Montauk, Long Island · winter 2003 · Michel Gondry
Lacuna erases Joel’s memories newest first. Every one of them is a real place.
Lacuna Inc. · the procedure
Lacuna wipes Joel’s memories of Clementine while he sleeps, starting with the most recent and working back to the night they met. Run it yourself. Each memory is a real place, and when it goes, the place is still there.
Six memories left.
Nothing erased yet. Lacuna starts with the newest memory.
Lacuna erases Joel’s memories while he sleeps, from the most recent back; hiding Clementine in his childhood memories is the film’s own. Pairing each memory with a place is this page’s.
Wikipedia: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindAmerican Cinematographer: Forget Me Not (Ellen Kuras on Eternal Sunshine)
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504 Grand Street · 504 Grand Street at Columbia Street, Lower East Side
Joel learns he has been erased, and asks Lacuna to erase her.
A corner on Grand Street on the Lower East Side; look from the pavement.
Memory 2
Columbia University Bookstore · Lerner Hall, Broadway at West 115th Street, Morningside Heights
Clementine looks at Joel across her bookshop as if he were a stranger.
The shop is inside Lerner Hall on the Columbia campus; the building stands on Broadway at 115th Street and can be seen from the pavement.
Memory 3
Saratoga Avenue · 208 Saratoga Avenue at Caryl Avenue, Yonkers
Joel follows Clementine round a market that keeps repeating, its signs going blank.
Residential streets in Lowerre, south-west Yonkers. Walk Saratoga Avenue up from Caryl Avenue; be quiet, people live here.
Memory 4
Grand Central Terminal · 89 East 42nd Street at Park Avenue, Manhattan
They run through Grand Central as the crowd disappears around them.
Open every day; the Main Concourse is free to walk through. Look up at the painted ceiling.
Memory 5
Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park · Taconic State Parkway, Yorktown
Joel and Clementine lie on a frozen lake at night, filmed in Westchester as the Charles.
A state park off the Taconic State Parkway in Yorktown, with Mohansic Lake in the middle. Look at the ice from the shore and stay off it.
Memory 6
The beach house · Association Road, Georgica Association, Wainscott
They break into an empty beach house; at the end of the night the sea comes in.
A private house in a private enclave, with a private beach. It is named here, shown by a beach nearby and kept off the map.
Where it says it is, where it was
The film tells you Boston and Long Island. The camera was mostly in Westchester. Turn the map over.
The story’s map: Boston, and Rockville Centre on Long Island.
The ice
In the story Clementine takes Joel at night to lie on the frozen Charles River in Boston.
Police and the state parks department warn that walking on the frozen Charles can be deadly: unlike a pond, the river’s level changes every day, so the ice is unstable.
A public riverside park on the Boston bank. Watch the ice from the Esplanade; never walk out on it.
The platform
Joel lives in Rockville Centre in the story, and some of his scenes are set at its station. They were shot at Mount Vernon East, on the other side of the city.
The raised station over North Park Avenue opened in July 1950.
A working Long Island Rail Road station, raised over North Park Avenue.
The apartment
Joel lives in Rockville Centre in the story, and some of his scenes are set at its station. They were shot at Mount Vernon East, on the other side of the city.
The raised station over North Park Avenue opened in July 1950.
A working Long Island Rail Road station, raised over North Park Avenue.
A former U.S. Navy base, New Jersey
To hide Clementine where Lacuna will not look, Joel takes her into his childhood, where everything is too big. The crew built that kitchen oversized. Pick a hiding place; each one gives up a trick of the shoot.
Nobody hidden yet.
Midtown, Morningside Heights, the Lower East Side
89 East 42nd Street at Park Avenue, Manhattan
Joel and Clementine run through the terminal and down its stairs while the people around them vanish as his memories are erased.
The terminal opened on 2 February 1913. The ceiling of the Main Concourse is painted with constellations.
Open every day; the Main Concourse is free to walk through. Look up at the painted ceiling.
Lerner Hall, Broadway at West 115th Street, Morningside Heights
Clementine’s bookshop, where she looks at Joel as a stranger, was filmed in the Columbia University bookshop at Broadway and West 115th Street.
The bookstore is in Alfred Lerner Hall and carries more than 50,000 general titles besides course books.
The shop is inside Lerner Hall on the Columbia campus; the building stands on Broadway at 115th Street and can be seen from the pavement.
504 Grand Street at Columbia Street, Lower East Side
Lacuna’s office, where Dr Mierzwiak’s team erase memories, was filmed at 504 Grand Street at Columbia Street.
Mary walks out of the company here.
Kaufman wanted Lacuna in the same building as the office in Being John Malkovich. It could not be done, so the idea was dropped.
A corner on Grand Street on the Lower East Side; look from the pavement.
One night during the shoot
The circus in the film is the Ringling Bros. Circus, which paraded its elephants through the city’s streets one night while the film was being made.
The circus seen in the film was the Ringling Bros. Circus, which paraded elephants through city streets one night during production.
Manhattan
Live marketplace results for film-location tours of Manhattan. Check each itinerary for Grand Central Terminal and the Lower East Side.
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The end of the Montauk Branch
Erased, they find each other anyway. Joel skips work for the train east, sees a woman with blue hair in a diner, sits on some steps above a cold beach, and talks to her at last on the way home.
First sight
752 Montauk Highway, Montauk
Joel first sees Clementine, blue hair and all, in this small diner in one of the opening scenes. They do not speak until the train home.
The Plaza Restaurant has closed. By 2017 the building was a Mexican restaurant.
The building is on Montauk Highway at the Plaza, the green in the middle of the village. The diner has gone; look from the street.
The steps
Kirk Park, Montauk Highway, Montauk
Jim Carrey sat on a flight of wooden steps at Kirk Park Beach for the film. By 2017 the steps had all but disappeared.
Fans walked this beach in August 2017 on a day-long tour of the film’s Montauk locations, with dinner and a screening at Gurney’s in Montauk that evening.
A public ocean beach on the western edge of Montauk village. The film’s steps have gone; the sand and the view have not.
End of the line
Edgemere Street and Fort Pond Road, Montauk
Montauk station is one of the film’s settings: the platform where Joel and Clementine meet again after their memories are erased.
The first meeting runs to eleven pages of script. Kuras shot it on a real moving train on real tracks, as one take on 1,000-foot magazines, with a limited time to get it.
Montauk is the end of the Long Island Rail Road’s Montauk Branch, the easternmost railway station on Long Island and in New York State.
The U.S. Navy moved the railway south during the Second World War and a new station was built in 1942; that station house is now the Depot Art Gallery.
An open platform at the end of the Long Island Rail Road’s Montauk Branch. The old station house beside it is the Depot Art Gallery.
Montauk · 15–20% off two-night fall and winter stays
A hotel on the ocean in Montauk with its own 2,000-foot beach and a heated seawater pool, where the 2017 Meet Me in Montauk day ended with dinner and the film. Fall and winter stays of two nights or more are 15 to 20 per cent off.
See the hotelThe people
Charlie Kaufman wrote the screenplay from an idea by Michel Gondry and the artist Pierre Bismuth; the three shared the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress. Around Carrey and Winslet are Tom Wilkinson as Dr Howard Mierzwiak, Elijah Wood as Patrick, Jane Adams and David Cross. Ellen Kuras shot it; Dan Leigh designed it; Jon Brion wrote the score. The title comes from Alexander Pope’s 1717 poem Eloisa to Abelard.
Cast, writers, the story credit, the Oscar and the nomination, the composer, the Pope title, the $20 million budget and the US release on 19 March 2004.
Production dates 13 January to 3 April 2003, shot in and around New York.
Ellen Kuras, director of photography; Dan Leigh, production designer.
American Cinematographer: Forget Me Not (Ellen Kuras on Eternal Sunshine)
10 places you can visit, from Manhattan to the end of Long Island. The beach house in Wainscott and Joel’s apartment on Valentine Lane are private homes: named here, not on the map. The last tab is the story’s own map.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. An open platform at the end of the Long Island Rail Road’s Montauk Branch. The old station house beside it is the Depot Art Gallery.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A public ocean beach on the western edge of Montauk village. The film’s steps have gone; the sand and the view have not.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The building is on Montauk Highway at the Plaza, the green in the middle of the village. The diner has gone; look from the street.
Edgemere Street and Fort Pond Road, Montauk
Montauk station is one of the film’s settings: the platform where Joel and Clementine meet again after their memories are erased.
An open platform at the end of the Long Island Rail Road’s Montauk Branch. The old station house beside it is the Depot Art Gallery.
Kirk Park, Montauk Highway, Montauk
Jim Carrey sat on a flight of wooden steps at Kirk Park Beach for the film. By 2017 the steps had all but disappeared.
A public ocean beach on the western edge of Montauk village. The film’s steps have gone; the sand and the view have not.
752 Montauk Highway, Montauk
Joel first sees Clementine, blue hair and all, in this small diner in one of the opening scenes. They do not speak until the train home.
The building is on Montauk Highway at the Plaza, the green in the middle of the village. The diner has gone; look from the street.
Stay
A hotel on the ocean in Montauk, where the 2017 locations day ended.
Montauk · 15–20% off two-night fall and winter stays
A hotel on the ocean in Montauk with its own 2,000-foot beach and a heated seawater pool, where the 2017 Meet Me in Montauk day ended with dinner and the film. Fall and winter stays of two nights or more are 15 to 20 per cent off.
See the hotelGo there
Tours of Montauk and the East End, and film-location tours of Manhattan.
Montauk, Long Island
Live marketplace results for tours of Montauk and the East End. None is built round this film; check each route for the village, the beaches and the point.
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Live marketplace results for film-location tours of Manhattan. Check each itinerary for Grand Central Terminal and the Lower East Side.
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Heated igloos on the Montauk shore through the cold months.
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Take it home
Kaufman’s shooting script and Jon Brion’s soundtrack.
Charlie Kaufman · Newmarket Press
Kaufman’s screenplay as it was shot, the script that won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Find the bookJon Brion · CD, Hollywood Records, 2004
Jon Brion’s score and the songs from the film, released in the US on 16 March 2004.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
13 of 13 places · 13 of 13 Moments
Edgemere Street and Fort Pond Road, Montauk
Joel and Clementine meet on the way home from Montauk, strangers again.
Kirk Park, Montauk Highway, Montauk
Joel sits alone on wooden steps above the beach.
752 Montauk Highway, Montauk
Joel first sees Clementine across a Montauk diner.
Association Road, Georgica Association, Wainscott
They break into an empty beach house; at the end of the night the sea comes in.
Taconic State Parkway, Yorktown
Joel and Clementine lie on a frozen lake at night, filmed in Westchester as the Charles.
Elm Avenue and 1st Street, Mount Vernon
Joel leaves his usual platform and takes the train to Montauk instead.
208 Saratoga Avenue at Caryl Avenue, Yonkers
Joel follows Clementine round a market that keeps repeating, its signs going blank.
Valentine Lane, Yonkers
Stan and Patrick erase Joel’s memories while he sleeps in his apartment.
89 East 42nd Street at Park Avenue, Manhattan
They run through Grand Central as the crowd disappears around them.
504 Grand Street at Columbia Street, Lower East Side
Joel learns he has been erased, and asks Lacuna to erase her.
Lerner Hall, Broadway at West 115th Street, Morningside Heights
Clementine looks at Joel across her bookshop as if he were a stranger.
Charles River Esplanade, Back Bay, Boston
In the story, the frozen river they lie on is the Charles in Boston.
Front Street and North Park Avenue, Rockville Centre
Joel’s home station in the story; the platform on screen is Mount Vernon East.
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