How Well Do You Know NYC Landmarks? (Movie Edition)

 

The 1949 movie On The Town, starring Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett and Ann Miller, with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, was the first musical film made on location in New York City.

 

In An Affair to Remember, Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr’s characters were meant to meet on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan’s characters meet there in the final sequence of Sleepless in Seattle (although, fun fact, the well-known scene was shot in a warehouse replica of the observation deck). The Art Deco Empire State Building is an iconic feature of the New York City skyline and appears in over 250 movies.

 

The Unisphere and its surrounding reflecting pool, designated an individual landmark in 1995, was the centerpiece and visual logo of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, symbolizing the theme of “Peace Through Understanding.” It was commissioned to celebrate the dawn of the space age and designed by landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke.

 

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale follows the dysfunctional, often hilarious, antics of a Brooklyn family that lives in a late-19th century, Italianate-style brownstone on 6th Avenue in the Park Slope Historic District. The title of the movie references the large sperm whale and giant squid exhibit at the landmark American Museum of Natural History, which makes a lasting impression on the film’s teenage protagonist.

 

Three Men and a Baby was directed by Leonard Nimoy and featured Tom Selleck (Peter Mitchell, an architect), Steve Guttenberg (Michael Kellam, a cartoonist), and Ted Danson (Jack Holden, an actor) as the three confirmed bachelors who suddenly find themselves in the role of fathers when Jack’s daughter by a former girlfriend is delivered to their apartment in the Prasada. The movie was based on Three Men and a Cradle (Trois hommes et un couffin), a 1985 French film. Three Men and a Baby won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Comedy Motion Picture in 1988.

 

Coney Island (Riegelmann) Boardwalk was designated a scenic landmark in 2018. Spanning 2.7 miles of beachfront in Coney Island and Brighton Beach, the boardwalk opened in 1923, allowing people of all economic, social, and ethnic backgrounds free access to the beach. The iconic boardwalk continues to provide a significant public space and destination for New Yorkers and visitors, and has appeared in numerous films, music videos, and television shows throughout its history.

 

She’s Gotta Have It, written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee and featuring him in a supporting role, takes place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and in particular Fort Greene Park, and drew attention to the neighborhood. Fort Greene was designated a historic district in 1978.

 

Speedy stars Harold Lloyd, Ann Christy, Babe Ruth, King Tut, and a hat-wearing horse in a desperate effort to save New York City’s last horse-drawn streetcar line. “King Tut” was a famous canine actor of his day.

 

Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight Center at NY International Airport was designed by Ereo Saarrinen and Associates between 1956 and 1962 and designated a NYC individual landmark and interior landmark in 1994. The intersecting vaults, skylights, broad expanses of windows walls, and daring curving concrete roof created one of the most iconic and expressive buildings in New York City.

 

The 1912 New York County Courthouse houses the Civil and Criminal Terms of the New York State Supreme Court for New York's First Judicial District (Manhattan) and the offices of the New York County Clerk. It also appears in numerous television series, among them “Law & Order”, “Night Court”, “Cagney & Lacey”, and “Kojak”. 

 

The Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur was a gift from Egypt to the United States in the 1960s. It was moved from its original location to preserve it when the construction of the Aswan High Dam flooded the ancient settlement of Dendur. The structure, from the 1st century B.C.E., may be the oldest backdrop for films made in New York City.

 

Have a virtual walk around the temple: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153607383692635

 

In its physical, animated, or recreated form, the interior of Grand Central Terminal has been the memorable setting of scenes in many iconic films. Though not filmed there, Lex Luthor’s underground lair is set far beneath Grand Central Terminal in the original Superman: The Movie. The Grand Concourse was a scene of dramatic destruction in the final battle scene of The Avengers in 2012. The building’s Beaux Arts style exterior also sustained damage in the battle, along with the neighboring New York Central Building, scenes difficult for those who love New York City landmarks to witness!

 

In Moonstruck, starring Cher, Nicolas Cage, and Olympia Dukakis, Cher’s character lives with her family in a pre-Civil War house in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, the first historic district designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The house at 19 Cranberry Street is sometimes referred to as the Moonstruck House in real estate advertisements. Other scenes take place in Manhattan's West Village and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.  

 

Julius’ Bar, located on the corner of Waverly Place and West 10th Street, in the Greenwich Village Historic District. In 1966, the Mattachine Society, one of the country’s earliest gay rights organizations, organized the “Sip-in,” at which they were refused service after intentionally revealing they were “homosexuals.” This protest was a challenge of the State Liquor Authority’s discriminatory policy of revoking the licenses of bars that served known or suspected gay men and lesbians. The Sip-in predated events at the Stonewall Inn (also located in the Greenwich Village Historic District, and designated an individual landmark).

 

Read more about Lee Israel and Julius' here: https://www.advocate.com/film/2018/11/21/story-julius-famed-gay-bar-can-you-ever-forgive-me

 

Learn more about Julius': https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/julius/

 

Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters! The 1984 comedy starring Bill Murray, Dan Ackyroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts, begins with a terrifying encounter with a ghost in the New York Public Library, where the main characters walk through the interior landmark Rose Main Reading Room. Establishing themselves as the Ghostbusters, they set up shop in an abandoned firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company No. 8 on North Moore Street in the Tribeca West Historic District, and fight Gozer, the god of destruction, on the (exaggerated) rooftop of 55 Central Park West in the Upper West Side/Central Park Historic District, where Sigourney Weaver and her neighbor, Rick Moranis, become the “Gatekeeper” and the “Keymaster"; Rick Moranis is chased through Central Park, a scenic landmark across the street, the Ghostbusters and NYPD depart from the arch at the base of the Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street, an individual landmark and home of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the movie culminates with the defeat of the demonically-possessed “Stay Puft Marshmallow Man”.

 

Check out this map to the film locations: https://ny.curbed.com/maps/the-ultimate-ghostbusters-map-guide-to-new-york-city

 

See location details here: http://onthesetofnewyork.com/ghostbusters.html