5. Riverdale School

Photograph Courtesy of The Sands Point Preserve Conservancy

In a flashback, the young Janae is taken on a school field trip to a private school – the Riverdale School. She realizes on this trip how ill-equipped her own school is in terms of resources and how this predominantly white private school is co-opting Black narratives, like putting on the production of Dreamgirls with white students in wigs. This is a turning point for Janae, previously a promising student in her school but is too disillusioned to keep studying.

The school is actually Hempstead House, a Gilded Age mansion in the Sands Point Preserve on Long Island. This location has also previously been featured in Gotham.

Check out 9 other historic mansions to visit on Long Island.