The 7 train runs above Roosevelt Avenue and the garden apartment blocks begin behind the shops.
What Jackson Heights looks like
The 7 runs above Roosevelt Avenue along the neighborhood's southern edge and meets the underground E, F, M and R at . North of the station, 74th Street is a Little India of sari and jewelry stores and Indian and Bengali music and movie sellers. The HBO series The Night Of shows these shops in its first episode as the neighborhood where Naz's family lives. Ocean's 8 shot here in December 2016, extras shopping at the sidewalk tables.
is the everyday shopping street. East of 77th Street there is a Little Colombia, and Colombian and Peruvian businesses line Northern Boulevard from 80th Street to Junction Boulevard. Food carts on Roosevelt Avenue sell Bengali fuchka and Nepalese momo alongside Colombian arepas.
Away from the shopping streets the blocks are garden apartments, brick, built around shared planted courts. The gardens stay inside the blocks and private, so a street level frame gets continuous brick fronts and no green at all. face each other across 80th Street in grey brick. is ten buildings between 84th and 85th Streets around a gated garden of linden trees. These blocks run from 76th to 88th Streets between Roosevelt Avenue and Northern Boulevard. The street sign at spells the avenue's name in Scrabble tiles, point values included.
Shot in Jackson Heights
Alfred Hitchcock shot most of The Wrong Man here in 1956, interiors included. Henry Fonda's Manny Balestrero lives at 40-24 78th Street. For Random Hearts, 35th Avenue between 76th and 77th Streets played Washington, D.C. and Rhode Island exteriors.
Maria Full of Grace, 2004
Much of the film's New York half plays out on these streets and inside local businesses, among them Los Arriero at 76-02 Roosevelt Avenue and the vendors Maria buys obleas from. The elevated structure runs the length of the avenue and throws a hard shadow across the roadway, with the cross streets in full sun beyond it.
In Jackson Heights, 2015
Frederick Wiseman's documentary about the neighborhood came out in 2015 and runs more than three hours. It is an observational portrait of the area and the people who live and work in it.
What Jackson Heights can double for
Washington, D.C.
The 1999 film Random Hearts shot 35th Avenue between 76th and 77th Streets and used it on screen as a Washington street. The production does not identify a specific neighborhood. The block is continuous brick apartment fronts with shallow setbacks, so a tight street level frame holds. A wide shot picks up the 7 train and the Queens skyline. Try searching brick apartment fronts now.
Argyle Street today is a dense Asian shopping strip with its own elevated stop. The residential grid behind it in Sheridan Park is six-flats and courtyard apartment buildings around planted courts, at the same scale and of the same period. Chicago's courtyard buildings are three and four storeys and their courts open onto the street, so a Jackson Heights block reads taller in a wide shot and its garden never shows. Try searching courtyard apartment buildings now.
