Created by acclaimed writer-director, Billy Wilder, The Apartment is a sardonic romantic comedy about an ambitious office worker who lends out his New York apartment to his bosses for their extramarital affairs. A bit risque for its time, the film still ended up being a commercial and critical success, nabbing several Academy Awards including one for Best Picture (marking the last completely black-and-white film to win the coveted award until 2011’s, The Artist).

Wilder’s keen ability to balance light and dark material is evident throughout the film’s running time and is handled deftly by its three main leads — Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray. All in all, The Apartment feels like a quintessential New York Story, and yet surprisingly very little was actually shot on location. However, like his previous New York stories, Wilder insisted that they shoot at least some material in the Big Apple, although it’s hard to thoroughly appreciate it since the majority was shot at pitch night.

 

The Office

A movie opens up with a reversed view of the U.N. Building from the East River.

 

We then go to Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan where C.C. Baxter works at Consolidated Life Insurance.

 

The camera tilts up on Baxter’s office building at 2 Broadway.

 

Pretty much every location for this film had already been identified when I started looking into it several years ago. At the time, the most comprehensive website on the subject was the always-entertaining ScoutingNY, helmed by location scout Nick Carr. He pretty much covered all the New York sites used for this film, including the office building at 2 Broadway (est 1959).

I’m sure finding it wasn’t too difficult considering this opening shot featured the iconic US Customs Building in the foreground, which has been used in countless other films over the years, including Ghostbusters 2, Big Daddy, and the classic Harold Lloyd comedy, Speedy.

If the shot was a little tighter of 2 Broadway, it might’ve been a little more difficult to identify since the  facade got a major facelift in the late 1990’s after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority took over the then-vacant office space. Renovations on the 32-story building began in 1998 and continued for five years during which all of the original glass was replaced and the window pattern was reconfigured, making it unrecognizable from what it looked like in this film.

Looking at 2 Broadway from Battery Place, before and after the renovations.

Aside from turning one of Downtown Manhattan’s first modernist buildings into a rather banal office tower, the MTA’s renovation of 2 Broadway ended up being a bit of a fiasco for multiple reasons. Plagued with construction delays, unexpected infrastructure issues, and courtroom battles, the project turned really ugly when it was revealed that the man in charge, Frederick C. Contini, had been using his position to embezzle millions. Working with two different crime families, Contini managed to syphon over 10 million dollars out of the renovation project through inflated bills, extortion schemes and kickbacks on work contracts.

The total cost of the renovation ended up being nearly $500 million —a far cry from the original estimate of $55 million— and Contini was indicted on charges of fraud and money laundering, eventually receiving prohibition and an order to pay $8 million in restitution.

As to the aerial shot of U.N. Plaza that preceded the shot of 2 Broadway, I originally had a little difficulty lining it up with a modern view, until I realized the image was actually flipped in the film. I’m not sure if it was like that in the original print or whether it got accidentally reversed in a later transfer, but I’d be curious as to how or why it got that way. But regardless, it’s fascinating to compare a 1960 view of midtown Manhattan to a current view where the skyline has grown into a compact cluster of skyscrapers.
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The Apartment

Baxter arrives at his apartment at 51 W 69th Street, but lingers outside.

 

He looks up and sees that his apartment is still occupied by one of the executives at his job who is using it for an extramarital liaison.

 

When Nick Carr wrote his post on The Apartment in 2013, it was probably the first website to thoroughly explore all of its filming locations. Consequently, his post was likely the source used by other movie websites when writing about this film. However, as good of a researcher as he is, I do believe he made an error when calculating the exact address of Baxter’s apartment.

He did a great job in tracking down the specific street used (which was different from what is given in the film’s dialogue) but he figured Baxter’s apartment building to be at 55 W 69th even though the entrance had a 51 on it. I believe he reached that conclusion after he discovered a photograph taken by production of 53-57 West 69th Street, with no. 55 looking the most like Baxter’s place.

A production photo taken for the film’s art department, showing 53-57 W 69th Street in New York.

The reason production took photos of the street was because the art department was tasked with recreating the block at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Los Angeles and they needed references to make it as accurate as possible.

A still showing the recreated exterior of Baxter’s apartment building, built at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Los Angeles. 

While a few of the exteriors were shot on the actual New York street, most of the apartment stuff was shot on a soundstage where they didn’t have to deal with things like freezing weather or sound issues.

In the production photo above, since 51 W 69th wasn’t in the frame, Carr probably assumed that no. 55 was what was used for Baxter’s apartment building since that looked the most like what appeared in the film (even though it wasn’t a perfect match). To add to the confusion, almost all of the original stoops that were present in 1960 have since been removed, making the ground floors look very different today.

Above is a 1940s tax photo of (from right to left) 47-55 W 69th Street, compared to a still from the film featuring Jack Lemmon in front of 49 W 69th Street in NYC, with a matching stoop.

Fortunately, the second story windows along 69th Street haven’t been significantly altered, and it was those windows that helped me line things up and convince me that 51 was indeed Baxter’s place.

A shot from the 1960 film compared to a 2017 photo I took of 55 W 69th and its neighboring buildings, which I later discovered was inconsistent with the film. 

I figure the reason why production had a photo of nos. 53-57 is because the art department naturally had to create the neighbouring buildings on the soundstage in addition to the “hero” Baxter building. I’m certain production also had a reference photo of 51 W 69th Street, but it’s simply no longer available today.

While I’m pretty confident with my conclusions, on practically every movie website that covers The Apartment, they give 55 W 69th as Baxter’s address, which is a little disconcerting. But I can only assume that’s because most of them just blindly grabbed the info from ScoutingNY —which is usually a pretty reliable source— without doing any additional research.

So, I stand by my conclusions.

 

Park Bench

Reluctantly loaning out his apartment to another executive on the same night, Baxter wearily waits it out on a bench on West Drive in Central Park between 68th and 69th Streets.

Like the other locations from this film, this quick bench scene was covered on the ScoutingNY website. He seemed to had figured out the general location due to its close proximity to the established apartment on W 69th Street. He then figured out the exact bench by looking for a lamppost with the tree behind it, which matched the film.

Jack Lemmon sits on a frozen park bench with a lamppost and tree directly behind him.

One interesting thing about this scene — after filming in the freezing night on a wet bench, Jack Lemmon reportedly got sick, which director Billy Wilder then incorporated into the story.

Such things were actually common in a Wilder film, as he was known for starting productions without a completed script. Wilder has always emphasised that the writing is the most important part of a good film, but being indifferent to conventional movie-making, he saw the script as a flexible thing that could always be changed for something better.

Billy Wilder and his longtime writing partner I.A.L. ‘Izzy’ Diamond.

Usually once he saw the direction an actor was taking with their character, the script would be shaped accordingly. It didn’t matter if the change was for a big overarching character development or for something small like giving a character a cold when the actor got sick.

 

Making a Date

After Baxter agrees to loan out his brownstone to his boss, Jeff Sheldrake, he’s rewarded with a promotion and tickets to The Music Man on Broadway. He then invites elevator girl Fran Kubelik to the show as they exit 2 Broadway.

 

Miss Kubelik tells him that she has another engagement with a man, but says she can leave early and meet him at the theater.

 

As she walks away from the corner of Broadway and Beaver, an elated Baxter reminds her of the play’s showtime.

 

Even though the exteriors were shot on location in Downtown Manhattan, all the lobby stuff took place at an impressive recreation on a Hollywood soundstage. The giant replica of  2 Broadway’s lobby was amazingly accurate, so much so, it briefly fooled me into thinking it was real.

The one big giveaway that it was not the actual location was the panoramic view out the lobby windows, which I determined to be a fake backdrop. Basically, the cluster of skyscrapers seen outside the windows in the movie looks nothing like what is really outside of 2 Broadway, which is mostly open sky due to the building’s close proximity to the New York Harbor.

A still from the film showing a dense urban landscape out the windows (left) compared to a photo of the actual lobby at 2 Broadway with views of mostly open sky (right).

If you want to see footage of the real lobby at 2 Broadway, watch the Gregory Peck thriller, Mirage, which was filmed there in 1964. When you compare the footage from Mirage to the massive sets built for The Apartment, you can really appreciate what a superb job the production designers did.

A still from The Apartment showing a bank of fake elevators on the Hollywood set (top) compared to a similar view of the real elevators at 2 Broadway from the 1965 film, Mirage (bottom).
A still from the film, Mirage, showing a view of the lobby at 2 Broadway, looking out towards Bowling Green and the New York Harbor.

Today, the lobby looks nothing like it did in the 1960s, and seems to have been reduced in size, with fewer entrances into the building.

A modern view of the lobby at 2 Broadway.

It must’ve been interesting for the crew to recreate the lobby for 2 Broadway, which was completed only a few months before filming began and was one of the first modernist office towers to be built in Manhattan’s Financial District. It also happened to be one of the bulkiest, so much so that it would be considered in violation of modern day zoning laws.

Designed to maximise the amount of volume inside, the structure fills most of the lot, with very little open space surrounding it. The building was so dense that it likely inspired the change to the zoning code, which was proposed just one year after 2 Broadway was completed.

Prior to 1958, the lot had been occupied by the New York Produce Exchange, which was less massive, but certainly not any less imposing. Completed in 1884, the main arcaded building was only ten stories tall but was still quite awe-inspiring. It was described in King’s Handbook of New York City as having “12,000,000 bricks, 15 miles of iron girders, 1+3/4 miles of columns, 2,061 tons of terracotta, 7+1/2 of flooring, more than 2,000 windows, and nearly 1,000 doors.”

Looking southeast at the old New York Produce Exchange building, designed by George B. Post, whose firm would later design the nearby New York Stock Exchange.

The New York Produce Exchange, which was originally founded in 1861 as a national network of produce and commodities dealers, was seeing a huge loss in membership by the 1950s, and plans were soon made to replace the brick and terracotta edifice with a modern skyscraper. When the exchange building finally came down in 1957, no one made much of a ruckus, but years later, many have considered it one of the city’s greatest architectural losses.

Jack Lemmon’s C.C. Baxter working late at the office, which was a set designed by long-time Wilder collaborator, Alexandre Trauner.  

Of course, if you’ve ever seen this movie, the most memorable thing about these office scenes is the sweeping office set where Baxter and the other minions work. Paying tribute to King Vidor’s 1928 classic The Crowd, Billy Wilder and production designer Alexandre Trauner created a gigantic forced-perspective set to give the illusion of a seemingly endless row of desks that disappear into the distance.

Director Billy Wilder and star Jack Lemmon taking a smoking break on the office set in Los Angeles.

This was accomplished by making the set narrower as it went back, and dressing it with successively smaller props, furnishings and background actors. For the distant office workers, they actually used children dressed in suits, and according to film historian Bruce Block, for the very far back of the office, they used stringed marionettes.

Lemmon taking a coffee break on the office set which always had to be shot from one direction in order to maintain the visual illusion.

These days, they’d almost certainly accomplish this effect by using green screens and CGI, but they’d be hard pressed to replicate the impact of an old-fashioned optical illusion like the one used in this film.

 

Chinese Restaurant

Kubelik leaves Baxter and heads east on Beaver Street.

 

She turns the corner and goes into a basement Chinese restaurant at 52 New Street, where she meets up with Baxter’s boss, Jeff Sheldrake.

 

This restaurant sequence was essentially an extension of the walking scene with Lemmon and McCaline outside of 2 Broadway. They basically walk north along the front of the building, ending on the southeast corner of Broadway and Beaver, where they then part ways.

New Street, where the restaurant was located, is just a half block away from 2 Broadway, and like the earlier park bench scene, makes perfect geographical sense. (Although storywise, it doesn’t seem very prudent for two co-workers who are having an illicit affair to meet up at a restaurant so close to the office.)

Naturally the interior of the festive Chinese restaurant was a set built on a Hollywood soundstage, and I suspect the signage outside of the restaurant was just set dressing. I haven’t found any records of a Chinese establishment being on New Street and the 1940s tax photos don’t show anything similar at that address.

A still from the 1960 film showing the Chinese restaurant (top) compared to a circa 1940 tax photo of 52-54 New Street taken from the reverse angle (bottom).

In any case, New Street is definitely not as hopping today as it appeared to be in the film, with very few retail spaces on the ground floors. Also, the post-9/11 street barricades near Beaver Street keep things pretty quiet, preventing any sort of regular vehicular traffic.

 

The Theater

As Miss Kubelik rekindles things with Sheldrake, a still-hopeful Baxter waits for her outside the Majestic Theatre at 245 W 44th Street.

 

There obviously wasn’t any confusion as to the location of this brief scene. The Majestic Theatre, which has been around since 1927, looks pretty much the same today as it did in this film, mostly because the facade and interior are landmarked.

With 1,681 seats, the Majestic has always been a prime venue for large musical theatre productions, such as Carousel, South Pacific, Camelot, The Wiz, as well as the show Baxter got tickets to, The Music Man. Since 1988, the theater has housed The Phantom of the Opera, which is the longest-running production in Broadway history and is expected to run until at least 2023.

And with this theatre scene, that wraps up all the NYC locations.

There’s one other scene that is claimed by many to have been filmed on location in NYC, and that is the bar scenes where a drunk Baxter hooks up with a fellow lonelyheart (played by Hope Holiday, who, as of this writing, is one of two surviving cast members from this film).

Hope Holiday and Jack Lemmon from the last bar scene.

Carr indicated on his ScoutingNY website that the scene was shot at the Emerald Inn, an Irish pub that used to be located at 205 Columbus Avenue. I have no idea what brought him to that conclusion, other than a reversed 205 on the door which can be seen in a couple shots. But I haven’t found any production notes, behind-the-scenes photos or contemporaneous reports that indicate that the actual Emerald Inn was used. (Although, the Emerald Inn might’ve served as an inspiration, the same way PJ Clarke’s inspired the bar in Wilder’s film, The Lost Weekend.).

Bottom line, there are many things to suggest that these scenes were shot on a Hollywood set, starting with the fact that every other interior scene from The Apartment was shot on a set. So I really can’t see why they would make an acception in this one situation.

Not to mention, there were some complicated camera moves in these bar scenes, which seems implausible if they were actually done in a cramped New York location. And quite frankly, I’d contend that the tavern, while nicely detailed, looks like a studio set.

A wide crane shot from the first bar scene in The Apartment.
From 2020, the same point-of-view inside of 205 Columbus Avenue, which is now a clothing store.

But even if, for some reason, they did film in a real New York location, I don’t think it could’ve been at 205 Columbus Avenue. The actual retail space is noticeably narrower than what appears in the film, and there’s no evidence that there were any modifications done to that space over the years. (If you look at the 1940s tax photo of the address, you can see the retail space was the same width as it is today.)

A circa 1940 tax photo of 205 Columbus Avenue (left) compared to a modern view. of the same building (right).

I couldn’t find any vintage photos of the Emerald Inn online, and none of the modern pictures seemed to match the film, other than a long, wooden bar being on the same side of the room.

A 2013 photo of the Emerald Inn on Columbus Avenue, shortly before it was forced out of the space due to a huge rent increase.

While the Emerald Inn hasn’t been at 205 Columbus since 2013, they are now located at 250 W 72nd Street, so I suppose I could go there and see if they have any old pics of their original place. But unless they have some incontrovertible evidence to prove me wrong, I am sticking to the opinion that the bar Baxter got drunk in was, sadly, just a Hollywood creation.

When it comes to Billy Wilder films, I’ve always preferred his darker pieces, like Double Indemnity, to his more lighter fare, like Some Like It Hot. But The Apartment is an unusual combination of the two, with a very cynical view of the world of business mixed with an assuredly sentimental view of the world of romance.

While I never bought into its “happy” ending (which felt similar to the rather frigid ending to Wilder’s earlier film, Sabrina), I think The Apartment holds up as a classic thanks to a clever script and engaging performances by the three leads. Lemmon did a great job balancing the comedy with the tragic, as well did Shirley MacLaine, who was able to show the underlying sadness wallowing in Miss Kubelik, even in the more lighthearted elevator scenes.

In the ensuing years, Maclaine has expressed some of the frustrations she felt on set while making the film, but has also credited Billy Wilder for helping guide her through her first major movie role — one that arguably launched her into stardom.

Often described as being extremely sarcastic, the Austrian-born filmmaker strived to keep the mood on the set open and upbeat, which is apparent in several of the behind-the-scenes photographs.

And as I mentioned earlier, Wilder was constantly looking for things to help improve the always-evolving script.

For example, he added the bit of playing gin rummy after finding out MacLaine was learning the card game from her Rat Pack pals. And one of the film’s most memorable lines, “Why do people have to love people anyway?” was inspired by a conversation Wilder had with MacLaine while having lunch at the studio commissary.

Almost every actor and crew member from the film had nothing but praises to say about their cinematic leader, including Hope Holiday who described him in a 2018 interview as the best director she ever worked with.

Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray in a scene taking place on the “27th Floor.”

The fact that Fred MacMurray, who made a career out of playing wholesome, likable characters, stepped out of his comfort zone and into a pretty unwholesome, despicable role is a testament to how much Wilder was appreciated by the acting community.

A promotional photo of Lemmon and MacMurray, featuring the movie’s central prop — the notorious apartment key.
Shirley MacLaine getting a lesson on how to operate an elevator.

Admittedly, like most Wilder films, I wish he used more real New York locations in the film, but in the end, it’s really all about the acting.

Rounding out the cast is a dream team of character actors, most of whom play their parts for laughs, like the sassy, high-spirited switchboard operator, played by Joan Shawlee.

Probably the most recognizable from the roster are Ray Walston, who would later play the title character on My Favorite Martian, and David White, best known for playing Darren’s boss on Bewitched.

From left to right, Ray Walston, David White, Willard Waterman, David Lewis, and Jack Lemmon.

But of all the secondary characters, the paragon is Baxter’s neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss, played by Jack Kruschen, who does an incredible job of being a one-man Greek chorus, switching from a comical commentator to a sobering moral compass. In the end, it’s his character that gives Baxter the existential fodder to make some significant life changes — leading him to finally become a “mensch.” And that, I believe, is the core theme of the film.

So, even if the sappy romantic ending doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the story, The Apartment is truly a film to admire and emulate — in other words, a real “mensch.”