Shot On Site - Louis The Wanderer...He Roams Around, Around, Around

Welcome to Spook Central's special "Shot On Site Summer" event. All throughout the month of July, and possibly the rest of the Summer, I will be posting Shot On Site articles on Spook Central detailing newly-discovered Ghostbusters filming locations. Click here to view the current schedule. After the containment unit explodes, the possessed Louis escapes and is seen wandering down this street.


It was always assumed that it was located near the firehouse (though it could have been filmed anywhere!), but neither myself nor Matthew Jordan (who's been on a hunt for the unidentified filming locations) could find it. Thankfully, we had a little help from someone who didn't even know that they were helping us.

Sam Morrill posted this comment on October 13, 2010 on Scouting NY's Flickr page for the movie screen shot: "I'm pretty sure this is White street facing east. They probably had the camera set up on West Broadway across from the north-east corner. You can check Google street view. A lot has changed/been remodeled, but I think this is it."

I went to Google Maps and I saw a few things that DID match up in their photography from July 2011.


The building on the left has columns with horizontal notches in it, as does the ones in the movie. It's the only thing you can really see of the buildings on the left in the movie. The base of the columns has gone from white to brown, and the drain pipe next to the left-most column has gone from brown to white. Heck, you can even see the top of the door in the building next door in the movie, too. The only major change is that the planters were replaced with (what looks like) a dumpster.


The white building on the right in the movie is now red, and the windows/doors were changed a bit, but there's still enough to match up. The far right large window has become a door, the large window to the left of that has shrunk (though you can see the outline of its former size), and the window/door pair to the left of that has pretty much stayed the same (except for the addition of security gating). The placement of the windows on the second floor match up nicely. You can even see that the bottom on both buildings gets wider as you move towards the right. You'll also notice that on the building to the left is the same column. (I'd draw arrows and boxes over the photos, but I think it's pretty obvious that they're the same building.)


The next building to the left, which in the movie appears to be brown with white trim and a metal shutter door in the middle, is where things get weird. The white column that starts off the building is a match, but the rest is all completely different. It's all white columns and windows, no metal shutter in sight. That said, Matthew Jordan was able to see a structual similiarity that I missed. Looking at the sides of the building, you can see those rectangular designs on both sides. What's interesting is that there are six "frames" on the front of both buildings, and the door is at the fourth one from the right in both the movie and the photo. In Matthew's comparison image below, look at related architecture of the buildings next door, and the red horizontal line proves that the "frames" do fit in respect to the movie shot. Adding to that, you'll note that the building on the far left with the fire escape matches, too.


Some matches can be made with the buildings in the far background, such as these two at the corner of White Street and Church Street, which is at the next intersection down the road. Again, I would drawn arrows and boxes, but the connection is quite obvious (look at the buildings on the two sides of each image), even though both buildings have gotten new paint jobs in the past 25+ years.


The location where Louis is seen wandering is literally right around the corner from the firehouse, and that would be the most logical place for this shot. It fits geographically in both the movie and in real-life. In the map below, "A" is the firehouse at 14 N. Moore Street, and "B" is wandering Louis at White Street (looking east from West Broadway).

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For more information about Ghostbusters filming locations, be sure to check out the rest of Spook Central's Shot On Site articles, Spook Central's Filming Locations page, and Chris Stewart's Shot On Site articles. Thanks Chris for letting me use your awesome title. Title graphic drawn by Paul Kinsella.