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Jessica Jones, the second Netflix series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, premiered on the streaming service a few weeks ago to great acclaim. Like Daredevil, the first Marvel Netflix series, whose film locations we covered earlier this year, Jessica Jones takes place in New York City. After devouring all 13 episodes and researching everything from where Jessica lives, including her favorite neighborhood bar, we picked out our favorite NYC film locations for Marvel’s Jessica Jones.
In the opening of season two, Jessica Jones is doing some P.I. work for a pizza store owner who suspects that her boyfriend, the pizza delivery guy who she’s about to make manager, is cheating on her. That pizza joint is Pomodoro Ristorante & Pizzeria, located in Nolita at 51 Spring Street on the corner of Spring and Mulberry streets. The grub spot has been in this location since 1985.
Things go a little awry when the woman asks Jessica to kill the boyfriend and Jessica’s buttons are pushed.
Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Jeri Hogarth gets an award from a Women in Law association and the ceremony takes places at The Pierre Hotel’s Cotillion Ballroom. The venue has Central Park views, two chandeliers and marble railings. With a capacity of 500, it’s not the largest of the ballrooms at The Pierre – the Grand Ballroom fits 1500.
The Pierre Hotel opened in 1930 and is now run by the Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces. Another famous location within the hotel is the rotunda, with its painted murals and grand staircase. In 2016, it was re-opened after a restoration.
Jessica has a new nemesis who arrives in her Hell’s Kitchen firm to announce he wants to take it over. Jessica is wary and does what she does best – investigates him. Up above Sixth Avenue, she observes him in his office, which is located at 120 West 45th Street in Midtown. From there, she can see the pyramidal top of buildings like 114 West 47th Street and the News Corporation Building.
Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Trish and her boyfriend Griffin head to a fundraiser at the Plaza Hotel, but en route visit Jessica after she’s sentenced to probation and anger management after beating up Pryce in his office.
Jessica Jones is seen crossing the Queensboro Bridge in a yellow cab en route to the Long Island suburbs to visit the gated and guarded home of Dr. Koslov, who had experimented on her as a child, only to find he had just died on a “freak accident” car crash ands he’s walked right into his wake “A lot of going around these days,” says Jessica, who has just witnessed the death of a fellow superpower person who sought her help.
Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Trish and Griffin are shown having lunch on the outdoor terrace at Orsay Restaurant, located at 1057 Lexington Avenue at 75th Street. Trish is actually there to meet her mom because she wants the number of a Max. Orsay was also a film location in Homeland. At the end of the scene, we see that Will Simpson has been observing Trish from a car, amped up on drugs.
Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Trish goes to confront Maximilian Tatum, the director that had a sexual relationship with her when she was a child actress, while he’s on set for a film up in Manhattanville right next to where Columbia University’s new campus is located. Just nearby is the 125th Street viaduct, a popular film location seen in Gotham, Ray Donovan, and more.
Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
The scene at the aquarium, where Jones finds Dr. Karl Malus and the woman who turns out to be her mother, is actually filmed at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden‘s 99 Washington Street entrance. Malus smashes a glass aquarium in order to escape Jones, who has spotted them.
Our eponymous heroine, played by Krysten Ritter, is a hard-drinking, foul mouthed, private investigator. She handles everything from catching cheating spouses with their pants down, to serving subpoenas to those avoiding appearing in court. She gets results, not only because she’s smart, but because she doesn’t really have to worry about people trying to intimidate her physically.
One of the first examples of Jones at work happens in the Meatpacking District between Washington Street and Little 12th Street, after she follows Gregory Spheeris from Soho House. When someone thinks he can just speed away from Jessica, she just lifts up the car, with her bare hands. After threatening him with her laser vision (total bluff), he takes the subpoena and Jessica ensures herself another paycheck.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
Jones spends most of her money and her time on alcohol, enough to put the entire Mad Men cast to shame. While Jessica’s spot of choice to consume alcohol is her work/office, she does go to one bar, with perhaps the strongest bartender in New York City. Luke Cage (Mike Colter), is like Jones, someone who has special powers. Cage has unbreakable skin. The two also share something in common: they’re both recovering from traumatic experiences in their past. Naturally, the two very attractive people hook up, with their first encounter happening inside of Cage’s bar.
The bar, which is the cleanest dive bar in the city according to Jones, is supposed to be set in Hell’s Kitchen. However, if you ever want to grab a drink in the real location, in the hopes you meet the smoothest bartender in the city, you will have to go to the East Village. It’s Vazac’s, also known as the Horseshoe Bar, on the corner of Avenue B and E 7th Street along Tompkins Square Park. If it looks familiar to you, it’s because it has been featured on many famous TV shows and movies, including The Godfather II.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
In her efforts to track down Hope, Jessica goes to the Japanese restaurant Niku on Elizabeth Street in Nolita, next to the cocktail bar The Daily. In the show, it was previously the restaurant Il Rosso when Kilgrave brought Jessica to on their anniversary date, and when Jessica finds out Hope’s boyfriend took her to the same table and ordered a pasta dish, she knows something is up. Also notably, this film location is across the street from the fabulous Elizabeth Street Garden, site of artwork by JR and many unique statues.
In a flashback, we see Kilgrave get hit by an overturned, sliding MTA bus on 39th Street just near the entrance ramps to the Lincoln Tunnel. Going back to the site, Jessica stops by the auto repair shop, a Goodyear Tire & Auto Center in real life, and then heads to the nearest hospital, posed as nurse, to see how Kilgrave could have gone from dead to back to the living.
On another transit note, the shots of Jessica on the E train going from Port Authority to 50th Street, when she breaks the glass due to a flashback about Kilgrave, area actually filmed on a PATH train. You’ll recognize it from the blue seats, instead of the various styles of MTA trains.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
Jessica’s best friend Trish is a radio show host. She agrees to do a live segment with Hope, from jail, on the request of the lawyer Jessica does freelance works for. This puts Trish at risk with Kilgrave, who sends an NYPD officer (Simpson) to Trish’s apartment to kill her. Jessica saves Trish just in time, the officer tells Jessica her time is not up yet with Kilgrave. Jessica trails the officer out of the apartment down West Broadway, where we learn that Trish’s apartment is located in Tribeca.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
While Jessica trails the The NYPD officer, he heads into a building at 144 Duane Street in Tribeca, and they actually film in the lobby of the real building and in the penthouse, which was the most expensive apartment sold in Manhattan in 2013 (at $43 million). This turns out to be where Kilgrave is hiding out, with a rooftop view of the Woolworth Building and Municipal Building. He commands the NYPD officer to jump off the balcony, but Jessica saves him. When Kilgrave calls out to Jessica, we see her flashback showing that Kilgrave had commanded her to kill a woman just before the bus crash, who was Luke’s wife. The plot thickens…
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
Someone has been following Jessica Jones. That’s scary enough on its own, however, whoever it is, they have no choice. The reason they have no choice is because they have come face-to-face with Kilgrave (they make fun of the name, so we don’t have to). Imagine the worst ex you’ve ever dealt with, now imagine them with a super classy wardrobe and the ability to make people do whatever he says, that’s Kilgrave. Jones was once under his influence and believed he was dead. Well he isn’t and he wants Jessica back. So he does what any weird ex-boyfriend would do and stalks her. Not personally of course, he forces other people to do his dirty work for him.
When Jessica first encounters Kilgrave for the first time since their separation, she finds a room in his sapartment filled with pictures, all of her. Being the investigator that she is, she looks for clues by going to the locations where Kilgrave forced people to snap photos of her. In this shot, early into her investigation, Jessica goes to one of the Bryant Park B/D/F/M/7 subway entrances in Midtown. Conveniently for filming, this is super close to Hograth’s law office, which is located inside the Bank of America building along Bryant Park.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
Jones, through some help from a guilt-filled police officer, finds out who has been stalking her for Kilgrave. It’s someone she never expected. Now with a lead on how to find Kilgrave, she begins to stalk her stalker. She follows him everyday, at 10am, to Union Square Park, where the stalker gives new photos to Kilgrave.
Union Square Park, where you can see everything from skateboarders, to chess players, to protestors, has been standing in the middle of Union Square since 1893. It has statues of George Washington, Mohandas Gandhi and “America’s favorite fighting Frenchman” Marquis de Lafayette, and lately a pop-up piece.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
Wonder if Kilgrave, waiting for those pictures, tried to mind control anybody to tell him what those numbers in Union Square mean. You don’t need mind control powers to figure that out, we found that out for you.
Trish and Simpson sign up to help kidnap Killgrave, and Simpson shows Trish the getaway van in Greenpoint. You can see the digester eggs of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in the background.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
Luke and Jess follow a courier from the pharmaceutical facility to what turns out to be a weed growing facility. This is filmed in the former Allied Extruder Factory in Long Island City, next to the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. In the exterior shots, you can see the edges of Cavalry Cemetery.
After getting information that his wife Reva was supposedly killed by a drunk MTA bus driver, Luke goes to attack him at the end of his M57 route. This scene takes place just near the Queensboro Bridge, on the Queens side.
Atop the Manhattan Bridge. Photo by __macgyver
Jones believes there is only one way to truly rid herself of Kilgrave and avoid getting controlled by him again. That is doing something so extreme, the authorities have no choice but to put her in a supermax prison. Before she goes along with her plan, she wants to say goodbye to New York City. She does this, by climbing to the top of the Manhattan Bridge, which connects Lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn.
A favorite spot for the city’s urban explorers, the Manhattan Bridge has been taking people across the East River for over a century. An anonymous urban explorer pointed out to us that the production team of Jessica Jones took some liberties with the bridge’s appearance on screen. “There’s no little balcony. If you get too close to the edge, you fall off and die, end of story.”
Care to know more about the Manhattan Bridge? Check out our story on 10 of the bridge’s secrets.
Malcolm ditches his neighbor Ruben’s body (forced to commit suicide by Kilgrave in Jessica’s bed) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Jess meets him there, jumps in the water, and (off-screen) decapitates the head to bring into the police station, so that she can get put into supermax.
Kilgrave has left quite a number of people traumatized after dealing with him. A group of them have come together to support. Jones, not exactly being a people person, doesn’t really bother with the group therapy thing. That is until she discovers that one of the members of the support group knows Kilgrave better than anyone. To get information from this person, she comes to one of their meetings, which takes place inside Court Square Diner, a 24 hour spot in Long Island City across the former 5 Pointz.
Jones and Cage are on the hunt for Kilgrave. They follow someone they believe is under his control. They follow the man to the beautiful Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, located inside Central Park. Referenced in literature, showcased on TV and Film, it’s certainly still holds its visual power.
Viewed as the heart of Central Park., the sandstone carvings inside the lower level of the Terrace feature designs to represent the four seasons. The fountain, which has an eight foot tall bronzed angel featured on top, was designed by Emma Stebbins, the first woman to receive an arts commission from New York City.
Inside the Angel Orensantz Center
Like the true villain that he is, Kilgrave not only knew that Jones and Cage were looking for him, he had Cage under control to keep tabs on Jones for him. Now even stronger, Kilgrave tries to once again put Jessica under his control, when that doesn’t work, he orders Cage to kill her. The result is a fight between two super-powered lovers that makes your holidays look trivial by comparison.
The showdown between New York City’s strongest private investigator and NYC’s strongest bartender takes place inside the Angel Orensanz Center. Located on 172 Norfolk Ave., the former synagogue turned art-space has been home to art openings, weddings, private parties and more since 1992.
Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Like any good private investigator, Jessica Jones has her own office. Like so many people in 2015, her office is also her apartment. It’s where she works, sleeps and drinks (mostly drinks), when she’s not out trying to rid the world of mind controlling men. Her self-run private investigating business is called Alias Investigations. You could have seen the sign with the name of her business, but the sign is broken. Other signs don’t last too long, especially since Jones has a habit of throwing someone through the window.At a certain point in the latter half of the season, Jones tells someone that her office/apartment is located on 485 W. 48th St. in Hell’s Kitchen. Actually, if you ever want to stop by and say hello to Jessica Jones, you can’t, because this is a set. However, if you would like to see the actual building where they filmed the exterior shots, you will have to head uptown. The building where Alias Investigation is located, is on 217 W. 101st Street.
Photo: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
When filming in New York City and in need of some warehouse-y looking film locales, one need look no further than places like Industry City, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn (and places like Brooklyn Navy Yard and Brooklyn Army Terminal. Industry City is where Jessica keeps Kilgrave hostage (at least for exterior shots). She puts him in a soundproof room, where she tortures him so he can confess, on camera, that he uses his powers to get other people to commit murder. In real life, you can find a distillery, food purveyors, an architecture archive, a gallery, even a Design within Reach outlet inside Industry City.
If you haven’t already, you should check out our NYC Locations for Daredevil, Master of None, and Orange is the New Black, as well as our other Film Locations posts. If anyone has any information on where Kilgrave gets his wardrobe, contact the author on twitter @ChrisLInoa.
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