Brick Victorian storefronts and worker cottages surround Michigan Central Station, used as an abandoned Gotham City building in Batman v Superman.
What Corktown looks like
is the commercial strip. Painted brick storefronts sit under arched window heads and cast iron columns, one and two storeys tall, with cars parked at the curb in front of the shops. Stretches of the original red brick pavers still surface parts of the roadway.
The side streets are lined with worker cottages, one and two storeys, wood frame and brick with Italianate and Queen Anne trim. Some are painted in bright colors behind wrought iron fences and white picket fences, with small porches and bare street trees along the sidewalk.
A green painted Victorian storefront on Michigan Avenue holds a bar under a striped awning and a lit sign, and a red brick corner a few doors down hangs a restaurant sign shaped like a steam train. On Trumbull Avenue, a three storey red brick garage building still shows a vertical Checker Cab sign at its corner, its ground floor windows now fronting loft apartments.
sits at the west end of the neighborhood, an eighteen storey limestone tower over a colonnaded entrance. Its stonework was cleaned and its windows glazed in a recent restoration, with a landscaped plaza and roadway running up to its doors.
Shot in Corktown
Michigan Central Station's derelict interior became an abandoned Gotham City building for the climactic Batman and Superman fight in Batman v Superman. The same building also appears in Four Brothers, The Island and Transformers. A two block rubble set for the same film's Metropolis opening stood a few streets over on Sixth Street, dressed as the ruins of the fictional Wayne Financial Building.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2016
Michigan Central Station
Played an abandoned building, Gotham City, present day
The climactic fight between Batman and Superman was staged inside the then derelict train station, years before its restoration. Ford's later overhaul replaced the broken windows and stripped stonework the production actually filmed, so the building on screen looked far rougher than the one standing today.
Ohio City's frame houses were built with the same simple gables and small stoops for the tradesmen and factory workers who filled Corktown's own streets, and its side streets keep to a similar one and two storey scale across the same decades. Newer infill and repaved sidewalks show up on a few blocks, so keep a wood frame worker cottages block in frame rather than panning wide. Try searching wood frame worker cottages now.
Deutschtown in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Deutschtown's brick rowhouses and attached Victorian houses went up across the same decades as Corktown's own streets, giving its blocks the same brick Victorian rowhouses look and scale. Pittsburgh's steeper street grades and its own brick paved alleys are the tell in a wider shot. Try searching brick Victorian rowhouses now.
Walker's Point still has Greek Revival, Gothic and Italianate worker cottages from the same period as Corktown's own. The blocks have been restored the same way, into bars, cafes and small shops. Milwaukee's own cream city brick runs a distinct pale yellow, so a tight cream city brick cottages frame gives the city away next to Corktown's darker red brick and painted wood siding. Try searching cream city brick cottages now.
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