Revenge of Shot on Site Summer - Ghostbusters II Locations, Part 1

In honor of the respective 35th & 30th anniversaries of the original Ghostbusters movies, every Sunday - henceforth dubbed Shot on Site Sundays - at Noon (Eastern) for the next several weeks (schedule here), I will go through the original two movies from start to finish, showing and telling you where everything was filmed in Manhattan, New York and Los Angeles, California. This will be part filming locations rundown, part behind the scenes exploration, and part "Making Ghostbusters". All parts are available here in reverse order: Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. I will be utilizing the home video cuts of both movies, which can be found on the 2014 Blu-ray Double Feature, as well as the recently-released 5-Disc 4K UHD & Blu-ray with Bonus Disc Set. With that in mind, SPOILER WARNING if you read any further... though I suspect that if you're at Spook Central, you've already seen both movies a million times over.

The majority of real world New York photos were taken by Alex Newborn in July 2014 and Lars Karlsen in July 2018, and are being used with permission. The enlargements for these photos, and for the movie framegrabs, can be found on the various Filming Locations pages elsewhere on Spook Central. Other images are credited where known. Locations were identified by various people and sources over the past 35 years. Those that are not common knowledge are credited on the specific Filming Locations pages (see previous link). The title graphic seen at the top was created by Lars Karlsen, based on an idea by Paul Rudoff. It can be enlarged for a better look at its beauty. Now that that's out of the way, we've got movie sign...

The movie opens with Dana Barrett pushing a baby buggy, with rubber bumpers, down the sidewalk to her new apartment. Immediately outside, she talks to Frank, who's definitely a building superintendant and not a doorman - despite reports to the contrary.


Dana moved all the way to 325 East 77th Street, though she still lives in New York.


Baby Oscar decides to go for a joyride, narrowly missing a public bus. That will teach Oscar for texting and driving. Maybe if he had a positive male role model in his life, he'd be a better behaved baby.


The entire baby carriage chase is geographically correct. It starts at Dana's apartment building at 325 East 77th Street and heads south to the intersection of East 77th Street and First Avenue.


Ivan Reitman keeping pace with the cameraman while filming Oscar's close-ups during the chase.


Meanwhile, some positive male role models for Oscar are driving their dilapidated jalopy to a call.


The car is at Columbus Avenue and West 89th Steet.


Driving, driving, driving...


Passing by the St. Moritz Hotel at 50 Central Park South. It's now The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, but the horse is still there.


...keep that Ecto driving...


The filmmakers returned to Columbus Circle to film this quick shot of the Ectomobile passing by 2 Columbus Circle (the big white building to Stay Puft's left as he entered) and turning onto Broadway. 2 Columbus Circle is actually 3 blocks away - and in the OPPOSITE direction - from the St. Moritz Hotel in the previous shot.


...rawhide!


We're back on Columbus Avenue, turning onto West 88th Steet.


They arrive at their destination...


...which we get a better look at later on when they exit the building.


They have gone to 420 East 78th Street. The residence, which used to be the home of James Cagney when he was a young stage actor (according to Larry Wolfe Horwitz's "New York City Starwalks" book), is located in close proximity to Dana's apartment building.


Inside, they don't find ghosts, but rather these other types of pests known as children. It's not a haunting, but rather a birthday party!


For the first time in the movie, we're in Los Angeles, at a location we've seen many times in the first film, but never like this. It took us fans a long time to figure out that this scene was filmed at the old headquarters of Fire Station #23 at 225 East 5th Street in Los Angeles. Yes, the same building used for all Ghostbusters headquarters interiors in both films was also used for this scene. While the headquarters scenes used rooms on the first and second floors, the birthday party was held in the old Captain's Quarters on the third floor.


Dana visits Egon at The Institute for Advanced Theoretical Research.




For the first and only time in Ghostbusters II, we're on the Columbia University campus in New York. That building to the left of Dana at the start of the shot is the back of the Low Library. As she walks past it (second image above), you can see the building from the background of the "Ghostbusters" title shot peeking out in the background here. With both movies combined, filming has taken place on all four sides of the Low Library. The title shot for the front, the Crunch bar scene on the right, Peter and Ray discussing business plans off to the left, and Dana walking behind it. "The Institute for Advanced Theoretical Research" building that she's walking to is actually Avery Hall, which houses Columbia's School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Dana's visit to Egon is actually the "appointment" she tells Janosz that she's going to a few scenes later. Ivan Reitman chose to rearrange the scenes in this area of the movie. As written in the February 27, 1989 draft of the script, the order originally was Birthday Party, World of the Psychic, Manhattan Museum of Art, The Institute for Advanced Theoretical Research, and finally Ray's Occult Books. Ivan moved the Institute scene to be in between the party and the psychic show; the rest of the order stayed the same.




Egon's lab inside is a set, as is the World of the Psychic with Dr. Peter Venkman set.


Although the set is a set, it's not the original set. As written in the August 5, 1988 draft of the script, Peter interviewed three female guests, and not Milton and Elaine; though she was one of the three females.


Surprisingly, this original version of the scene was filmed. Photos from it appear on the studio office walls within the finished film.


The original "World of the Psychic with Dr. Peter Venkman" logo seen on the set in the on-wall photos above can also be seen in this behind-the-scenes publicity photo of Ivan and the guys relaxing on the set between takes.


Does the world end on January 1, 1990? Does it end on February 14, 2016? Find out next week - same ghost time, same ghost channel - when we continue our look at the filming locations from Ghostbusters II.