Party boats tie up along Emmons Avenue, and a wooden footbridge crosses the water to Manhattan Beach.
What Sheepshead Bay looks like
Emmons Avenue runs along the north side of the bay, with charter and party fishing boats tied up at piers across from seafood markets and boat offices. At 1901 Emmons Avenue, the old Lundy Brothers building is sand colored stucco under a low, red Mission tile roof. An arched entrance opens under the Lundy Brothers name, still lettered above it. Its ground floor holds several separate storefronts now.
At the end of the avenue, a wooden footbridge crosses the water to Manhattan Beach, about four hundred feet of decking and railings. runs at an angle across the numbered grid on its way down to the water, past storefronts with painted signs.
Away from the water the blocks are mostly residential. One and two family brick houses sit behind chain link fences and small yards on the side streets. Brick apartment buildings six to eight storeys high, with balconies and fire escapes, line Ocean Avenue and the blocks toward Nostrand Avenue. St. Mark's, a stone faced church with a bell tower, stands at Ocean Avenue and Avenue Z. The B and Q trains run on an elevated steel trestle near Avenue U before climbing the embankment into the Sheepshead Bay Road station.
Shot in Sheepshead Bay
Glengarry Glen Ross shot the real estate office's exterior at the real Premiere Properties building on Sheepshead Bay Road, keeping the company's own name on the glass. The elevated Sheepshead Bay station appears in the background of the office shots, and again in a subway window reflection at the film's end.
Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992
Played Premiere Properties, Chicago, Illinois, early 1990s
The exterior of the fictional Premiere Properties real estate office was shot at the real Premiere Properties company's own vacant office at 1515 Sheepshead Bay Road, and the production kept the real company's lettering on the window rather than dressing it. The interiors were built on a soundstage at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens. Street View
What Sheepshead Bay can double for
Freeport in Long Island, New York
Freeport's Nautical Mile puts charter fishing boats and seafood restaurants directly along a road a truck can park on, the same practical arrangement as Emmons Avenue. The canal front there is lined with the same kind of party and charter boats that tie up at Sheepshead Bay's own piers. Freeport's buildings are lower and more suburban, so keep the frame on the boats, the water and the road rather than the skyline behind them. Try searching charter boats along a canal now.
City Island's working piers and boatyards give it the same close mix of docked boats and quiet streets that lines Emmons Avenue. Look at the finger piers off City Island Avenue for small charter and fishing boats tied up side by side. City Island's houses are mostly low shingle and clapboard rather than brick, so a wide shot that includes the buildings behind the boats gives away a different place. Tight shots on the water and the piers hold the illusion better. Try searching small piers with docked boats now.
