Spielberg Turns Willow Street Into D.C.’s Georgetown

By on July 28, 2017 11:19 pm in 11201, Arts and Entertainment, Brooklyn Heights, Movie shoots

If you were at the north end of Willow Street today, you may have seen lots of 1970s vintage cars parked there, including a cab with the paint scheme of a D.C. company. If you were lucky, you might have caught a glimpse of Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep playing, respectively, former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katherine Graham. Director Steven Spielberg cast the North Heights as D.C.’s Georgetown, just as the Coen Brothers did for their Burn After Reading ten years ago. Spielberg’s new flick, which has the working title The Papers, is based on the 1971 Pentagon Papers incident. Read more, and see photos by local residents, as well as a comment by BHB favorite Andrew Porter, in Brownstoner.

Steven Spielberg photo: Helene C. Stikkel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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  • Andrew Porter

    Gosh, am I really a “BHB favorite”? Maybe it’s that I have a really long memory for all the stuff filmed here, over the decades, going back to, for instance, “Taxi Driver.”

    Here’s a publicity still from the film, showing a much younger Martin Scorsese and Cybil Shepherd in front of the Pineapple Walk entrance to 101 Clark Street. The film’s campaign posters cover the windows of the otherwise empty storefront at extreme left rear which over the decades would become Tru-Value Hardware, Cadman Travel, and now Signature Dental:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05598cf0c01b5d6037bd6de95bbed2d90d24057ae9f0464e65760f3649e66e0d.jpg

  • regularmike

    Great photo. I haven’t seen Taxi Driver since long before I moved to the neighborhood and didn’t realize any of it was filmed here. How many scenes feature BH?

  • Eddyde

    The scene when Travis buys the guns was filmed in the Hotel Margret, that was on Columbia Heights, before it burned to the ground.
    The outdoor Palantine campaign scenes were filmed by 10 Clinton, 101 Clark, Cadman Plaza Park.

  • Andrew Porter

    The political rally was on a vacant lot, where the Park Plaza Diner now stands, not at 10 Clinton; it was across the street from the park.

  • Eddyde

    I was giving the general area, not specific points.

  • ALANABE

    Where is the PARKING!