One of my favorite cemeteries in New York is so small, I must have walked by it dozens of times in my travels before I first noticed it. Don’t feel bad if you’ve missed it too. Lined by residential buildings, it’s only natural to assume the short stretch of fencing on the south side of…
I was driving with my fiancee to visit Stony Kill Falls, a gorgeous waterfall a couple hours north of the city. As we turned off the highway and made our way down some backwoods roads, we passed by this old abandoned house. Nothing particularly special, other than looking like the sort of place to fuel…
I was walking around East 60th Street and 1st Avenue when I suddenly realized I’ve rarely explored this area of the city. The reason is a practical one: the traffic nightmare created by the nearby 59th Street Bridge makes filming in the neighborhood very difficult, and the few places I’ve scouted here have always been…
“New York, You’ve Changed” is a Scouting NY feature in which the New York depicted in classic movies is compared with the city of today, a full shot-by-shot dissection to see what once was and what has changed. Check out North By Northwest Part 1 here! Continuing where we left off, Thornhill is abducted and…
North By Northwest spends only one-third of its 2 hour 16 minute running time in New York. So why devote an entire New York, You’ve Changed column to it? Because in just 45 minutes, Hitchcock gave the city one of its most iconic starring rolls of all time – and still had Chicago and Mount…
OK, I give up – I’ve been staring at these two film stills for way too long, and I just can’t figure out where they are. Can you help?? This first shot looks so damn familiar, and yet I can’t place it. At first, I thought it was a Grand Central entrance, but nothing matches….
The other day, I was out scouting alleys, and decided to take a walk up to Broadway Alley, which runs from East 26th – 27th between Lex & 3rd. Broadway Alley doesn’t get much filming*, but I figured I’d take some pictures and see what the current status was. Broadway Alley has a pretty great…
I recently gave a tour of some of my favorite hidden NYC locations for the BBC’s First Person series. I’m sure these are familiar to you frequent readers, but they’re all still favorites of mine, and it was fun to revisit them all in one day. Enjoy! BBC: Location Scout’s Guide To New York -SCOUT
The 71st floor observatory of the Chrysler Building, circa 1930. Wow: Opened in 1930, the observatory featured a solar system motif, complete with a starburst roof and planet-like lamps. The observatory closed in 1945, and was gutted sometime later. More pictures here; sad pictures of the upper floors in an abandoned state here (also since…
Last week, I took a trip down to the Financial District to scout 20 Exchange Place, a building you’ve almost definitely seen at some point in a film or TV show. Originally the fourth tallest building in New York, 20 Exchange was built in 1930-31 as the headquarters for National City Bank of NY and…