In search of the Yuri house

I remember a hot Saturday afternoon in May 2004 when Will and I jumped into the car and searched for what we called "the Yuri house"—the house where Kevin Costner is being debriefed in the opening scene of the 1987 movie No Way Out. We had thought the Yuri house was located on one of the side streets just off Arlington Ridge Road, but alas, we were unable to locate it on that May Saturday four years ago.

I recently picked up the DVD of No Way Out from Netflix, and after looking at the film for the first time in several years, I realized that the house is on Arlington Ridge Road itself . . . just behind the apartment building where I live! So after carefully watching and re-watching the opening tracking shot of the film, I was able to determine precisely where the elusive Yuri house was: on the corner of 20th Street and Arlington Ridge Road! But my glee was for naught, as a trip past that intersection showed me that the house is no longer there.

In fact, we learn its fate courtesy of IMDb's trivia page for No Way Out:

When Ferrell leaves the safe house at the end of the movie, he leaves a real house in Arlington, VA, about a mile away from the Pentagon and drives away down Arlington Ridge Road. The house is no longer there (replaced by a larger one), but the "Do Not Enter" sign at the entrance to a street (20th St. S.) next to the house is still there.

Oh, well. Still, it would have been nice to have actually seen the house.

On a side note, I love the opening shot of the film. It's a tracking shot that begins at the U.S. Capitol, pulls back across the National Mall, across the Memorial Bridge, down over the Pentagon . . . and right over Riverhouse! It's quite fascinating to see my neighborhood as it was 20 years ago, to see how much things look the same and what has since changed—like how there was nothing but trees over what is now Pentagon Row and Pentagon City Mall!

I was lucky enough to find that tracking shot on YouTube (well, that and the first 10 minutes of the film).