Narrator: This is a scene from "The Amazing Spider-Man."
This is from Marvel's "Luke Cage."
And this is a scene from "Joker."
Notice something similar?
They're all shot in the exact same place:
the 12th Avenue underpass in Harlem.
Samson Jacobson: When you stand underneath Riverside Drive,
I mean, it is the classic abandoned New York location
that everybody always wants.
Narrator: The underpass is known for its viaduct,
an arching structure with a grandeur
filmmakers are drawn to.
Aaron Hurvitz: It gets a lot of play
because it is just a really visually captivating space.
It gives this basically cascading overhang
of just metalwork.
Narrator: This is just one
of several New York filming locations
you see pop up again and again in shows and movies.
We spoke with five location scouts
to find out why these spots are in such high demand.
If you look closely at the prison scenes
in a bunch of New York movies,
you'll see these were all filmed
at Arthur Kill Correctional Facility.
This decommissioned prison in Staten Island
has everything you could ever need for a jail
or prison scene, from the barbed wire
and guard tower in front to real cells inside.
It also comes with a lot of space, with 70 acres of grounds
and these long stretches of hallway.
That helps for choreographing action sequences.
It's that kind of facility,
and there aren't that many, that lends itself
to having these really long, unbroken takes,
like "Daredevil" season three.
12 or 13 minutes uncut
just moving through the entire space,
down the hallways, past the cells, out to the front door.
Narrator: The location is surprisingly versatile.
Malaika: Multiple cellblocks can look
like different prisons if you didn't want to just be at one.
Bruno Barros: There are sections that could work
as a hospital, and it's great because,
let's say you have to marry two locations together
and those scenes don't fill a full day.
You can combine them into one day
and film it there, for example.
Narrator: The facility's giant parking lot
was even dressed up as Afghanistan for "The Code."
Dramatic mystery scenes, villain face-offs,
and wild car stunts have all used this very backdrop:
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a vestige of industrial New York.
Brooklyn once had a busy industrial waterfront,
but over the past few decades,
high-rise apartment complexes and office buildings
have moved in and turned the former manufacturing hub
much more residential.
That's why scouts return again and again to this shipyard,
where 70,000 people once worked
before it closed down in 1966.
When everything is emptied out, the abandoned docks
and hulking warehouses can create an ominous look,
exactly what crime shows are after.
You want that, you know, really industrial or,
"Oh, no, somebody's getting murdered on the docks at night!"
Great place to go to.
Narrator: Bodies have been dumped
at this dry dock in multiple shows.
The amount of open space makes it possible
to execute wild stunts,
like when "Daredevil" blew up a boat on the docks.
Malaika: The end of the first "John Wick" movie,
there was a car chase,
and then a car crashed into this dry dock.
You know, dropped into it.
Narrator: Many filmmakers focus on the grit of the city,
but some scenes call for a more
buttoned-up New York setting,
like this one that pops up again and again
in scenes involving business or government meetings.
Manhattan has plenty of office spaces,
but many are on extremely high floors,
which means the lighting very much depends on the sky.
Rather than relying on natural light from the windows,
the filmmakers need to control the lighting.
Then you can basically shoot it any which way you want
and have it look always the same.
Narrator: But the higher the office spaces are,
the more difficult to get lights into.
That's what makes this spot prime.
It's an office on the third floor
of the Brooklyn Public Library
with big windows that crews can pass lights through,
and because it's on a reachable floor,
they can do it without getting a big Condor lift involved.
The office also has a versatile mid-century design
that can work across many decades,
from modern business dramas like "Billions"
to period pieces like "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."
A lot of the most famous subway scenes are shot
at one specific station: Hoyt-Schermerhorn.
The reason this spot is so popular?
Well, filming authentic subway scenes
comes with huge challenges.
Sometimes you're at the whim of the MTA,
and things can change.
We had that happen for "In the Heights."
They had to reroute their trash trains,
and essentially their trash trains
had to come through our set.
Narrator: Crews are less likely to run
into these logistical problems if they film
at tracks that are no longer in use,
like the one at Hoyt-Schermerhorn.
It's a working station,
but with one deactivated platform among three active ones.
It's a place where we know we can film
during regular business hours.
Narrator: Signage can turn it into
basically any other subway stop,
like in this scene from "Coming to America."
When Lisa enters the station,
it's labeled as Van Wyck Boulevard,
but if you look closely, you'll see it's actually Hoyt.
The giveaway is those blue and yellow tiles
with a circled L in the middle,
remnants of what was once
one of Brooklyn's biggest department stores,
Loeser's, which stood where Hoyt does today.
Then, when Lisa exits the train,
the station's labeled Sutphin,
but this was also filmed at Hoyt.
Recognize this bar?
It's appeared in everything from TV shows like "Gotham"
to movies like "The Kitchen."
For scenes set in dive bars and shadowy back rooms,
directors like Martin Scorsese often want the real deal.
Brooklyn's Irish Haven has kept its tile floors
and wood paneling mostly unchanged since 1964,
when it was a favorite spot for ironworkers
to unwind after work.
There's a pool table, dartboard, and jukebox.
It has also just this great, seasoned New York look to it.
You don't have to change too much when you go there.
Narrator: The no-frills exterior and dimly lit interior
are well suited to gritty settings like Gotham,
and the classically divey setting can stand in
for other cities, too, not just New York.
The bar and pool table are famous for these scenes
in the Boston-set "The Departed."
When you see New York in a movie,
you might see a scene like this or this:
a dark, seedy alleyway filled with graffiti,
shuttered apartment windows, and old fire escapes.
But in reality, New York doesn't really have alleyways,
which means dozens of famous scenes have been filmed
in this exact spot to get that gritty look.
One reason so many scripts call for New York scenes
to take place in alleys is, well, Hollywood.
Aaron: The writing for most projects takes place in LA.
When you go to LA, there's alleys everywhere.
Narrator: New York was designed according
to the grid system, with little to no space for alleys.
The real estate is so valuable
that we just didn't leave space for it.
Samson: If they're envisioning LA alleys,
probably not gonna find them.
But there are other types of alleys
that are smaller and tighter.
Narrator: Like Cortlandt Alley, which might be
the most used filming location in all of Manhattan.
Eric: That is an alley that gives you just about everything.
It's fire escapes, it's graffiti.
Narrator: Many of the apartment windows
have these big, decades-old shutters,
which adds to the alley's aesthetic.
Crews can put lights inside the windows
of the apartments above.
I've paid people in the same apartment buildings
for lighting positions looking in the same exact spots that,
you know, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" shot in as well.
Narrator: The location's use goes beyond
just gritty scenes.
Take this wholesome scene in "Annie," which Eric worked on.
The team used Cortlandt Alley
to create a path for this chase sequence,
adding trash and boxes as obstacles.
Little nooks in the alleyway served as spots
for the dog trainers to hide during filming.
Since Cortlandt Alley is owned by the city,
it's cheaper to film there.
As it's one of the very few actual public alleys,
it gets used all the time.
Narrator: So much that sometimes
it's put in what's called the "hot zone."
In New York City, when something's been filmed too much
and the residents are unhappy with the impact it has,
the mayor's office will put something on the hot zone,
and that means that there's a sort of moratorium
on filming until they take it off there.
Narrator: Cortlandt Alley has stayed looking
more or less the same for decades,
but in much of New York, things are always changing.
These steps in "Joker"?
They were actually the director's second choice.
Todd Phillips initially requested
this menacing set of stairs from "American Gangster."
And when I went to go visit it,
it had gotten a whole makeover.
Brand-new concrete, little cute trees.
It had been power-washed
of all of its graffiti and grit.
Narrator: After visiting 25 to 30 different step streets,
Aaron tracked down this one,
which had exactly what they were looking for.
It brought drama.
Aaron: In terms of the length and steepness of the stairs,
kind of confined and narrow, it hit all the marks,
and it had that great view
just off from the top looking into the city
that really worked for us as well.
Narrator: The spot became instantly iconic,
showing that while the face of the city is always changing,
New York will always be a great place to shoot movies.