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Barry Wetcher/NetflixDaredevil is the first of four Netflix original series set in the Marvel cinematic universe and is the second attempt to bring the character known as “The Man Without Fear” to the screen. The plot focuses on the career beginnings of two people: Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk. Murdock is a lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen, who lost his sight in a childhood accident; Fisk is a businessman who dreams of transforming New York City. The series follows these two rivals as they become what comic readers recognize as Daredevil and The Kingpin.
Much has changed since the 1980s; Frank Miller’s version of Hell’s Kitchen is much different than the one we know of today. The showrunners decided to keep the story set in a fictional Hell’s Kitchen but film all over New York City. Discerning viewers woudl have noticed that the intersection of Bedford and North 7th Street substituted as Hell’s Kitchen in the very first episode. Here is a list of locations used in Netflix’s Daredevil.
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Barry Wetcher/NetflixThe first time we are introduced to Wesley, the right hand man to Wilson Fisk, is in Abe Lebewohl Park in the East Village, located in front off the Church of St. Mark’s in the Bowery. Wesley is blackmailing someone who owes a debt and the show shows early on that the criminals here are willing to use leverage against anyone. We recognized the statue right away as it is one of the defining features of the park, which is named after the owner of a former deli that was on Second Avenue and East 10th Street. Lebewohl, a refugee from Ukraine, had once served sandwiches to sports legends like Muhammad Ali and Joe DiMaggio, as well as, comedy legends the likes of Bob Hope and Joan Rivers.
Besides his famous clientele, Lebewohl was known to give free food to the homeless and hold events to celebrate his Ukrainian-Jewish roots. It is because of his reputation throughout the East Village that led over 1,500 people to attend his funeral in 1996, after he was gunned down at a nearby bank. The park was named after him soon afterwards and today is used as a host for a greenmarket and a summer concert series. A small triangle park just across the street is also named after him, and is one of the smallest parks in New York City.
A brutal assassination of a mob boss and his bodyguards takes place inside of a bowling alley in Flushing. Whitestone Lanes, unlike what the episode tells us, is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Perhaps the mob boss should have found one of the seven hidden bowling alleys in the city and he probably would not have come face to face with a bowling ball.
Photo: David Lee
/NetflixMurdock and Nelson end up taking a case defending the assassin. Murdock accepts so he can find out who the man works for. Thanks to the establishing shot above, we know that the case takes place inside the New York State Supreme Court. They don’t show the inside of the building (the court scene was filmed on a set) but you can check out what it looks like from when we visited the building here.
Daredevil (still known as “the man in the mask”) hides out from the members of the NYPD (paid off by Fisk), with a Russian gang member. The series is telling us that this warehouse is somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen, however this is in Bushwick. Because of all the tarp that covers the exterior of the building, the street art that is all over the outside of Exit Room NY, the former brewery turned cultural space.
Wilson Fisk appears publicly as a potential savior for Hell’s Kitchen. His actions undermine the actions being done by Murdock and reporter Ben Urich. The announcement is filmed outside the building. The Greek Revival Style building located on 209 Joralemon Street, was constructed in 1848, but not without incident. The first architect Calvin Pollard, had a much grander vision for the building when he earned the rights to build on the land in 1835. Funding for the project dried up and wasn’t available until 1845, where the project was given to the man Pollard bested for the job a decade earlier, Gamaliel King.
King’s vision was more down-scaled than Pollard’s, but he kept Pollard’s idea of constructing the building in the style of Greek Revival. It was finally completed three years later. The building was named Brooklyn Borough Hall in 1898, before Brooklyn became one of the five boroughs of New York City.A movement to have the building demolished in the 1930s failed and the building was was designated as a landmark in 1966 and later added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
For the second time, this location is used for a Marvel Studios product. The first time was in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film, this time, the Rockefeller Gardens in Midtown is used for a conversation between two of New York City’s toughest crime bosses: Fisk and the mysterious Madame Gao. It is a location that people who have lived here for years have no idea exist. It’s one of the best kept secrets in New York City and is used mostly for weddings and events, not for meetings between heroes and villains.
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Barry Wetcher/Netflix
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Barry Wetcher/NetflixWhen Foggy learns of Matt’s identity as “The Man in The Mask,” their duo’s friendship is tested. The episode “Nelson vs Murdock” shows the history of the two “Avocados at Law”, before Matt was beating on every thug in Hell’s Kitchen and before Foggy realized that punjabi was a class he should never had taken.
The scene where the two friends and residents of Hell’s Kitchen have a drunken heart-to-heart was shot in Brooklyn College in Flatbush, right outside the Laguardia Hall Library. The college in known for its campus, which was awarded the most beautiful by The Princeton Review in 2003. Its alumni include actor Michael Rappaport, CNN anchor Don Lemon and DC Comics Co-publisher Dan Didio.
For most of the series, we don’t know where Wilson Fisk lives. In episode 8 “Shadows in The Glass” we are given (in a style that reminded us of American Psycho) access to Fisk’s luxurious apartment. A few episodes later, do we get the establishing shot of the building, called The Yves, which is on 7th Avenue and 18th Street, in Chelsea.
While we can’t be certain that the interior shots of Fisk making himself breakfast every morning are inside the building. However, looking at these photos of one of the larger condos, it could be speculated that they did. The apartment, along with the building, goes along with Fisk’s character. The crime boss is used here as a symbol of gentrification. We know how that sounds, especially when mentioning the G-word. However the subtext is there, in the actions and conversations Fisk has with his partners.
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Barry Wetcher/NetflixThe favorite Hell’s Kitchen watering hole for Murdock and Nelson. The bar, run by the eponymous Josie is shown many times throughout this series, for drinks of celebration and mourning. It is here where Foggy and Karen Page “drink the eel” and like most places in Daredevil, is actually in Brooklyn.
The bar is actually the Turkey’s Nest, a dive bar in Williamsburg just off McCarren Park. For 35 years, the people at the Turkey’s Nest have been serving beer and $7 margaritas on 94 Bedford Park (and booze to go in styrofoam cups). It’s a place that doesn’t fit into what people normally think when they think Williamsburg and that is one of the better reasons why the bar has such a good reputation among bar hoppers.
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Barry Wetcher/NetflixMatt and Foggy got internships working for big time law firm in lower Manhattan. They hated it, but they were set to make a lot of money working there. However, Matt Murdock didn’t get into law to make money, he did so to help people so he convinced Foggy to leave behind a sweet paying gig and struggle it out with him and set up a neighborhood law office. The place is a little shabby and the Wi-Fi goes out on them from time to time but it’s home. And, it’s also filmed in Williamsburg, 363 S 4th Street to be exact.
Wilson Fisk has been outed. He is no longer viewed as the generous philanthropist whose charity will benefit New York City, but as a ruthless and cunning criminal. As he and all of his associates are rounded up, it seems that he has no place to go but to prison. However, always the strategist, Fisk has a plan for even this occasion, as the armored car that is suppose to carry him off to be incarcerated is ambushed by a group of highly armed men. This shoot-out between Fisk’s men and the NYPD takes place at the Honeywell Bridge in Long Island City. Above Sunnyside Yards, it’s a favorite place among railroad enthusiasts, and appeared in another popular show shot in New York City: The Blacklist.
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Barry Wetcher/NetflixKaren Page has taken drastic measures in her war to oust Wilson Fisk. One of those measure is to manipulate one of her only allies, reporter Ben Urlich. The two of them have one of their last conversations of the season, discussing the ruse, the revelation of that ruse, and what to do now that they have that information. They have this talk overlooking Manhattan on the Greenpoint docks.
Season two opens with a bang, literally, with a group robbery and shooting. The perpetrators run along Broadway and pass the Metro Theater between 99th and 100th Street. The Midtown Theater was completed in 1933 and designed in the Art Deco style. In 1982, the theater was taken over by Daniel Talbot and renamed the Metro Theater (the name that still adorns the marquee) but showed its last movie in 2005. It was also a pornography theater at one point in its lifetime.
During a renovation, the interior of the theater was gutted. The theater currently remains an empty shell of what it once was but will become a Planet Fitness.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
Daredevil breaks up a gun deal between Turk and some thugs, which is filmed on the near the parking garage on the eastern side of Roosevelt Island. You can see the Roosevelt Island Bridge in the background, and across the river is Queens.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
In the second episode, the man who becomes known as The Punisher, aka Frank Castle, visits a pawn shop. The location of this shop is actually on 14th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue, filmed at the 14th Street Digital Corp. electronics shop. It’s one of those places that also buys and sells jewelry, peddles luggage and other random stuff. When the pawnbroker offers The Punisher underage girls, he goes after him (and presumably kills him).
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
The trap for The Punisher, a sting coordinated by District Attorney Reyes, who tricks the less-than convinced Grotto, takes place at the Getty Fuel Terminal in Greenpoint. This is a super popular film location that comes up in nearly every crime show in New York City, and there’s even a film studio on the property called Broadway Stages. Later in the scene, Daredevil and The Punisher fight on the roof, with The Punisher taking Daredevil hostage.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
The Punisher takes Daredevil hostage and chains him to a rooftop in Long Island City at the intersection of 43rd Avenue and 22nd Street, near Silvercup Studios. This is also the same warehouse where the final battle scene between Daredevil/Elektra and the Hand take place. In the final episode, when the hostages are taken out of the building, an alley that runs east west between 21st and 22nd Street is used for the filming.
This warehouse rooftop is also used in the Marvel series Jessica Jones and in Mr. Robot. In real life, the building houses art studios and other businesses.
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Barry Wetcher/NetflixThe interior of Matt’s apartment is most likely filmed on a set, but the exteriors are cobbled together from multiple locations. When Alexa stands atop his apartment in the last episode, the Neoclassical building across the way with the former police building on Centre Street in Soho. This building was converted into condos in 1998.
Karen Page tracks down a fired employee of Metro General who worked in the hospital when The Punisher was taken in after the he and his family were shot at the carousel. They talk on Newtown Creek, the industrial estuary between Queens and Brooklyn. The Citigroup Building is again in the background.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
The Central Park Carousel scenes where Frank Castle/The Punisher goes to, are actually filmed at the Forest Park Carousel in Queens, a landmarked carousel. The figures were made between 1903 and 1910 by D. C. Muller & Brother, a firm noted for their “expressive anatomical detail and unusual attention to military fittings,” contends the landmark designation report. This is not the original carousel in Forest Park, of which little is known, but the current carousel built by D.C. Muller was relocated here from Lakeview Park, Massachusetts.
Also, if you’re curious where Frank Castle’s old home is – it’s filmed in Bayside, Queens.
After The Punisher is taken from the carousel, he’s held inside the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery next to Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The bucolic cemetery has an elevated view of Manhattan and has beautiful mausoleums, lakes, and catacombs. Buried in this cemetery include notable people like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Bernstein, and Horace Greeley. Later in the scene, Daredevil extracts The Punisher and takes him to the cemetery grounds itself, where they are met by the Brett and the NYPD.
Karen Page and Matt Murdock finally go on a date, and they go to the Bangladeshi-Indian restaurant Milon in the East Village with over-the-top colorful lights. It’s part of three restaurants with similar decor between 5th and 6th Street. The others are named Panna II and Royal Bangladeshi.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
Frank Castle’s trial takes place, both on the exterior and the interior, at the Bronx County Courthouse. This is one of the architectural gems along the Grand Concourse, built in the Art Moderne style. When it opened in 1934, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia officially transferred the seat of the municipal government from City Hall to the new courthouse for three days. There are also notable WPA murals inside.
The Yakuza who are after Elektra speed down Fifth Avenue on their bikes and end up on 29th Street and stop at the Sky House apartments at 11 East 29th Street. We know from flashbacks that Elektra was placed in a very wealthy family by Stick, who wants her to learn the cultivated arts. It seems that she has inherited quite a bit of property and money as a result. The actual apartment the scene takes place in is not located in this building, but the penthouse of Sky House has an insane 80-foot silver slide inside. A big fight commences, with Elektra and Daredevil coming out on top, of course.
Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Elektra and Matt go for a chat, food and coffee at the Square Diner, located on a funny triangular plot on the corner of Varick Street and Leonard Street in Tribeca. They banter, try to figure out why the Yakuza is after her, and her investigations of the Roxxon Corporation. Matt tries to get Elektra to leave New York City but she manages to get him to agree to help access secrets at Roxxon.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
Information from the coded notebook found at the Roxxon Corporation leads Elektra and Daredevil to the “Bay Street Railyard,” which is actually a wheelspur rail yard in Long Island City, a recently reopened freight transfer station. Just north of Newtown Creek, this rail spur has been at times a rail yard, a poultry market, even an office. These days its back to being a rail yard, and you can read more about this spot on the website of of our contributor’s, LTV Squad. Here, Elektra and Daredevil fight the Yakuza yet again.
When Karen gets police protection, they put her up in the Hotel Travel Inn, a motel that is actually located in Hell’s Kitchen on 42nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. Being Karen, she doesn’t stay put for even a second and sneaks out through the garage into the car of Frank Castle, who then uses her as bate to lure in some more people who want to kill him.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
Like the Greenpoint Getty Terminal, no crime show is complete without a scene at the Brooklyn Navy Yard either. The boat explosion, where Karen and the police think Castle went up in flames, takes place on the docks. The explosion happens at night but the NYPD and Karen are still there at daylight.
The tunnel in the second to last episode of season two is actually Fort Totten, a military installation in Queens, and also tunnels inside Baley Seton Hospital on Staten Island. Daredevil fights through the ninjas of the Hand to get back his mentor Stick, and later in the episode it’s revealed that Elektra is actually the mythical Black Sky, the weapon the Hand has been looking for. Elektra doesn’t know about this until now as well, because Stick has been hiding this information from her.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
Elektra is killed on the roof of the warehouse and is buried at Cavalry Cemetery, another popular film locations. Its sheer size, with the largest number of burials in the United States at around 3 million, is impressive on screen. The original grounds were purchased by trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (the one on Mulberry Street) and Calvary opened in 1848, just after the 1847 Rural Cemetery Act was passed, prohibiting the establishment of any new burial grounds on the island of Manhattan.
As we discover as the show concludes, Elektra is disinterred from her spot and put into the tomb that previously held Nobu so she can undergo the process to make her immortal.
Photo: Nicole Rivelli/Netflix
“Clinton Church,” the Catholic church where Daredevil is convalescing in the third season is actually The Parish of Calvary ~ St. George’s on Park Avenue between 21st and 22nd Street, an Episcopal church. The church traces its history back to the pre-Revolutionary era when Trinity Church established the Chapel of St. George’s. The church has moved several times, and the Gramercy Park site, where it stands today is a combination of two other parishes Church of the Holy Communion, now the Limelight marketplace), and Calvary Church, the church Edith Wharton used as an inspiration in her book The Age of Innocence.
The interior scenes in the crypt appear to be a set but the exterior flyover shot, and the interior sanctuary are filmed at the church. The church cross, which Daredevil is holding on to, was likely attached to the apartment building behind for the shoot.
Indian-American FBI Special Agent, Ray Nadeem, works at the FBI Bureau which is shown to be in Long Island City, just near the Citibank building. The building exterior and the elevator scene is filmed inside CUNY School of Law.
Next, check out the NYC film locations for Jessica Jones and Gotham. All screencaps courtesy of Marvel Studios and Netflix.
He needs someone to find the one gray suit in his giant closet filled with black suits. To help him find it, contact the author @ChrisLInoa. Season two film locations written by @untappedmich, with contribution from @LTVSquad.
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