Brick warehouses back onto Pier 70's dry dock, where Invasion of the Body Snatchers built its climax inside Building 6.
What Dogpatch looks like
runs through Dogpatch as the neighborhood's commercial spine, past auto shops and small storefronts under the four storey brick blocks of the American Industrial Center. Fire escapes and loading docks line several of the corner buildings. Cream trim runs over red brick, and the grid windows stack three and four floors up.
At the eastern end of , 's shipyard buildings face the bay. The 1917 Bethlehem Office Building rises in pale stone behind construction fencing, part of a restoration under way since 2015. The shipyard's own dry dock still holds ships beneath a row of cranes.
A block inland, carry a row of Eastlake cottages built in 1887, low wood frame houses with scroll sawn window surrounds and deep cornices. Several have been raised a second storey since, and a few still show their original woodwork.
The T Third Street line runs at street level past the warehouses, and old rail track still shows through the asphalt near 22nd Street. Wood plank walkways and small converted storefronts break up the industrial blocks on the way to the water.
Shot in Dogpatch
Pier 70's shipyard has stood in for nothing but itself on screen. The Lineup filmed its crane in 1958, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers used Building 6 for its climax in 1978.
San Francisco played itself
Pier 70's own machine shops and dry dock crane, used twice, twenty years apart, without dressing.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978
Building 6
Invasion of the Body Snatchers used Building 6, at the eastern end of 20th Street, for the sequence where the pod incubation facility is destroyed and Elizabeth turns on Matthew. The warehouse still stands at Pier 70, empty and covered in the graffiti that gives it its local nickname, Tag Cathedral. Street View
The Lineup, 1958
The Lineup shot its passenger terminal scene on Illinois Street, looking south from 18th Street toward the crane at the old Bethlehem Pacific Shipyard. Its base still stands over the slipway in Crane Cove Park, though the boom was removed during the park's 2020 rebuild and never went back up. Street View
Mare Island still has brick machine shops and a stone dry dock from the same shipbuilding era as Pier 70, with cranes standing over its old shipyard blocks. Bumblebee shot in its industrial section in 2018, proof the fabric still works on camera. Mare Island's Dry Dock 1 is built from dressed granite rather than Pier 70's poured concrete, so a close frame on the machine shops avoids the difference. Try searching brick machine shops with cranes now.
San Pedro's waterfront still backs a working port against low commercial streets, much like Dogpatch backs Pier 70. Warehouse 1, an enormous 1917 brick warehouse by the water, is close in age to Pier 70's own machine shops and office building. San Pedro's modern container cranes read much larger than Pier 70's older gantry type, so keep a wide shot on the older brick warehouses rather than the working terminal. Try searching brick warehouse by the water now.
Red Hook's Erie Basin still runs working dry docks behind Van Brunt Street's old warehouse stores, the same shipyard and low industrial street combination as Pier 70. Van Brunt's brick fronts sit close to the water the way Dogpatch's warehouses sit against 20th Street. Red Hook's brick is darker, and its cobbled paving shows in a wide shot. A tighter frame on the plain warehouse fronts keeps the match best. Try searching warehouses behind the dry dock now.
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