MovieChat Forums > The Seven-Ups (1973) Discussion > Specific Locations

Specific Locations

posted 14 years ago by FeinMess
37 replies | jump to latest

Well, I have to admit, I am a Seven-Ups junkie. Cannot get enough of this movie, have been a fan of this movie for a very long time, especially the great location footage. I have assembled what I believe is a pretty accurate description of some of the great locations in the film.
Chock Full of Nuts was located at 532 Madison Ave at the intersection of East 54th Street. Vito and Buddy meet four times, the first and last time they meet at the intersection of East 125th Street and FDR Drive North, directly underneath the Triborough Harlem River Lift Bridge on a walkway along the Harlem River. To the north can clearly be seen the Willis Avenue Bridge and to the south can be seen the Randall's Island water tower as well as the Triborough Bridge span extending from Randalls island into Queens. Another meeting between the two takes place near the Jerome Park Reservoir and close to Paul Avenue near the current baseball field adjacent to the Bronx High School of Science, with Dewitt Clinton High School a little further away. The grandstand and small field house are still visible to this day. The exact location of their meeting is down the left field line just past third base. The Jayne Mansfield car crash takes place on the Taconic Parkway near the town of Millwood just east of Echo Lake Park at the exit for Routes 100 and 133. The exit leads to Campfire Road. At the crash scene one can clearly see the rock outcropping that lay just ahead of the 18-wheeler as well as the rock outcropping on the Pontiac Ventura's passenger door side. The scene where Vito meets Moon on the waterfront to discuss stopping the kidnappings was tough to find but I believe it was filmed in Weehawken, NJ, on Port Imperial Boulevard just north of the Lincoln Tunnel and south of Regency Place. The final location and my personal favorite is garage man Toredano's house. Located on Erskine Place in the Baychester section of the Bronx just south of Co-Op City and two blocks from the Bay Plaza Shopping Center. Toredano's house was located on Erskine Place between Hunter and Boller Avenues. The final shootout took place near where Erskine Place meets De Reimer Avenue but across the train tracks in what can be classified as Pelham Bay Park (just a bit north of the highway cloverleaf). This area has been cleaned up considerably and contains none of the former ice cube coolers and small brown wooden shacks seen in the movie. Highway 95 can also be seen in the background. I believe these are accurate locations and any further help would be welcomed. The Seven-Ups - love this movie

No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn ..... JM

[–] Senzaltro 14 years ago

Thank you for that great information. I have loved this movie since I was a kid growing up in Queens Village. I just recently bought the DVD and it was so interesting to find your post here just as I got interested in the movie again --- nice coincidence.
I am going to use your information to plot the locations on Google Earth...I like to do that with favorite movie locations.

My father was a computer technician for RCA in Manhattan and he also worked in several films as an extra -- he was a member of Screen Actors Guild. Anyway, he was in The Godfather, Part II, and when I was a kid, I went to the set to see it being filmed. He was in the 1917 part and actually has a line in Italian to Robert De Niro as he passes him in the street while he is talking with the landlord, Senior Roberto. We have pictures on the set with Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, and Bruno Kirby. I was about 9 at the time so I wasn't familiar with Manhattan neighborhoods but I see on this site it says one of the filming locations was on 6th street in NYC. I remember that there were signs around saying, "El Segundo Padrino" (Godfather II in Spanish) but I don't know exactly which cross street it would have been on --- I remember they closed off an entire block in order to make it look old-fashioned. I thought maybe since you know a lot of NY locations, you might know where it was filmed. My father has passed away and I don't remember ever asking him exactly where that was. Anyway, if you know, please let me know. And thanks again for this awesome info on the 7-UPS.

[–] ck427 14 years ago

Fein & Senz, great info.

I am still troubled by the discontinuity of the chase scene once they get off the GWB...it's clearly the PIP for about 10 seconds but then they use footage of the Taconic which as we all know is 20+ miles north and probably 45 minutes away from the GWB (and across the Hudson River to boot!).

What we really need is for FoxMovieChannel to be broadcast in HD so we can see this movie in HiDef !!

[–] metlguru 14 years ago

The funeral parlor is located around the block from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, at the corner of E 184 & Hoffman Streets. The stone wall across the street is that of Saint Barnabas Hospital. In the background can be seen the (soon-to-be-demolished, at that time) Third Avenue Elevated Subway, which was also featured in the movie "The Incident" six years earlier.

[–] wrfarley 14 years ago

Nicely done, FeinMess. Those Bronx locations are tough. As only one scene of THE FRENCH CONNECTION takes place in the Bronx (TFC is more of a Brooklyn-based film), it's interesting that D'Antoni based most of THE SEVEN-UPS in that borough (of course, he was born there, so maybe...)

[–] TommyFilmProductions 11 years ago

metlguru, your original post regarding the funeral parlor was posted back in 2010, so my apologies for finally noticing it now. But something additional I wanted to point out about that location that I just thought was pretty cool. In the film at the very start of this scene, Ansel's character is leaning against the limo with a cigarette in his mouth. In the background you can see a MEAT MARKET sign on the building across the street.

What I thought was so cool, if you Google earth this location, that sign is still there, yet all the letters have long been removed.... yet you can still see the very FAINT wording of MEAT MARKET along with the additional lettering of the establishment. I always find before and after pictures really fascinating. :)

[–] rrb 11 years ago

The block where the kids are playing in the street is W.78th btw Amsterdam & Columbus - 2 blocks from my old address. You can see one of the towers of the Natural History Museum at the end of the block. That block's remarkably unchanged - though I'm not sure how they started in the Bronx and wound up going uptown on Amsterdam to turn right onto 78th. They then go downtown 1 block on Columbus and turn east on 77th. Amazing to see what was to be the Museum Cafe, a staple of the Upper West Side for years (now the Shake Shack), was then that boarded-up dump on the corner of 77th & Columbus!

[–] walkingf00l 7 years ago

That was a very popular block in the 70s. Both "Death Wish" (1974) & "The Goodbye Girl" (1977) shot major sequences on that block, and yes, it's amazing how little has changed.

Inconsistent driving sequences also seems to be rather common in the 70s. I recently tracked the car chase sequence from the beginning of "Marathon Man" (1976) and they bop all over the place, even crossing the same intersection two times in a row.

[–] ck427 13 years ago

But why such a glaring disconnect on the car chase scene with the Palisades-Taconic Parkway snafu ? What was D'Antoni thinking ? Did he figure nobody from outside the NYC Metro area would notice (or care) ?

I mean, it'd be like doing a Southern California chase scene on I-5 and then showing scenery from the Pacific Coast Hwy !!!

[–] PhillipNoir 10 years ago

I seem to recall that semi-trucks were not allowed on the Palisades Parkway in the 1970s, which may be why the crash was filmed on the Taconic.

[–] urgeking 10 years ago

Having driven most of the length of the Taconic Pkwy once (and once was enough), it makes me almost shudder to think that semi-trucks would be allowed on it!

[–] art-812-12921 10 years ago

NYSDOT does restrict semis on the Taconic as well as other parkways.
http://www.hudsonvalleytraveler.com/pdf/ParkwayVehicleRestriction.pdf

[–] urgeking 10 years ago

Thanks for the parkway link. Hmmm... Looking at Google Street View it appears that the crash probably does happen on the northbound side of the Taconic Parkway at the beginning of the Campfire Road exit offramp. But since commercial vehicles are not allowed on the Taconic and probably never have been, due to the low bridges, how did they get the 18-wheeler there? Seems like they must have brought it in from Campfire Road, backing it down the ramp (going the wrong way), either with or without permission/assistance from the authorities.

I noticed a couple of things in a still frame of the video-- specifically, the shot through the windshield of the Ventura just as it's going into the exit (where you see the yellow "EXIT 40 MPH" sign):

--Just past the green "EXIT" sign, by the left edge of your screen, you can see the camera crew filming the shot from a few seconds earlier (of the Grand Ville pushing the Ventura onto the shoulder).

--The Ventura's windshield wipers were visible in a shot from the front seat just after the chase began, and could still be seen from the outside all the way through the chase, but now they're gone.

Other observations from the last part of the chase:

--After the Grand Ville broke through the roadblock, the filmmakers apparently left most of the front-end damage intact but attached a new hood and front bumper, presumably to avoid the risk of the whole front end falling apart (or the damaged hood flying up) at 80 mph.

--When the Ventura is slamming against the side of the Grand Ville on the Taconic Parkway, the passenger in the Grand Ville seems to be getting knocked around pretty damn hard.

--After the crash, the 18-wheeler's driver pulls back the Ventura's smashed windshield with his bare hands-- ouch!

--It looks like they removed the Ventura's front seat so Roy Scheider would have plenty of room to be lying down on the floorboards after the accident. (Assuming, of course, that the vehicle we see in that shot actually is the Ventura.)

[–] ck427 10 years ago

I seem to recall that semi-trucks were not allowed on the Palisades Parkway in the 1970s, which may be why the crash was filmed on the Taconic.

On a PARKWAY, no semi-trucks or commercial vehicles (even buses -- except school) or vans are allowed. I see the PIP police pulling over vans and small trucks all the time. I've never seen an 18-wheeler on the PIP though I did see a few medium-sized trucks. Police officer told me it's usually new drivers who brain-lock or rely on faulty GPS devices that don't tell them to avoid certain roads (height clearance is a major safety issue).

[–] santuci 13 years ago

I can't seem to get an answer on this. Bo, Moon's sidekick and driver, I got his name in the credits. Where is his actual name said in the movie? I watched it with the subtitles on and I can not find it being used? can you? great work on the locations! In regards to Toredano's house location, I always guessed it was somewhere in Elizabeth and Newark NJ based on the train going by which reminded me when I was kid and seeing the old Penn Central trains passing on the Northeast and North Jersey Coast line train tracks. To me this movie is the next best thing to having an actual time machine. You can feel the cold of the 1973 NYC winter in the comfort of your own home. Also, I'm assuming the beginnings of the chase scene in the city would have to be somewhere in Washington Heights because of the hills?? Would love to hear your comments.
Just as big a Seven-ups junkie as you!
santuci

[–] phrumpster 13 years ago

Fein Mess, I think you nailed Toredano's house and the final shoot-out as being near Co-op City. I went to Fordham around that time and dated a girl from New Rochelle. Looked like that area to me.

Poets are made by fools like me, but only God can make STD.

[–] wrfarley 13 years ago

I think the bigger dis-connect in the chase scene is that it starts at a car wash in the Bronx, then cuts to 10th Avenue in Manhattan. Also W.96th Street is not 20 blocks long.

[–] GunHillTrain 12 years ago

The 96th Street sequence shows the various intersecting avenues (Amsterdam, Broadway, and West End) at least twice - I have to see it again, because it might be more than that.

Other locations: when Mingo is driving past the funeral cars, looking for Ansel (who is undercover), that is on Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, east of White Plains Road.

Before the chase scene, Buddy is driving west on Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx. Then he turns north on Van Cortlandt Avenue, west on the service road, and then up a side street called Steuben Avenue.

[–] Screenwriter1969 12 years ago

The white house where Max Kalish lives still stands on the southeast corner of West 246th Street and Fieldston Road in the Fieldston section of The Bronx (northwest Bronx). It is one of four houses along the Fieldston Road oval. Google Earth it.

[–] wrfarley 12 years ago

Holy smoke! That's one for the books. That house is on one of the most non-descript streets in all NYC Suburbdom. I might've thought it was upstate somewhere, maybe Rockland County where D'Antoni lived at the time. But to know the street is Fieldston Road in the Northwest Bronx (I guess it's near Manhattan College), I tip my hat to you.

[–] Screenwriter1969 12 years ago

During the night scene where the camera pans the oval, you can barely read the corner street sign "W. 246th St". Now, I grew up in Marble Hill (the Bronx 10463), and I know the northwest Bronx like the back of my hand. I've driven around Fieldston many times prior to leaving NYC.

[–] ck427 12 years ago

Has anybody tried to reach Phil D'Antoni and ask him about the Palisades Parkway-Taconic switch ? Why they did it...was it permits...cost...something else ?

I'm sure they thought that nobody outside of New Yorker's who know both stretches would notice.

[–] wrfarley 12 years ago

I doubt that was a creative choice, but a logistical solution.

[–] ck427 12 years ago

But they came off the GW Bridge so why not shoot a few miles of the chase there ? Maybe traffic was too dense ? Seems to me it was more costly to stop and re-shoot and setup about 30-40 miles away.

[–] wrfarley 11 years ago

Hmmph! This is a stumper. I know the chase was shot at various times in the production, and not at all in sequence. In fact, the final truck crash was shot at the very end of production. My only very fallable conclusion is that they couldn't get the needed permits to shoot on the Parkway. They did, indeed, shoot one scene in New Jersey where Vito visits Moon, but I'm just going to assume it was a permit/insurance thing that prevented them from shooting past the GW Bridge.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] urgeking 11 years ago

As regards Erskine Place in the Bronx (location of Toredano's house and the climactic shootout): WOW, what a difference 40 years can make!

I went on Google Street View to see what that area looks like now. Other than the view toward the railroad tracks-- and the high-rise in the distance behind Buddy (Roy Scheider), seen at 1:36:10 on the DVD-- there's almost nothing visible to suggest it's the same location. Of all the buildings you see along Erskine Place in that scene, I could not find a single one still standing.

The film shows a shabby, neglected, mostly unpaved backstreet, apparently zoned commercial/industrial (if at all). Dead-end in both senses of the word, it has little to show for itself except abandoned factories and restaurants-- behind Moon (Richard Lynch) at 1:35:27 you can see the burned-out hulk of "Jack's Red Cheetah" lounge-- and some very old, weatherbeaten houses. (Toredano's, in a 1930s or '40s style, appears to be the newest.) The palpable sense of decay enhances the gritty tone of the movie.

(The overcast weather helps too. But in the two consecutive shots of Toredano approaching his house, the first is under gray skies with a dry street, while the second has patchy sun with new puddles of rain at the dead-end.)

I half-expected that area to look about the same today. However, as seen on Street View, Erskine Place has been modernized and rebuilt into a middle-class residential neighborhood-- semi-gentrified, for lack of a better word-- with newer houses, plus sidewalks, curbs, lawns, and so forth. It also appears to be a much longer street than in 1973, extending several blocks beyond the dead-end embankment that was next to Toredano's house.

A video player with a zoom function will show the street number of that house-- 2083 (in the year 2012, it was an empty lot under construction). Also, there's a peace-sign sticker on the screen door... somewhat ironic in that context.

BTW, at 1:35:53 you can see a street sign for Bassett Ave. behind Moon as he turns and fires his gun-- somewhat odd, since Bassett actually runs parallel to Erskine one block away, off DeReimer Ave. Apparently the sign was meant to indicate, "For those having trouble finding it, turn here and then make the next left." Roadgeek websites might find that interesting.

So, does anyone from the Bronx know: Was the other abandoned restaurant (1:31:12) REALLY called "Chez Bippy"??

[–] Cock-Knocker 10 years ago

Click on this link: http://cockknocker.ytmnsfw.com/

urgeking: I grew up in Co-op City, having moved there with my family as a child in 1971. As previous posters have noted, the location of "Toredano's house" and the climactic shootout, which was filmed in the winter of 1972-1973, was located just outside of Co-op City's Section Five.

I remember exploring that area as a kid in the mid-1970's. The houses in the area were mostly bungalows, and the area across the train tracks was basically an unauthorized junkyard/dump. Erskine Place, which was created in 1971 when Section Five of Co-op City was constructed, used to end at Hunter Avenue. In the early 1980's, "Toredano's house" and the other bungalows in the area were demolished in order to extend Erskine Place, which now terminates as an entrance ramp to I-95 South. At that time, a fence was built along the south side of Erskine Place to prevent unauthorized access to the train tracks, which are owned by Amtrak. "Toredano's house", which no longer exists, was located on what today is Erskine Place, between De Reimer and Palmer Avenues.

As far as the "Chez Bippy", I don't remember it, but my father once told me that there used to be an after hours club in the area. Coincidentally, "Chez Bippy" is the name of the bar owned by Sonny (the character played by Chazz Palminteri) in "A Bronx Tale".

[–] urgeking 9 years ago

So Erskine Place was created only a year or two before the scene was filmed there? Wow. It sure looked a lot older.

[–] hadrons 11 years ago

There's a scene at night where a car is being driven on Fordham Road and for a brief moment a movie theater (the Valentine) passes by (showing Klute, I believe at the time it was filmed.) That's the very movie theater I saw The Seven-Ups (in a double feature with The French Connection) in 1973. I was 6 at the time and if my mom wanted to see a movie, she just dragged me and my younger brothers along. That very strip of Fordham Road can be seen in the opening of 1979's The Wanderers.

[–] Cock-Knocker 10 years ago

Click on this link: http://cockknocker.ytmnsfw.com/

I saw "Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams (1981)" at the UA Valentine when it was first released.

[–] polohat 10 years ago

I've never been to NYC, but I do love seeing old movies,trying to iD specific filming locations, and then looking at the exact same spots today.

I know many of us would love it if some of you in NYC with free time would create a 'now & then' web page showing screen-captures of some locations & then photos of the exact same spot (or general area) today.

[–] ck427 10 years ago

I've never been to NYC, but I do love seeing old movies,trying to iD specific filming locations, and then looking at the exact same spots today. I know many of us would love it if some of you in NYC with free time would create a 'now & then' web page showing screen-captures of some locations & then photos of the exact same spot (or general area) today.

Unless some of us live near a certain area or pull off to the side when we drive, it's tough to drive-and-click at the same time. Illegal, too, I believe.

I can tell you that the George Washington Bridge scene when they come onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway (PIP) is very realistic right up to the 1:00:56 mark where you can see the tolls (on the SOUTHBOUND side, approaching the GWB). However, at 1:01:04 you can see the change where there is a house or residence or building to the right of the car -- which can't be the PIP because it'd be over the Hudson River (the PIP right off the GWB is very close to the Hudson River; there are a few places to pull off to the side and look at the views overlooking the Hudson and NYC).