Christian Blauvelt - Cinematic Cities: New York: The Big Apple on the Big Screen

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NEW YORK CITY IS ONE OF THE GREATEST, most complex characters ever featured in the movies. And it is a characterpulsing with life, changing seemingly from hour to hour, and possessing a personality all its own.

It just so happens that as New York matured into a global capital of culture and commerce, becoming the defining city of the twentieth century and a virtual stand-in for the idea of modernity, the movies came into their own as the centurys defining art form as well. The big screen and the Big Apple are indelibly intertwined.

This book attempts a cinematic history of New York City, from the very first movie shot there, by a cameraman for Thomas Edison on May 11, 1896, all the way through the classic Hollywood period and up to Can You Ever Forgive Me? and If Beale Street Could Talk, two Manhattan-set triumphs from 2018 that seem destined to become classics. But rather than going decade by decade, this book goes neighborhood by neighborhood. If youre a cinephile visiting New York City, this approach will guide your sightseeing, based on your favorite movies. But if youre a New Yorker, this approach enables you to appreciate your surroundings that much more, to truly immerse yourself in the city around you based on the silver screen classics you adore. When you realize that a particular location you visit is actually one from a film you cherish, its like stepping through the movie screen. And though the city changes so quickly, so much also endures: from the subway vent that caused Marilyn Monroes white dress to flutter, to the courtyard that inspired Jimmy Stewarts view in Rear Window (1954).

This book covers all of Manhattan plus the four outer boroughs. It cant possibly reference every single movie thats been filmed on location here, but if not a completist take, its an overview to inspire further exploration. Holding this guide in your hands, your personal cinematic journey through New York City begins.

Start at the Brooklyn Navy Yard where Gabey, Chip, and Ozzie disembark. It remained an active military shipyard until 1966. It is currently a vibrant industrial park, home to over four hundred businesses. To head for the Brooklyn Bridge from the Navy Yard, walk west on Flushing Avenue and hang a left on Duffield Street. Walk south on Duffield until you reach Tillary Street and keep walking west until you reach the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian entrance.

On the Town is one of the most beloved movies set in New York City, maybe because it seems like its so in love with the city itself: shot partly on location in the Big Apple, something extremely rare for any musical in 1949, it tells the story of three sailors, Gabey (Gene Kelly), Chip (Frank Sinatra), and Ozzie (Jules Munshin). Theyre on leave for just one glorious daybut do they ever see and do a lot! On the Town presents New York as a place of discovery, opportunity, and romanceand that transformation, of both the city and of the visitor, is inevitable. The film opens with an energetic montage set to Leonard Bernsteins New York, New York. (This is the one that goes New York, New York, its a wonderful town / The Bronx is up and the Batterys down.) In an opening sequence of just three minutes, Gabey, Chip, and Ozzie sightsee and sing their way through a whirlwind tour of some of the citys most treasuredand tourist-friendlylandmarks. The montage shows their itinerary so clearly, you can replicate it yourself! Heres the route to follow to take in everything the sailors visited during New York, New York.

Cross the Brooklyn Bridge by foot. The bridges pedestrian walkway begins at the intersection of Tillary Street and Boerum Place and ends at the northeast edge of City Hall Park on Centre Street. It takes about thirty minutes to walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

Head south along Centre Street until it becomes Park Row and merges with Broadway. Keep heading south on Broadway until you hit Trinity Church, which opened in 1846 and was the tallest structure in the city until the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883.