Before you settle down for your traditional seasonal serving of Home Alone this Christmas, join us as we reimagine some of the key characters and iconic settings found in the first two films to lend them a Warsaw context…
Before you settle down for your traditional seasonal serving of Home Alone this Christmas, join us as we reimagine some of the key characters and iconic settings found in the first two films to lend them a Warsaw context…
Aspiring filmmakers should look no further than the American Ambassador’s residence on Idzikowskiego 34 when finding a substitute for the McCallister home. Occupying one acre of land, the 30-room mansion was built in Williamsburg style and put into operation in 1967. Henry Kissinger stayed here during secret US-Chinese talks and bungling burglars would do well to remember that aside from the usual iron ring afforded to ambassadors, its current incumbent, Mark Brzezinski, is the proud owner of a couple of German shepherds.
Wrongfully rumoured to be the South Bend Shovel Slayer, ‘Old Man’ Marley is one of the most memorable characters of Home Alone. His Warsaw equivalent? That has to be Czarny Roman, a street character that roamed the centre until his death in 2017. Children would run away from him as if he were the boogey man, but Roman, usually dressed in an immaculate black suit and hat, was a benign figure despite his notorious street corner rants. Often preaching about impending meteorites and yoga, he became a local legend. Today, his memory is honoured by way of numerous stencil portraits around his favourite stamping ground, Chmielna.
One of the other memorably benevolent characters to appear in the Home Alone series is the Pigeon Lady found in Central Park. Warsaw, too, once had a fabled pigeon lady by the name of Kazimiera Majchrzak. Throughout the war – at great cost to herself – she fed the birds in Old Town. After the city’s liberation, she continued doing so in the ruins of the tenement at Piwna 6. Apparently, two birds in particularly reminded her of the sons she had lost in the 1944 Uprising. When the historic centre was rebuilt, designers paid tribute to her by adding a flock of stone pigeons above the doorway of Piwna 6.
Duncan’s might have been fictional, but it was based on the very real and very legendary FAO Schwartz. The closest Warsaw has to that, you’d say, is SMYK inside the former CeDeT department store on Jerozlimskie. Defined by its serpentine blue neon the decorates the façade, the building was recently rebuilt to mimic the 1951 original. A not-so-happy Xmas story for you: on December 22nd, 1964, it was witness to one of Poland’s most notorious heists when two robbers escaped with takings of PLN 1,336,500. One guard was killed and the perps were never caught sparking speculation of an inside job and government cover-up.
Kevin’s cunning is best demonstrated by his use of a classic film in a bid to scare Harry and Marv away. In this respect, you could do worse than bowling up to the Socialist Realist Kino Iluzjon. Opened in 1956, it’s been magically restored to evoke yesteryear’s air. Featuring a beautiful neon and a stunning rotunda, it’s famed not just for its architecture but a repertoire slanted towards arthouse flicks and timeless black-and-white classics.
Dubbed the most iconic scene of all, who can forget the piercing scream that Kevin delivers when slapping on aftershave for the very first time. AAARGH. You’ll do the opposite of scream though should you head to Jan Barba (janbarba.com) on Kopernika 6. A truly luxurious perfume company, the men’s fragrances are masterpieces of scent and art. Alternatively, you’re guaranteed to enjoy the fragrances at Mo61 on Mokotowska 61 (mo61.pl) – that’s because you’ll be crafting them yourself at this upmarket perfume laboratory.
In Home Alone II we spot an awed Kevin staring up in amazement at Radio City Hall. Well, get a load of this: before the outbreak of WWII the city of Warsaw unveiled visionary plans for a 20-floor skyscraper on Pl. Unii Lubelskiej. Directly inspired by New York, it would be the home of Polskie Radio and a TV studio. Just as work crews began emptying the plot for the project, the Germans invaded. After the war, the investment was abandoned.
Opting to make the most of his time in the Big Apple (hey, who wouldn’t), Kevin catches a yellow cab and beelines to Manhattan. Connecting Praga to downtown Warsaw, the Poniatowski Bridge shares few physical similarities to the Queensboro, but it is at least one of the more iconic Warsaw crossings – and unluckiest. Destroyed three times since opening in 1914, it’s also seen a coup play out in 1926. With a story like that, it’s got to be in a film, right?
From the moment we’re first introduced to the gloating bully that is Buzz, he strikes you immediately as the kind of individual that would own a tarantula called Axl. Later used with terrifying impact by Kevin, we reckon it’s a given that Buzz would love the collection of creepy crawlies at the Palace of Culture’s Spider Exhibition (wystawapajakow.pl). Black widows, glow-in-the-dark scorpions, you name it, they’ve got it.
Occasionally removed by some TV companies, the uncut Home Alone II has Kevin admiring NYC from the South Tower of the World Trade Centre. A shorter city Warsaw might be, but the bird’s eye view from the 30th floor viewing deck of the Palace of Culture remains one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions. In the future, mind you, that title stands to be seized from them when the Varso Tower’s observation platform finally opens. Launching, hopefully, next year, it’s 230-metre vantage point stands to be twice as high as that offered by the competition.
“A lovely cheese pizza just for me,” ruminates Kevin with a distinct tone of pleasure. The McCallister clan, it must be said, are quite partial to pizza, so they’d take to Warsaw like ducks to water. But where would the kid order from? Pizza Boyz (pizzaboyz.pl) on Marszałkowska 17. Aiming their guns at younger generations, their wacky pies come with toppings such as Mac & Cheese, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or Coca-Cola BBQ sauce.
Walking through the fish market in Home Alone II, Kevin just misses the arrival of his arch-enemies, the hapless Harry and Marv. For the same sense of bustle and gritty authenticity we have the Polski Kevin down to visit Hala Mirowska. Outside this Tsarist-era pockmarked bastion, dozens of traders can be found hauling produce to their stalls whilst the babbling public makes their buys.
Central Park looms large in Home Alone II, as would Łazienki in our hit Warsaw remake. No pigeons mind, instead we’d replace them with the park’s defining creature: the peacock, reputedly introduced during the times of King Stanisław August Poniatowski. And speaking of Poniatowski, a faint likeness is shared between the statue of the monarch outside the Presidential Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście and Central Park’s General José de San Martín. Both ride horses, both look imperious and both point to the distance. In the latter’s case, it’s by following the general’s hand that Kevin finds the Plaza.
From the outside, Warsaw struggles to emulate the engorged chateau style of the Plaza Hotel, though being creative one could make a case for the Polonia Palace with its Neo-Classical swagger. Inside, though, that’s a no-brainer. Infamously running into Donald Trump in Home Alone II, a Warsaw-raised Kevin could have endured that dubious pleasure in the Marriott Hotel. A beacon of free enterprise when it opened in 1989, passing VIPs have included Joan Collins, Michael Jackson, Pavarotti, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and, yes, The Donald himself.
It’s in his Plaza suite that Kevin places one of the most famous room service orders in cinematic history. To follow in his footsteps, then the Wedel café on Szpitalna 8 is a clever little choice. Grand and traditional, though best-known for its chocolate they also offer up made-to-order towering ice creams. Interestingly, the building is crowned by a neon that debuted in 1926. Designed by Leonetto Capiello, an Italian artist regarded as ‘the father of modern advertising’, it shows a cheeky blonde boy riding a zebra with bars of chocolate on his back. Could this be our Polish Kevin?
Home Alone II concludes with Kevin reunited with his mother in front of the Rockefeller’s Christmas Tree. Resisting the temptation to twin the Rockefeller’s Art Deco form with the inter-war Prudential Tower (now better-known as the Hotel Warszawa), instead let’s focus the eyeballs on the tree itself – a gloriously lit giant. Standing 27-metres high, Warsaw’s own tree on Plac Zamkowy is surely a fitting finale to your Home Alone tour.