Shot On Site - Taking The Scenic Route To The Museum

Well, how about that? Two Shot on Site articles in one year! It's about time I started picking up the pace. This was an easy one because the movie itself actual gives away half of the location! After getting out of the psychiatric hospital, the Ghostbusters rush to the museum to save baby Oscar from a rather weird form of child abuse at the hands of Prince Vigo. The only shot we see of them en route to the museum is this one, in which they pass by a corner delicatessen (hence why I dub this the "Ghostbusters II Deli Shot").


As the car makes the turn, it passes by a small building with some more stores.


The best thing about this shot is that a street sign is clearly visible.


That street sign tells us that the car is turning west on to E. 14th St. heading towards the Lincoln Tunnel, but what street is it turning off of? That's the other half of the puzzle. For the answer, I turned to the always awesome Google Maps' Street View. The first part of the shot has a very distinct white building with blue trim in the background. If I could find that building, it would help to do the identification. I figured that of all of the buildings in the shot, that one would, most likely, still be around today. I started by inputting "E. 14th St." into Google Maps and taking a virtual walk down the street, looking down the cross streets for that white and blue building. When I got to the corner of East 14th Street and 3rd Avenue, I found it.


It's a good thing that I was using the white and blue building as a landmark, because the deli next door (123 Third Ave.) was demolished sometime in the past 20 years. As evident by Google Maps' current June 2011 photography (the photo above was taken circa 2009), a very large and very ugly condominium is now in its place. The small building on the opposite corner (seen as Ecto-1A rounds the corner) is either in the process of being demolished or refurbished in Google Maps' current June 2011 photography.

As a humorous aside, it should be noted that the Ghostbusters were heading away from the museum's actual location, not towards it. The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House is at the southern tip of Manhattan island. In the deli shot, they were heading north down 3rd Avenue and turned west on to East 14th Street heading towards the Lincoln Tunnel. To better illustrate, see the map below. They were at Point A going exactly as the red line indicates; they were supposed to be heading towards Point B. Not only were they going completely opposite of the way to the museum, but they were quite a distance away, too! That's the last time we let Ray drive.

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For more information about Ghostbusters filming locations, be sure to check out the rest of Spook Central's Shot On Site articles, Spook Central's Filming Locations page, and Chris Stewart's Shot On Site articles. Thanks Chris for letting me use your awesome title. Title graphic drawn by Paul Kinsella.