This past summer The Super Tour of NYC has started , a visit that discovers the best locations of the most blockbuster comic book adaptations. We advance the essential points that any lover of the genre should know.
MIDTOWN COMICS
The starting point of the tour cannot be other than this authentic sanctuary to the world of comics. Since 1997 and with a collection that exceeds half a million titles, this store, which is located just two blocks from Times Square , is a clear benchmark for fans of masked heroes and a source of inspiration for everything we are about to discover.
TIMES SQUARE
Oblivious to the gaze of many tourists and stressed New Yorkers, Times Square has been the scene of some of the most anthological superhero battles in cinema . Spider-Man lived here his first confrontation with the Green Goblin in the first installment of the saga starring Tobey Maguire.
The arachnid superhero was so happy with the experience that he repeated, years later, fighting against Electro, in the second title of the saga led by Andrew Garfield . Times Square also saw Captain America meet Nick Fury , the director of SHIELD , at the end of the first title with Chris Evans .
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL
It is one of the largest train stations in the country and, without a doubt, the most beautiful, but it has been badly treated by the cinema . In the first part of The Avengers , the team made up of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye defend New York from an attack by the Chitauri fleet and Grand Central Terminal is torn to shreds.
The bowels of the station also served as the lair of Lex Luthor, Superman ‘s nemesis , in the first film with Christopher Reeve. The television series Gotham , depicting the world of Batman during his childhood, shot a scene in the renovated bar and former office, **The Campbell Apartment.**
TUDOR CITY
A few steps from this beautiful and discreet residential neighborhood in the east of Manhattan, an icon for the followers of Superman rises . The former headquarters of the local Daily News newspaper served as the newsroom for another but fictitious newspaper, the Daily Planet . There Clark Kent and Lois Lane wrote their exclusives in the first film adaptation of the character.
The lobby of the building was left untouched and can still be visited just as it appears in the film . A little further east, following the same 42nd street , is the Tudor Hotel . His luxurious penthouse was the abode of Norman and Harry Osborn, father and son Green Goblin , in the first Spider-Man trilogy .
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
One of the most representative buildings in New York is also much loved by fans of the Spider-Man adventures . The triangular Flatiron Building was transformed, in the first film, into the newsroom of the Daily Bugle , the newspaper where Peter Parker, played by Tobey Maguire , works as a photographer. Interestingly, it is a location visited by two of the actors who have played the character. Andrew Garfield returned there to save two children from being hit by a bus.
EAST VILLAGE
Netflix and Marvel are responsible for many of the stops on the superhero tour. All its adaptations are shot in New York: Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Daredevil and also The Defenders , the series that brings together all these characters.
Jessica Jones conducts one of her investigations in Union Square , a traditional meeting place for many New Yorkers. This is also where Peter Parker goes on a date with Gwen Stacy in one of his breaks as Spider-Man . In the East Village neighborhood, specifically at 187 Christie Street , it was Peter Parker’s apartment from the first two installments of the Spider-Man saga.
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
With how nice it is to calmly cross the Brooklyn Bridge (dodging cyclists and runners, yes) and Hollywood insists on creating panic scenes in it. First it was the Thing , from the Fantastic Four , trying to prevent a suicide that ends with a multiple traffic accident. Then it was Andrew Garfield ‘s Spider-Man again playing with our vertigo in a romantic scene in one of his towers. The Brooklyn Bridge can also be seen, poorly disguised, in various scenes of the fictional Gotham City in the final chapter of The Dark Knight.
FINANCIAL DISTRICT
Batman, in his various and not always successful interpretations, is the superhero that rules Lower Manhattan . One of the most impressive pitched battles in the closing chapter of The Dark Knight trilogy takes place on Wall Street. At the foot of the steps of Federall Hall , without hiding the statue of George Washington who was elected president right there in 1789, Batman and Bane fought fists.
Other famous steps in the financial district are those of the former US Customs building , now the American Indian Museum. In Batman Forever, with Val Kilmer as the Batman, the sumptuous building became the Ritz Gotham Hotel . The facade also appears often in the Gotham series as the headquarters of the police department.
STATEN ISLAND FERRY
The ferry that connects Manhattan to Staten Island offers beautiful views of the island and the Statue of Liberty. Miss Liberty has been the target of several attacks. In the final scenes of the first X-Men installment , Magneto turns the monument into an antenna to transform world leaders into mutants.
In Superman IV (the bad), the statue is launched as a projectile against the New Yorkers only to be saved by the man of steel. The famous orange ferries were recreated in a tense scene with the Joker in The Dark Knight and more recently, the new Spider-Man, this time with Tom Holland (and there are already three), manages to avoid a disaster when a device splits the ship in two.
