Some Things Don’t Change

By on December 9, 2009 1:30 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Landmark Preservation

It’s not news that significant parts of the 1988 film Moonstruck were filmed in BH and environs. Most everyone knows the house at Cranberry and Willow, (recently sold and currently under renovation) which served as the focal point of the Castorini household, and the focal point of the film, and that the Cammareri bakery was on Henry Street in Cobble Hill.

However, a bunch of locations were either dressed-up, and/or have changed in the 22 years since the movie was made.

If you can forgive (or mute) the hokey music, this YouTube has a nice “then and now” for a lot of the BH locations.

What I find interesting is how you can see the girth of a lot of the trees has increased in the intervening time, and thankfully, Brooklyn Heights still largely looks the same. (thank you, Landmarks Law!)

Speaking of things well preserved, it’s a lesser known fact  that Cher, who played the daughter Rose,  is in fact, only 15 years younger than Olympia Dukakis, who played her mom.

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  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/theyardie/298366254/ David

    Though I don’t necessarily categorize the Women’s Liberation movement as a conspiracy, it’s films such as Moonshine that makes me second guess my position. I’ll never forget coming home to find my son glued to the floor watching that horrific scene in-which Nick Cage is bedding Cher. And to know this wasn’t the first time that I’d found Cher indoctrinating my son into feminism! Three years earlier he had begged me to take him to see that crap hole of a film Mask. Yeah, that’s right! The one about forcing children into being sympathetic towards ugly people. I’m proud of my neighborhood, but if Cher was ever to move here for real, I’d choose to sleep in Newark Penn Station instead.

  • AEB

    …one (faux) shudders, David, to imagine your response to Cher’s “transitional” offspring taking up residence here.

    It’s difficult, but obviously necessary, to keep the gender divide well guarded, isn’t it?

    PS, I’m obviously not convinced your tongue’s planted in your cheek…

  • nabeguy

    On the subject of movie scenes in BH, I caught for the umpteenth time The French Connection on cable the other day. There’s a great scene shot on Middagh towards Squibb Park back when it was still two-way between Columbia Heights and Hicks Street. Now, only the two-way traffic signs on Hicks remain as a reminder, outdated as they are.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/theyardie/298366254/ David

    AEB,
    My first run in with a transsexual wasn’t in the Navy, in fact it wasn’t even abroad. So, maybe that gender line is grayer for you than the rest of us. Yeah, ever seen the freaking video before? Cher wasn’t discovered inside dive bar commode buddy. Get real!

  • nabeguy

    I don’t know about David’s cheek, but AEB certainly has planted a bee in his bonnet.

  • JM

    They show the restaurant as being where Dr Norton’s Vet office is but it doesn’t look like the same building nor do the buildings accross the street . Anybody know for sure?

  • nabeguy

    Even the film maker isn’t. One of the captions states that it’s not the actual location and it definitely isn’t. Based on the signage and the traffic direction, it’s a southeast corner, but for the life of me, I can’t come up with the location along Hicks Street, at least not in the Heights.

  • bornhere

    I seem to recall that several locations were actually in Toronto; I also thought that the restaurant was some specific-to-the-movie revamping on Joralemon near Willow Place. It’s all in the cobblestones. Or Toronto. (And, as a point of trivia, the professor was modeled on one of John’s NYU professors, Terry Moran, a mainstay in the communications department. Terry actually married a classmate of mine/student of his, who was several years his junior.)

  • Andrew Porter

    The doors on the garage near Columbia Heights were replaced, and the I-beam above the doors wasn’t there when it was filmed. Other stuff filmed in the Heights: the door to hell in “The Sentinel” is in a building backing on the Promenade between Montague and Remsen (and in the film the building was torn down); “Prizzi’s Honor”, “Taxi Driver”, and lots more films have been shot here. Most recently, “Burn Before Reading”, with Middagh and State Streets filling in for locations across the street from each other, supposedly in Georgetown, Washington.

    In “Moonstruck”, when the old guy walks the dogs, he goes past the liquor store (now Jack the Horse) heading south, which brings him to the corner of Cranberry and Willow. This impossible act is, of course, only possible in cinema.

  • Jeremy

    The exterior shot of the “Grand Ticino” in the film is actually in front of a restaurant located at 284 W. 12th Street in the West Village, looking south down W. 4th Street. It’s currently called Cafe Cluny, not sure what it was in the 1980s. They put up fake Hicks Street signs.

  • John Wentling

    Ah, I love that scene nabeguy, where “Sal and Angie” are switching cars parked on “Squibb Hill” – makes me long for a sled ride. :)

  • JM

    Thats it! Thanks Jeremy. Been trying to figure hat one out for years.

  • nabeguy

    Hey, John, make sure you don’t follow the Miller kid down the hill.

  • nabeguy

    Andrew, don’t forget “The Valachi Papers” machine-gun hit that was shot in front of the garage doors on Cranberry between Hicks and Willow. The doors still have the holes from the explosive squibs.

  • my2cents

    There is a part of “French Connection” where the guy the cops are tailing parks his car on columbia heights where the dog park is now. It is a good shot showing the Watchtower building. Interestingly the road used to go in the opposite direction.

  • http://instaputz.blogspot.com ts

    there’s also a scene in Manhattan in which Woody Allen buys a used car, possibly on Cranberry or Orange, I’m not sure.

    Anyone know?

  • nabeguy

    It was Orange Street and my car. He paid me in angst.

  • nabeguy

    My2, as I recall, back then, Middagh ran one way west from Fulton to Hicks, two way from Hicks to Willow and then one way east from Columbia Heights to Willow. Probably the only street in NY that ran in 3 diferent directions in a 4 block span.

  • Andrew Porter

    A whole bunch of “Taxi Driver” was shot in the Hotel Margaret—you can see the BQE coming out from under the Promenade in the shots—and the scene where he thinks about offing the candidate was shot in the vacant lot where the Park Plaza Diner is now. The candidate’s campaign office was in the vacant store in the 101 Clark Street building that was later a variety store, then the travel agency and Red Cross office, now the dentist. The empty windows were disguised with large campaign posters.

    The building where they shot an explosion in “Hudson Hawk” was below the Promenade, now demolished for BBP. There was also a movie with Lee Marvin driving *up* Columbia Heights from Fulton. And the scene in “Once Upon a Time in America” where the kid is going into prison was shot in front of the tobacco warehouse on Front Street, with the prison doors an entirely different location.

    BTW, Middagh is still technically 2-way from Willow to Hicks—look at the “school crossing” signs on the pavement—but of course unless you make a U-turn, you can’t get there from anywhere.

  • John Wentling

    @nabeguy: fortunately, the hill is fenced – thanks in no small part to the Miller kid and now, the park.

    The “Manhattan” car purchase was in front of 81 Cranberry (Melanie’s house). Also exterior scenes from “The Landlord” were filmed on Columbia and Cranberry – a classmate’s mother was wardrobe mistress so I got to meet Beau Bridges. Then of course there was “No Way to Treat a Lady” with Rod Steiger, with great shots of the St. George, among other landmarks.

  • my2cents

    Also in the French Connection, “the Frog” and his henchman are standing on the promenade in one shot, watching their Lincoln laden with drugs be unloaded from a ship below at the piers which are now where the Bklyn Bridge park will be. It is amazing how little those piers changed from 1970 until they were torn down this year.

  • John Wentling

    @my2cents: yeah, that was a great scene at the Promenade and Remsen, where they also filmed scenes for the DeNiro-Grodin film, “Midnight Run”.

    Used to prowl those docks (and the trains), gonna miss `em.

  • GHB

    Don’t forget the original Sweet November (1968) with Sandy Dennis and Anthony Newley. It was filmed throughout the neighborhood, including on the Promenade.

  • nabeguy

    I remember that shoot GHB. One of the first big ones I can recall in the Heights, other than a scene for “Naked City” that was shot on Columbia Heights back in the early 60’s.

  • my2cents

    Ha I am struck by the irony of how much we love seeing our nabe in old movies but how annoyed we collectively get by filming here today.

  • John Wentling

    It’s one thing when you’re a kid, as an adult it’s a royal pain – parking, trailers, cars, cables, generators, more people, obnoxious security personnel, etc..

  • AEB

    I rather like it when there’s filming here. Brings–to me–a welcome bit of bustling life.

  • Homer Fink

    Moonstruck.. with sock puppets on the Brooklyn Bugle:
    http://www.brooklynbugle.com/node/919