MCU: Location Scout – Karen Page Apartment

When I started this project, I decided I was only going to figure out where each exterior location was filmed in New York for the Netflix series. That was it. Exteriors only. This was a decision made at the time when Daredevil Season 2 premiered, so I went back and started looking at Season 1. No big deal right?

Since that time, the project has grown to interiors as well as the entire MCU, because I cannot do anything half-assed. But I digress…

So, I started rewatching Season 1 and looking at locations from the show. There are times that I make note of a location and know that I will never find it. A parking garage, a dark city street, some random warehouse. There will just be some holes in this project, unless upon their death bed, the Location Manager for the show gives me all their notes. With that knowledge, I made note of the dark, rainy location that was Karen’s apartment, thinking I would never find it. It was also 2016 and I was trying to find a location in New York that was filmed in mid to late 2014. It also appeared to be under construction, so it wouldn’t look the same anyway. I was fine with that.

Let me take this moment to discuss a couple of the tools I use. I’m a complete armchair Location Scout. While I live near New York City, it’s about a half-day drive. It’s not like I would be driving around in the city looking for these locations. Google Maps is a great (and primary) tool! It was around this time that I discovered what a truly amazing resource it was. Besides getting an aerial view of the city, major cities, such as NYC, also have a 3D option, which allows you to see the relief and relative heights of buildings. You may also know there’s a street view option. That’s pretty common. What I didn’t know at the time, was that in some locations (again NYC is a big market for them) you can look at the street view on different dates! So I was actually able to look at a location and see how it looked around the time of filming. Huzzah!

So let’s look at the image. That’s usually my first step. Does anything in that look familiar? Well, not really. There’s no signage that I could discern (street signs, building names, storefronts) so I put this location on the back burner for the time being.

The other tool I use is a website called OnLocationVacations.com that lets people know about TV shows and films filming in their area. I had gathered all the listings for “Daredevil.” I then can “drive around” that area to see if anything would look familiar. Sometimes it was obvious. Other times the corner or streets listed are just where the signs are, and the filming is taking place down the block, or even, on the rooftop.

While working thru the listings, I came upon this one. Driving around that area led me to a building that looked very familiar. So, I “rolled back the clock” in Street View to 2014 and voila! There was Karen’s apartment! Quite a moment of serendipity, but also the moment I realized that nothing was impossible to find!