Nick Carr / Location Scout

Something I wish I’d done back when I lived in NYC: my apartment was at 9th and Wythe in Brooklyn, and for whatever reason, that corner was prone to late night fights.

I love coming across forgotten neon signs for long-gone businesses, and old Chinese restaurants are among my favorite — This chow mein sign used to hang above a photocopy place (also out of business!)

Let’s do a magic trick.

I’ve been a location scout for 20+ years and it’s funny, whenever I’m at a new place, my mind will notice some little detail and instantly make this sort of Sherlock Holmes-like prediction.

And here’s why I love NYC: that weird thing you happened to come across?

I have this massive folder of pictures from my location scouting days in New York City, of totally random things I’d come across in my travels.

The other day, I was out scouting in the middle of nowhere when I came something special.

I’ve been scouting this week in the desert, and I keep coming across abandoned boats, which I love because it’s such a surreal visual.

A few months ago, I was scouting some apartments in the Plaza Hotel when my guide asked if I wanted to see the Plaza’s courtyard.

As a location scout, I love taking a closer look at older movie locations, so here’s the first part of a deep dive I’ve been working on for you Philly fans: Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, comparing 1981 Philadelphia to what it’s become 45 years later… The mov…

Every time I scout this corporate office park in Irvine, I have to do this.

I love when businesses near an airport tip their hat to aviation in some way.

I recently posted about how Columbia University’s wood-paneled lecture hall is THE go-to lecture hall for filming locations; for libraries, it’s the Brooklyn Historical Society.

I was scouting a liquor store once, and as I was leaving the owner said, “I hope you decide to film here,” and shook my hand with a sly wink – and slipped me one of those tiny bottles of Jack Daniels.

“It’s Friday night and I’m driving down Alimony Road” sounds like the start to a bad country song…and is also what I’m literally doing right now.

I was scouting an old military fort once to get some creepy tunnel locations for a horror movie.

I think I love scouting the desert so much because, while it seems like a lot of nothing, there’s >always< something interesting to find if you keep looking.

This is a good example of why it was actually quite hard to scout options for The Neighborhood Where All The Houses Look The Same for filming outside NYC.