A forty two storey limestone Gothic tower rises from a campus lawn beside a colonnaded institute building that played Gotham City Hall in The Dark Knight Rises.
What Oakland looks like
The is a forty two storey limestone tower that rises straight up from a lawn at the center of the campus, its face cut with pointed Gothic windows and tracery from base to crown. The tower dates from 1926 to 1934 and stands taller than anything else nearby. sits across the lawn in the same pale stone, with a steep gabled roof and a bank of stained glass windows.
At Fifth and Bellefield Avenues, a colonnade of sixty two fluted stone columns runs around all four sides of the , each one cut from a single block of Indiana limestone. The building was completed in 1937. A broad flight of steps climbs from the sidewalk to the columns.
Fifth Avenue continues past , a squat stone building with its own row of columns and a red tile roof. Forbes Avenue runs a block over, past the , past bus stops and building entrances serving the university and hospital campuses on either side.
Atwood Street, at the edge of the campus, narrows into a strip of brick storefronts and rowhouses with cars parked along the curb. Coltart Avenue and Bigelow Boulevard carry plain duplexes and stucco houses behind small lawns, a smaller scale than the institutional buildings a few blocks over. Schenley Park, with the glass dome of at its edge, borders the campus to the south.
Shot in Oakland
The Mellon Institute's colonnade stood in as Gotham City Hall for The Dark Knight Rises, with Bane reading Commissioner Gordon's stolen speech from its steps. On the other side of the campus, Richard Gere sat on a bench on the Cathedral of Learning's lawn for a Lafayette Park scene in The Mothman Prophecies. The same Mellon Institute exterior also appears in the film Hoffa and the CBS series Smith.
The Dark Knight Rises, 2012
The Mellon Institute colonnade
Played Gotham City Hall, Gotham City
Bane reads Commissioner Gordon's stolen speech from the steps of the Mellon Institute's colonnade in The Dark Knight Rises. The building's sixty two Ionic columns run around all four sides at Fifth and Bellefield Avenues.
The Mothman Prophecies, 2002
Played a bench in Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C., present day
Richard Gere's character sat on a stone bench on this lawn for a scene set in Lafayette Park in The Mothman Prophecies. The production later added a digital Washington Monument to the background. Street View
What Oakland can double for
Knox College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Knox College at the University of Toronto is a Collegiate Gothic building from 1915. Its two wings meet around a central courtyard, on roughly the scale of the lawn beside the Cathedral of Learning. Knox College is a fraction of the tower's height, so keep the frame on the courtyard rather than pulling back toward Toronto's skyline. Try searching gothic collegiate courtyard now.
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut
Yale's Gothic quads, part of a university campus, have the same pale limestone and pointed tracery as the Cathedral of Learning. Keep shots tight on a single facade, since nothing at Yale rises anywhere near the tower's forty two storeys. Try searching gothic limestone university tower now.
Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois
The Field Museum's long row of columns across its front reads like the Mellon Institute's own colonnade in a tight frontal shot. Widen the frame and the Field Museum's single row of columns on one facade gives way, since the Mellon Institute's own colonnade continues around all four sides. Try searching museum colonnade columns facade now.
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