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Orange is the New Black based on the memoirs of Park Slope resident Piper Kerman, films mostly at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, just one floor above the Sesame Street set. The creation of the prison set as explained in this video are meant to shape the world of Litchfield, but the show also focuses on life outside of the prison, both in real time and in flashbacks. These are a few of the interesting locations they have put to use.
Photo: Barbara Nitke/Netflix
The show takes place in a fictional women’s prison in Litchfield, NY. There is a jail in Litchfield Connecticut, which was built in 1812. The inspiration for the jail in Orange is the New Black, however, is FCI Danbury in Connecticut. A minimum-security women’s prison when the show began, FCI Danbury no houses only men. Famous inmates of FCI Danbury include: Lauryn Hill, Sun Myung Moon, and Jean Therese Brown. See the next slide for the real location that stands in for Litchfield.
Many exterior scenes in Orange is the New Black are filmed at Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Hospital, a semi-abandoned asylum in Orangeburg, New York. The nearby Rockland Psychiatric Center (above) spans about 600 acres and once housed around 11,000 people. Opened in 1931, electroshock therapy and lobotomies were considered state-of-the-art treatments. The beautiful buildings were kept running by a working farm, a personal power plant, and industrial shops staffed by the patients. The scenes in Orange is the New Black is filmed outside a building built in the 1970s–see our photos of it here.
In a flashback to Red’s life in Russia, before she came to the United States, we see her working in a spindle factory. Her and a friend from work sit in the “courtyard” of the factory, which is actually the atrium of the Brooklyn Army Terminal by architect Cass Gilbert. The facility, which was active in the World Wars (and even saw the departure of Elvis during his military service), has been converted by the city into a manufacturing and office space.
This striking location was also previously featured in the show Gotham.
Aleida Diaz, the mother of Dayanara, who is still incarcerated in season five, is shown to be walking near the Associated grocery store in Astoria, at 38th Street and 31st Avenue, which is standing in for the Bronx. We know that many interior scenes in the show are filmed in the Kaufman-Astoria studios in Astoria, so many scenes in the show throughout the five seasons have taken place in this neighborhood.
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.
Photo by Jojo Whilden/Netflix
Judy King, newly released from Litchfield (and following her ordeal post release in the riot) goes on “The Review” with Meredith Vieira (a fictional pun on The View). She doesn’t expect that Aleida Diaz will join her on the segment. This is filmed inside Channel 13 WNET Studios at Lincoln Center. Crazy enough, we recognized this location because of the scene in the makeup room before the show segment begins – Untapped Cities founder Michelle Young has also filmed a television segment there for WNET and recognized it.
CO Bayley, wracked with guilt about his accidental killing of Poussey (which subsequently led to the riot) heads on a bus to spring a visit on Poussey’s father, who will have none of it. On the way back home, he is about to board on a bus from the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street in Manhattan but makes a last minute decision not to.
Photo: JoJo Whilden/Netflix
In the background of Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center there is a lake, which the inmates run to at the end of season three when they discover an opening in the fence. It appears the actual lake scene was likely filmed somewhere else in New York as the shoreline is less sandy and rocky than in the show, and surroundings less built up.
Rosario’s Deli on Ditmars in Astoria was converted into Dmitri’s Russian Market, which Red and her husband Dmitri own. It’s also the scene of many meetings with the mob bosses. Red initially serves them coffee, but later pushes out her husband to become a key member of the ring.
The second episode of the series is called “Tit Punch” featuring the memorable scene where Red punctures the fake boob of one of the mob wives as they’re walking through a park. With the backdrop of Hell Gate Bridge, this scene was filmed in Astoria Park not far from the Art Deco Astoria Park Pool.
The real-life Piper Chapman, Piper Kerman, is an actual resident of Park Slope, so many scenes with Larry have been filmed in the area. On October 30, 2013 the set was robbed of over $4000 worth of cables while filming at Grace United Methodist Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The church’s structure dates back to 1882, when it was built to house the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church of Brooklyn on the corner of St. John’s Place. Notable for its large window and corner tower, the church was once topped by a brownstone spire. The spire fell off during the Great Atlantic hurricane that hit New York in 1944.
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.
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.
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