The 'Dawson's Creek' effect

I'll fess up: I watched "Dawson's Creek."

Apparently, I wasn't alone. During it's run, the show about four angst- and hormone-filled youths from Capeside, Massachusetts, became the WB's signature TV show. And though the show's been off the air for several years now, fans still descend on Wilmington, N.C., the place where the show was actually filmed.

"I call it the 'Dawson's Creek' phenomenon," Connie Nelson of the Cape Fear Convention Center and Visitors Bureau told the Wilmington Star-News.

Over spring break in 1999, "we got hundreds of calls from people who wanted to know where Mollye's Market was, where Dawson's house was," she said. The visitors bureau soon published a Frequently Asked Questions sheet for the show. "We still put it out and people still pick it up," Nelson said.
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Among the locations made famous:
— Hell's Kitchen, 118 Princess St.
— Water Street Restaurant, 5 S. Water St.
No "Dawson's Creek" pilgrimage is complete without a stop by the fish house Dawson's family owned, Leery's Fresh Fish. The building still looks just like it did when all the characters stopped by for a bite to eat after their high school classes. Water Street Restaurant can be spotted often through the show's early seasons.
— University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 S. College Road
— Hewlett's Creek
So where, exactly is Dawson's Creek? Well, there's no such place. All those beautiful sunset shots of Dawson standing on his dock among the marsh grass were actually filmed along Hewlett's Creek, best viewed from Pine Grove Road between Masonboro Loop Road and Holly Tree Drive. Dawson's house was an actual private residence along the water. But it's not open for tours.
— Dockside Restaurant, 1308 Airlie Road, Wrightsville Beach
When Dawson and friends go to The Icehouse for a few beers, they are sitting inside a downtown bar called The Icehouse. But when the cameras pan from the bar to the outside where blue water sparkles and boats pass, you're actually looking at a view from Dockside Restaurant at Wrightsville Beach. The water is the Intracoastal Waterway.
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