I love being surprised by the city. Living in New York, you somehow adopt a jaded attitude that you’ve seen it all, which makes it even better when something unexpected comes along.
As I was going down Grove St today, I passed a bus load of tourists gawking at the apartment used in the sitcom Friends, located on the corner at Bedford Street. Nope, I’m too jaded to even look up. As I watched them snap thousands of pictures, I began thinking how much I like exploring the outer boroughs, because there’s just so much more of the unique and unexpected.
That’s when I saw something that surprised even me. What’s unusual about this picture?
See that break two houses from the right?
I’ve been down Grove Street a zillion times. I’ve filmed around the corner and held parking here. One of the offices frequently rented by NYC productions is a few blocks south. Yet I’ve never noticed Grove Court, neatly tucked away in the corner. You can’t even see it in Google Maps satellite view. It was built around 1850, a time when it was unthinkable to not have a home located directly on the street. Tradesmen and laborers were relegated to these dregs.
Of course, that’s all changed, and nowadays, this is an extremely exclusive property. But take a peek through the fence next time you’re going down Grove Street – it will impress even the most jaded New Yorker.
-SCOUT
I want that house.
I live on Morton Street, between Bedford and Hudson, and every time I walk past this “hidden” spot I see a tour guide pointing Grove Court out to a bunch of Europeans eating their black-and-white cookies.
If you want to see some real hidden locations, hang out outside my (basement level) door around 4:30 am where a tranny prostitute “works” and delivers such memorable lines as: “It’s so big–I don’t know if I can handle it!” and “What’s my name? The Girl of Your Dreams–now give me a kiss.”
it’s a Buddhist association/temple.
It’s worth reading the H.P. Lovecraft story, ‘He,’ where the narrator wanders around the West Village late at night and slips through a series of interconnected hidden courtyards to find a surviving 18th century house and its inhabitant. Grove Court was supposedly one of the inspirations for the story.
The house next door was also occupied by Angela Lansbury in 1964’s “The World of Henry Orient”, and is now the home of one of my favorite writers.
There’s a similar (although less hidden) spot at Greenwich and 10th – Greenwich Mews.
It makes me dreaming!
I really enjoy your blog – wish to be able to visit NY one day. Thanks for sharing!
…green felt tables = Mahjong. (with those tiles, not the online type)
And according to what ken said… is that even allowed? Isn’t it… you know, rude to play mahjong in a buddhist temple? ><
Re: Chinatown sign…
It’s a somewhat “poetic” sounding name.
The two lower larger words mean “bamboo mountain”
and the smaller characters say “house of nine saints”
Actually, it is whatever the Chinese equivalent of “saints” would be.
I I think it is a Buddhist temple, or monastery, or whatever. The words for “Buddhist” and “association” appear on the longer banner. But their signs are usually ornate, and contain no English, just like this.
[...] Visit the site to read that particular détournement of tourist attention, and hold in context that this man’s job is to look for locations to film. Someone in his same position walked down Grove St. in the early 90’s and flagged that Bedford corner as the means to establish shot for six friends at “a time in your life when everything’s possible” — that’s how the creators put it in their original pitch to NBC. The man who calls himself Scout will make a career out of negotiating the known New York landscape with fictional settings from his clients’ films. [...]
Note that Grove Court was also a location in the Italian horror film THE NEW YORK RIPPER (1981).