A decommissioned power plant stands beside a working port on flat industrial land facing the lake.
What Port Lands looks like
The Port Lands are flat industrial waterfront land southeast of downtown Toronto, laid out in wide service roads built for trucks. Rail spurs run alongside several of them, and chain link fencing lines much of the frontage.
The is the district's tallest structure, a red brick plant on Unwin Avenue with a single smokestack rising 215 metres into the sky. It has stood empty since 1983, its turbine hall and steel framework still intact behind the brick walls.
Pinewood Toronto Studios sits across the shipping channel from the Hearn on Commissioners Street. Its seven sound stages sit behind plain warehouse walls, including the Mega Stage, at over 46,000 square feet.
At 575 Commissioners Street, concrete silos and stockpiles of raw material mark the 's cement and aggregate plant. sit where the ship channel meets the lake, with mounds of salt and aggregate piled along the bank.
The carries traffic across the channel on a green steel bascule span, with a newer arched bridge a short distance south. Downtown Toronto's skyline and the CN Tower are visible across the water from several points along Unwin Avenue.
The , a cruise dock at 8 Unwin Avenue, keeps its customs hall and waiting areas standing between ship calls. The Rebel nightclub occupies a low black building on Polson Street. No one lives in the Port Lands yet, and the roads run past long stretches of open, unbuilt land.
Shot in Port Lands
The CBC series The Border used the customs hall at the International Marine Passenger Terminal on Unwin Avenue as the headquarters of a customs and border squad for its full three season run. A short distance east, the Hearn Generating Station has stood in as a generic industrial site for one production after another since the 1990s.
Star Trek: Discovery, 2018
The abandoned power plant
Played the wreckage of the USS Hiawatha
The Hearn Generating Station's brick shell and 215 metre smokestack have stood empty since 1983. A 2018 location shoot for the episode Brother turned part of the site into the wreckage of the USS Hiawatha.
RED, 2010
The 2010 film RED used the plant for its climactic scene. By then its boilers had already been scrapped, stripped out years earlier during a failed 2002 plan to convert the building into a film studio.
12 Monkeys, 2015 to 2018
Played the Raritan Valley National Laboratory
The series 12 Monkeys used the plant as the Raritan Valley National Laboratory, home to a time machine in the show's post-apocalyptic setting, across its 2015 to 2018 run. RED and Star Trek: Discovery are the plant's other film and series credits at the same address.
Shazam!
Played a training ground
Shazam! filmed a training ground scene at the plant, where the character Freddy records Billy testing his new powers. The scene uses the same turbine hall and steel framework still standing inside the building.
SteelStacks, the former Bethlehem Steel plant along the Lehigh River, stands decommissioned with its blast furnace towers now hosting concerts and festivals, the same second life the Hearn has had since it went dark. The furnace towers rise taller and more vertical than the Hearn's single smokestack, and modern amphitheater seating shows up in wider shots. Try searching blast furnace towers now.
The North End in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Hamilton's North End backs onto working steel mills, rail sidings and chain link fencing along the harbour, a similar scale to the industrial frontage here. The mills there are still active, so a shot needs to avoid visible smoke or moving cranes to read as a quiet or decommissioned site. Try searching steel mills chain link now.
The Flats along the Cuyahoga River still holds warehouses, rail spurs and a shipping channel from Cleveland's industrial waterfront, close in scale to a working ship channel frontage. Bars and rebuilt condos now sit among the old warehouses, so wider shots need to frame around the redeveloped riverfront to hold the industrial look. Try searching warehouses rail spurs now.
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