Mike, The Knife Sharpener

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving! Mike the knife sharpener is on his way to East 129th St between Madison & 5th, and should be here around 9:15-9:30. Jennifer will send out notice when he’s here, but wanted to give notice that he’s on his way!

Midnight Cowboy

The 1969 film Midnight Cowboy was celebrated for it’s gritty New York City street scenes. However, like every film of its day, some of the filming took place in a sound studio. And, in this case, in a sound studio on 2nd Avenue at East 127th Street.

In the film Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Ratzo Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) were not only filmed in the sound studio in East Harlem, but they even faked going over the Queensboro Bridge by substituting the nearby Wills Avenue Bridge.

Note that the bridge pictured in the 1969 film was replaced, and so the merged image below shows a pre-replacement part of the span.

In the film, right after the tenement in which they are squatting is demolished, they walk to a cemetery in Queens to see Rizzo’s father’s grave. In the film it seems they go over the 59th Street Bridge, but if this picture represents the real bridge they went over, they went WAY out of their way. ( This bridge was near where they did interior filming: Filmways Studios at 246 East 127th Street, in East Harlem.)

For more on the film, see: https://www.popspotsnyc.com/iconic_new_york_city_film_locations/


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