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The Film Locations of Taxi Driver


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

TD - 001 - Title

 

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?).

TD - 002 - Opener

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

TD - 003a - Travis Walking

TD - 003b - Travis Walking

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.

TD - 004a - Travis Walking

TD - 004b - Travis Walking

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.

TD - 004c - Cab Stand

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.

TD - 004d - Building

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

TD - 004e - Building detail

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

TD - 004f - Garage

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”?

TD - 004g - Range

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:

TD - 005 - Times Square

TD - 005b - Times Sq

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…

TD - 005c - Bond

…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.

TD - 005d - Bond

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.

TD - 006a - TS Single

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

TD - 006b - TS Single

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

TD - 007a - Porno Theater

TD - 007b - porno

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:

marquee

TD - 008c - porno sign now

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:

TD - 009a - porno theater

A vacant lot midway up the block…

TD - 009b - porno theater

…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??).

TD - 009c - porno theater

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.

TD - 010a - Empire

TD - 010b - Empire

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:

TD - 011a - corner bldg

TD - 011c - corner

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:

TD - 011b - corner bldg

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

TD - 012a - sign

TD - 012c - sign

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

TD - 013a - door

TD - 013c - Door

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

TD - 014a - seated

TD - 014c - seated

Betsy exiting the building:

TD - 015a - door

TD - 015c - door

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:

TD - 016a - TS

TD - 016b - TS

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.

TD - 017a - TS

TD - 017b - TS

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).

TD - 018a - Corner

TD - 018c - Corner

Depressed? Don’t be – it only gets worse! Check out Part 2!

-SCOUT


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81 Comments

  1. Fantastic work. But I’m not sure you’re right about Palantine HQ. I think you’re on the wrong side of Broadway. The building you identified (with Chase) is still home to Triple-A, which can be seen in the movie across the street from Palantine HQ, if I recall correctly. Also there are various scenes set outside Palantine HQ where you can see the Lollipop Building in the background, and they are clearly on the East side of the street in those shots. I think Palantine HQ really was at 63rd and Broadway, but the building has been torn down since then. I think there’s a Bank of America where Palantine HQ used to be.

  2. Hey David –

    Now looking back on it, you’re absolutely right, which makes the “Locations” DVD feature completely wrong on the Taxi Driver special edition, where I got my information (they have a short locations “then and now” sort of thing, and they identify the above building as the campaign headquarters). I’ll update soon.

  3. Depressed? You BET. I have been mystified by the transformation of Manhattan into a glass-and-steel forest, indistinguishable from Houston or LA or any of a hundred other major US cities.

    That link you provided to photos of the old Rialto Theatre is what sent me over the edge, though: it actually made me cry.

    You know, I get that NYC in the ’70s was dirty and dangerous and inhospitable to tourists, but I sure did love it here then. It’s the city that captured my heart and the one that I moved into at the age of 19. The Times Square you show in those modern photos has nothing to capture the heart–just an endless onslaught of light and advertising.

    The two random photos of the eatery and the market (with the souvlaki sign on the upper left) feel to me very much like 8th Ave between, say, 43rd and 46th. My first apartment, in 1978, was on 50th between 9th & 10th, and I would walk down to Port Authority on 8th Ave past tons of little markets like those.

    I’m glad you’re doing these posts, but this one is really killing me.

    1. Hear hear, Karen. I was born in Manhattan in 1973 and lived there (East 16th St.) for my entire childhood. I was lucky enough to live in the middle-class enclave of Stuyvesant Town, but I was aware at an early age that porno theaters, prostitution, and street people existed. My folks took me to Broadway shows and to visit family in Harlem. And I never felt frightened or embarrassed (actually, I was much more scared of weird art-types in the East Village). Down with the myth that people in NYC didn’t give a shit about their neighborhoods. The city felt much more like a community then than it does now, when old folks and poor people are being evicted left and right and rude, clueless college grads treat their apartment buildings like dorms. At least when things were really rough here, you knew that everyone who chose to live here did so because they really wanted to be here.

  4. Nice! Great that you chose to do Taxi Driver. I haven’t read it yet–waiting til later this afternoon when Meeting Hell is over. Then i’m going to ride out to a coffee shop and read it along with a coffee, bagel, and maybe a glass of wine.

    (As an aside, B Cup on Ave B in the East Village is now my favorite coffee shop. Because everybody cares).

  5. I saw The Clash at Bond’s almost 30 yrs ago. That was a typical NY big mess. I can’t remember now what the problem was, but the city wanted to stop the shows, and it was on the news every night for a week. The shows finally did go on. And were awesome, of course. And Scout, as for “depressing”. peruse the book “Lost New York” and have some tissues handy. NYC–tear it down!!! A few yrs ago, they tore down a German restaurant in Queens (approx 150+ yrs old–still had the posts in the back to tie up your horses) and replaced it with an Arby’s. Yeah, this post is a kick in the stomach delivered by Bruce Lee.

  6. This is fantastic. Thanks. Looking forward to part 2.
    What is the story with that long concrete building to the right of Artkraft Strauss in your photos?

    1. The 1904 white masonry building on 59th street was originally a subway powerhouse. It’s currently a steam plant with an uncertain future.

  7. The pier structure at the end of 57th was for the Swedish-American lines, and stood until the late 80s, I think. It’s now part of the park that’s over along the river, there.

    Great site, always, and a great idea.

  8. Is the Bond’s Clothing store on Times Square the same building that later was a nightclub which was the site of the Clash’s famous 17-night gig in 1981. Supposedly the club mgmt oversold the original 7 nights, ripping off thousands of fans. The Clash decided to honor all the tickets and played 17 shows, not the original 7. The sign on the building looks the same.

    I lived in NYC for 3 years (1983-1985) and I love your photo essays.

    Thanks

  9. Okay, so I’m new to NYC. I was born in 1979, after this movie was even made. I grew up in a safe (boring) suburb in Lancaster, PA, so I never experienced the old gritty, crime-filled NYC. My first visit was in 2001, right after 9/11. A visit in which I fell in love with the city.

    That’s all to prefix what I’m about to say by admitting that I’m a newbie here. But what is it with everyone lamenting the changes in New York? I mean, sure, lament the loss of the old Penn Station as a huge mistake in “Urban Renewal” (or whatever the hell they were thinking). Or the loss of other significantly historic sites. But they haven’t razed neighborhoods to build highways through them since the insane 1940s-50s renewal programs, most types of crime are the lowest they’ve been since records have been kept (this is not a fact to gloss over!), and there is still tons of character within neighborhoods. Changing, yes, but not necessarily in a bad way. Even the new glass and steel buildings that keep going up can be and are distinctive — for instance the two Twin Warner towers at Columbus Circle, or the Bank of America tower near Bryant Park.

    I’m with people on the landmarks being razed–that’s a terrible loss to the culture and atmosphere of the city–but I can’t help thinking much of the lamenting is less about New York changing for the worse than people just not liking change in general, and perhaps a little idolizing of the past as when Things Were Better. There are few changes here that I–as a relative outsider newbie–can see as necessarily bad; to me, they’re just changes. Very fascinating changes.

    1. Hi Seinberg –

      I originally had a paragraph at the end of the post regarding this, and decided to hold off on it until the final entry in this series. In short, I agree with you, and really, really hate how people nostalgically pine for a time when corruption, filth, crime, and decay were rampant in the city, as if that’s somehow cool. Yeah you could afford a place and be an artist in Manhattan, but the sacrifice (among many) is that you can never walk anywhere alone at night without fear of being robbed, raped, or worse. I do not glorify 70’s New York at all, and I even defend the Disneyfication of the city as a natural progression when people actually care about where they live. In 1976, people did not care.

      However, the downside is that this sort of growth eventually leads to a city becoming stagnant – certainly, Manhattan is way too expensive to support the arts in any meaningful way; nearly everything has been landmarked (rightly so), making the majority of it a massive island museum. Originality becomes curbed – for every one new coffee shop, there’re five new Starbucks. But again, I think it’s a natural progression that you can do nothing about. Personally, I appreciate the benefits more than the consequences. And if you don’t like it, there are plenty of cities in far worse shape than Manhattan you can move to, right?

  10. Well said. I agree. If it becomes homogenized beyond recognition that’d be a very bad thing. I suppose that’s the gut fear–a homogenized Manhattan. And some areas of Midtown have almost become one big corporate chain. But most cities I have spent a lot of time in have the same phenomenon — Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, South Street in Philly is teetering dangerously (Rittenhouse Square’s already there), U Street in DC is now undergoing the transition, etc.

    I’m certainly no expert on these types of things, but when one area becomes homogenized, I think a lively artist-driven community will probably pop up if the city has a vibrant enough culture. And New York certainly does.

  11. “the sacrifice (among many) is that you can never walk anywhere alone at night without fear of being robbed, raped, or worse. I do not glorify 70’s New York at all, and I even defend the Disneyfication of the city as a natural progression when people actually care about where they live. In 1976, people did not care.”
    Wow. This is actually spectacularly not true.
    As I mentioned above, I moved into the city in 1978, when I was 19. I lived in Hell’s Kitchen, which wasn’t necessarily the most beautiful neighborhood at the time, but I certainly never felt that “people didn’t care.”
    As for not being able to walk anywhere without fear of rape or robbery or worse–I disagree on this as well. I moved to NYC from Fort Lee NJ, where I’d lived since I was 10. My sister and I (she’s 5 years older than I) came into NYC on our own all the time–we’d just hop on a bus at the George Washington Bridge and take the A train downtown. Our parents–strict and old-fashioned–never had a problem with, say, a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old walking around the city. And we were never hurt or threatened in any way.
    The ’80s, with the clearing of the mental hospitals and the release of low-level mentally ill into the streets, was when homelessness exploded. I never even heard the term “bag lady” until 1981. Homelessness in the ’80s did more to make NYC dangerous than anything else.
    People who think the 1970s were the “bad old days” are just as wrong as people who extol them as the “good old days.” And that wasn’t my point at all, above–it was that in the 1970s, the cityscape still looked like NYC, and now it looks like any big city anywhere in the nation. I don’t get how that kind of homogenization is a plus.

  12. This series is great: Ghostbusters and now this! I’d like to see some Woody Allen movies given the same treatment.

    A lot people (and blogs) talk of how much New York has changed since the “bad old days” of the 1970s, but what’s really amazing is how much the city has altered — visually and otherwise — even in the last ten years.

    I’m British, and not from London, so New York was always a place I dreamed of visiting as a child. When I finally got the chance I was 20 years old. It was the summer of ’99. I remember being freaked out walking around Sherdian Square and Washington Square Park. Times Square was a mess of construction but still full of flickering neon. I didn’t even think of venturing over to the East Village. There was definitely a vibe on the street, be it dangerous, exciting or just plain confusing.

    By the time I moved to the city I was 28. I bought my bed from Gothic Cabinet Craft on Third Avenue & 13th (perhaps the only thing in Taxi Driver which is still there). Now I work on 28th & Park, just around the corner from where the Belmont Cafeteria once stood (now an apartment tower). What a thrill to recognize that street corner (and what is now McDonald’s) in the movie, and to think that I walk the same streets as De Niro everyday.

    But there is definitely a different vibe a lot of the time in New York today. Washington Square is a haven for NYU fratboys and tourists and Times Square is presented in Disney HD. I see young people especially walking around with their iPhones and lattes, seemingly oblivious to the wealth of cultural history they’re walking over everyday, as if they’re oblivious to a New York pre-Carrie Bradshaw. Post-Giuliani, post 9/11, the city clearly wants to present itself as an attractive place for people to visit, though perhaps to the detriment of its actual inhabitants. If I can see a difference from even 10 years ago, I can only imagine how New York differs today compared with the city of the ’70s. While I agree with previous posts, of course nobody wants to live in a place where crime and filth are a way of life, but at the same time, and as this very website clearly proves, nobody moves to New York for the Starbucks and Duane Reades.

  13. Karen;
    I’m way older than you and I can only partially agree with you. The difference between NYC in the early 60’s and 1976 was enormous. For some of us the 70’s and 80’s were the “bad, new days.” The seventies had their own temporary essences. Everything was darker and had a certain grungy charm. A lot of folks just passed through and saw it as a place to act out their uncivil emotional turmoil. Manhattan seemed only habitable for purposes of permanence in certain areas, the upper West Side, the Upper East Side, the Village, Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem, etc. Hell’s Kitchen and the Lower east side were already being temporized by urban renewal and the flight of the formerly ethnic, burgeoning middle classes to the suburbs and were becoming transient stopping off places for adventurous young people like you and your sister. Chelsea and the Flatiron district didn’t exist except as places to get through on one’s way uptown or downtown.
    I suppose this can be seen as both good and bad. But I must take issue with your idea that in the 70’s NYC looked like itself and that now it does not. I guess sometime in the 60’s, after the proliferation of the skyscraper boxes which were simply cheap imitations of the gorgeous Seagram Building, the economy did not allow for much new growth in the city and so the profile stayed somewhat the same as it had been in the 50’s and 60’s. In the same way the dearth of building during the depression and WW2 froze the profile of the city in a way so that it resembled the 20’s. (I’m aware that the Empire State and the Chrysler and Rockefeller Center were all built in the depression, which made indelible impressions on the skyline)
    However I cannot think of a place in the world that NYC looks more like now than itself. It’s cleaner, even more monochromatic now. Lot’s of it’s more baroque aspects have been removed. Architecturally it’s not as interesting, but you have to remember one thing. And that’s Brooklyn. Most of the most interesting aspects of old NY have moved to Brooklyn and the physical profile of Brooklyn has remained essentially the same as it was with the exception of about a million not-so-tall condos. So maybe, NY doesn’t look the same but it couldn’t be more New York if it tried.

    This posting is amazing. I too watched some of the locations of Taxi Driver as they changed and turned over and over and eventually disappeared, wondering how that could be happening when something so iconic occurred there. The corner of 14th and Third was an especially hard one to see become unrecognizable. Don’t they know that that’s where DeNiro met Jodie Foster for god’s sake?

  14. Great idea! I love figuring out where something was filmed and seeing if there is still anything recognizable. 13th St. and 3rd Ave has a lot of important Taxi Driver scenes. You can see Variety Theater in the background when Travis encounters Jodie Foster for the first time. That theater had the same exterior up until a few years ago before it was demolished for a glass and steel apartment building. You can also make out the Gothic Cabinet store, and the bar that is a few feet below street level next to the theater is still a bar but now called McFinnerty’s (I think.) Also the exterior where DeNiro and Keitel begin the climax is still recognizable on 13th between 3rd and 2nd. the building on the corner was still a flophouse up until a few years ago, even after they put in a night spot brassiere type. In the movie the entrance in on the corner with signs saying rooms for rent. It was a popular intersection for prostitutes up until the early mid nineties.

    You want to see huge changes see Soho in Hannah and Her Sisters. Looking forward to Ghostbusters.

  15. I used to live at 226 E 13th, and didn’t realize that was in the movie until a friend pointed out the fact. Can’t wait to see what other landmarks you’ll come up with!

  16. Fantastic series and great discussion about New York. Crime, cleanliness, etc. sure. But look at all the bank branches and duane reades and starbuckses. If you miss one bookstore, luncheonette, barber shop, you have to miss the New York you once knew.

    Also, I recommend “Manhattan.”

  17. I remember, about five years ago, walking with my dad through Times Square. Suddenly, I heard him yell, “My favorite porno theatre is gone! What is this—a Duane Reade?!?!?!”

    We probably were at that same corner.

  18. Great blog.
    I’m very happy to discovered your fantastic work in this page.
    Salutations from Barcelona, Spain.

  19. This is the first time I’ve visited your blog. What an interesting post! You clearly love New York, and it shows. Such a fun read. Keep ’em coming! 🙂

  20. Seinberg, I don’t know if you’ll ever even see this bc your post was from a long time ago but i have to give my 2 cents.. It’s called SOUL!
    Have you ever looked at a Bruce Davidson photo? Diane Arbus? You said yourself that you are a newbie, so that right there explains it. I’ll tell you one thing all the new frat boys in the east village aren’t really doing it for me, what are they bringing to the table? In a neighborhood that was once a community for artists and people alike. You’re missing the point.
    I moved here and not Boston for a reason, but it seems they are one in the same these days.

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  23. Hi,

    I’m in Montreal, Canada. I’m here since may 2009. I’m a french citizen, italian (sicilian like Scorsese) by blood, and I love all the Italian-American directors.

    Never been to NYC but I hope this year… For me (I’m 31 yo), it’s a pilgrimage…
    I saw hundred of times TD and I still love it like if it was the first time.

    Sorry for my bad english and God bless NYC. Congratulations for your amazing site !!

  24. Coming late to this thread … anyway, the sign for Jamie’s foreign cars, the bottom part at least, cannot date back to Taxi Driver’s time. Range Rovers weren’t sold in the United States until the late 1980’s, a decade after the movie’s time (there were some earlier gray market unofficial imports, but certainly not enough to merit special signage).

    It’s possible that the upper part of the sign, with the white print on a black background, is older.

  25. Seinberg – You. You. You are what is hurting the city. You and people like you (suburbanites moving here since the early aughts, happily making the city worse). Go away. Move somewhere else. Please.

    I know you won’t. But please know that someone, somewhere else in NYC, desperately wishes you would leave.

  26. I have to sound off here.

    My parents came to the city in 1978 when I was just two years old. Grew up in a gentrifying part of Brooklyn. Started riding subway cars by myself in the 6th grade.

    I see it this way: at some point in the 80’s, starting with Mayor Ed Koch, city government realized we had no more manufacturing base for taxes and had to come up with ways to create a newer source of income and economy in the city. They settled on real estate, tourism, and finance. Make the outside shiny and new, make the banks happy, and voila, you’ve got tax revenue you never had before. And so it goes.

    Yes, I wish my childhood places were still here. Yes, I wish we had many many remnants of the past. Yes, I can’t stand Times Square.

    Let’s just stick to reality when it comes to change in NYC.

  27. Did you check out the Westside Range at 20 West 20th. This is where the gun range scenes were shot and it is the only range still working in Manhattan

  28. My mom grew up in Carnegie Hill, Upper East Side, in he 70ties, a lovely family friendly neighborhood TOTALLY different from now I’ve been told. Anyone who knows about any movie footage from that part of the city from the 70ties? AndhHow did all those mansions on 91. and 92. street between Madison and Park look in the 70ties? And who lived there? I’ve been told that the .com bubble more or less created all the millionaires who now live there, but I would love to know more about how this was in the 70ties and, if possible, some footage. Thanks!

  29. Hey!

    LOVE the website. In regards to the Bond clothing sign–there is an Italian restaurant called Bond 45 very close to where that sign origonally stood. The lettering and font are exactly the same as the Bond lettering and font from the pictures you posted. I always wondered why the signage for that restaurant was so big and gaudy. I guess now I know–they are paying tribute to old times square!! Totally awesome!

  30. hey man. love this so much. sad as it may be. in response to your models question. that models was between 7th and 8th on the north side of 42nd and closer to 8th. i used to go there to buy sneakers.

  31. I can tell a real New Yorker…
    “Wouldn’t another glass and steel building be perfect here?” LMAO
    I so miss my old City and its old architecture and signage.

    GREAT work!!!!

  32. Someone mentioned how horrible it is that “all the character is gone” since the filming of “Taxi Driver”…to this I’d say, Yes…how “horrible” the police no longer turn a blind eye to prostitutes walking up and down the streets. How “terrible” the city is now the safest major urban city in the US. And to the other person talking about Carnegie Hill no longer being family friendly, it is safer than it ever was in the past 40 years. You people are nuts. I love NY. I love the one depicted in my favorite Woody Allen films and even the one from Scorsese’s darker films–and I love it even more today because I can walk around at 3am without fearing for my life.

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  34. in the film at night either just before or after the bond building shot the taxi passes a cinema showing texas chainsaw massacre and return of the dragon
    does this cinema still exist? and where was it located?

  35. Depressed? Boy am I! I’m a native New Yorker who was pushed out of my city by all the corporate drones which have moved here thinking it’s fun to be Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. The screencaps from Taxi Driver brings back good memories. Yes, as filthy and seedy as it was it was still a fun time, beats what NYC is now: lifeless, dull, filled with obnoxious tourists and young professional zombies who have no clue what an amazing city they’ve destroyed. And before anyone starts whining about how much safer it is now, save it. There’s just as much crime now if not more.

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