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Robert Ripps book
History of Tribeca Buildings
The time when Hollywood built a building on N. Moore
John Willenbecher sent these crazy photos that he took back in 1993, from when the northwest corner of N. Moore and West Broadway was an empty lot and it became the setting for “It Could Happen To You.” UPDATE: James Bogardus remembered that Erik had done this post in 2018, with Jane Freeman’s cache of photos from the 1980s and 90s.
The building there now — 1 N. Moore, with a townhouse and condos — was built in 2011. But for decades before that it was an empty lot (and the four-story building just north must have been 240 Broadway, which was demolished at some point and now part of the new building — it’s gone by 2007). When it came time for filming the Nicholas Cage/Bridget Fonda/Rosie Perez comedy, the production company made a set from scratch, including the four-story loft building to the north, along with a newsstand and a ghost sign.
“There as if by magic something very surprising did indeed arise: a whole complex of buildings that looked for all the world like a generic recreation of the old neighborhood,” John wrote. “The distressed period verisimilitude was breathtaking and one heard that the street floors of the ‘cafeteria’ were all moveable, the better to facilitate camera angles.”
When I went searching in my own archives for that corner, I found this photo by Robert Ripps, who added others of the neighborhood from not *that* long ago in this post, though they look like they are from an entirely different era (well, I guess they are).
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Is this the same lot that hosted the purpose built exploding gas station for Zoolander?
Yes.
https://www.spookcentral.tk/2016/05/28/shot-on-site-zoolander-gas-station
Yes, it was the site of the “Zoolander” gas station. I witnessed the explosion and the guys running and on fire. The guys on fire didn’t make it into the final cut. It’s likely because the movie was released shortly after 9/11.
The billboard for The Palace Casino that featured prominently in the plot of the 2007 movie “Enchanted” was built on that lot.
if memory serves, a few years earlier on that lot, one of the oldest houses in manhattan was torn down just before it was likely to have been declared a landmark,
I think you are thinking of 114 Hudson Street, which now is Tribeca Medspa.
https://tribecacitizen.com/the-history-of-tribeca-buildings/the-history-of-114-hudson
https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-lost-1801-no-114-hudson-street.html
that was a travesty but i believe there was another old house at west broadway and north moore that was still standing in the 90s. it might have been the one at 244 west broadway with the dormer windows seen in this photo
https://www.oldnyc.org/#724385f-a
That’s also the lot where Amy Adams meets Patrick Dempsey (under a billboard) in Enchanted.
Zoolander Gas Fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap0BZKlG5QY
What was happening on that lot, as reported at Curbed back in 2008 …
https://ny.curbed.com/2008/7/16/10565440/nomoore-suburban-bliss-to-be-flank-ed-by-glass-and-steel
I still have photos I took of the lot as they were building the set.
I had the electronics store next door. Went to see the movie upstate and we were the only ones in the theater.