A brick main street at the foot of the Gothic towered St. Johns Bridge, which appears in Leave No Trace as itself.
What St. Johns looks like
One and two storey brick storefronts with cast stone trim line North Lombard Street, the commercial core. holds one corner in tan stucco, a red tile canopy over the entrance and a vertical marquee reading its name. A few doors down, hangs a corroded steel sign against a diamond patterned brick front. The convenience store runs a green metal roofline at the strip's north end.
stands two storeys in red brick on North Philadelphia Avenue, a pedimented white cornice and a small bell cupola over its corner entrance. The window openings are trimmed in cast stone, and the building dates from 1907.
The commercial blocks sit on a small grid of streets that ends at the bridge's east approach. Diagonal parking lines North Lombard Street in front of the storefronts, and the side streets running toward are wide enough for a production vehicle.
The crosses the Willamette on a pair of Gothic steel towers, painted green and rising 400 feet above the water. Cathedral Park sits under the east tower, a flat lawn running down to the riverbank with the tower's concrete piers rising straight out of the grass. Barges moor along both banks below the deck, and rows of oil storage tanks line the shore on the Linnton side across the river.
Shot in St. Johns
Leave No Trace filmed a scene at the St. Johns Bridge, its Gothic steel towers and green trusses on screen as themselves rather than standing in for another place. The father and daughter the film is based on were discovered living in a hidden camp in Forest Park in 2004.
Leave No Trace, 2018
The St. Johns Bridge
The production filmed at the bridge itself, its towers and roadway on screen as the real St. Johns Bridge rather than a double for anywhere else. Debra Granik's film is based on a father and daughter found living in a Forest Park camp in 2004.
What St. Johns can double for
Poughkeepsie in New York, United States
The Mid-Hudson Bridge crosses the Hudson on its own Gothic steel suspension towers, built in 1929 and 1930, a close echo of St. Johns Bridge's pointed arches and dates. Poughkeepsie's own downtown runs several blocks larger than St. Johns's compact core, so a frame that holds the towers and the riverbank without the wider city is the stronger match. The Mid-Hudson Bridge's deck runs more lanes of traffic than St. Johns Bridge, so a tighter shot on the tower base and cables hides the difference. Try searching gothic steel suspension towers now.
Ballard was its own incorporated mill and fishing town before Seattle annexed it, the same path St. Johns took into Portland. Ballard Avenue's turn of the century storefronts run at a similar one and two storey scale, though its brick fronts sit a few blocks back from open water. A shot framed on the storefronts alone, with the shoreline left out, holds the match. Ballard Avenue's cobblestone paving and angled parking are its own, so a straight asphalt street reads more like St. Johns. Try searching turn of the century storefronts now.
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