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Which NYC Bridge Has Seen The Most On-Screen Action?
By
Jen Carlson
Published Mar 22, 2011
Modified Mar 22, 2011
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Mar 22, 2011
Modified Mar 22, 2011
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Photo of I Am Legend filming at the Brooklyn Bridge, via chschulz's flickr
Hollywood loves our bridges! Edmund Helmer has been tracking movie locations and currently has a Google map featuring 2,000 shooting locations all over the world (chosen for their high ratings on IMDB). You can get lost in the map here, where 9,736 yellow dots mark different sets throughout movie history (according to Switched, Google couldn't pinpoint all 2,000 so some ended up in the Bermuda Triangle). So, which of our bridges has been romanticized on the big screen the most? Here's a breakdown of which movies have set up shop on the structures:
Brooklyn Bridge:I Am Legend, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Vanilla Sky, Inside Man, Click, Donnie Brasco, Enchanted, The Bone Collector, Saturday Night Fever, Hudson Hawk, Marathon Man
59th Street Bridge:The Godfather, Donnie Brasco, Highlander, The International (If The Great Gatsby 3-D gets made, this bridge will probably be used; Fitzgerald wrote in the novel, "The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.")
Manhattan Bridge:Batman Forever, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Awakenings, The Fisher King, Crocodile Dundee, Hackers
Williamsburg Bridge:Stay
Hell Gate Bridge: Serpico
Unsurprisingly, the Brooklyn Bridge comes out on top. What a screen hog.
Tagged
bridges
brooklyn bridge
Edmund Helmer
filming
locations
map
movies
sets
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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