New York, You've Changed: Taxi Driver (Part 1)

"New York, You've Changed" is a new Scouting NY site feature in which the New York depicted in movies is compared with the city of today. This is not the usual list of shooting locations and addresses to visit next time you tour the city. Instead, this is a full shot-by-shot dissection to see what New York once was and what it has become, for better or worse. I've tried to recreate the angles and framing as best as possible, and have presented the shots (more or less) in the order they appear in the film.

If locations were billed alongside actors, Robert DeNiro would share co-starring credits on Taxi Driver with New York City.

The character of Travis Bickle is utterly co-dependent with the New York of 1976, a spawn of all that New York had become at the time. Without the tough, dangerous, smut-filled, immoral, seedy, dank, sweaty, filthy, gritty streets of that world, Bickle could not exist.

That world has vanished. Travis Bickle is dead.

Finding the locations used in Taxi Driver turned out to be incredibly difficult, largely because the film documents a side of the city that has since been demolished, rebuilt, renovated, spit-shined, and stamped with a seal of approval. Literally, entire blocks that appear in the movie have been leveled since 1976, and only the brief appearance of a building number or street sign gives any clue to the actual location.

The movie begins with a blurry, surreal trip through Times Square and the surrounding blocks. Though the footage is too distorted to be sure of any locations, I'd love to know where that Modell's is (6th Ave?).

The film opens with Travis Bickle heading to a cabstand on 57th Street to get a job.

In the background of the first shot, the now defunct West Side Elevated Highway is visible.  The elevated highway was shutdown in 1973 due to neglect and deterioration (a dump truck collapsing through a portion near 14th Street sealed its fate). The highway was later dismantled and replaced by the mostly ground-level West Side Highway (though some of the old elevated portions remain north of 57th St). The building on the river is gone - anyone know what it is (maybe an old marine terminal)?  Note the view of New Jersey in the background; many of those same houses and buildings still exist.

The building on the left in this next still has been torn down; a glass-and-steel highrise is currently going up in its place.

Sadly, the cab stand and surrounding buildings have all been demolished - I'm guessing another glass-and-steel apartment building will also be going up on this spot soon.

Before we continue, a quick look around 57th Street to see what still remains from the Taxi Driver days:

This building on the corner is one of the few remaining structures that was around in 1976. Founded in 1897, Artkraft Strauss was a sign manufacturer famous for creating Times Square's most iconic neon displays, including the smoking camel, the Bond sign, and the Morgan Stanley ticker. Artkraft Strauss was also responsible for creating and maintaining the National Debt Clock on 34th Street.

In 2006, Artkraft Strauss closed its manufacturing arm to focus on consulting.

I'm willing to bet this garage sign has been around since '76.

Finally, I'm not 100% sure about Jamie's Foreign Car Service, but that font seems pretty dated...and when was the last time you saw a sign in Manhattan advertising repair work on "Japanese Cars"?

Back to the film. Now equipped with a cab, Travis begins making the rounds (he seems to prefer the Times Square beat). For a brief moment, you get a glimpse out the rear window of the cab:

Bond Clothing, on the right in the Taxi Driver still, was once one of the most memorable buildings in Times Square. Famous for advertising "two-trouser suits," the original building featured two 50-foot  statues of a man and a woman...

...and a 50,000 gallon "waterfall" sign behind the main logo, spanning 120 feet at over 27 feet high. Note the sign declaring that "every hour, 3,490 people buy at Bond" (very exact!). Sadly, the Bond store went through many renovations, and closed their Times Square location in 1977 (a year after the filming of Taxi Driver). A new restaurant using the Bond name has opened on 45th Street.

As Travis is driving along, you get a few very quick glimpses at some long gone Times Square establishments. This eatery (location unknown), offers 2 eggs and extras for the bargain price of 90 cents.

A small market (location also unknown) offers cigarettes for 45-50 cents.

Next, we get the iconic shot of Travis walking down 8th Ave south of 47th Street to go to a porno movie.

Yup, a Duane Reader on the corner, a Hilton across the street, and the porn theater is now a Gray Line bus company ticket center (I have to admit, there is something satisfying about the thought of tourists buying NY sightseeing tickets there, totally clueless to the building's questionable past). Marquee comparisons:

Travis goes the Show & Tell theater at 737 8th Ave between 46th & 47th (DeNiro met his first wife, actress Dihanne Abbot, during the interior filming - she played the porno theater's concession stand girl). There are two possibilities for the current 737 8th Ave, and neither are very rewarding:

A vacant lot midway up the block...

...or a strip of shuttered former porn video stores on the south corner. Either way, the Show & Tell is gone (though wouldn't this be the perfect place for another glass-and-steel apartment building??).

After, we get a couple of totally random shots of New York, including this one on 7th Ave at  33rd Street, with the Empire State building in the background.

Coney Island Pizza on the left is now a Sbarro's. The restaurant on the right is long gone. The building midway down the block is now the Old Navy flagship store. I miss NY's old yellow street signs. But at least we have a new JC Penney's!

The movie then takes us uptown to the Charles Palantine campaign headquarters at the corner of 63rd St & Broadway, where Travis meets love interest Betsy. The building is completely gone, replaced by an ugly apartment highrise:

Oddly, the "Locations Then-And-Now" featurette on the Taxi Driver Special Edition DVD incorrectly identifies this building at 62nd & Broadway as the campaign office, which I originally posted about:

Luckily, alert SNY reader David pointed out the mistake. Last time I'll trust a DVD featurette...

Today, the doors that once brought you into Palantine's campaign office now take you into a Bank of America.

The stoop Travis sits on is gone (oops - according to alert reader Alex, that's actually Scorsese and not DeNiro):

Betsy exiting the building:

After Travis gets Betsy to agree to a coffee date, he's back on his beat in Times Square. Here, we get a POV shot as Travis pulls over on the west side of 7th Ave btw. 42nd & 43rd streets. Things have changed a bit:

The theater playing Anita Nymphet is the old Rialto Theater, sadly torn down in 1998 to make way for the glass-and-steel Reuters building - check out an interesting comparison between buildings here. Playland is gone, of course.

And, on the corner, you get a look at former New York City-based fast food chain Nedicks, once famous for its orange drinks. The big arrow points to a Kentucky Fried Chicken, now gone (you can see part of the white sign).

Depressed? Don't be - it only gets worse! Check out Part 2, coming Wednesday! And, if you've made it this far, think about subscribing to our RSS feed or Twitter account (if you're not already) for future updates!

-SCOUT

Follow Nick Carr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nycscout

Comments

[WTB]

As to your question about Modells, I'm pretty sure it was on the north side of 42nd Street between Broadway and 8th, next to the old Harem Theatre.

[NYC07]

As a native born still living here New Yorker I can say that the city has had it heart and soul ripped out. What once was unique and quirky about the city is long gone replaced by tacky, vulgar and the not at all “User friendly”.

[telebob59]

As a small-town boy from western PA who only first set foot in Manhattan circa 1990, this is fascinating stuff. Living in the old Borscht Belt region of the Catskills as I have for the better part of the past 22 years, I admittedly don't get into the city nearly often enough, although I do recognize the 57th St. Garage neon sign from having exited the West Side highway there (BTW, nice 1980s Jag entering the repair shop across the street!). The changes in Times Square are particularly striking. In my studies of the Beat Generation writers, that locale, as it existed throughout the 1940s was of prime importance. Apparently the changes were not limited to the physical appearances of the place as something of a 'carnival' atmosphere was combined with other, seedier aspects back then. Oh, the enormity of Gotham! Can't wait for part 2!

[maxfolger]

Thanks for this article! I'm obsessed with NYC in the 70s and always scouting for its "remains." What a relief to know that I'm not the only one!

[LLNYRN]

I was in Portland, Oregon a few months ago (I lived there from '90-'03). One of my friends rented the original "THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1,2,3".

Being the 46-year old New Yorker in the group, I was asked about all those 70s locales non-stop. I was told by the younger set in this group, that there has been this extreme fascination with 60s through early 80s NYC in recent years. Mostly 70s is the interest.

I also miss those days.
Yeah. We had major crime, drugs, arson, told to "DROP DEAD",etc.
But for those of us that lived through those times,
You can't deny that the city had a major character that has been so lost in recent years.

I'm reading a biography on the artist Jean-Micheal Basquiat now.
And all those times of hanging out on the Lower East Side and Times Square are so coming back to life via this book. Except I never did the sex and drugs. LOL

Nick,
Your article was introspective, retrospective, and FUN to read!
Thanks.

[The Albany Kid]

It's a crying shame how much NYC has changed! I'm not from NYC (as my name suggests), but I spent a lot of time hanging out in Midtown Manhattan from the mid 80s to the mid-90s. For a young man, Midtown (while dangerous, as suggested by the guys who used to sleep in the PA men's room) was a real playground! Young males hanging out in NYC today barely have a clue as to what they missed.

[mv girl]

I lived in NYC from 1976-1988, I still remember the early years as being the best. I'm so glad I was there then because you're right, it's dreadful now. I took my teenagers in to show them around, not knowing the city had become a Disney-fied version of old NYC. I took them for a ride on the Circle Line and felt like Rip Van Winkle, screaming to the guide "what happened to Hoboken? where did it go?" Instead of telling the quaint and quirky stories I remember from Circle Lines past, he spent the bulk of the tour discussing where Sting and Madonna shop when they're in NYC, where celebrities live and how much they shelled out for their apartments.

[Nooneyouknow]

New York City eats itself, and it always has. There are books filled with photos and paintings of the buildings, monuments and neighborhoods that were ruthlessly torn down to be replaced.
When the city was first being built, it always moved uptown. The rich always lived in the swanky new neighborhoods that moved north from the city; as the city followed, the swanky neighborhoods became middle class, then working class, manufacturing areas, or slums, and the rich kept moving north.
Now there's no undeveloped land, so development finds neighborhoods where the poor can be pushed out and the infrastructure razed and rebuilt.
The Bowery was once an orchard. Then it bordered the Astor mansion. It became one of the city's great entertainment areas. Then it became part of the immigrant Lower East Side pockmarked with dives and brothels. Finally it was skid row.
Now it's being torn down and rebuilt with upscale hotels, boutiques and luxury apartment buildings.
In 50 years?

[elkabong]

Great movie and great post. Thanks, Nick!

[LMPE]

The worst part is when local restaurants get torn down and replaced with chains.

[curtis7676]

Much has changed in Los Angeles, but North Hollywood, hollywood, silverlake echo park, and many other places are exactly the same...the other day I watched Pee Wee Herman's Big adventure and he is riding his bike at north hollywood squirrel park near emelia earhardt library looks exactly the same!!! good article it is too bad new york has changed and not for the better I might add...we need the seedy underbelly to come back...if this economy keeps on like this it will revert...Ha!

[AnotherHuddy]

It's funny you should do this now, because I've found just the opposite with San Francisco. Very little has changed, in appearance or mood, from the 1970s.

[MomWithTwoHeads]

Maybe. But when's the last time you walked down Mission between 3rd and 5th? All of Mission Street past 2nd was a hellhole, the west coast Bowery, but now it's the Moscone Center and all those high rise hotels. In in the 22 years I've lived in the Mission District, especially the past 5 years, you can't recognize the neighborhood. Which is good. It was pretty sketchy 22 years ago. It's just perfect now, diverse, old school, new stuff. I love my Mission.

In Woody Allen's Take the Money And Run, they did lots of filming on Mission Street between 16th and 23rd. The bank robbery scenes, the marching band scenes. It's another world.

I love this post, though. Can't wait for Wednesday.

[OAKside]

Impressive work and great pictures, taking on one of the finest films of all-time. It's a shame that there's absolutely nothing left of 70's NYC! Totally unrecognizable, many shockingly so.

[Economike]

I find myself doing this on a much smaller scale in my neighborhood, Echo Park, Silverlake, CA. I recently watched the movie Cycle Savages (1967) starring Bruce Dern and then spent two weeks tracking down most of the locations which are still there in Echo Park.