So I’m watching The Sopranos for the first time (yes, 20+ years after it began). I also live in NYC now, also for 20+ years (as of this year), so now I have a little bit of ‘context’ in my mind for life in Jersey and its environs. (I don’t get there often, but when I do…..)

Again, I’m trying not to spoiler myself with reading too much, but at the same time I get obsessed with what I’m seeing or saw and wanting to know a bit more – again with the context! (Say it in the voice of Livia Soprano for maximal effect.)

While watching the final episode of season 2 – “Funhouse” (great title, greater episode!) – I was really caught by this moment in the closing scenes. It juxtaposes the downtrodden and ordinary joes (adult show watchers, garbage haulers) with the players in power counting the cash and living the good life (the Sopranos!):

Pretty standard shot frankly. But having recently stumbled upon the Sopranos location guide website and map, I was curious…where was this? Could I figure it out? So I looked at the image a bit closer. Of course ‘PAR/ CINEMA” jumps out at you, where the K is clearly weathered away. But park and cinema seemed like too generic of words to search without knowing the city or township. Then, I zoomed in:

Closer….closer:

Now there was something I could work with: TALKING BIRD RESTAURANT (with a capital BIR and lowercase d in BIRd!)

Oh boy I had no clue where this search journey would take me!

My first search was for talking bird restaurant

Too generic – no different than park cinema, really – all the results were of talking birds :/

My second search was for talking bird restaurant new jersey

While your results may vary from mine, my results still emphasized talking birds, but maybe more specifically talking birds found throughout New Jersey :/

Finally, my third search was for, with quotes, “talking bird restaurant” new jersey and that’s where it got interesting. I was taken to a landing page at songmeanings.com for the Bruce Springsteen song Born to Run.

Okay…but why was I sent here exactly? Ctrl+F to find text and I type “bird” – it jumps me to this thread…from 21 years ago:

I read the thread in its entirety twice to understand exactly the context of the two-decades old post I’m reading. A few takeaways: now I know the city, Asbury Park – should have guessed! I also note that they refer to it as “Lyric Theatre” (more on that later), and of course Palace Amusements or simply The Palace. Then, acknowledging the opening reference – “This from backstreets.com” – I thought, “backstreets…like the song…okay what’s that about?” I opened up a new tab (as one does) and went to backstreets.com. OH, WOW! It’s a website dedicated to Bruce Springsteen news…and while it looks like it was coded two decades ago, surprisingly they have a news update from just 3 months prior. Unfortunately the news was effectively about closing up shop.

OK, sure..but what about that Talking Bird? I click ‘shop,’ ‘downloads,’ nah this is gonna take forever. New tab. “site:backstreets.com talking bird” — hereeeee we gooooo:

Now that’s some news!

Demolition. Palace Amusements. Asbury Partners. Talking Bird!

I go through the links: unfortunately Lewis Bloom’s website is down; the next two links are local news sites that are also 404 not found. Grrrrr. Save Tillie! Scrolling down just below the fold on that website is this great story about a Tillie mural:

Mind you I set out looking for a Sopranos location!

The NJ.com produced YouTube video linked from the Save Tillie website is speechless until the end and includes many remarkable shots – I laughed out loud when this shot panned across the screen:

Mind you the publish date on Save Tillie is from 2021 – so from 2004 to 2021 that absolutely incredible Tillie mural sat in a storage shed at a wastewater treatment plant! New Jersey is quite the place all right!

But most importantly was this moment during that YouTube video:

There it is! On the right hand side: the theatre! The Talking Bird would be right next to it! Okay, now I know exactly where to look. Searching for “Palace Amusements” lead me to this wonderful photo posted at New Jersey Memories on Facebook:

More! I want more! Blogfinger posted this excellent picture in 2019 taken in 2003:

There it is: the blue paint, the “ADULT SHOWS” banner, even the chainlink fence! Like it was straight outta the location shot! (Which mind you is only like 3 seconds long. And upon looking back even includes a bit of Tillie’s left ear in the shot! Kudos to the photography crew!) But I’m still hunting…right, TALKING BIRD!

Still looking…looking…..I find this great shot from Bridgeandtunnelclub (same angle as the Facebook photo above but with some demolition visible):

And then eventually these two from Cinema Treasures:

Which more importantly contains an address: 214 Cookman Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ 07712

Open Maps, paste the address. Zoom in. Satellite view. Okay there’s the Carousel Building just to the east. And now I know exactly where this is – again the context of living in NYC is eventually you visit Asbury Park. And also all of the “boardwalk scenes” in Funhouse (the name of the Sopranos episode) make a lot more sense now – they maximized their location shooting and likely did a few days right here:

Cookman Avenue is a relatively short east-west thoroughfare that follows the outline of Wesley Lake and visitors to Asbury Park in the past no doubt would have walked it en masse for its amenities and attractions just off the boardwalk (and again its proximity to the Carousel).

So! In the end I actually couldn’t find a single photo of the actual restaurant TALKING BIRD on the open internet! Flickr didn’t have any results. Maybe there’s some random shot in some random Facebook group, but…I really just wanted to see the inside of the restaurant. It may be a complete dive but I’m really curious. Alas…I did learn a lot about Palace Amusements and its historical relationship to the Carousel Building. And of course the preservation and perhaps now viewable Tillie mural. (Time for another trip to Asbury!) And kudos to the location scouts for picking a really prime spot for a shot that is only a few seconds long and is a real juxtaposition of meaning in moving image. And wow it’s incredible how much of the puzzle you can piece together via the internet these days – thank you to all of the non-corporate websites that continue to host content and make it searcheable. If only more of the internet these days was like that instead of…..

Lastly there’s one more Facebook post (from 14 years ago as of this writing) which has some really quality comments: