Left rectangle ads redesigned
Robert Ripps book
History of Tribeca Buildings
Crowd Sourcing: What movies were shot in Tribeca?
I loved seeing all the additions to this list, requested by R., on books set in the neighborhood, which started with my meager entries and was bolstered by 22 comments. So here’s part deux, movies set in Tribeca. I am missing dozens no doubt…
DINNER RUSH
The 2000 film directed by Gigino owner Bob Giraldi was shot in the restaurant and around the neighborhood. It stars Danny Aiello as a restaurateur-bookmaker and Edoardo Ballerini as his son, the restaurant’s star chef.
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU
For the Nicholas Cage/Bridget Fonda/Rosie Perez comedy from 1993, the production company made a set from scratch on N. Moore and West Broadway, including the four-story loft building to the north, along with a newsstand and a ghost sign.
GHOSTBUSTERS
Duh. The original and nearly all of the subsequent franchises feature or reference Ladder 8 on N. Moore and Varick.
TINY FURNITURE
Born-and-raised Tribeca Lena Dunham shot her second feature film — about a recent college grad moving home and trying to figure out her life — in Tribeca in 2009. Dunham stars as the protagonist and her mother, Laurie Simmons, and sister, Grace Dunham, play fictionalized versions of themselves.
THE LIFE LIST
Frenchette has a big role in this recent rom(com?) on Netflix about a young woman whose mother dies, leaving her a challenge to complete her 12-year-old self’s “life list” and discover herself.
HITCH
Starring Will Smith, Eva Mendes and Kevin James, the comedy takes place all over the city but with great scenes in Battery Park City and the Hudson.
I AM LEGEND
Another Will Smith vehicle, the 2007 dystopian thriller has Smith as the sole resident of Downtown, and while he moves all over the city, he waits every day at the South Street Seaport, hoping to hear from other survivors.
TWO WEEKS NOTICE
The comedy with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant takes place around the city but largely Downtown, with the old Tribeca Grand featured.
BATTERY PARK
While not a movie, adding this 2000 TV series since it’s such a funny premise: Battery Park starred Elizabeth Perkins and Justin Louis as officers in a police department in Battery Park — and I have no idea if that meant the park itself or Battery Park City. The show was cancelled after four episodes, but Henry Winkler did receive an Emmy nomination for ‘Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy’ for his appearance in the episode “Walter’s Rib.”
40 Comments
Comment:
Medium rectangle #1 (top)
Right column rectangle ads
Restaurant guide icon
The 1989 comedy See No Evil Hear No Evil, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. It has prominent shots of the TriBeCa area. It’s fun to watch.
Michael Clayton! (At least the famous baguette scene)
Legal Eagles – Robert Redford, Debra Winger.
Includes great scene of old restaurant El Teddy’s
BTW Ghostbusters will be showing on the big screen at the Paris Theater on Labor Day
Not Tribeca proper, but Die Hard 3 was shot in FiDi
Scorsese’s “After Hours.”
Extensive footage of Crosby Street just north of Howard in all its seedy mid-eighties glory.
There are way too many movies to list. Off the top of my head these movies have scenes filmed here:
Annie, Men In Black, Men In Back 3, It could happen to you, Kate and Leopold,Hitch, Talented Mr. Ripley, Sex in the City the Movie, Michael Clayton, Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Cloverfield, Definitely Maybe, 9.5 Weeks, TMNT, The Nanny Diaries, The Night Before, Very Good Girls, The Proposal, 25th Hour, American Psycho, Catfish, Tick Tick Boom, Date Night, Spiderman, All the Ghostbusters, Highlander, Crocodile Dundee, The Smurfs,
Gangs of New York, and The Greatest Showman are historic pieces that should be in Tribeca.
Materialists is a recent movie that really gets Tribeca right.
Also:
The Devil Wears Prada
Enchanted
Newlyweds by Ed Burns
Sex and the City Movie
The Man with the Bag (upcoming Schwarzenegger Christmas movie filmed on Staple Street)
The Sorceror’s Apprentice (2010) – Nic Cage movie did extensive filming around the neighborhood and FiDi, and they transformed a storefront on White Street with a built-out facade to create one of the main settings in the film (a magic store?).
And BTW if we started listing everything that’s been shot in Cortlandt Alley, I think the list would never end.
Cortlandt Alley is just outside of Tribeca, but since the film shoot trailers for shots on that street typically line up on Walker Street in Tribeca, can we include it?
If so, there have been countless films (and TV shows, and music videos, and…) shot on this filthy little street.
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortlandt_Alley) and other sources, these are some of the films shot there:
Men in Black
9 1/2 Weeks
Spiderman 3
The Al Pacino film City Hall was shot on Duane Street outside the former City Hall restaurant.
“Delivering the Goods” 2012 , filmed in north Tribeca
Enchanted
Yes, the scene where Amy Adams first encounters Patrick Dempsey is at the corner across from Frechette where a billboard used to be, and the climactic scene is meant to happen at the Woolworth Building.
TV shows situated nearby?
Spin City with Michael J. Fox
Foley Square with Margaret Colin
Unfaithful with Diane Lane and Richard Gere features Balloon Salloon
If we are including TV shows:
– CSI
– Gotham
– Billions
– Westworld
– Succession
– Law & Order
Otherhood on North Moore
State of Grace on Staple Street and (I think) in Puffys.
One of the sneaky low key all time great NYC movies.
Oldies but goodies
After Hours 1985 – Martin Scorsese, with Griffin Dunne. Tribeca North, SoHo South, nearly unrecognizable now
Too Much Johnson 1938 – Orson Welles, with Joseph Cotten. Old Washington Produce Market, old piers and warehouses which were replaced by West Side Highway
The American Friend 1977 – Wim Wenders, with Dennis Hopper. Old West Side Highway pre demolition and West Street south of Canal, the old Market Diner etc.
Chantal Akerman’s News from Home 1976. Gorgeous, gritty streetscapes, including the shot of Staple St. featured in this Bomb magazine tribute to the film:https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2014/01/14/chantal-akermans-news-from-home/
Yes this! Incredible shots.
I’d also like to add that Fatal Attraction and Hackers both have scenes in Tribeca, with pivotal parts of Hackers taking place in Stuyvesant and our very own Independence Plaza!
There are also “just north of Tribeca” views at the start of Something Wild (1986) which has scenes filmed at what is now Lupe’s on Watts Street.
Desperately Seeking Susan
Matthew Geller’s “Windfalls.” Premiered at the 1983 Whitney Biennial.
When they were filming “I Am Legend,” I happened to be watering my sister’s plants in her loft at 62 Beach. The Fisher Mills Building was a major setting for this movie. I leaned out the window and saw Will Smith enter the lobby. I grabbed my phone, dialed my sister (who was in Amagansett), and craning my head out the window said with loud excitement, “Will Smith just entered your building!”) I think I ruined the shot!
Movies featuring The Odeon:
Definitely, Maybe (2008): In this romantic comedy, the restaurant is the setting for a date between Will (Ryan Reynolds) and Summer (Rachel Weisz). Its distinctive art-deco look is prominently displayed.
The Best Little Boy in the World (2005): The film adaptation of Andrew Tobias’s memoir, which detailed his experience as a closeted gay man, features scenes at The Odeon.
Bright Lights, Big City (1988): While the film version, based on the novel by Jay McInerney, did not necessarily show the interior, the restaurant is famously featured on the book’s cover and is an integral location in the story. It is a key icon of 1980s New York City nightlife.
American Psycho (2000): This film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel of the same name does not feature the restaurant itself, but the musical adaptation and the book both contain scenes at The Odeon, and Patrick Bateman’s world is often associated with the restaurant.
Television shows featuring The Odeon:
The Knick: A period medical drama set in the early 1900s, The Knick used the restaurant as a filming location.
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: The long-running crime procedural has also filmed scenes at The Odeon.
Billions: This Showtime series about high-stakes finance has used the restaurant for its New York City scenes.
paakre@gmail.com
Great Expectations 1998 directed by Alfonso Cuaron with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Bancroft
The Devil Wears Prada has many scenes in Tribeca, especially at Bubby’s. Possibly that’s where Anne Hathaway’s apartment is.
Also the show White Collar has tons of scenes in City Hall Park and Brookfield Plaza, due to a plot device that limits the shows geography to the region of basically W12th down to Fulton St, Hudson River to Broadway.
Lady Liberty (1971), Sophia Loren.
Filmed in her apartment at [long demolished] 360 Greenwich Street and on Greenwich and Harrison Streets.
Don’t forget the greatest of all time, the gas station gasoline fight in Zoolander in the lot where 1 N Moore stands now…
Two not yet listed are:
The Big Year – a movie starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Rashida Jones has a scene on Duane Street.
The Adjustment Bureau – Matt Damon exits the back door of a building onto Staple Street
And I believe the first Ninja Turtles movie included a car chase on Hudson and scenes on Staple
The Marrying Kind 1952 – George Cukor, with Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray. Greenwich St. below Harrison, the Bazzini Building and whatever was on the other side of Greenwich.
At First Sight (1999) – Amy’s apartment is on Greenwich Street at Desbrosses Street.
clips from movies filmed in Tribeca on Youtube
https://youtu.be/k_zZTfCDeK8
Also, the movie F/X filmed in Tribeca – Roland’s Apartment, 6 Varick Street
The Better Sister, recent Amazon series features scenes on Duane St.
Dinner Rush– anyone who has ever eaten at Gigino’s will never go to the bathroom again!
“Wall Street” office scenes were shot at 222 Broadway at Fulton. My office at a WeWork there years ago had the same view as Gordon Gekko.
While not strictly “Tribeca,” some interior scenes for the Michael Douglas thriller “Fatal Attraction” were filmed at 40 Wall Street. The location was the law firm of Winthrop Stimson Putnam & Roberts. My wife’s desk made a cameo appearance in the final cut. She was so excited!
MAD HOT BALLROOM
Hackers! There’s a chase scene that takes place primarily in the IPN courtyards!