A hillside downtown of early 20th century brick buildings above a working container port.
What San Pedro looks like
San Pedro is the part of Los Angeles built around its harbor. A grid of early 20th century brick buildings runs along a bluff above the water, and the working port fills the flat ground below.
Sixth Street is the old commercial spine of downtown, palm trees along the sidewalk. The still stands on it, a 1931 movie palace with its original interior. Below the bluff, container cranes run around the clock. The , a suspension bridge from 1963, links San Pedro to Terminal Island.
South of downtown, looks out from a Victorian era lighthouse. , just below it, is the fenced off remains of several houses that slid over the bluff in 1929. A few blocks east, in , the is a large bronze bell South Korea gave the city in 1976. Coastal gun emplacements the Army built at starting in 1917 share the same park.
The USS Iowa, a decommissioned battleship, is docked on the waterfront as a museum ship. The old Ports O' Call shopping village on the waterfront was torn down starting in 2018. It is being rebuilt in phases as West Harbor, with restaurants and a hotel. It is also getting what is billed as California's largest Ferris wheel, sized to fit under the bridge.
Shot in San Pedro
San Pedro's screen history goes back to the silent era. Charlie Chaplin shot the 1914 short A Busy Day near the harbor. Harold Lloyd filmed Lonesome Luke's Wild Women on Deadman's Island in 1917, an island removed during harbor construction in 1928. A Wrinkle in Time used a private military housing street near Fort MacArthur in 2016 for the identical suburbs of the fictional planet Camazotz.
Chinatown, 1974
Point Fermin and the Sunken City
Played Point Fermin Park
Gittes watches wastewater being dumped into the ocean at Point Fermin Park, at Gaffey Street and Paseo del Mar. He then follows Hollis Mulwray down to the beach at Sunken City, the fenced off remains of a 1929 landslide just below the park. Mulwray walks out over the rocks while Gittes watches from above.
Pearl Harbor, 2001
The Warner Grand as Honolulu
Played a Honolulu movie house, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1941
For Pearl Harbor, the production dressed Sixth Street as prewar Honolulu. The Warner Grand Theatre played the movie house where Danny and Evelyn watch Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, and an empty storefront next door was dressed as the Black Cat Diner. The same film also used the flooded Battery Osgood-Farley gun emplacement in Angels Gate Park as the Japanese Imperial Navy's own planning room pool.
The Usual Suspects, 1995
Meeting Redfoot at the bell
Played Where the suspects meet Redfoot
The suspects meet the jewel fence Redfoot at the Korean Bell of Friendship in Angels Gate Park, on a bluff with the harbor to the east and the Palos Verdes Peninsula to the west. South Korea gave the city this bell in 1976.
Hancock, 2008
Played Where Hancock stops the train
Hancock's train rescue was shot where the old railroad tracks cross Fifth Street, at the bend where Sampson Way becomes Fifth. The stalled car pulls out of the parking lot between the Los Angeles Maritime Museum and the harbor's fireboat station.
The Last Ship, 2014-2018
Played A ship in the story, dressed with green screens
Several harbor scenes for the TNT series were shot at the Port of Los Angeles. The museum ship USS Iowa, permanently docked in San Pedro, appeared in the show with green screens rigged over its deck.
The 2001 film Pearl Harbor dressed Sixth Street as prewar Honolulu, with the Warner Grand Theatre playing the movie house where Danny and Evelyn watch The Great Dictator and a storefront next door built out as the Black Cat Diner. The production used San Pedro's own Art Deco theatre front and street scale rather than shooting in Hawaii. The Warner Grand's own marquee and vertical sign would need to be dressed over for a return visit, the way the production did for its own Honolulu signage. Modern cars and the Vincent Thomas Bridge in the distance would need to stay out of a wide shot. Try searching prewar Honolulu movie house now.
Commercial Street in Astoria, Oregon
San Pedro's hillside grid of early 20th century brick commercial blocks above a working harbor has a real match in Astoria, a Columbia River port town whose own downtown climbs a hillside above the water along Commercial Street. Both towns built brick and cast stone storefronts over a harbor economy in the same general period, and both keep a hillside of houses above the commercial blocks. Astoria's buildings run smaller and closer to the water than San Pedro's, and the Columbia River's own bridge and pilings would look like a different waterway in a wide shot. San Pedro's container cranes and the Vincent Thomas Bridge have no equivalent in Astoria and would need to stay out of frame. Try searching hillside brick harbor town now.
Port Townsend has its own Victorian seaport downtown, multistory brick buildings from the 1880s lining Water Street below a bluff of houses, close in scale to San Pedro's own Sixth Street. Both pair a compact historic commercial street with a working harbor just past it. Port Townsend's own buildings run more ornate, with turrets and bay windows on the bluff above that San Pedro's own hillside houses do not have, so a wide shot that includes the bluff would give it away. San Pedro's container cranes and the Vincent Thomas Bridge have no equivalent there either. Try searching brick seaport downtown now.
_(2).jpg)
