On Location in NYC -- "A Bronx Tale" Traditional Geocache
Tatanka49: time to go for now.
On Location in NYC -- "A Bronx Tale"
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The Metro NY Geocaching Society has instituted a new series celebrating the many feature films that were filmed on New York City streets. Visit us at:
http://www.metrogc.org
Just because the name says "Bronx", it doesn't mean that it was actually filmed there. This 1993 hit was filmed in three New York City neighborhoods. Though set entirely in the Bronx, only one of these locations was actually in that borough. The Fordham neighborhood in which Calogero lives was actually filmed in Astoria, Queens; the black neighborhood said to be on and around Webster Avenue was actually filmed at East 15th Street and Gravesend Neck Road in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn; finally, the scene set on the Bronx's City Island was actually filmed in that location.
The movie opens in 1960 with Lorenzo Anello's (Robert De Niro) son Calogero (Francis Capra) witnessing a murder committed by the local Mafia boss, Sonny (Chazz Palminteri). When Calogero chooses to keep quiet when questioned by police officers, Sonny takes a liking to him. Calogero starts visiting Sonny and his posse almost every day in the bar downstairs, much to the dismay of his father, a hard-working bus driver struggling to make ends meet. Eight years later, in 1968, Calogero (now played by Lillo Brancato Jr.) has grown into a young man. He will eventually have to make the choice between his two mentors. He also pursues an interracial relationship with a Black girl named Jane Williams (Taral Hicks), and he has to cope with this while being in the company of racist friends who coincidentally attack the girl's brother and his friends, and who later plan to raid a Black neighborhood. The film contains several violent scenes, including a savage beating of a biker gang by the Mafia, and Calogero's friends' tragically botched incursion into the Black neighborhood.
The movie is not currently available on DVD so it may be difficult to find.
It wasn't difficult to find in 1992, though, when it was being made. The first indication was the gradual changing of the colors of traffic lights from yellow to drab green, the double yellow line down the center of 30th Avenue became a single white line and the mailboxes were again tri-color. The street carriage ramps on all the corners were replaced with a straight sidewalk. The post office soon had a Fordham zip code and many merchants up and down the avenue had a face lift.
You may think it would be exciting to have a movie filmed on your street...but for almost 9 months, you couldn't walk home from the subway without a barricade and some one holding pedestrians back while they did a take. The Q18 bus was rerouted making getting to work a longer ride. Neighbors were cast for extras including my mother's friend who was told that her clothes were not 1950's style and she had to go to wardrobe--that was located in an old funeral home on 30th Avenue. (Actually, she did wear clothes from her closet, but they were not real enough).
The school scene was filmed at Bryant HS one block south and the church scene was in St Joe's on 44th Street. I lived on 48th Street at the time and there is just one scene where you can see our window ... out the window of the bus as it drives by.
Bring your own pen. Watch for muggles at all hours!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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