Red brick warehouses line Belgian block streets that run straight to the Manhattan Bridge.
What DUMBO looks like
Washington Street runs straight south to the Manhattan Bridge, red brick warehouses rising six to eight storeys on both sides and framing the bridge's steel tower, with the Empire State Building visible through one of the tower's arches on a clear day. The street is paved in Belgian block, cobblestones set in tight rows that continue under the bridge's lower roadway and along the side streets toward the water.
runs seven connected warehouses along Water Street, thick brick walls and rows of arched window openings, several of them bricked shut. The former Robert Gair buildings nearby went up between 1888 and 1914, round arched windows and steel frame floors, the oldest a six storey block at . At the foot of Old Fulton Street, rises taller still, a reinforced concrete clock tower building dated to 1914.
Fire escapes zigzag down the brick facades on the narrower cross streets, and the window bays repeat floor after floor with little change between them. sits apart from the warehouse blocks in a glass pavilion on the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront, a restored 1922 carousel. Parked cars and delivery vans line the cobblestones under the bridge most days, and a one way sign marks the turn onto Water Street.
Shot in DUMBO
Once Upon a Time in America used the view down Washington Street to the Manhattan Bridge as its poster image, the Empire State Building framed inside the tower's gothic arch. John Wick: Chapter 2 used a real building a few blocks east on , a library rooftop near the bridge.
Once Upon a Time in America, 1983
Washington Street at the Manhattan Bridge
The view down Washington Street to the Manhattan Bridge, the Empire State Building framed inside the tower's gothic arch, is the shot Sergio Leone used as the film's poster image. The street still runs the same line between the same brick warehouses. Street View
Shad Thames is a narrow brick warehouse canyon in reverse, iron footbridges crossing overhead between Butler's Wharf's riverside and inland blocks, built between 1871 and 1873 to move cargo without touching the street. Highlander shot its New York alley fight on this street in 1986, so the substitution has already read on screen. The iron bridges sit at building height rather than rising the way the Manhattan Bridge's tower does, so a shot framed tight on the street holds the illusion better than a wide one, and the warehouses here run four to five storeys against DUMBO's six to eight. Try searching brick warehouse canyon now.
Castlefield pairs red brick warehouses with a Victorian railway viaduct crossing overhead on dark steel arches, built in 1892 above cobbled streets that run under the viaduct and past the canal basin. Peaky Blinders used the same viaduct and cobbles to stand in for 1920s industrial Birmingham. The viaduct is built of brick arches rather than the Manhattan Bridge's open steel truss, so a low angle that keeps its silhouette against the sky holds the match better than one that shows the construction, and the canal basin alongside has no equivalent on Washington Street. Try searching cobbled streets under the viaduct now.
St. Anthony Main in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Main Street SE keeps its original cobblestone and brick storefronts from the 1850s and 1860s, and the Stone Arch Bridge crosses the Mississippi a block away, the same pairing Washington Street has with the Manhattan Bridge, a cobblestone street with a bridge in view. The Stone Arch Bridge is masonry rather than steel, so a wide shot reads an earlier period than the Manhattan Bridge's towers would, and the storefronts here run two to four storeys against DUMBO's taller lofts. Try searching cobblestone street with a bridge now.
