A ferry wharf and a palm lined pedestrian mall link a harbour cove to a pine backed ocean beach, with a sandstone Gothic seminary on the headland above.
What Manly looks like
runs dead straight for 450 metres between the harbour ferry wharf and the ocean beach, paved in stone under a row of cabbage tree palms. Two storey shopfronts line both sides behind striped awnings, flats and a scatter of pubs above the ground floor retail.
Ferries from Circular Quay dock at the wharf on the harbour side of the Corso, where the cove's beach curves away under Norfolk Island pines. The wharf building on the site today is a 1941 rebuild, redeveloped again in 1989 into a retail deck over the ferry gates.
At the ocean end, more Norfolk Island pines run the length of , backed by mid rise apartment blocks and the surf club. East along the coast, a rock platform walkway leads to , past sandstone ledges and a small tidal pool cut into the rock.
Darley Road runs east from the Corso past , a 1930 Gothic Revival building in brick with sandstone trim. Further along the road, on the headland toward North Head, is a four storey sandstone Perpendicular Gothic building from the 1880s. Its six level bell tower rises above the trees, and the campus is now the International College of Management.
Shot in Manly
Marius Sestier filmed the ferry Brighton putting passengers ashore at Manly wharf in 1896, regarded as the first film made in Australia. St Patrick's Seminary stood in for Jay Gatsby's Long Island mansion in 2013, and the same seminary played a fictional girls' school in a Prime Video series.
Passengers Alighting from Ferry Brighton at Manly, 1896
Marius Sestier's camera recorded passengers stepping off the paddle steamer Brighton onto Manly wharf, the earliest film shot in Australia. The wharf itself has been rebuilt more than once since, most recently in 1941 and again in 1989, so today's terminal is a later structure on the same site rather than the 1896 original. Street View
The Great Gatsby, 2013
St Patrick's Seminary
Played Gatsby's Long Island mansion, West Egg, Long Island, New York, 1920s
For The Great Gatsby, the production dressed the seminary's Moran House as Jay Gatsby's Long Island mansion. The crew added ivy across the facade and a fountain in the forecourt, and later added CGI turrets to the roofline. The building's own palm trees came down for filming and went back up afterward. The real building is a four storey sandstone Perpendicular Gothic seminary from 1885 to 1889, with a six level bell tower and a slate roof. Street View
Class of '07, 2023
Played Ridge Heights Catholic Ladies College
For the Prime Video series Class of '07, the same seminary campus stood in for Ridge Heights Catholic Ladies College, a fictional Catholic girls' school. The production used the college's own grounds and buildings rather than the wing dressed for Gatsby. Street View
What Manly can double for
Avalon in Santa Catalina Island, California
Avalon on Santa Catalina Island is reached only by ferry, its harbourfront promenade running from the pier straight into a run of shopfronts under palm trees. The shape matches the Corso's own run from wharf to beach, and both towns grew as day trip resorts in the same interwar decades. Avalon's buildings are more Mediterranean, in red tile rather than Manly's brick and render. The hills also crowd closer behind the town, so a tight frame along the shopfronts holds the match better than a wide one. Try searching harbourfront promenade shopfronts now.
St Kilda's Esplanade runs along the beach with a pier at one end, a planted avenue of palms and windbreak cypresses behind the sand in the same way Manly's own beachfront is lined with trees. Cafes and shopfronts sit a block behind the beach on Acland Street, close to the Corso's own shop scale. St Kilda's trees are Canary Island date palms and cypresses rather than Manly's Norfolk Island pines, so keep the treeline out of a close shot where the species would show. St Kilda's own pier pavilion and Luna Park's rides show in parts of the beach and would need to stay out of frame for a period match. Try searching palm lined beach pier now.
Ryde in Isle of Wight, England
Ryde's pier lands passengers on a short flat walk to the seafront esplanade. Union Street climbs from there into town past two and three storey Victorian shopfronts, the same pier to shopping street sequence as the Corso even where Union Street runs uphill rather than level. The scale and the awninged shopfronts read close in a street level frame. British road markings, postboxes and grey stone would need dressing out. Ryde has no Norfolk Island pines, so keep pines and palms out of any wide shot that includes both streets. Try searching pier to seafront shopfronts now.
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