment or at the house where the crime was committed (which as a private residence is difficult to pinpoint).
However, there is one location in the episode where we see Monk and Sharona outside Doctor Vezza’s clinic (as seen below). According to an IMDb contributor, this was filmed at Queen’s Quay Terminal (at 207 Queen’s Quay). However, if that is true then the area has undergone a major transformation and those interesting sculptures resembling sheets of paper are no longer there. (If other Torontonian’s are reading this, I’d love to get your input on pinning down this location.)
Mr. Monk Goes to the Carnival
While the carnival (which appears to have been filmed at Marie Curtis Park again) is central to this episode, there are significant scenes surrounding Monk’s possible reinstatement in the police force. The episode includes several scenes around the “Hall of Justice”, which in reality is the Mississauga City Hall at 300 City Centre Drive.
In the collage above, we can see Monk and Sharona outside the main entrance to the building. The top right image shows the old entrance to the Square One Shopping Centre in the background. The bottom left image shows Monk crashing Sharona’s car just across the street, next to some signage to the Living Arts Centre. And finally, I love the screenshot in the bottom right is particularly fun because it shows a glimpse of a red Canada Post box as Sharona and Monk walk southwest along Civic Centre Drive.
And finally, in case anybody was wondering, this establishing shot of a nightclub with a facade covered in bicycle parts is the Bovine Sex Club at 542 Queen Street West. (Hat tip to my friend Chris for right away knowing where this was.)
Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum
The majority of this episode was filmed at Shouldice Hospital, a private hospital in Markham, located at 7750 Bayview Avenue.
The one other location we get to see in this episode is when Sharona goes to visit the medical library. I must admit I haven’t been able to identify this particular location, but both the exterior shot and the interior look very familiar — though it should be said that it’s possible that the exterior and interior were not actually the same building.
If any other Torontonians are reading this and recognize the location, I’d be very interested to hear what you think!
Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger
The scene of the crime in this particular episode was filmed near the intersection of Adelaide Street West and Peter Street — not far from the location used to stand in for Sharona’s house.
In the top left of the collage above, you can see the victim’s car driving east along Adelaide Street, with the buildings along Spadina Avenue visible in the background. In the top right of the collage, you see 111 Peter Street being made to look like a movie theatre. In the two photos at the bottom of the collage, you see the murder scene with various buildings point to it taking place in a parking lot that is across the street/to the west of 111 Peter Street. Note, given the particular configurations of the landmarks in the area, it seems like the scene corresponding to the screenshot visible in the bottom left of the collage above was actually filmed as a mirror image.
Another major scene with lots of background landmarks visible is one where Monk happens upon Leo Otterman walking out of a restaurant.
This scene was filmed on Elm Street between Yonge Street and Bay Street. For instance, in the picture in the top left, we can see the red signage for where a Future Shop used to be. And in the top right, we can see Monk standing in front of the entrance to Minto Plaza at 38 Elm St. In the bottom left we can see him in front of what used to be Il Fornello at 35 Elm St.
According to an IMDb contributor, additional scenes in this episode were filmed on Simcoe Street North in Oshawa (Teal’s house) and on Wellington Street in Toronto (Monk getting shot at). Most notably, the episode also uses the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga to stand in for Teal’s office. As mentioned earlier in this post, the Living Arts Centre is across the street from Mississauga City Hall (which was used as a filming location in “Mr. Monk Goes to the Carnival”.
Mr. Monk and the Other Woman
A significant portion of the action in this movie takes place in front of three neighbouring private residences on Birchwood Heights Drive in Mississauga. However, there are at least two scenes that were filmed in public space in Toronto.
The scene outside where the funeral takes place (as seen in the top two images in the collage above) were filmed behind the Cathedral Church of St. James at 106 King Street East. The landmarks visible in the background indicate that they are in an area on the north side of the church, between it and the Anglican Diocese of Toronto building.
The other major external scene was filmed less than a block away and happens at the very end of the episode (as seen in the bottom two images in the collage above). This scene was filmed outside the historic St. Lawrence Hall at 157 King Street East.
Mr. Monk and the Marathon Man
This particular episode is chock-full of exterior filming locations. Whereas once again the show producers did a good job of obscuring the Toronto filming locations by splicing in tons of stock footage from the actual San Francisco marathon, there were nonetheless a few clues visible in the background.
Some might be quite surprised to find out that many of these scenes were filmed practically at the foot of the CN Tower — Toronto’s most famous landmark. For instance, the top left image in the collage below show Monk and Sharona watching the marathon from the northwest entrance to the parking lot at Roundhouse Park — this is near near 255 Bremner Boulevard and just across the street from the CN Tower. The top right image shows the marathon approaching their location. If you look closely, you can see a tower with the old Metropolitan Toronto logo on it (circled in red). The weird giant suitcase-looking thing in the same picture is actually the film crew’s way of obscuring a giant sign for the Rogers Centre (formerly known as the SkyDome).
When Monk and Sharona are called away to the crime scene, they don’t have to travel far. Nonetheless, there is some inconsistent geography. They are first seen driving westbound on Queen’s Quay near the Harbourfront Centre (in the bottom left image of the collage we can see the Power Plant Art Gallery chimney in the top right corner of the screenshot), before ending up further east on Queen’s Quay at Yonge Street (as seen in the bottom right of the collage above).
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However, some scenes used in this episode do venture further forward. For instance, the scenes where Monk and Sharona are trying to trace the killer’s movements were in fact filmed much further west at Humber Bay Park East near Lake Shore Boulevard West and Park Lawn Road in Etobicoke. In the top right image in the collage below, you can even just about make out the CN Tower in the distance (circled in red next to Sharona’s head).
On the other hand, the final scene where Monk chases the killer was filmed further east at Unwin Studio and Cherry Beach in the Toronto Port Lands. The Cherry Beach life guard station is visible in the bottom right screenshot of the above collage.
Other locations used in this episode include the headquarters for the marathon organizers — which is in reality Monarch Park Collegiate Institute. The outdoor scenes with Monk and Sharona were specifically filmed on the west side of the building, on Parkmount Road next to Monarch Park.
And finally, Monk’s hero Tonday’s hotel was actually the King Edward Hotel at 37 King Street East (close to where several of the scenes in “Mr. Monk and the Other Woman” were filmed. I particularly wanted to highlight the scene below (which is from the very end of the episode), as I get a kick out of seeing the sign for the Canadian Press building in the background.
Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation
This episode is a perfect example of how the producers of the show digitally altered the scenes in order to obscure their real location. The episode begins with Monk and Sharona on a beach with their hotel purportedly on the cliff just behind them.
In reality, this scene was filmed at Bluffers Park Beach — on the opposite end of the Scarborough Bluffs that appeared in the episode “Mr. Monk and the Psychic” — and the image of the hotel looming on the cliffs above was digitally inserted.
The scenes filmed at the hotel were actually filmed at the Pan Pacific Toronto hotel (where I attended a wedding once) located at 900 York Mills Road (near its intersection with Don Mills Road). The two locations are over 16 km (i.e. 10 miles) away from one another.
Mr. Monk and the Earthquake
The episode is significant for its extensive use of the exterior of Sharona’s house, which I’ve already discussed at the top of this post and which we’ve only seen once before in an establishing shot.
Aside from this, somewhat recurring, location, the episode also spends a lot of time in and around Sharona’s sister’s house. Based on some establishing shots (as in the top left image of the collage below), and scenes showing the locations across the street (as in the top right image of the collage below), we can pinpoint this location to 66 Fraser Avenue. This is near Alan A. Lamport Stadium, which is even visible in the background in some of the scenes.
There are several other minor scenes in this episode — some of which I can identify (such as the image in the bottom left of the collage above which shows Monk’s taxi driving east on Adelaide Street West and passing Peter Street on its way to Sharona’s house). However, there are a few other scenes that are difficult to pinpoint due to lack of clues in the background or perhaps due to the city changing too much in the past 20 years. This is the case in the image in the bottom right of the collage, as well as the scenes filmed behind Sharona’s house and the subsequent crime scene.
However, one establishing shot used in this episode which can be identified is St. Ann’s Church at 120 First Avenue, which was where Monk confronted the grieving widow.
Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger
This is another episode that heavily featured public and outdoor locations in Toronto. The episode starts with Willie Nelson on the Budwiser Stage on the Ontario Place grounds (top left image in the collage below). The action then moves to a radio station building (top right image in the collage below) and its neighbouring alley (bottom two images in the collage below).
The building has since been torn down, but its address used to be 225 Mutual Street. The alley scenes were filmed in the laneway just to the north of that building (and just south of College Street). Even though the building no longer exists, you can still pick out the various landmarks that are visible in the background, such as the College Francais on College Street, or the Allan Gardens park and the Grace Toronto Church.
Later on in the episode, we see Monk and Sharona meeting Willie Nelson on the Ontario Place grounds. Based on the image in the top left of the collage below, this is very close to the Budwiser Stage as the flags and awning above the ticket booths are visible in the background.
While there are a few locations I wasn’t able to identify (such as the exterior scenes outside the blind woman’s house — visible in the top right image in the collage above), locations I have been able to identify include Coronation Park (bottom left image in the collage above) and Toronto Necropolis (bottom right image in the collage above).
Coronation Park is just to the east of the Canadian National Exhibition grounds and Ontario Place, and the Victory-Peace Monument located in the park is visible in the screenshot included in the collage above. Toronto Necropolis, on the other hand, is located at 200 Winchester Street. The unique architecture surrounding the entrance to the grounds is visible in the bottom right corner of the screenshot included in the collage above.
Mr. Monk and the Airplane
Although the final episode of the season predominantly takes place either indoors or on a set made to look like the inside of an airplane, there are nonetheless a few scenes filmed inside public buildings in Toronto. The opening scenes in which Monk accompanies Sharona to the airport in San Francisco (as seen in the top two images in the collage below) were all filmed in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. In the top left image in the collage below, you can even pick out a unique frog design on the terrazzo flooring.
After their plane lands in New Jersey, we see Monk and Sharona (and Sharona’s aunt) chasing the killers through what is meant to be an airport lounge area. In reality, this scene was filmed inside the Rogers Centre (formerly known as the SkyDome). If you look closely throughout this seen, you’ll notice various gate number signs, which in real life help visitors find their way around the sports and concert venue. Of course, these seem perfectly natural in a scene meant to take place in an airport.
Additionally, the very last scene in which Monk, Sharona, and her aunt exit the airport was filmed near Gate 8 of the Rogers Centre, at its southernmost end. In the image, you can even see the street sign for Bremner Boulevard clearly visible.
I hope you enjoyed this look through MONK Season 1 filming locations. If you have any insight into the locations I haven’t been able to identify, or if you noticed additional locations that I didn’t mention in this post, please let me know in the comments!
As I look forward to watching the MONK movie in a few weeks, I also look forward to seeing which Toronto locations they used this time — and if they ended up coming back to any of the locations used in the first season.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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