Ho, ho, ho! Here is PART 2 of my investigation into the filming locations of Elf, which includes a variety of different spots in NYC, as well as a few places in downtown Vancouver. And if you haven’t read it yet, make sure to check out PART 1 of this two-part entry.

   

Buddy Takes a Nap

 

 

 

 

 

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I was surprised that no one on the web seemed interested in finding the location to this scene. Maybe because it was supposed to take place at one of Gimbels’ store windows, people assumed it was shot at the Textile Building at 5th and 30th, which was used for that initial wide shot of the department store (see the entry on the previous page).  But it was actually shot at the ground floor of the Empire State Building on 34th Street.

I figured out the general vicinity of this scene when I spotted the corner of the Macy’s building which appears in the background at the beginning of the scene (see the first “before/after” image above). It was then just a matter of finding the buildings that matched the ones that appeared behind James Caan when he’s looking into the window display.

 

The Hobbs’ Apartment Building

 

 

 

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This location was previously identified on several websites as taking place at 55 Central Park West, and as many Ghostbusters fans may know, this address is also where Sigourney Weaver’s character, Dana Barrett, lived and was ominously dubbed, “Spook Central.”

One interesting thing about any scene that takes place in or near Central Park is seeing how the trees have changed over the years. In the last “before/after’ picture above, you can see how the three trees behind Caan’s right shoulder got reduced to two by the year 2019 when I took the photo.

 

Prep School

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I found this location already listed on a couple movie websites, including movie-locations, themoviedistrict and onthesetofnewyork. I don’t know who did the original research, but I assumed they just looked for any prep schools in Manhattan that had a street address of 40 (which can be seen next to the school entrance in the film) and eventually came across York Prep School on West 68th Street.

 

Snowball Fight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I figured out this location many years ago — long before I began this “NYC in Film” project. Shortly after this film was released, whenever my younger cousins would come visit New York, the one thing they always wanted to know was where this snowball fight scene took place. I eventually found it by going to the Central Park Conservancy website and searching through their list of arches and bridges until I eventually landed at the Pine Arch bridge near the southern end of the bridle path. After studying the ironwork, I was fairly certain I found a match.

A few years later, after purchasing the Elf DVD, I saw it had a short behind-the-scenes video that contained some footage of this snowball scene being made. The video offered a few more views of the arch and its surrounding area in Central Park, and also showed the “fake Central Park” that was created in Vancouver, when the film production did some pick-up shots months later

When I first discovered this filming location from Elf, a lot of these movie location websites weren’t readily available, so not a lot of average people knew about where the snowball scene took place. But today, as I mentioned earlier in this post, this Elf location is probably one of the top movie locations sought out by visiting tourists.

 

Picking up Jovie

 

 

 

 

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Before I figured out that the “World’s Best Cup of Coffee” scene was shot in Vancouver, I just assumed that this “Picking up Jovie” scene was shot in NYC. And since most of the signs had Cantonese lettering on them, I also assumed it was shot in Manhattan’s Chinatown.  But after looking up and down a bunch of streets in the neighborhood in Google Street View, I came up with nothing.

Months later, after figuring out that the “Coffee Shop” was in Vancouver, I took a wild  guess that Jovie’s apartment was there, too. The first thing I did was check to see if Vancouver had their version of Chinatown. Once I discovered that they did, I looked for any buildings in that neighborhood with an address of 261 (assuming that the number wasn’t set-dressing). Fortunately, their Chinatown is much smaller than the one in New York, and I almost immediately came across 261 East Pender Street, which matched Jovie’s apartment.

 

Skipping Around NYC

 

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A couple websites identified this quick scene of Buddy and Jovie skipping past some large wooden soldiers as taking place at 110 Central Park South, and after a cursory investigation in Google Street View, I determined that the websites were correct. However, when I went to the location to take an “after” picture, I couldn’t get it to align with with “before” picture. The entrance flanked by the wooden soldiers looked like it was the same, but all the other stuff didn’t seem to line up. Finally, I figured out what was askew — the image was reversed in the film!

Once I reversed my “after” pictures in Adobe Photoshop, everything lined up quite nicely.

 

Looking at Trees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It was quite apparent that the bulk of this sequence was shot at the ice skating rink at the historic Rockefeller Center, but the one thing I couldn’t quite figure out was the location of the medium-sized Christmas tree Buddy and Jovie look at in the beginning of the sequence. I assumed the tree was in the lobby of one of the buildings at Rockefeller Center, but I couldn’t find any lobbies that matched the one in film, nor could I find a building that matched the one that appears behind Ferrell and Deschanel.

Even after searching all the blocks near Rockefeller Center in Google Street View, I couldn’t find anything that matched. So, I asked Blakeslee if he could take a look, and before I knew it, he found a winner with the nearby building at 1221 Sixth Avenue.

I think the reason I didn’t consider that building when I first searched the area is because the street-level facade and lobby had been remodeled a few years back and no longer resembled what appeared in the film. But if you look at an older Google Street View of the building, you can see a match.

 

A Sad Buddy

 

 

 

 

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They filmed this extended sequence of Buddy sadly roaming NYC in three completely different locations.

The first bit where Buddy bumps into a passerby was shot across the street from the revolving door location on 33rd Street, although I must confess it took me a little longer than it should’ve for me to figure it out.

The bridge Buddy stares from was already identified as the Queensboro at 59th Street, although it was combined with a considerable amount of CGI. Obviously, Santa and his flying reindeer were digitally added, but I’m pretty sure the snowflakes and most of the Manhattan skyline were digitally added as well.

The last bit where Walter and Michael search for Buddy was filmed at the same location used when Buddy and Jovie skip past the large wooden soldiers on their date. However, this time, they removed the soldiers and didn’t reverse the image, making it look like a completely different street corner.

 

Central Park

 

 

 

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Even through they shot a few bits of Santa’s flying sleigh near Bethesda Terrace in New York’s Central Park (although it looks like it was CGI-enhanced), the majority of this “Central Park” sequence was shot in the Vancouver area, including a grassy field that was on the grounds of that Riverview Hospital.

By the time Elf was made in 2003, most of the mental hospital was closed down and used as a movie lot, but Jon Favreau believed one of the buildings was still open and had patients in it. He pondered in an interview for Rolling Stone, “How weird it must have been for them to look out their window and see Santa Claus and a guy in an elf suit running around with reindeer. It may have been counterproductive to their treatment.”

 

The Spirit of Christmas

 

 

 

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It was pretty obvious that this climactic scene took place near one of the southern entrances to Central Park (although in the DVD commentary, Favreau said some of it was filmed in Vancouver). It was just a matter of studying the buildings across from the park to figure out which entrance was used. But again, like Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace and the Queensboro Bridge, I think this location was CGI-enhanced as well.

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Like I mentioned in the intro to this post, Elf isn’t necessarily the quintessential New York movie, however, it does offer a few images of what the city was like at the tail-end of its transition from the edgy 1990’s to the sanitized 2000’s.

Two of my favorite New York jokes in the film are probably lost on modern audience as they harken back to the city’s less-polished days.

One of them goes by real quick as Santa tells Buddy about the Ray’s Pizza shops and which is the real one he should go to. This is a reference to the many different iterations of the name, such as “Ray’s Original Pizza,” “Famous Ray’s Pizza” and “World-Famous Original Ray’s Pizza,” all of which were independent from each other, but were trying to exploit the reputation of the first Ray’s Pizza shop on Prince Street in Little Italy.

The other joke, which is a little more accessible, is with the world’s best cup of coffee. While the humor still works on its own, it’s even funnier knowing how common it used to be in New York for discount shops and eateries to make superlative claims without having to back it up.

And one of the most common of these claims came from diners and coffee shops touting that they had the best coffee in the city or even the world.

As much as I appreciate all the New York touches in Elf, the real pleasure comes from its wholesome yet silly charm, held together by Will Ferrell’s delightfully comic performance. Even if it didn’t take place in the Big Apple, this movie would still be one of my Christmas favorites.  

And hopefully a few Elf fans who stumble onto this website will appreciate this nearly-complete (and hopefully error-free) list of its filming locations, despite the fact that the “World’s Best Cup of Coffee” is, sadly, no longer around.

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