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Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
The story about the Central Park Five, told in its latest rendition in Netflix’s When They See Us, from filmmaker Ava DuVernay, is as relevant today as 1989, when the real-life events unfolded. You have racial profiling, police brutality, an eager Donald Trump looking to make a splash in the media, a large gap between the haves and have nots in New York City, and the underpinnings of today’s movements like Black Lives Matter. Perhaps what has changed the most is the drastic “cleaning up” of the city that begin in the 1990s – from the subways, to the parks, to the streets.
When They See Us, a dramatic series follows Ken Burns’ documentary, The Central Park Five, and tells the story from the perspective of the five teenage boys – Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Raymond Santana, and Kevin Richardson – who were tried, wrongly convicted, and exonerated in 2002 when Matias Reyes, the real perpetrator of a brutal rape and beating of Trisha Meili, a 28-year old jogger in Central Park confessed and was tied to the crime through his DNA.
With the cleaning up of the city comes a particular challenge for filmmakers in terms of filming locations. How do you recreate a New York City that no longer exists but still remain true to the identity and soul of a neighborhood? It’s clear that capturing the essence of the experience the boys went through was critical to DuVernay, who filmed the entire four part series on location in New York City – a large part of it in Harlem – over the course of 66 days. The five now-grown men and their families were on set during filming to answer questions and be part of the process, according to an article in Vanity Fair.
Without further ado, here are the places shown and represented in When They See Us.
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
On the corner of Central Park North and 110th Street, two octagonal concrete towers dominant the northeast corner of Central Park. Built in 1975 as Mitchell-Lama housing as part of the Arthur A. Schomberg Plaza at Frawley Circle, the Heritage as the buildings are now called was planned as a mixed-income housing project.
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
The Heritage buildings appear in several scenes in When They See Us. In the pivotal opening sequence, when Ray is heading to Shareen’s party and his group comes across a larger crew, the combined group heads up to an elevated public terrace accessible from 111th Street. Later, we’re back here when we see Yusef, his mother and their reverend get out of the car to return home after making bail and are accosted by reporters. One asks if they have any response to Donald Trump calling for the death penalty as he did in the four pages of ads he took out in four New York newspapers at a cost of $85,000. And in the last episode, a press conference takes place on the plaza with the five grown men.
The General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen is the second oldest library in New York City and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It appears in a scene where Linda Fairstein, then head of the Sex Crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office meets prosector Elizabeth Lederer (who still works at DA’s office to this day) to convince her to prosecute the case.
Lederer points out the contradiction in the confessions and the lack of physical evidence. Linda says they just need “one of these little shits to tie this whole thing together,” which turns out to be Korey Wise, who was not on the list of suspects rounded up by the NYPD eventually but went down to the police station to support Salaam when he was taken in. Because he was already 16, compared to the others who were 14 and 15, he was tried as an adult and served the longest sentence of the five. It would be Wise who would encounter Matias Reyes first at Rikers Island, and then at the Auburn Correctional Facility – leading to the eventual reversal of all the convictions for the five men.
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
Central Park is obviously a key location in the original story, along with various locations in the park as the detectives try to desperately make sense of the contradictory geographical locations each of the boys give, compared to the actual scene of the crime. The scenes are actually filmed in the park, and early in the first episode, you see Kevin Richardson, the 14- year old promising trumpet player, enter the park in the hopes to be able to hang with the kids. As he approaches the Gothic Bridge, made of cast-iron near 94th Street, he sees the altercation and punch that sets the whole story in motion.
Other scenes are shot near the 110th Street entrance (such as the image above, where you can also see the Heritage towers in the distance) and where Trisha Meili enters the park jogging. Meili testified that she usually entered Central Park near the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
The five boys are interrogated by detectives at the 24th Precinct in Harlem, located on W. 100th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus. Exterior-wise, the location scouts did a good job of selecting a building that has the general architectural feel of the actual precinct, which has a kind-of mid-century feel. The silver lettering that says 24TH PRECINCT and the address is also recreated on the building selected for filming .
The actual 24th Precinct in Harlem
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
The trials, which incited passionate protestors on both sides, actually took place at the New York Supreme Court which handles felony cases, in Foley Square. The exterior is not depicted in the show but many other buildings in the area are shown, including the Office of the City Clerk (where the Marriage Bureau is located) and the New York City Criminal Courts building. While the juveniles would have been held in juvenile detention centers, Wise was sent to Rikers Island while he awaited trial.
Later, Ray comes out of the Office of the City Clerk building after learning about the check-ins he will need to do for his conditional release and as a registered sex offender.
A cell inside the former Spofford Juvenile Detention Center
Ray and Antron are sent to Spofford Juvenile Detention Center, located in Hunts Point, Bronx which was closed down in 2011 and demolished last year to become The Peninsula, a new development of affordable housing, retail and commercial space, community facility space, light industrial activity, open/recreational space and a public plaza.
Ironically, though the creation of juvenile detention centers was intended to promote reform in youth offenders, the size, formality of institutionalization and inaccessible locations inhibited their success, a situation noted particularly at Spofford. In 2016, we were able to tour Spofford before it was demolished.
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
As a 16-year-old, Korey Wise is set to Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail facility between the Bronx and Queens. He meets Matias Reyes for the first time at Rikers. Following years of activism to move the 16-18 year old juveniles out of Rikers Island, the process was completed in October 2018. Which means had this policy been in place for Wise in 1999, he would not have had to endure the conditions in Rikers Island.
In 2010, Untapped Cities worked with the juvenile population at Rikers Island in a legal workshop over the course of several months, and we reported on the conditions inside the jail. A large percentage of those held in Rikers Island simply cannot afford bail – and have been known to stay from a few months to a few years awaiting trails.
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
While held in solitary confinement, Korey has a vision of him and his girlfriend out on Coney Island, walking the boardwalk, and taking in the rides. You can see the Wonder Wheel and other familiar Coney Island attractions in this sequence.
Watch When They See Us on Netflix.
Next, check out the NYC Filming Locations for Billions, which also features many locations in the criminal justice system.
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