Terracotta movie palace facades line Broadway and Lawrence, and the Aragon Ballroom played the theater in Batman v Superman.
What Uptown looks like
The 's dark terracotta tower rises over the elevated tracks at Broadway and Lawrence, carved figures of a king and queen set into the stone above its Lawrence Avenue doors. The sign reads down the tower for blocks in either direction. A block south on Racine Avenue, the keeps its original red neon script and a long blank marquee board over the sidewalk.
The and the sit within sight of each other on Broadway. The theatre's Tudor and Spanish Revival stonework is dark behind a chained lobby door, while the Green Mill's stone relief of a windmill and half hidden Green Mill Gardens lettering still shows above its own lit sign. Storefronts run under all four buildings at street level, narrow and deep behind painted transom windows.
East on Carmen Avenue, three storey brick two flats and courtyard buildings sit behind low iron fences, bay windows and wrought iron balconies repeating down the block between newer infill. Service alleys cut behind the row, gated with chain link at the sidewalk. A cream terracotta bank building from 1915 holds its own corner nearby, round arched windows set over a line of green awnings.
UPTOWN STATION is still lettered over the corner entrance at Broadway and Wilson, a terracotta doorway with garlanded medallions under a clock and lanterns. The Red Line's own entrance sits across Wilson Avenue now, and the tracks run on the same embankment past both corners.
Shot in Uptown
For Batman v Superman, the production relit the Aragon Ballroom's marquee to play the theater where Bruce Wayne's parents are shot leaving a screening. Crews lined up vintage cars marked Gotham Taxi at the curb for the November 2014 shoot.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2016
Aragon Ballroom
Played Gotham City, 1981
The theater exterior where young Bruce Wayne and his parents leave a screening of The Mark of Zorro, set in 1981, was shot at the real Aragon on Lawrence Avenue. The production relettered the marquee and sign for the scene and removed the dressing once filming wrapped.
Rapp and Rapp designed the Uptown and Riviera, and the same firm built Loew's Jersey Theatre in a similar terracotta movie palace style a few blocks from the Journal Square PATH station. The scale of the marquee and the ticket lobby out front matches Broadway and Lawrence. Journal Square's office towers behind the theatre are taller than anything over Uptown, so a low angle keeps the marquee and terracotta front in frame without them. Try searching terracotta movie palace marquee now.
Grand Circus Park in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit's Fox Theatre and its neighbors around Grand Circus Park are the same era of oversized, ornate terracotta movie palace built for the same kind of crowds the Aragon and Riviera once drew. Several sit within a two minute walk of each other, close to the density of Broadway and Lawrence. Detroit's theatres front a wider boulevard than Uptown's crossing, so a tighter lens keeps the extra lane width out of the shot. Try searching ornate terracotta movie palace now.
Grand Concourse in The Bronx, New York
John Eberson designed the Aragon's Moorish courtyard interior and built a similar painted sky ceiling at Loew's Paradise on the Grand Concourse. Both fronts carry a similar scale of terracotta ornament above a row of ground floor shops. The Grand Concourse itself runs far wider than Broadway in Uptown, so a street level shot needs a long lens to compress the road out of view. Try searching Moorish courtyard sky ceiling now.
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