This iconic 1980s romantic-comedy centers on Mick “Crocodile” Dundee (Paul Hogan), a rough-and-tumble Aussie outbacker who can fend off a killer croc as well as a rowdy pub goer. His adventurous antics become the focus of New York newspaper writer Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski), who asks him to return with her to Manhattan. Once in the Big Apple, Dundee manages to amble his way through all sorts of urban curiosities, making friends with even the most hard-nosed of New Yorkers. 

Filmed in both Australia and America, Crocodile Dundee features a great deal of New York locations in the second half of its running time, most of which fulfill the standard Gotham checklist.

FORMAT NOTE: Regular readers of this website might notice that the “then/now” images below are not the usual animated GIFs, but are instead the standard side-by-side stills. I’m right now trying to decide whether to continue displaying them this way or not in future articles, so if you have an opinion, please leave a comment below. 

 

Sue Visits Australia

Walter Reilly takes newspaper writer Sue Charlton to the Walkabout Creek Hotel at 30 Wylde Street, McKinlay, Australia.

 

Later that night in the pub, a boisterous Mick “Crocodile” Dundee introduces himself to Sue.

 

During the first morning of exploring the Outback, Mick tries to impress Sue by shaving with a knife at Anbangbang billabong inside Kakadu National Park.

 

After several adventurous days, Mick and Sue relax at Gunlom Falls on the Waterfall Creek inside Kakadu National Park, where it’s decided that he will join her in New York City.

 

Obviously, the first half of the movie was not shot in New York, but I thought I’d include a couple key locations from Australia. Since my area of expertise is NYC, I relied on other movie location websites to identify what parts of Australia were used for these scenes. Not sure who first identified some of these more secluded locations, but the Walkabout Creek Inn on the Landsborough Highway has been a well-known Queensland tourist attraction ever since the movie came out.

The original wooden bar used in the film, on display in a room off the main pub in McKinlay

Originally titled the Federal Hotel, the owners officially changed the name to the Walkabout Creek Hotel and  moved the building to the corner of Kirby and Wylde Street. The layout of the pub looks quite different than it did in 1985, but they still have the original wooden bar on display and have retained the stricture’s false façade which was added for the movie. Also on display in the front parking lot is the original truck used in several of the Outback scenes. (Incidentally, if you’re interested in purchasing a piece of movie history, Walkabout Creek Hotel is currently up for sale, listed for $1.4 million.)

When it came to the scenes that took place deep in the bush, most of them were filmed inside Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.

Paul Hogan communes with a water buffalo inside Kakadu National Park, on a makeshift toad near Nadab Lookout.

Even though the cast and crew were inside an established national park, back in the 1980s, it was still quite a rugged and dangerous place to visit. Today, Kakadu Park has become a little more tourist-friendly with a better system of access roads, but it’s still quite of an adventure to get there given that it’s nestled away in the remote northeast corner of Oz.

 

Arriving in New York

Mick takes his first plane ride ever, arriving in America with views of Lower Manhattan from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ.

 

Sue is greeted by her boyfriend, Richard, in Terminal B of Newark Airport.

 

Meanwhile, Mick tentatively steps onto an escalator for the first time. 

 

Now in my home turf of New York, the second half of the film was the main focus of my attention.

The initial skyline shot of Lower Manhattan was a typical establishing shot seen in many 80s movies taking place in NYC. The only thing that changes from title to title is the exact vantage point, and that can usually be figured out by matching up the spatial relationship between skyscrapers.

You might’ve noticed in the “before/after” image above that a lot of skyscrapers have sprouted up since the 1980s, most of them in what was then a burgeoning Battery Park City. The emergence of so many tall buildings did add to the difficulty of finding the correct vantage point, but once I spotted Ellis Island in the foreground, it made lining things up much easier, bringing me to Liberty State Park in New Jersey.

And one interesting thing about this particular vantage point of Lower Manhattan is that you can clearly see the positioning of the new WTC compared to the old Twin Towers.

When it came to the airport scenes, it was already identified by several sources as taking place at Newark Airport, and after spotting signs for Gates 50-68, I deduced they were in Terminal B (which has been used in other films during this period, like the 1990 comedy, Quick Change). The terminal has since been heavily remodeled so it was nearly impossible to find the exact spots used in the film, so I grabbed a few pics of where I thought this scene roughly took place.

 

Driving to the Hotel

Mick, Sue and Richard take a limo into Manhattan, stopping at a light at 41st Street on Fifth Avenue, with the camera looking south towards 40th.

 

While stopped at the light, Mick decides to acquaint himself with some “friendly” New Yorkers.

 

He introduces himself to a random guy standing outside the 42nd Street Library on Fifth Avenue.

 

He explains that he’ll be in town for a few days, so he’ll probably see him around.

 

After driving away, the guy gawks at the limo, baffled by what just transpired.

 

A good chunk of Crocodile Dundee’s New York scenes have easily-identifiable locations, starting with this one. This is mostly thanks to the presence of the distinct New York Public Library Main Branch on Fifth (whose exterior facade and plaza are sparkling clean in the scene after receiving a major renovation about a year prior.)

What I love best about this brief scene is how the New Yorker dismisses Dundee in a fairly non-confrontational manner. The guy clearly thinks Dundee is a wacko, but he just sort of plays along to get him out of his hair.

This bit part was played by lazy-eyed character actor, Paul Greco, who was in one of my favorite NYC movies, The Warriors, playing the leader of the smalltime Bronx gang, the Orphans. Green had a fairly modest career, relegated to supporting roles in largely forgotten movies and TV shows in the 80s and 90s. But his unique look always stood out to me and I would delight whenever I’d see him on screen.

 

Plaza Hotel

The limo arrives at the Plaza Hotel at 768 Fifth Avenue.

 

The doorman collects the Australian’s rucksack and takes it inside the posh hotel.

 

Before going inside, Mick shakes Gus the limo driver’s hand, thanking him for the lift.

 

Inside what is now the Plaza’s “Residents-Only” lobby, Sue leads Mick to the elevators that’ll take him to his room.

 

After showing Dundee his lavish hotel room, Sue exits the Plaza onto Fifth Avenue.

 

Mick then pops his head out of his room window to let Sue know he figured out what the bidet is used for.

 

She immediately conforms his appraisal with a solid thumbs up, much to the confusion of Gus.

This is another unequivocal filming location, as the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue is probably one of the most famous hotels in the world.

As you can see from the modern photos, the building is currently being renovated and is surrounded by scaffolding. This work has been going on for quite some time, and when I asked Neil, the doorman, if he knew when the work would finally be completed, he admitted he had no idea. He then quipped that the scaffolding has been up for so long that it’s being considered for landmark status. (I’d be curious if he tries out that joke on the $1,000-a-night customers.)

When it came to the interiors, the consensus seems to be that the hotel suite was just a set built by production. Since rooms in the Plaza apparently don’t have bidets, it probably was a set, but I doubt it was built on an official studio soundstage. My guess is the crew built it in some generic empty space in New York City, because pretty much every other scene in the movie was filmed at a practical location.

A wide view of the Plaza’s residential lobby with an inset still from the film, indicating the elevator used by a (smoking) Dundee.

While the hotel suite was fake, the hotel lobby was one hundred percent real. Crocodile Dundee, like many other movies that shot in the Plaza, used the check-in desk in what is now the “Resident-Only” section, located near the 59th Street entrance. I can see why film productions have preferred using this area over the main check-in area, as it’s got a lot more elegance and charm.

While this part of the lobby was open to the public back in the 80s, it has since been restricted to full-time residents after over half of the hotel rooms were converted into high end condominiums in the late-2000s. Miki Naftali, chief owner of the property at the time, admitted that it would have been more profitable to convert the entire building into condos but his development company “wanted to keep the integrity of the space.”

“The Plaza is unique not only in the location and the fabulous exterior, but there are some fabulous interior spaces with so much history, and we wanted to maintain those spaces,” he said.

 

Exploring the City

Dundee exits the hotel at 768 Fifth Avenue, deciding to walk around the city.

 

Dundee walks west past 10 E 53rd Street saying “G-day” to passersby.

 

Having trouble maneuvering the sea of pedestrians, he sets his sights on Fifth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets  .

 

But the vehicular traffic is just as bad as the foot traffic. 

 

Over at 673 Fifth Avenue, a mounted police officer looks down the street.

 

What he sees is the venturesome Aussie hanging from a lamppost. 

 

Back at the Plaza Hotel, we see that the cop didn’t give Mick a hard time but instead gave him a horse ride home.

This walking sequence was one of the first less-than-obvious filming locations, but judging by the stores and  buildings, I was pretty sure it took place somewhere along Fifth Avenue.

Since I couldn’t make out any store names in the scene, I just cruised down the Avenue in Google Street View, starting at Central Park. Before long,  I spotted matching architectural elements down at E 51st-52nd Streets. And what’s nice is that there is still a lamppost at the same spot on the sidewalk, giving you the opportunity to climb it just like Paul Hogan.

Having identified the lamppost location, I was then able to figure out that the preceding scene of Mick saying “G’day” to folks was filmed around the corner on 53rd, making his travels geographically accurate.

A lot of the buildings on 53rd Street have changed in appearance over the years, but the fire hydrant (along with the protective traffic posts on either side of it) seems to be the same from the film.

 

Fancy Restaurant

Mick joins Richard and Sue for dinner at the ultra-chic restaurant, Tucano (now Primal Cut Steakhouse), located at 333 E 60th Street.

 

As they look at the menus, an inebriated Richard tries to belittle their Australian guest, who responds with a quick jab to the face.

 

Afterwards, the trio take a cab south on Broadway, passing through W 48th Street.

This restaurant was the very last location to be identified, and was found with the help of my research partner, Blakeslee (although I came pretty close to figuring it out on my own).

Assuming they filmed this in a real NYC restaurant, the big clue was the unusual bird theme seen throughout the space, which included several large paintings of toucans. Focusing on that colorful South American bird, I searched for any former NYC restaurant that was called Toucan(s), but came up empty.

Blakeslee also aimed his attention on the South American bird theme, which eventually helped him decipher the restaurant name seen on the door at the top of the scene.

A reversed image from the film showing the restaurant name on the glass door. 

Turns out, the restaurant’s name was a variation of the tropical bird —Tucano— which specifically refers to a group of indigenous peoples in Columbia and northern Ecuador. But surprisingly, even though the name and interior design were South American inspired, the cuisine was French. (And to add to the confusion, in the movie, it’s implied that the cuisine is Italian.)

From 1988, a publicity photo of Tucano restaurant at 333 E 60th Street.

The restaurant’s colorful ornithological decor was the work of Adam Tihany, who was the favored designer of New York’s top restaurateurs back then. Starting in the late seventies, Tihany built his career around the art of hospitality, described in a 1988 New York Magazine article as:

“The Neil Simon of designers—a reliable maker of hits with enough brilliance to give pause to those who might dismiss him.”

Still active today, Tihany first grabbed the New York spotlight after designing the Euro-style discotheque, Club A, which was directly connected to the Tucano restaurant.

Tucano’s discotheque counterpart, Club A, circa 1987.

Today, the space at 333 E 60th is home to Primal Cut Steakhouse, and interestingly enough, the restaurant is still connected to a club in the same building. But while the former Club A was a conventional nightclub, today’s Sapphire is actually a strip club. And the adult entertainment is apparently extended into the steakhouse where scantily-dressed ladies are said to serve the food.

 

Richard’s Apartment

The taxicab turns off of Second Avenue and onto E 49th Street. 

 

After a rough night at the restaurant, the wobbly Richard goes into his apartment at 243 E 49th Street. 

 

After Sue and Richard go inside, Mick invites the cabbie to join him for a drink.

This was the second-to-last location to be found and was certainly the trickiest to unearth. In general, residential streets can be tough to identify since many are somewhat generic looking. This becomes especially problematic when a scene takes place at night, making it almost impossible to see any street addresses on the buildings.

Fortunately, once I lightened up this scene on my computer, a few clues emerged. First, Richard and his neighbors’ apartment buildings were slightly recessed from a more modern-looking building to the right, creating a noticeable wall; and second, I discovered a sign on a far building that said, THALIA.

Guessing that Thalia was a neighborhood restaurant, I figured after a few clicks on Google, I’d find an old listing of the place lickety-split. But it turned out, the only reference I could find for a Thalia restaurant was a modern establishment on 8th Avenue that didn’t open until 1999.

Expanding my search, I was able to find three other New York businesses from the 1980s bearing the name Thalia. One was a small movie house on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (which was briefly featured in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall), and another was a Spanish theatre in Sunnyside, Queens. However, I quickly dismissed both since the buildings and street layouts didn’t resemble what appeared in this scene.

A scene from Annie Hall (1977), taking place outside the old Thalia Theatre at 250 W 95th Street,

The third place I found was a sister theater to the UWS movie house called Thalia SoHo, located at 15 Vandam Street. And while the architecture on that street looked similar to this scene, there were a lot of inconstancies, telling me it wasn’t the right place.

From 1989, looking west on Vandam Street at the short-live Thalia SoHo Theatre. (Photo by Leo London.)

Slowly getting frustrated, I asked Blakeslee to offer a helping hand but he wasn’t having much luck either. That’s when I spotted a valuable clue in the scene that had eluded me before — near the street corner, there was a lighted poster on what looked like a bus shelter. I then spotted a circular sign on a nearby post which resembled typical NYC bus signage.

A cropped-in and lightened frame from the film, showing a circular bus stop sign and shelter.

Assuming I was correct with my assessment, I immediately scanned a Manhattan bus map looking for any routes that went down a one-way residential street. I eventually zeroed in on the M27 (now the M50), a crosstown line that goes along 49th and 50th Streets. While checking out the route in Google Street View, I stopped at a row of townhouses at 241-247 E 49th that receded back from a neighboring building, creating the same sort of wall that appeared in the scene.

Feeling optimistic, I looked at the area more closely and found a bunch more matching elements. Aside from the walls and the bus stop, I found matching windows at both 249 E 49th and 924 Second Avenue, pretty much convincing me I found the right spot.

A collage showing matching details from this scene. Top image is stitched-together tax photos of 241-255 E 49th Street from c 1983. (CLICK to enlarge.)

As luck would have it, Richard’s apartment was right next door to another filming location — the exterior of Senator Thomas Jordan’s townhouse in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Sadly, that building has been under construction for the last few years, hiding it behind a cluster of boards and scaffolding, and ruining most of my modern photos. But at least Richard’s apartment is clear of any obstructions.

Now fairly confident of the filming location, I decided to do a new internet search for Thalia (partly out of curiosity, but also as a way to find one last piece of evidence). But this time around, I included “49th Street” in my search, and that small change ended up netting me some helpful results. I ultimately discovered that Thalia was a Hi-Fi Audio shop, described by musician Peter Wolf as “one of the first audiophile businesses in New York.”

A Thalia listing in a 1986 issue of AUDIO Magazine.

Originally based in the Bronx, the audio store moved to several different locations in Manhattan (including E 49th Street), specializing in installing elaborate audio systems in people’s homes. According to a 1982 interview with Alex Rutman, the company’s president at the time, they installed customized systems that could range in price from $1,500 to as much as $60,000, servicing some of New York’s rich and famous, such as Dustin Hoffman and Marlo Thomas.

The Hi-Fi equipment and service company lasted for another decade after that, closing up shop sometime in the mid-1990s.

 

East Village Bar

Inside Vazac’s Horseshoe Bar at 108 Avenue B, Mick enjoys a beer with a group of locals.

 

One of the patrons gives the visiting Aussie a quick lesson in black slang.

 

Mick’s laidback attitude impresses him and his friends. 

 

Mick then turns his attention to Gwendoline who seems to be flirting with him.

 

The cab driver pulls the naive visitor aside to tell him that Gwendoline is really a guy dressed as a woman.

 

Doubtful as first, Mick confirms Gwendoline’s sex by doing a quick check down below. 

 

Later that night, the drunk cabbie searches for his car, crossing east on Avenue B.

 

As his new friend searches for his cab, Mick leans against the wall outside the bar.

 

He then begins chatting with a couple streetwalkers who quickly recognize him from the newspaper articles written about him.

 

Oblivious to their lascivious occupation, Mick thinks they are simply a pair of friendly ladies.

 

After the girls’ pimp arrives and uses some crude language, Mick knocks him out with one punch.

 

Mick and the cabbie then drive away, where the  two “ladies of the night” bid them a fond farewell.

 

If the bar in this sequence looks familiar, it’s understandable, since Vazac’s Horseshoe Bar (sometimes referred to as “7B”) has been used in countless movies and TV shows. In fact, this East Village drinkery on the corner of 7th Street and Avenue B has probably appeared in more productions than any other tavern in NYC, although the Old Town Bar on 18th Street holds a close second. (Rounding out the list would probably be the historic Pete’s Tavern and McSorley’s Old Ale House.)

The corner bar at 108 Avenue B, circa 1940.

Located next to Tompkins Square Park, the brick corner building was first built in 1930 as a Polish catering hall. By the 1940s, the space had become a blue collar bar and has been sloshing drinks ever since. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that 7B became a regular backdrop for film and TV productions.

In addition to Crocodile Dundee and its 1988 sequel, 7B has been featured in a bunch of other movies. This includes The Godfather Part II, the largely forgotten 1974 comedy, Law and Disorder, the Mickey Rourke horror-thriller, Angel Heart, Jodie Foster’s 1987 independent crime drama, Five Corners, the 1993 Johnny Depp film, Arizona Dream, and two Sidney Lumet pictures, Serpico and The Verdict (the latter having the East Village bar posing as a Boston pub).

Photos of several movie stars who have filmed inside 7B, displayed on the bar top for a 1992 New York Magazine article.  

7B was also the main location for a 1985 short film, Tom Goes to the Bar, starring a young and lanky Tom Noonan.

Some of the TV shows that were filmed there include Law and Order, Person of Interest, Sex and the City, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and the Netflix series, Russian Doll (whose “Groundhog Day” premise has the bar featured in every episode of the first season).

From February of 2018, a crew films a scene for season one of Russian Doll outside of 7B, renamed “Black Gumball” for the show. (Photo from EV Grieve.)

It’s hard to know exactly why 7B has remained a favorite spot for location-scouts, but part of its appeal has to do with how little it’s changed over the decades. Aside from its timeless gritty charm with a unique corner entrance and old casement windows, one of the great advantages of 7B is its namesake horseshoe bar situated in the center of the space. By having an island bar, filmmakers are given the opportunity to shoot from several different angles — something most cramped, old-school NYC bars are unable to provide.

Even though the inside has happily remained unchanged over the years, the outside recently got some much-needed repairs, which sadly included painting over a long-standing ghost sign for a nearby funeral home, estimated to date back to the 1960s.

The transformation of 108 Avenue B, from 2019 to 2023. (Photos from EV Grieve.)

And just to address the different variations of its name — while these days this corner watering hole is usually referred to as the “Horseshoe Bar,” when they filmed Crocodile Dundee in ’84, it was known as “Vazac Hall.” However, when I lived in the East Village in the 1990s, my friends and I always referred to it as “7B.”

Calling places by their intersection was common practice in Alphabet City back then, like the old punk bar on 7th Street and Avenue A, aptly named “A7.” There’s something lyrical about a number-letter combo, and it was helpful having the address baked into the name, considering this was back when there was no such thing as Yelp or Google Maps.

 

Top of the Rock

The next day, Sue takes Mick on sightseeing tour of New York.

 

They start off at the observation deck of Rockefeller Center at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

 

Mick poses for a photo, pointing South towards the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center way in the distance.

 

The top of Rockefeller Center has been used a few times in 80s films, most notably when all the spirits fly through the sky in Ghostbusters (1984). While not as famous as some other observation decks, Rockefeller Center has the advantage of offering nice views of the Empire State building to the south and Central Park to the north.

And the observation deck has a new touristy bonus — for an additional 25 bucks,  you can have your picture taken on a steel beam set-up, which replicates the iconic “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photograph from 1932.

 

Times Square

Just south of W 46th Street in Times Square, Sue orders a hot dog from a vendor with everything on it.

 

She hands the dog to Mick, who questions whether New Yorkers actually eat them.

 

Astor Place Hair

Later, Mick and Sue stand outside of Astor Place Hair at 2 Astor Place. 

 

They watch as masses of young customers receive wild haircuts.

 

After a guy steals a woman’s purse, Dundee grabs a soup can from her dropped bag.

 

He throws the can at the fleeing robber, hitting him on the head and knocking him cold.

 

This location was easy to identify since it featured Astor Place Hair, a rip-roaring East Village barbershop known for attracting large crowds outside. Some folks would be there waiting on line to get a cut, others were there just to gawk.

The idea of watching people getting haircuts may seem odd to modern viewers of the film, but having a crowd gathered outside Astor Place Hair was common back the eighties. (There would be even larger crowds gathered at the nearby “Cage” basketball court on Sixth Avenue.)

Back in its heyday, Astor was a cavernous madhouse on multiple floors, buzzing along to the beat of the rock music blasting through the speakers. On any given day, it wouldn’t be unusual to see something like 100 barbers wielding their cutting instruments, sometimes giving traditional, conservative haircuts and other times conjuring up wildly creative punk styles.

Not only were the hairstyles wild, apparently a lot of the barbers were just as wild. George Alan, who worked there in 1987, recalled on his blog the time one of his co-workers offered him a coffee, which unbeknownst to him, was laced with acid. He then spent the rest of the day tripping, thinking he was going crazy as he cut and styled customers’ hair.

A packed Astor Hair sometime in the mid-1980s. (A still from Karen Gehres’s documentary on the subject.)

These days, Astor Place Hair is a lot less riotous, and quite a bit smaller (the space seen in Crocodile Dundee is now a coffee shop), but at least it’s still around. The famed barbershop has had to face possible closures several times over its 76 years of existence, the most recent during the 2020 pandemic. Things were looking grim for the family-owned business until some deep-pocketed guardian angels stepped in to help keep the trimmers trimming.

Personally, Astor was the only New York barbershop I went to in the 1980s and 1990s, mainly because it was cheap and convenient. That lasted until a few of my preferred barbers left to start their own shop a block away on St. Marks Place, and I faithfully followed. But to be clear, even though Astor was famous for embracing the city’s punk rock lifestyle, I never got a Mohawk (faux or real) during any of my visits.

That’s a Knife

Sue and Mick exit from the Chambers Street Subway Station and into the South Arcade beneath the Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street. 

 

As they walk through the white-tiled arches, a young man approaches them, asking for a light.

 

He then pulls out a switch blade and demands money. A frightened Sue advises Mick to comply, pointing out that the guy has a knife.

 

A cool and collected Mick retorts, “That’s not knife,” pulls out his huge bowie knife, and declares, “THAT’S a knife.”

 

This is by far the most famous scene from the movie. It was shown in all the trailers and TV spots and has become a solid part of pop culture. And naturally, with such a well-known scene, its location has been referenced numerous times in books and websites.

A promotional still of Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski and Tony Holmes at 1 Centre Street, 1985.

All sources agree that the scene took place at the South Arcade beneath what is now called the David Dinkins Municipal Building. However, whenever I’ve seen an article about this location, they never specify which columns the actors stood next to, and just show generic wide photos of the arcade.

That being said, once I was at the actual location, it wasn’t too hard to find the exact spots used in the scene.

A scene from Ghostbusters (1984) taking place under the Municipal Building at Chambers Street.

One last thing about this location. I assume this was just a coincidence, but this was the fourth place that also was used in 1984’s Ghostbusters. The other three places are the 42nd Street Library, the previously mentioned Rockefeller Center, and 46th Street in Times Square. A fifth one will later appear in the movie’s climax, taking place next to the U.S.S. Maine Monument at Columbus Circle.

 

The Carlton Mansion

Sue takes Mick and Richard to her family’s “weekend home,” which is really the W. B. Thompson Mansion at 1097 N Broadway, Yonkers, NY.

 

They pull up the front door of the large estate.

 

Sue and Richard head to the front door.

 

Then, a pair of growling guard dogs race towards Mick, who doesn’t seem too concerned.

 

He simply hypnotizes them into submission.

 

Inside the main foyer, the guests are greeted by a dutiful butler.

 

In the dinning area, Richard makes a surprise proposal to Sue in front of everyone, including a disheartened Dundee. 

 

Mansions like this are always interesting additions to these New York films, often creating a bit of a location puzzler. Unless they are a widely known estate, you never can be quite sure where they’re located — Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, or sometimes even in California. Thankfully, in Crocodile Dundee, they used the W. B. Thompson Mansion which is semi-famous, so it was already identified on a few different websites.

Also known as Alder Manor, the historic Yonkers mansion was built in the early 20th-century for William Boyce Thompson, a mining tycoon and financier. And just as it was described in Dundee, it was primarily built as his “weekend home.” The estate stayed in the Thompson family until 1950 when it was willed to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and became a Catholic school (the first in Yonkers).

By the time they filmed these scenes in 1985, the Italian Renaissance estate had become a junior college. A few years later, the campus was closed and the mansion fell into disrepair. Then in 1997, Tara Circle, an Irish American cultural organization, bought the property and began a restoration project.

When I visited the site in 2023, the exterior of the mansion seemed to be in the middle of some new repairs and was looking a little rough. But inside, many of the rooms appeared to be well-maintained and are still being rented for private events and film shoots.

The rarely-seen basement at Alder Manor, designed by William Boyce Thompson to look like an Imperial Palace in Beijing, China.
From 2023, looking out from the manor’s entrance at the busy North Broadway in Yonkers, NY.

Some of the projects shot there include: the films, A Beautiful Mind, Mona Lisa Smile, The Good Shepherd, The Royal Tenenbaums, and John Wick 3; the TV shows, Gotham, Gossip Girl, and The Blacklist; a music video for Jay-Z; and a catalog for Victoria Secret.

W. B. Thompson Mansion, aka Alder Manor, back when it was a Catholic High School in the 1950s.

Over the years, some legends have circulated that W. B. Thompson Mansion is actually haunted, possibly in connection to some alleged satanic rituals taking place on or near the grounds. Nothing very credible, of course, but it does add a little eerie lore to this historic Yonkers estate.

 

Alley Action

Mick gets dropped off in Times Square by Gus, the limo driver.

 

Then, like magic, Dundee ends up about sixty blocks south in Cortlandt Alley, mistaking a pair of streetwalkers for the ones he met earlier.

 

That’s when the foul-mouthed pimp from earlier steps in the alley from Walker Street,

 

Dundee punches the pimp, alerting two of his associates to come step in.

 

Realizing he’s left his knife behind, Dundee tries to do his hypnotizing trick on the two thugs.

 

The feisty Australian quickly punches one of the guys. 

 

Suddenly, Gus crashes the limo into the alley, knocking out the head pimp.

 

The last thug runs south down the alley towards White Street, trying to escape.

 

Gus then pulls the large antenna off the back of the car, then tosses it towards the escaping thug like a boomerang.

 

It hits the guy on the head, knocking him down to the ground.

 

The two friends congratulate each other for their fighting skills.

 

It wouldn’t be an eighties New York movie without a good alley scene, which is ironic since Manhattan has very few classic alleyways. This makes for a limited number of choices for location scouts, but it also makes it fairly easy to figure out where a scene took place.

With only a few options available, I can usually identify a given alley without doing too much work. If it was filmed in the eighties or nineties, it’s usually either Cortlandt Alley (like in Crocodile Dundee) or Great Jones Alley. But more likely, it’s someplace in Toronto, Vancouver or Los Angeles, doubling for NYC.

 

The Next Morning

The next morning, Sue wakes up in the family home at 1097 N Broadway, Yonkers, desperate to talk to talk to Mick.

 

Wanting to explain the engagement situation, she calls the Plaza Hotel, only discover that Mick is planning on checking out. 

 

Subway Finale

Mick exits the Plaza Hotel at 768 Fifth Avenue, telling the doorman that he’s going to go on an American walkabout.

 

On the doorman’s advice, Mick goes to Columbus Circle to take a subway out of the city, passing the U.S.S. Maine Monument at the corner of 59th Street and Central Park West.

 

He goes uses the subway entrance on Broadway leading directly to the 1 train.

 

Back at the Plaza, the doorman tells Sue where Dundee has gone.

 

She runs after him, passing the U.S.S. Maine Monument.

 

She crosses over Columbus Circle and instinctively goes into the same subway entrance on Broadway.

 

Once inside, the action switches to the abandoned lower platform at the 9th Avenue Station in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

 

She yells across the packed platform, trying to get Mick’s attention.

 

In a romantic game of “telephone,” she has a random guy pass on the message that she loves Mick.

 

A construction worker on the other rend of the platform relays the message to Mick.

 

Moved by her professed love, Mick tells the construction worker to tell Sue that he’s coming through.

 

He then “surf walks” on top of the packed commuters so he can reunite with the love of his life.

 

Naturally, Columbus Circle was easy to identify, and as I mentioned earlier, it is the fifth location–overlap with Ghostbusters. It’s where a possessed Louis searches for the Gatekeeper and later where the Stay Puft Marshmallow man makes his first appearance.

For a long time, I assumed the subway scene was also filmed at Columbus Circle since the 59th Street station has one unused platform on the IND line (plus I know at least one movie has shot on location there). But when I was researching the 2019 movie Joker, I discovered that it, as well as Dundee, used the abandoned platform at Brooklyn’s 9th Ave Station.

Situated at the edge of the MTA’s largest staging yards for work trains, 9th Ave’s Lower Level has been abandoned since 1975. It was last used as the terminal for the old Culver Shuttle, although, the decaying, graffiti-covered station continues to host freight trains.

While officially closed to the public, you can grab glimpses of the disused platform from the gated stairs on the station’s still-operational upper level. Bold urban explorers have been known to hop the gates and visit the lower level, but as always, run the risk of getting nabbed by Transit Police. Supposedly guided tours are occasionally offered through the Transit Museum, but I haven’t been able to verify this.

It’s a shame the romantic climax to this delightful movie took place on what is now a dark, dank, mostly inaccessible location.

Produced on a modest budget without a lot of high expectations, Crocodile Dundee ended up being a surprise worldwide hit, becoming the biggest money-maker of all time in Australia. But despite its huge success (inspiring two sequels), Dundee was starting to look like it was going to be one of those 80s films that would slowly fall into cinema obscurity. And yet, this Aussie flick has managed to stick around, finding new audiences enamored by Hogan’s affable, easygoing charm.

Sure, the plot is simple and predictable, but the way the filmmakers handled the little moments is what makes Crocodile Dundee special. Nothing is too heavy-handed or over-the-top, with most situations taken on with carefree ease.

As I alluded earlier when describing the scene outside the public library, almost none of the characters are very mean-spirited. There are a few exceptions, like the pimp and the street mugger, but they end up being discarded quite effortlessly and without much hoopla.

Even if the New York characters come across as a little cartoonish, they all have memorable personalities, representing a good sampling of different types. Of course, one of the standout characters is Gus the limo driver, played by Reginald VelJohnson, best known for his work in Die Hard or the TV sitcom Family Matters.

But my favorite secondary character from the film is the Plaza’s doorman, played by Irving Metzman. For some reason, Metzman’s unassuming performances have always stood out to me. He was one of those utility actors who’d pop up in a bunch of popular eighties movies, like Arthur (1981) or WarGames (1983), but you’d never know his name.

Overall, Dundee isn’t an earth-shattering masterpiece, but it’s got a wonderful, old-fashioned, effervescent quality to it, making it hard to dislike. Even some of the more dated material kind of adds to the charm.

If you’ve never seen it or haven’t seen it in a while, it might be time to slip a shrimp on the barbie and give Crocodile Dundee a viewing.