Yellow-brick rowhouses, wood-frame houses, porches, and blocks that have changed less than much of the surrounding city.
What Ridgewood looks like
The are the most distinctive part of the neighborhood. Many of the two- and three-family houses were built in the 1910s by the , with bay windows, small cornices, and long runs of matching facades. A number of these blocks are on the National Register of Historic Places, which has helped preserve them.
Elsewhere, the houses are smaller and more varied. sit behind low fences and chain link, many with porches and small front yards. Some have gardens. Some have religious statues out front. Together, these blocks give Ridgewood a look that can stand in for parts of Brooklyn from the middle of the 20th century.
That is one reason productions come here. Much of the older Brooklyn used on screen has changed, while Ridgewood still has long stretches of early-20th-century housing. The M train runs above , which can be useful when a scene calls for an elevated train nearby.
is the main commercial strip. Some older storefront signs are still there, including signs for businesses that have since closed.
For a period Brooklyn story, Ridgewood is worth a look.
Films shot in Ridgewood
For The Irishman, the production turned the corner of into 1975 South Philadelphia.
One film, two corners of the same intersection
. The production built both sides of the junction and shot them as one Philadelphia block.
The bar where Frank meets Skinny Razor was created in an empty corner property at . The production dressed the storefronts to stand in for Philadelphia's Italian Market, including the signs and goods in the windows. The block toward also appears in the film, including the street outside the Villa di Roma restaurant. The scene on YouTube
The grocery where Frank crushes a shop owner's hand was built directly across the intersection. The scene plays out on this sidewalk. Both corners are ordinary storefronts again. The scene on YouTube
What Ridgewood can double for
Ridgewood can stand in for Brooklyn before it changed, working class New York from 1950 to 1990, South Philadelphia in The Irishman and Milwaukee or Chicago in tight framings.
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