The shot of Travis' taxi moving in front of a marquee that says FASCINATION and the theater where Travis and Betsy see the movie - where exactly are these locations? Streets, cross streets...

I'm going to be in NYC right at Park Ave. and 42nd St. in a couple of weeks and want to see if I can find some of the areas where Scorsese shot this film...

Chris, it may only have been 30 years since TAXI DRIVER, but pretty much nothing represented in the film still stands in Manhattan. 42nd street today, particularly the Times Square area, is a literally Disney-fied shopping mall and tourist trap, resembling a Schumacher Batflick more than any Scorsese distopia. I'm particularly shocked seeing Iris' East Village neighborhood in the film, considering how those same streets look today. I've lived in and around NYC pretty much all my life, and TAXI DRIVER is one of my top fave films ever, but I really couldn't say where those locations were. Perhaps some older 42nd st connoisseurs could help?

Chris, you're about 12-20 years too late. They started tearing the old Times Square down in the early 80s, piece by piece, and pretty much finished the job last year when they closed down Howard Johnson's restaurant, the last remaining vestige.

I would recommend walking up Eighth Avenue, from 42nd Street heading north. Some of those blocks haven't been demolished yet and they ARE featured in the film, but you won't see the marquees of the porno theaters that used to be on that Avenue. Those have been gone a long time.

Hell, even the Columbus Circle area where Palantine's headquarters was located is completely different now. Even the Lower East Side/East Village streets where Iris lived and hung out are completely changed. The Variety Photoplays Theater, which is in TAXI DRIVER, was around until recently, reincarnated as an off-off-Broadway venue, but I don't know if it's still there (13th Street?).

Go to Central Park. That hasn't changed...much.

Addendum: To answer your specific questions:
1) The Fascination arcade used to be on Broadway, I believe between 47th and 48th Streets, west side of the street. The address back in the day was 1587 Broadway. But it could have been between 48th and 49th Streets.

2) The movie theater where Travis took Betsy was on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, IIRC on the north side of the street, middle of the block. I'm guessing the Lyric, but it could have been the Selwyn or the Victory. The Victory is still there, totally renovated, looking nothing like it did in the 70s. The Selwyn and Lyric have been incorporated into new Broadway legit theaters on that side of the street, again, looking nothing like they used to. I'd have to look at the film again to be certain which theater it was, but it was definitely one of those on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in the middle of the block.

It's a LOT greener. Take a look at it in the panning shot from ACROSS 110TH STREET and see how brown the lawns were back then. The park has really undergone a vital change for the better since the days of 70s crime.

Okay, I just checked my DVD of TAXI DRIVER. The theater that Travis takes Betsy to is indeed the Lyric. The Lyric has partly been incorporated into a new theater that I'm pretty sure is called the Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

The Fascination Arcade. I found the shot of it in the film. I did a frame-by-frame search and I don't find any familiar landmarks in the shot. There's a movie theater on the block (showing TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and RETURN OF THE DRAGON--those were the days!), but I don't recognize it. It says "West" on the marquee. I think there was a theater called something West over on 8th Avenue. And there were probably more Fascination Game Arcades in the area. The one in this shot doesn't seem to be the one I was thinking of on Broadway. So this one's got me stumped.

Anyway, earlier this evening, after work, inspired by this thread, I headed up the real Broadway, just to check on the "progress." I had to fight my way through packs of tourists, the predominant denizens of Times Square these days. I made my way to 1600 Broadway, the site of a new luxury apartment tower. The original building there, the Studebaker Building, same address, was torn down last year to make way for this luxury tower. It used to house the National Screen Service, which sent out posters and stills to movie theaters across the nation. I went there once in high school trying to get some stills. (No dice.) The building also housed a network of dubbing studios, editing houses and labs which turned out practically every Eurocult movie released in English in the U.S. in the 1960s. The story was you could take a raw foreign film (Hercules movie, Italian western, Japanese monster movie, etc.) into the building and turn out a dubbed English-language feature, complete with English title sequence and new music, without leaving the building, and have a finished print ready for showing at a 42nd Street theater just five blocks away.

This building was also where they dubbed "Astro Boy" back in 1963. I've been watching the new box set of the first 52 episodes of that show, plowing through them over the last week or so. So standing opposite the site where it was dubbed held some poignance for me.

Anyway, I found one vestige of the old Times Square still open for business--Colony Records, on 49 St. and Broadway, in the ground floor of the legendary Brill Building (Tin Pan Alley). So I walked in. They sell sheet music, but no more vinyl, just CDs and music/musical DVDs. Also lots of posters and memorabilia. They have glass cases filled with paraphernalia relating to the Beatles, Streisand, Sinatra, Elvis, KISS and lots of Monkees stuff.

The Variety Arts, a legit theater for a number of years following its porn infamy, closed in 2004 and has been razed. The last stage show there was, fittingly, THE JOY OF SEX, a musical. But it lives on in TAXI DRIVER and an early 80's indie set there, which I've never seen, VARIETY.

Lots of critics screenings were held at 1600 Broadway, but now they're pretty much at the Magno Building (729 7th) and the Brill Bldg.

Given how poorly the Hilton Center (formerly the Ford) has fared with live duds like CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, maybe it should go back to porn. :)

Talking about TAXI DRIVER, does anyone know if King Kong Company, whose patch adorns Travis' army jackets in the film, was a real or invented one? I know it's mentioned on the first page of Paul Schrader's screenplay (as repro'd on the Collector's Edition DVD) but I don't know if he came up with it as a reference to the 1933 film, or if it really existed. TD isn't the only Schrader scripted movie to feature a returning Vietnam vet but I don't recall if the writer actually served any time in 'Nam himself.

Chris...FASCINATION Arcade used to be located exactly between 41st & 42nd street on Broadway. The arcade that BRIAN mentions on 48th is another arcade, probably owned by the same people as FASCINATION, but went under a different name...I spent many afternoons on B'way cutting out of high school with friends & then seeing plenty double features & checking out the guitars on 48th street(guitar street heaven) between the years 1979-1983. I also took one of the early video recorders with battery belts & portable vcr & filmed walking up & down the area on a friday night in 1980 packed with seedy characters, & have some memorable happenings & sequences due to my friends wearing werewolf & melting face masks...If you go there definitely stop into the last existing HOWARD JOHNSONS on 44th & sit down at the soda counter & order a ROOT BEER FLOAT from the elderly gentleman working there & you will get a kick out of a delicous treat he has been preparing there since the 1950's, & you may get some good stories out of him if you ask...Enjoy, Best, Barry.

As was mentioned earlier, the Howard Johnson's is gone, closed within the last few months, as are some of my favorite pre-theater joints: Barrymore's, McHale's, Sam's...

If you still have this, would you consider posting it to You Tube? Sounds pretty nifty.

Jeffrey, thanks for the interest...I have the masters on VCR, but they need to be seriously edited down, & I have no idea how to put that stuff online. I've never done it before...On the deuce I have a one-legged spanish guy doing a dance & hand stands in front of a large crowd that congregates, & a peep show establishment lets us peep inside due to the werewolf & melting face masks..The funniest part is my stoned-should be wearing glasses-friend operating the camera & as he turned to walk forward, he bopped some woman in the head with the extended mic on the camera. It was packed that night. But we get the entire duece walking up & back down on both sides of the street...& then we went to the west village(8th st. from 6th ave. all the way to 2nd ave) & interviewed people & my masked friends were goofing behind peoples backs, especially drunks...Really classic stuff...We had a boom box with us playing FRANK ZAPPA & TALKING HEADS...I also have a complete POT PARADE starting in Washington Square & making it's way up 5th avenue. The amount of police there that day was insane...If you can suggest the best way to edit these old VCR Masters & how to put them online, please let me know as these ancient masters are starting to deteriorate...Best,..Barry

Whoa!

Just a point of clarification - I know Times Square is NOT how it was back during TAXI DRIVER - I was there last year...but I just wanted to see the locations sterile or not...

Again, though - I love the area now - even if its been "Disney-fied" and like to think about how things musta been back "in the day..."

Thanks everybody --- :)

Times Square is still a place of fascination, even if its character has changed from a period I have few truly fond memories from (too young, maybe, to really appreciate street sleaze)...except for the movies its decrepitude inspired. "What a wonderful sight for someone who can't read!" exclaimed Ogden Nash of its blazing lights, and correspondingly blatant commercialism. :)

I too wish I could've seen Times Square in its seedy heyday (a trip to NYC in 2003 got me the Disneyfied version). At least we have flicks like TAXI DRIVER, BASKET CASE, and the early scenes of a ton of early 1980s Italian flicks to take us back to that time. This thread inspired me to revisit Abel Ferrera's entertaining bit of uber-sleaze FEAR CITY, where you can get some classic images of the old-school Times Square. I always like checking out the theater marquees in these movies. Right down the street from Michael V. Gazzo's strip club in FEAR CITY, you get a theater showing FLASHDANCE, BLUE THUNDER, and AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN.

There's something about authentic NYC location shooting in the late '70s and early '80s that's always appealed to me. I really like the look of the snowy, slushy NYC streets in Antonio Margheriti's THE SQUEEZE/THE RIP-OFF, for example.

A few snapshots. My first trip to Times Square that I remember yielded a view of a giant billboard advertising the much-anticipated JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963). There was also a billboard for THE GREAT ESCAPE. (I hadn't seen either yet--I would have to wait till they showed up in the Bronx, but they became two of my favorite movies.) Wow! I have to say that seeing the area with all its lights and marquees lit up at night for the first time was pretty spectacular. I was with my parents on a trip to my first Broadway show ("She Loves Me") and we kept seeing "Used Magazine" stores on the side streets so, figuring there might be old movie magazines or old comic books to browse through, I prevailed on my mother to take me into one. When she saw exactly what kind of magazines they offered, she quickly pulled me out.

My first walk down the Deuce. This would have been around December 1967. I was with some friends from junior high school after trying out for one of the specialized high schools in the area. I was just amazed at the sheer number of theaters on the street, the wide range of movies on display, the cheap prices (65 cents at one, IIRC), and, best of all, the huge displays of photos and posters at most of the theaters, with cutout figures of monsters and cowboys and the like, a variety of posters in different sizes and picture after picture from each of the movies. These theaters knew how to sell a movie. The area didn't appear to be that sleazy at this point, although I may not have noticed that aspect if it were, but a couple of years later (1969-70), when I had an after-school job as a messenger for The New York Times (on 43rd Street), the sleazy elements were more noticeable.

One Sunday afternoon, I'm on 47th Street and Broadway, having just attended a concert at my high school. I was a fresh-faced kid of 15 and pretty small for my age, so I was taken aback when I passed through a group of (tall) prostitutes on my way into a hot dog place and one turned to me and asked, "Wanna go out?" With a stunned look on my face, I shook my head and squeaked out a low "No," and walked in and ate my hot dog somewhat nervously, having heard tales of hooker retaliation at being rejected. (Cartoonist Charles Addams, of Addams Family fame, once had acid thrown on the back of his head after turning down a hooker's entreaties.) Fortunately, a cop car pulled up and the girls all ran away, their high heels clattering on the pavement of 47th Street. Now, had I been an older man... ;)

I remember when New York had neighborhoods that were really dramatic at night. I used to walk through Soho at night, with its old factories, warehouses and loading docks, and cobblestone streets and think I was in an old movie. You could walk for block after block after block without seeing another soul. And the lights were dim. Now, it's another story. People out 24/7, with bars and restaurants and clubs catering to them. And people actually LIVING in those same old buildings and paying millions for the privilege.

Wall Street on a Sunday morning. The end of the world. I even shot a post-apocalyptic Super 8 film with some friends down there. You couldn't do that today.

Let's not even talk about the South Bronx. If you're looking for those locations from 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, you'll have as much luck as finding Howard Johnson's and the Fascination Arcade.

Thanks for the memories. In the original, unused ending to the LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS movie, Audrey II shambles past a JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS billboard in Manhattan. It obviously made an impression.

Wall Street is still pretty empty on weekends, if not apocalyptically so. It's no wonder so many NY-set movies (GODZILLA, INSIDE MAN, etc.) are shot down there.

Off-topic, but my wife and I were charmed by some of the location shooting in the film of CACTUS FLOWER (1969). Walter Matthau and Goldie Hawn play out an entire little scene at the still-thriving Paris Theater, where ROMEO AND JULIET (68), the Mrs.' favorite movie, is showing. [And it's not even a Columbia film, as was CACTUS FLOWER. Today, of course, the distributor would insist that one of its own movies be spotlit, for "product synergy."]

This recent article from the Times is about the change in New York City locales as seen in films from the 60s-70s heyday up to the largely Disneyfied, gentrified city of today:
New York City as Film Set: From Mean Streets to Clean Streets

An essay by Glenn Kenny from The Village Voice on the cleaned-up locales of Taxi Driver:
Clean-Up Comes True: The Vanishing New York of Taxi Driver

I think I should make it clear that I'm not at all lamenting the fact that the South Bronx has bounced back. In riding the elevated subway home earlier this evening, thinking about my quoted comment, I looked out at the neighborhoods that once served as the backdrop for FORT APACHE, THE BRONX, that used to be filled with empty lots and abandoned buildings. Well, lots of new housing has gone up in the last decade, and, more recently, many other kinds of new buildings and the vacant lots have largely been filled, with the remaining ones being readied for new development. And there's lots of new construction going on as well, all visible from the train. I remember the South Bronx at its worst and, in this case, redevelopment is a good thing.

Chicago had its own "mini" Deuce, which ran along, I believe, Randolph, State and other streets. My dad used to take me walking down there when sleaze reigned (early 70s - I was but a lad). I remember seeing posters and one sheets of notorious adult flicks - the one sheets showed the movie's "stars" with their "privates" covered with black electrical tape bars, which made the shots even sleazier... :ph43r:

In the Lee Marvin film PRIME CUT - you get some quick shots of this area...