12. Chang’s Backstory in NYC
Season three finally reveals the story of Chang, a character known in Orange Is the New Black to be nearly silent and rather surly, with the occasional quip. An immigrant from China, she gets matched to a Chinese man in America and is promptly rejected for being ugly. She goes to work in her brother’s store–likely in Chinatown– selling shady, illegal supplements to men. On a deal gone bad, a Korean man sells her brother’s partner ping pong balls painted to look like turtle eggs. The deal scene appears to be shot in an industrial lot somewhere in the Greenpoint/Newtown Creek area, with a view of the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, slightly north.
Chang kicks the ass of the Korean with a bat and the partner vows to do anything for her. Chang uses this to take revenge on the suitor who rejected her, who is brought in and beat up until Chang asks for his gallbladder to be cut out.
13. Utica Bus Station
In the 11th episode of the third season, inmate Angie Rice accidentally gets issued an early release, due to a computer system glitch as the prison goes under corporate management. She takes the opportunity and is dropped off at Utica Train Station with a bus ticket. Afraid to enter the real world, she hangs out at the bus station until Caputo finds her there.
The scene isn’t filmed at the actual Utica station, as the station there was built by the same architects as Grand Central Terminal–a grand Neoclassical station with a marble entrance hall. As shared by an Untapped Cities reader, in Orange is the New Black, the White Plains Transportation Center is the stand-in.
See more from our Film Locations column.