A sleeper hit from 1981, Arthur is centered around a childish millionaire (Dudley Moore) who’s in a perpetual state of drunken goofiness, spending most of his nights carousing with prostitutes, and most of days being put in his place by his acerbic butler (John Gielgud). His playboy days get more complicated when he falls in love with a blue-collar waitress from Queens (Liza Minnelli), while at the same time is being pressured into a loveless marriage by his imperious family.

Led by standout performances from its three leads, Arthur succeeds as a high-spirited screwball comedy, supplying an ample amount of great one-liners as well as some touching, heartfelt moments. While writer-director Steve Gordon’s script has a few rough edges, like its flawed titular character, it manages win you over by the end.

Unlike many NYC-set movies of the 1980s, Arthur was filmed entirely in the Tri-State area, without the benefit of Canadian Streets or Hollywood sets. In fact, as far as I can tell, very few sets were used at all, and the ones that were used were built on one of the city’s few studios operating at the time — Kaufman in Astoria, Queens.

 

Picking Up a Hooker

A Rolls-Royce pulls up to the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and E 53rd Street.

 

The window rolls down to reveal an inebriated Arthur Bach.

 

The two ladies of the night stand dumbfounded in front of 615 Lexington Avenue.

 

After one of the ladies gets inside the car, Arthur’s driver Bitterman pays off the other lady.

 

When I began my research on this film, there were quite a few locations already identified, but there were still a decent number of holes, and this opening scene was one of them.

It was already established that a lot of the Manhattan locations were on the east side, so I figured this probably took place there too. And judging by the width of the street, it was clear they were on an avenue.

Another major clue was the number 615 on an awning behind the two streetwalkers, which I assumed was not set dressing.

So I searched for any 615 building on the east side in Google Street View, but nothing looked right. After double-checking each avenue and finding nothing promising, I started thinking maybe the awning was set dressing with a fake address. That’s when I asked my research partner Blakeslee to take a stab at it.

A cropped-in frame from the film, showing what looks like green domes in the background.

He ended up taking a different tactic, focusing instead on what looked like a set of domes in the background. Figuring they were part of a synagogue, he searched eastern Manhattan for any Jewish congregations and eventually came across Central Synagogue at 652 Lexington Avenue. From there, he identified one other extant building on a neighboring block and concluded that the scene took place on the corner of 53rd and Lexington.

And it turns out that that Lexington Avenue corner is, in fact, number 615, even through it wasn’t where I ended up when I did my initial search on Google Maps. Apparently what happened was, when a bunch of the smaller buildings on Lex got torn down and replaced with large skyscrapers in the eighties, several address numbers got eliminated, including 615. So when you plug that address into the search box, Google Maps makes an estimate and takes you one block to the north.

A circa 1940 view of 613-615 Lexington Avenue.

When all this redevelopment was happening thirty-forty years ago, 615 Lexington and all its neighbors were torn down and replaced with 599 Lexington, a 50-story, monolithic skyscraper. One year after it was completed, the block-long building was used as the office exterior in the Michael J Fox romantic-comedy, The Secret to My Success (1987).

 

Driving Through the Park

Arthur and Gloria the hooker take a ride up Park Avenue.

 

They turn west onto E 67th Street, heading towards Central Park. 

 

They then end up on E 72nd Street, heading west towards Fifth Avenue.

 

The camera pans as they enter Central Park.

 

As they cruise through the park, Arthur spends this time cracking jokes with his hired escort. 

 

The car heads south on West Drive in the park, passing Tavern On the Green (off camera on the right) near W 67th Street.

 

Plaza Hotel

Arthur’s Rolls-Royce pulls in front of the Plaza Hotel at 768 Fifth Avenue.

 

Arthur drunkenly stumbles out of his car.

 

As he’s helped to his feet, affluent guests of the hotel look on in shock. 

 

The Oak Room

Inside the Plaza’s Oak Room at 10 Central Park S, a snooty maître d’ turns as he hears a ruckus near the entrance.

 

His attitude changes once he realizes that it’s Arthur at the door.

 

On their way to their table, Arthur stops to talk to his aunt and uncle.

 

After being seated at his table, Arthur exclaims that he forgot that he’s there with a hooker. 

 

Arthur and Gloria then proceed to get properly soused.

 

This long sequence of going from the Lexington Avenue street corner to the fancy restaurant didn’t have any locations that were hard to find. The Plaza Hotel and its famed Oak Room are landmark spots in NYC and easy to identify. And while the driving scenes were not as obvious, they all had distinguishing visuals —like the median strip on Park Avenue— that helped me find them fairly effortlessly.

Another thing that helped was they stayed somewhat geographically accurate — going from 53rd and Lex to 67th and Park, then into Central Park at 72nd Street, driving south through the park, and ending up at the Plaza on Central Park South..

Amazingly, the Oak Room, the elegantly paneled, German Renaissance Revival-style dining venue where Arthur and his “date” have drinks has remained vacant for over a decade.

The Oak Lounge inside the Plaza, c 1907, when it operated as an exclusive men’s club.

Known as the Oak Lounge when it opened in 1907, the space served as a men’s club until 1934 when it became a restaurant and renamed the Oak Room. Starting in the late 1940s, women were allowed in the Oak Room during the summer evenings, but the restaurant was still predominantly a male hangout.

The Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel when it was essentially still restricted to men only, circa 1946.

Over the next ten years or so, women were incrementally given more access. But it wasn’t until 1969, after several vocal protests from the feminist group, NOW, led by human rights activist Eleanor Holmes Norton, that women were allowed in there year-round with no restrictions.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) stage a protest outside the Oak Room in February, 1969, which eventually led to the gender restriction being removed.

After that, the Oak Room held a solid position as one of NYC’s most fashionable restaurants for the rich and famous. This lasted until 2011 when it suddenly closed.

One reason for the closure stemmed from a claim by the owners of the hotel that the leaser of the Oak Room failed to pay nearly a million dollars in back rent. But the major point of contention was the private parties that were being held in the restaurant on the weekends. These events often involved rowdy behavior, illegal drug use, and loud music. They were described in the New York Post as a “champagne-fueled orgy of gyrating jet-setters” and purported by the hotel owners to be undermining the Plaza’s elegant reputation.

Today, the space is mostly unused but is occasionally rented out for special events — minus any orgies.

 

Arthur’s Apartment

Camera looks up at Arthur’s penthouse apartment at 1067 Fifth Avenue.

 

The camera pans down to street level.

 

Gloria exits the opulent building, counting her money.

 

Inside, Arthur takes a bath in his lavish bathroom which was a set at Kaufman Studios at 34-12 36th Street, Astoria, Queens.

 

Arthur’s Father’s Office

As Arthur meets with his father at his office, Bitterman waits outside the parked car on W 51st Street. 

 

Camera pans over to reveal the 51st Street entrance to the “Bach Building” at 640 Fifth Avenue. 

 

The exteriors of Arthur’s penthouse apartment and his father’s office building were already identified by several sources when I began my research on this film. I also found out from The Film Encyclopedia that Arthur’s lavish penthouse interiors were sets built at Kaufman Studios in Astoria, Queens.

A 2023 view of Kaufman’s gate at 36th Street and 35th Avenue.

I couldn’t find a reference to any other interiors that were shot there, but if I were to guess, I’d say the office was also probably a set.

 

Meeting Linda

While shopping at Bergdorf Goodman at 754 Fifth Avenue, Arthur spots a woman stealing a tie.

 

She exits onto Fifth Avenue, followed by store security. 

 

Chester, the security man, confronts the woman by the Pulitzer Fountain in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza.

 

Infatuated by the feisty woman, Arthur jumps in to defend her.

 

Standing across from the GM Building, Chester becomes apologetic after Arthur tells him that the woman was getting the tie for him.

 

Camera looks south on Fifth Avenue as Arthur’s butler, Hobson, raises an eyebrow,

 

After Chester runs off, the grateful woman introduces herself as Linda.

 

She looks back at Hobson, sensing his haughty disapproval.

 

Continued to be smitten, Arthur asks Linda on a date before offering to have his car take her home.

 

Like the Plaza Hotel, Bergdorf Goodman was easy to identify, especially since the movie features one of its signs in the establishing shot.

A view of Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue, circa 1940 vs 2020.

I did have a little trouble figuring out what set of doors the characters exit when they leave the store because the facade along Fifth Avenue has changed over the years. But after studying the reflections in the windows, I concluded they used the mid-block exit on Fifth.

I also should call out the man playing the security guy is Irving Metzman — one of my favorite character-actors of the eighties. He would later play the doorman in 1986’s Crocodile Dundee just a few feet from this filming location at the Plaza Hotel’s Fifth Avenue entrance.

 

Linda’s Queens Apartment

Bitterman drives Linda to her low-income apartment at 141-33 79th Avenue in Queens.

 

Hoping to impress her neighbors, Linda times her exit from the Rolls-Royce just as one walks by.

 

As Linda goes inside, her neighbor tries to process what she just saw.

 

This was one of the first locations I found for this movie, and at the time, I was very proud of myself for figuring it out. (Of course, this was during the early stages of this project, so my detective skills were still being developed.)

The big clue was an address number of 14121 that appeared in a later scene at the same location.

The way the numbering is done in Queens is different from any other borough and can be a little confusing at first. Basically, the address number always starts with the nearest cross street to the west of it, and it’s followed by a number that progresses as you go from west to east (although they often skip numbers along the way). So, a building with an address of 14121 would be in the middle of a block to the east of a roadway with 141 in it. But to add to the confusion, Queens usually has the same number in a variety of roadways, so it could theoretically be east of 141st Street, or 141st Avenue or 141st Place, etc.

As it turns out, 141st Street is the only one that is a major thoroughfare in Queens, so that was naturally the logical place to start. And fortunately, in this first scene taking place at Linda’s apartment, you can see the street they’re on appears to end at a park.

So, I began looking along 141st Street for any place that had a park or playground on one side of it.

A section of a Queens map showing Judge Moses Weinstein Playground along 141st Street and two cross streets, both of which have a building with a 14121 address. 

I eventually came across a playground along 141st in the Kew Gardens Hills section of Queens. There were two streets that dead-ended at the city park — 78th Road and 79th Avenue — and both of them had buildings on them that matched the ones in the film with an address of 14121. I ended up concluding they were on 79th and not 78th simply based on the traffic direction of the street.

(And by the way, these days, most Queens addresses now include a hyphen to make it a little easier to decipher. So, as you can see in the modern pictures above, Linda’s building is displayed as 141-33.)

As I mentioned earlier, Arthur’s penthouse apartment was a set built at Kaufman’s, and I believe the interiors of Linda’s apartment building were a set as well, especially since the real hallway at 141-33 79th Avenue is dramatically different from what appears in the movie.

 

Flower Shop

Arthur goes to a flower shop at 1118 Lexington Avenue to buy a bunch of roses for Linda.

 

The proprietor of the shop asks Arthur what it’s like to have all that money.

 

He says it’s great then exits onto the corner of Lexington and E 78th Street.

 

This was another location I found that had previously been unidentified. There wasn’t much to go on other than a hunch that it was filmed on Manhattan’s East Side. So the first thing I did was a basic search in Google Maps for any flower shops in the vicinity. I knew the chance of the same flower shop still being around was low, but I knew of at least one other florist that has lasted for over 50 years so I thought it was worth a shot.

I soon zeroed in on a Windsor Florist at 1118 Lexington Avenue, which looked very promising since it was only a half block away from another established filming location. Plus, just like in the movie, it was in a corner building, offering up a very similar layout.

Windsor Florist on Lexington Avenue in August 2022.

From there, I went searching through an old Manhattan phone book to see if Windsor Florist was at 1118 Lexington back in 1981. To my surprise, not only was it in business there in ’81, but it actually dated back to 1936.

A circa 1940 photo of Windsor Florist on Lexington Ave.

Located on Lexington for nearly 90 years, the shop had to close its doors in 2022 after a legal dispute with Ferl Realty Company. But there’s still a location on Second Avenue, operated by Sam Karalis, who inherited the business from his family.

It might be noted that across from its Lexington location, at no. 1117, there was one of the first three Starbucks to be established in NYC in 1994 (with obviously many more to follow). The Seattle-based coffee shop closed in 2019 right before the building was razed.

 

Arthur and Linda’s Dinner Date

Arthur and Linda have a romantic dinner at the rooftop garden on Rockefeller Center’s International Building at 630 Fifth Avenue

 

Back when I was researching this film, I couldn’t find any information as to where this date scene took place. However, with the iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral seen across the street, it was obvious that it was shot on a rooftop at Rockefeller Center. And judging by the angles, I determined that they were on the northern wing of the International Building, best known for displaying a giant Atlas statue outside its Fifth Avenue entrance.

While finding the location was fairly simple, I must admit that at the time, I had no idea there were these private gardens in Rockefeller Center.

These rooftop gardens on four of the Fifth Avenue buildings were part of architect Raymond Hood’s original 1930 vision of this midtown complex. In addition to these formal gardens (accoutered with evergreen hedges, cobblestone walkways and fountains), Hood proposed building a network of bridges connecting the green rooftops together. But time and money nixed those plans.

That’s not to say what was created wasn’t breathtaking. One of the smaller gardens at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was packed with eye-catching amenities which included a bird sanctuary, a vegetable garden, rock gardens and a children’s garden.

The rooftop garden on the International Building at 630 Fifth Avenue, which was used for this scene, was designed by floral expert A.M. Van den Hoek, and is one of the Center’s original botanical creations that still survives today. Sadly, these lush spaces are restricted to private use and can only be viewed by tenants in the surrounding buildings or the wildly rich who can afford to rent the space.

It should be said, the rooftop garden’s cinematic appearance hasn’t been limited to this 1981 comedy; it’s been featured in a bunch of film and television productions over the years.

Most notably, it was used in 2002’s Spider-Man where the flying superhero alights onto the International Building’s south wing rooftop to get Mary Jane out of harm’s way.
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Arthur and Linda at an Arcade

Arthur plays the “Shoot the Bear” game at the former Faber’s Sportland at 1240 Surf Avenue in Coney Island, NY.

 

He racks up enough points to get 15 more coupons.

 

Arthur and Linda walk south through the arcade to redeem the coupons for a prize.

When I first studied this scene, I assumed it took place at a Playland — a popular chain of arcades found mostly in the Times Square area. But my opinion changed once I noticed in one of the shots a backwards neon sign that, when reversed, clearly spelled out, “Faber’s” — another NYC arcade chain whose flagship “Faber’s Fascination” was in Brooklyn’s Coney Island.

A reversed screenshot from the movie, showing a neon “Faber’s” in the background.

I thought it seemed unlikely production went all the way down to Coney Island to film one brief scene, so I checked to see if Faber’s had any locations in Manhattan, and asked Blakeslee to do some digging himself.

I found one article that indicated that Faber’s had arcades in Coney Island, the Rockaways, Long Beach, and Times Square in the 1930s. But as far as I could tell, there wasn’t a”Faber’s Fascination” in Times Square in 1980. There were a couple plain “Fascination” arcades in the area, but they weren’t associated with Faber. It appears as though Fascination was a reference to an old redemption game that eventually became a generic term for game parlors.

A look inside Fascination amusement parlor at 1597 Broadway, circa 1965. 

There was one Fascination at the north end of Times Square that was a popular hangout in the seventies and eighties, and was briefly featured in the opening minutes of Taxi Driver (1976). But it was not the place used in Arthur.

The same Fascination game parlor on Broadway, circa 1985, which had replaced many of the old wooden redemption games with video games. (Photo by Jimi Giannatti.)

It was during this era that Fascination and dozens of other shops in Times Square were subjected to summonses by the police for violating an antiquated “Sabbath Law” — selling nonessential items on a Sunday. The law was finally voided in 1976 after 320 years of existence, being deemed unconstitutional by New York State’s highest court.

A wider view of Fascination in 1983, showing its position on Broadway between 48th and 49th Streets.

Once Blakeslee and I were certain that the Fascination on Broadway wasn’t part of Faber’s, we rechecked the scene to see if there were any other clues as to its location.

Blakeslee briefly focused on the pink neon below the Faber’s sign that began with “RE,” hoping it might be part of the arcade name. But it ended up not helping us with our search.

The one thing I focused on was what appeared to be a couple large, pulled-down gates in the background. My guess was they filmed the scene early in the day before the arcade was open, but since the “date” was taking place at night, they had to pull those metal gates down to block the sunlight. (Also explains why the neon was backwards and seemingly pointing at a wall; if the gates were up, the sign would be pointing out and onto the street.)

As I studied those pulled-down gates, I tried to visualized what the front of the arcade looked like and then suddenly, I realized there was no traditional door there. Instead, it looked as though the arcade had large “open-air” entrances, like what you’d find in a beachfront area. That made me think that they did, in fact, film the scene down in Coney Island.

Once I dropped this theory on Blakeslee, he used his superhuman internet-searching powers to almost immediately unearth a vintage photo of Faber’s in Coney Island that showed the very same neon signage from the movie.

It even showed the same large fan that was next to it, completely convincing us that we found the right place.

The photo also showed us that the pink RE was part of the phrase, BING-O-RENO, which was a type of pinball machine popular in the mid-20th century.

So, the characters were in the Sportland section of Faber’s which occupied the majority of the ground floor of the historic Henderson Building on Surf Avenue.

 

From circa 1979, Faber’s Fascination and Sportland occupy the first floor of what was originally built as Henderson’s Music Hall.

The Sportland section closed down some time ago, but to my surprise, the Fascination side lasted all the way until 2010.

Faber’s Fascination in Coney Island during the early morning hours, winter of 2006.

The beloved arcade was finally forced to close when the new property owners, Thor Equities, made preparations to demolish the building. As might be expected, several historians and Coney Island preservationists opposed the destruction of the historic building.

Looking south, a panoramic view of Surf Avenue. (Photo by Anthony Catalano.)

They pointed out that Henderson’s Music Hall was an important Coney Island entertainment venue during its day and had featured a variety of music and vaudeville acts, including Al Jolson and the Marx Brothers.

Sixty odd years later, the back of the building would play a small role in eighties music culture when it was featured on the cover of Cyndi Lauper’s debut album, She’s So Unusual, which included her breakout song, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

This bit of trivia was discovered by PopSpots creator, Bob Egan, who seeks out the locations of album covers and other pop culture events in NYC.

Despite objections by locals, Thor Equities went ahead with their plans to raze the century-old building, claiming it was structurally unsound. Shortly thereafter, Faber’s large letters that blazed the night sky for decades were removed piece-by-piece, including the ones on the previously obstructed Sportland sign.

Faber’s Sportland Sign exposed in 2010, after many years of being covered up.

The removal was overseen by Carl Muraco, owner of Faber’s at the time, who hoped to sell the dismantled signs as well as the arcade machines.

A view of Henderson’s Building in 2010, shortly after the letters were removed.
From August 2011, as a new building goes up on the old site of Faber’s.

That was back in September of 2010 and I can’t find any info on the fate of those Coney Island artifacts, but hopefully they didn’t end up in some scrap pile somewhere.

Today, the new one-story building houses several businesses, and the spot where Faber’s Sportland used to be is now a large candy shop called “It’s Sugar.” But there’s nothing sweet about the loss of that old building.

 

Martha Gives Arthur an Ultimatum

Inside Arthur’s Grandmother’s mansion at 2 E 91st Street, he’s told that if he doesn’t marry socialite Susan Johnson, he will lose his $750 million inheritance. 

 

Succumbing to his grandmother Martha’s threat, Arthur drives to Susan’s home, heading north on FDR Drive near E 15th Street. 

 

He pulls out a bottle and starts drinking as he passes Belmont Island in the East River. 

 

Backtracking a bit, Arthur takes the exit for the Midtown Tunnel to Long Island.

 

The exterior of Arthur’s grandmother’s opulent mansion has long been established as being the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum on E 91st Street. The Georgian Revival mansion (completed in 1902 for industrialist Andrew Carnegie and his family) has been featured in several other movies, including Marathon Man (1976), Jumping Jack Flash (1986) and Working Girl (1988).

While the exterior is unquestionably the Cooper Hewitt, I’m not sure where the interior was filmed. I couldn’t match it up with any of the rooms in the museum, so I suspect that it was filmed somewhere else — perhaps it was even a set.

Dudley Moore and actress Geraldine Fitzgerald inside what is supposed to be her character’s expansive UES mansion.

Of course, there were no real puzzlers in figuring out where the following driving scene took place. It was clearly on the FDR, I just had to figure out what parts by looking at the distant buildings and such. As you can see from the “then/now” image above, the Queens skyline across the river has changed dramatically over the years — becoming much taller and denser than it was in the 1980s (or even the 2000s for that matter).

The one constant that helped me nail the exact strip of road he was on was Belmont Island in the East River. Measuring a modest 100×200 feet, Belmont is an artificial islet that was created in 1906 during the construction of the Steinway Tunnel (located directly underneath it and used today by the IRT’s 7-train).

Belmont is officially the smallest island in Manhattan and is currently protected by New York State as a sanctuary for migrating birds, including a small colony of double-crested cormorants.

A flock of cormorants on a small patch of rocks in between Belmont and Roosevelt Islands, taken by musician David Byrne during a 2007 bike trip. 

While not open to the public, a group of employees from the United Nations who were followers of the guru Sri Chinmoy, were allowed to lease the island in the seventies to plant and maintain flora. (The island is unofficially named after a friend of Chinmoy, Burmese diplomat U Thant.) Their lease ended in the nineties, but they weren’t the only folks who occupied the island over the years

In 1972, activists took over the land for two and a half hours in protest of USSR Chairman Leonid Brezhnev’s speech at the UN that would announce an exorbitant tax on Soviet Jews who wished to emigrate to Israel. Then in 2004, artist Duke Riley surreptitiously rowed onto Belmont Island under the cover of night and proclaimed it a sovereign nation in objection to the Republican National Convention being in NYC. This temporary seizure was marked by his hoisting of a 21-foot-long pennant depicting two electric eels from the island’s navigation tower.

As far as I can tell, no one has since occupied the islet, but you can get a decent view of it by taking the Astoria-bound NYC Ferry up the river.

 

The Johnsons Estate

Arthur’s Packard One-Twenty Convertible Coupe heads southwest in Brookville, NY, passing what is now 5 Dupont Court.

 

He stops his vintage car outside of Susan Johnson’s family estate, idling in front of the east side of de Seversky Mansion on the NYIT campus.

 

He pulls out his bottle and takes one last swig before going inside.

 

Inside the foyer, he is greeted by one of the Johnsons’ butlers.

 

Arthur slurs a few senseless jokes by the main stairs,

 

The humor is completely lost on the stodgy servant.

 

The butler then shows Arthur to the sitting room off the foyer.

 

Moments later, he is joined by Susan’s intimidating father, Burt.

 

Nervous, Arthur makes a series of drunken jokes about the mounted moose.

 

They move to the south side of the sitting room, where Burt makes a not-so-subtle threat to Arthur that he better make his daughter happy.

 

I knew for a long time that they shot the exterior of the Johnson estate at NYIT de Seversky Mansion on Long Island, but it wasn’t until recently that I confirmed the interiors were shot there, too. After discovering an amateur iPhone video of the inside, I determined they shot in the mansions’s front foyer and the small, wood-paneled sitting room just to the left of it.

The front entrance to NYIT de Seversky Mansion, circa 1920 (top) and September of 2024 (bottom).

Situated on the island’s North Shore (known for having some of the most opulent estates in the country), de Seversky Mansion was originally called White Eagle when it was built between 1916 and 1918 for the second wife of businessman, Alfred I du Pont.

Looking at the base of the table in de Seversky Mansion’s foyer, featuring an eagle motif.

Designed in the Georgian Revival style, with a red brick façade and white marble embellishments, the residence was sold shortly after its completion to du Pont’s neighbor Howard Phipps who later passed it on to his sister and her husband, British politician Frederick Guest. The home remained with the Guest family until it was purchased by the New York Institute of Technology in 1972. The mansion was then renamed after Russian aviator, Alexander P. de Seversky, who was a member of the school’s Board of Trustees and instrumental in acquiring the property.

Today, de Seversky Mansion remains a part of the Old Westbury campus of NYIT and is often used for school and private events. In fact, it was Dana and Nicolette from the NYIT de Seversky Mansion Sales & Events team who kindly allowed me to visit the estate and take some modern pictures.

Looking towards the sitting room off the foyer with the same horse lamp seen in Arthur on the table.
The main reception room located to the right of the foyer, where many of the private and academic events are held.

I’m glad I was finally able to visit and photograph the estate earlier this year. I first tried photographing it in 2021, back when I was only aware that the mansion’s exterior was used in Arthur. I had borrowed my aunt’s car and traveled to Brookville to take some pictures of the facade, but this was still in the midst of the pandemic and access to the campus was limited to students and faculty.

One of the large modern estates on Dupont Court, built in 2011 about 600 yards north of NYIT de Seversky Mansion.

I tried to get access to the mansion via the residential Dupont Court, but the connecting road was gated off, so I decided to move on to other movie locations on Long Island (namely, the jail used in Three Days of the Condor, which was a rather stark change of scenery).

 

Arthur Visits Linda

Still drunk, Arthur goes to see Linda in Queens, but goes into the wrong building, 141-21 79th Avenue, which he promptly exits.

 

He walks over to his convertible and stakes a quick drink.

 

He then heads for 141-33 79th Avenue, but is sidetracked when he runs into a hedge. 

 

Racetrack

The next day, Arthur blows off some steam racing a Porsche at the former Danbury Fair and Racearena (now a shopping mall) at 7 Backus Avenue, Danbury, CT.

 

Hobson watches from the race track’s sidelines, which was near where the Macy’s department store now is, at the east end of the mall.

 

Hobson chides Arthur for being a spoiled brat.

 

Filmed at the old Racearena in Danbury, CT, I was able to figure out the general orientation of this scene by finding an old satellite image of the area and lining it up with a modern view. The calculations were confirmed by matching up the large hills and elevated highway in the background.

An aerial view in Danbury, CT, comparing the race track in 1974 and the shopping mall in 2022. Racearena’s large grandstand can be seen on the southwest side of the oval track.

But I probably would’ve had a difficult time knowing where this scene took place at all if it hadn’t been published in a few car-enthusiast websites. Apparently the old Danbury Racearena holds a fond place in the hearts of old race fans, and several recognized that Arthur filmed a scene there.

Entrance to the Racearena in Danbury, CT, circa 1950s.

Located on the Danbury Fairgrounds in Danbury, Connecticut, the track was originally used for horse racing when it opened in 1869.

It eventually evolved to a 1/3 mile paved track to be used by race cars. At this point, the track was already an integral part of the state fair’s activities, hosting a variety of shows and events. It was also the place where the daily parade would culminate, showcasing an endless line of bands, floats, clowns and exotic animals in front of a packed grandstand.

The Budweiser Clydesdales take the track during one of the fair’s daily parades.

Of course, racing was the main purpose of the fair’s Racearena, and it hosted all different kinds — motorcycles, speedboats, stock cars, midget autos, and even ostriches took a turn at competing.

In addition to October’s “Fair Week,” conventional competitive auto racing would be held at the Racearena every Saturday night throughout the summer. And this tradition continued up until the year Arthur came out.

At the end of 1981’s fair week (which saw an estimated 400,000 attendees that year), the grounds were permanently closed and the land was bought by a real estate developer. A few years later, the “Danbury Fair” shopping mall went up in its place.

Workers put on the finishing touches at the mall, one month before it opened in 1986

Naturally, many locals, in particular race fans, protested this development, but it mostly fell onto deaf ears. (Accusations were made that then-mayor of Danbury, James Dyer, took $60,000 in bribes to ensure the sealing of the deal, but the charges were eventually dropped.)

A bumper sticker from the early 1980s expressing the opposition to the mall.

The new shopping center opened in 1986 and is still considered one of the more successful of its kind in the state.

However, like most malls in the United States, the volume of customers has been slowly diminishing, and there is currently some interest in converting some empty retail space into an apartment complex (specifically, where Lord & Taylor used to be).

It’s all part of the mall’s plans to reimagine itself as a “24-hour environment,” which would also include the addition of some green space around the perimeter.

As of this writing, these development plans are still up in the air, but if they go through, I’d definitely be curious to see what an apartment attached to a Bath & Body Works will go for in rent.

 

Engagement Party

 

After being encouraged by Hobson, Linda decides to crash Arthur’s engagement party at the Marshall Field House at Caumsett State Park, 25 Lloyd Harbor Road.

 

She exits the cab and goes inside..

 

Once inside, the action switches to the James B. Duke House at 1 E 78th Street in Manhattan. 

 

At the party, Arthur goofs around on the piano, much to the amusement of the guests.

 

After spotting Linda by the fireplace, Arthur goes to talk to her.

 

The two adjourn to the family horse stable, located inside Caumsett State Park at what is now the Lloyd Harbor Equestrian Center, 33 Lloyd Harbor Road.

 

Both of these locations were listed on IMDB’s production page, but neither entry indicated what scenes were filmed there. I was quickly able to determine that the Marshall Field House at Caumsett State Park was the exterior of Arthur’s father’s estate, but it took me a while to connect the James B. Duke House on E 78th Street with the interior. I always just assumed production used the inside of the Marshall Field House, but once I saw what it looks like inside, I knew it wasn’t a match.

A view inside the Marshall Field House at Caumsett State Park on Long Island.

But they did end up using one interior at Caumsett State Park for the scene where Arthur and Linda go to the horse stables in the middle of the party. This was filmed inside the historic Polo Stable, currently leased by Lloyd Harbor Equestrian Center, which is privately run and not open to the general public.

When it came to the party interiors, I was surprised production used a Manhattan location, opposed to using one of the mansions on Long Island.

A view of the James B Duke House on E 78th shortly after its completion in 1912.

Although, perhaps it was logistically easier to film in the city. Plus, the fact the James B. Duke House is owned and operated by a university, the price for leasing out the space might’ve been reasonably affordable.

While a part of NYU today, the palatial limestone mansion was originally built for the recently-married tobacco magnate, James Buchanan Duke. The home was constructed between 1909 and 1912 on the coveted easterly side of Central Park, often referred to as the “Boulevard of Rank.” Its elegant design was heavily inspired by the 18th century Château Labottière in Bordeaux, France (although some contemporaneous critics called it a flat-out rip-off).

Modern views of the 1773 Chateau Labottiere in Bordeaux (left), and its 1912 sister building on New York’s East 78th Street (right).

Like the Bachs in the movie Arthur, the Dukes were known for holding lavish parties in their NYC home. But it wasn’t even their main residence. Across the river in Somerville, NJ was a 2,500-acre country estate which was listed as their primary residence.

Just over a decade after the 78th Street mansion was completed, James Duke contracted pneumonia and died in his bedroom. This left the status of the estate in limbo for a couple years.

Doris Duke, daughter of JB Duke, at age fourteen.

Due to the abstruse wording in his will, James Duke’s NYC house became part of a legal predicament for his family, where it was unclear who was the rightful owner of the property. It essentially ended with his teenage daughter, Doris, filing a “friendly suit” against her mother, Nanaline, in order to gain the vast real estate holdings. It also prevented the house from being put up for auction.

Upon receiving the NYC residence and its contents in 1927 (which also included a collection of tapestries, four automobiles and a private railroad car), fourteen-year-old Doris Duke became known as “the richest girl in the world.” By the time her inheritance was fully realized on her 21st birthday, her fortune was increased by about $30 million. And as her net worth grew, so did the public interest in her, often resulting in throngs of journalists crowding her 78th Street home.

By the late 1940s, the house (which Doris had jocularly nicknamed “the rock pile”) was primarily used by her mother, Nanaline. Then in 1958, it was announced that the two Duke women would be donating their Upper East Side mansion to New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. This extravagant gift allowed the institute to more than double its space from 19,000 square feet at their old location on E 80th Street, to 40,000 square feet at the Duke House.

From 2012, a view of the second floor at the Duke House (Photo by John Foreman.)

Since then, the Institute’s effort to carefully renovate and maintain the home has kept the James B Duke House a delightful beacon in a neighborhood dominated by towering apartment complexes.

 

Linda’s Diner

Linda works at her job at Lenox Hill Grill at 1107 Lexington Avenue.

 

A tipsy Arthur stumbles into the grill.

 

Despite the threat of losing his inheritance, Arthur declares his love for Linda and asks her to marry him.

 

This diner location has been widely identified amongst movie publications, but I first discovered it in a 2011 article in The New York Post. (It might be noted that the article was being written in advance of the release of the pointless remake starring Russell Brand, which I worked on for one day as a background actor.)

The Lenox Hill Grill ended up being one of the very first NYC locations I sought out and photographed since starting this project, having visited the eatery in early 2017. You can tell that it was the early days of internet-movie-location-sleuthing because the owner was genuinely surprised someone had discovered the Grill’s place in movie history. He was also impressed that I brought along stills from the movie to compare with the real-life space.

The affable middle-aged fellow (whose name unfortunately escapes me some seven years later) filled me in with a little history of the Grill and the adjacent pizza shop which his family had owned for nearly sixty years. He told me that most of the restaurant workers who appeared in the movie were his family members who were basically “playing themselves.” In particular, I remember the owner pointed out that the man by the entrance in the second “then/now” image above was his late uncle.

It’s a good thing I went the Lenox Hill Grill when I did, because the restaurant ended up closing its doors one year later due to the landlord deciding to reconstruct and expand the building.

I had no idea this happened until I stumbled upon a shuttered front while exploring the area one afternoon. I was saddened for the loss of another mom-and-pop business, but also disappointed I wasn’t able to take a few better modern pictures. (Admittedly, the ones I took in 2017 were a bit dark and sloppy.)

Entrance to what used to be the Lenox Hill Grill and pizza shop, taken in the early summer of 2024.

When I visited the site earlier this year, the building reconstruction was nearly complete. So, whenever a new business opens up on the ground floor, I’ll make sure to pay them a visit and snap a few pics.

 

The Big Wedding

As Arthur is proposing to Linda, his wedding to Susan is still set to happen at St. Bartholomew’s Church at 325 Park Avenue.

 

Outside, Burt Johnson warns Arthur’s father that if he doesn’t show up, he will kill him.

 

Arthur eventually arrives at the church, still intoxicated. 

 

All the guests turn around to see who’s arrived.

 

Arthur’s father and grandmother look on in embarrassment.

 

He works his way through the nave to a side room.

 

In this side room, Arthur tells Susan he’s in love with another woman.

 

A spurned Susan calls her dad into the room.

 

Mr. Johnson slugs Arthur, sending him to the floor.

 

Later on, after all the guests are gone, Arthur becomes accepting on a life of being poor.

 

Martha listens in, horrified by the idea of a working-class Bach.

 

Outside, Martha decides to give Arthur his inheritance, in spite of his decision to marry Linda.

 

Arthur turns down his grandmother’s offer and he and Linda go to say goodbye to Biterman.
Before Martha leaves, Arthur goes to her car to speak to her one last time.

 

He returns to Linda and admits he decided to take the money after all. 

 

Now fishy rich and madly in love, Arthur asks Bitterman to take them through the park.

 

The Rolls-Royce heads north on Park Avenue with Arthur and his bride-to-be inside. 

 

The movie ends at the eminent St. Bart’s, a historic Episcopal parish located on the east side of Park Avenue in bustling Midtown Manhattan. Established on that lot over 100 years ago, the church has been featured in several films and TV shows., but I believe Arthur was the first to immortalize it on film (if you don’t include a brief appearance of its dome in 1978’s Superman: The Movie where the red-caped superhero zips over it).

Looking northeast toward St. Barts in 1928, before its epochal dome was added.

The church was erected in 1916–17, but it was a simplified design, and it would be over a decade before the interior was fully completed and the iconic Byzantine dome was added to the roofline. Around the time those updates were being made, they also installed a new 1,825-pipe Skinner organ, making it the largest in New York.

While St. Bart’s is a standout landmark on Park Avenue, its footprint was in danger of being altered just as Arthur was getting ready to be released.

A battle within the parish was brewing over a real estate developer’s offer to purchase the site of the adjacent community house to make way for an office tower. Different leaders from the church had opposing views of this prospect, and the conflict spilled into the city’s designated landmark status of the building. It eventually became a heated legal battle that worked its way up to the Supreme Court, which in 1991, declined to hear an appeal on the matter, essentially upholding the Second Circuit’s decision to deny the demolition of the community house.

It was this decision that makes St. Bart’s an unusual sight in NYC, especially in the compact Midtown Manhattan — a church with a large swath of open air space.

Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli between scenes, during the filming at St Bartholemew’s Church on Park Avenue.

Unlike some other comedies of the 1980s, Arthur has virtually disappeared from the movie history lexicon. While not a perfect film, it is unquestionably Dudley Moore’s greatest role, and the chemistry between him and John Gielgud is some of the best you’ll ever see.

While the casting of Liza Minnelli as a poor waitress from Queens seems a bit far-fetched, she does a serviceable job as Arthur’s love interest, displaying lots of vim and vigor.

We also get some great performances from the second-tier cast, including Stephen Elliott as the menacing Burt Johnson (who would later play the uptight chief of police in 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop), Barney Martin as Linda’s out-of-work father (probably best known for playing Jerry’s dad on the TV series, Seinfeld), Ted Ross as the sympathetic driver, Bitterman, and probably my favorite of the group, Geraldine Fitzgerald as the cutthroat matriarch of the Bach family.

Dudley Moore and Geraldine Fitzgerald filming a scene from the movie.

And kudos to writer-director Steve Gordon for having an English comedian taking on the lead role, despite the studio’s push to cast John Belushi. While having the SNL alum would’ve made an interesting comedy, I don’t think it would have had as much depth and pathos as what we ultimately got.

Writer-director Steve Gordon poses with Moore inside St Bart’s church.

Sadly, Gordon died from a heart attack one year after this movie came out, at the age of 44. This was his only feature film, and it’s a shame we’ll never know what a sophomore effort would’ve produced.

Steve Gordon making a cameo as a scruffy onlooker in the arcade scene.

I also admire that the entire film was shot on the east coast. It might’ve been because it was essentially a minor, lower-budget production and under the studio’s radar. But I think it was mostly because it was financed by Orion Pictures, who already had a track record of allowing Woody Allen to shoot all of his own stuff in New York.

Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud in Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan.

 

Moore posing on the bathroom set at Kaufman Studios in Queens.

 

Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli in front of a movie trailer, July 18th, 1980.

I’m quite happy that I was able to track down and photograph nearly all the locations, including several interiors. Aside from the inside of Martha’s mansion, the only other location that remains a bit of a mystery is the hospital where Hobson is admitted. Some sources claim it was filmed in Lenox Hill Hospital on E 77th Street, but I haven’t found any new or vintage images that match what appeared in the movie.

I think it’s possible they filmed the hallway scenes at the actual Upper East Side hospital, but the room was most likely a set back at Kaufman Studios.

Regardless, I think we were able to do a pretty thorough investigation into these filming locations, considering the surprisingly minimal amount of behind-the-scenes information out there. I suppose if I had Arthur’s 750 million dollars, I could’ve spent some of it on a more in-depth investigation. Hell, if I had Arthur’s bankroll, I’d even spend some of it on researching the depressingly awful 1987 sequel, Arthur 2: On the Rocks.