MCU: Location Scout – Matt Murdock Accident Site

This was the first shot I catalogued when I started the project, as it opens the first episode of Daredevil. And, it’s one of the most recent locations I’ve found. I had rated this as an impossible location to find, given the lack of signage, or other landmarks that I could recognize, but using some good old-fashioned detective skills, I was able to pinpoint this location and confirm it!If you watch this sequence, you’ll notice it’s a series of tight, handheld shots focusing on Matt’s dad as he races to find his son after the accident. For the longest time I didn’t see any signage, except during a quick pan. And unfortunately the words were too blurry to make out. The architecture wasn’t anything special, for New York anyway, and could be almost anyplace on Manhattan. Even searching through the web for filming locations for the series, didn’t turn up anything of value.

It wasn’t until a few months ago, after not looking at this for a while, I noticed something new. In the shot of Jack Murdock walking towards camera, there was a street sign in the background. It appeared to be a “Blvd” and there was a shorter word in front of that. Was it “Jr?” If that was the case, then it could only be one of two streets, “Martin Luther King Jr Blvd” or “Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd.” I also noticed a car driving by in the background at a strange angle, which indicated to me that this was by (or on) an angled street.

Taking this new information I started using the aerial view of Google Maps to find angled streets off of either the two boulevards above. It was pretty easy to locate at this point, and once I honed in on this intersection, I could confirm the coloring of the “blurry” signage from the episode matched perfectly. It’s always a good idea to let some time go by, and revisiting problems with a fresh perspective. It’s amazing what you can discover!