Inspection cardFrancis Ford Coppola in 1973, as Part II was being written. Photograph by Bernard Gotfryd. Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer · Public domain
Francis Ford CoppolaDirector · 1973
Ellis Island, 1901 · made 1973–74
The GodfatherPart II
Line 1Andolini, VitoCorleonefrom Corleone, Sicily · 1901
One boy, one line. Hand it to the clerk.
The landing register
Every place landed under another name.
The film was made the way Vito was named. Its Ellis Island is a fish market in Trieste, its Havana is Santo Domingo, its Senate is a stage in Hollywood. Call each line: the clerk writes what the film called the place, and the real place stays on the line beside it.
No.Landed asReally from
Nine lines waiting. Call the first.
The clerk’s desk is empty.
Call a line and the place it really is appears here, with a way to go there.
Province of Messina · Sicily
Corleone is three villages.
Part II’s Corleone was filmed in Forza d’Agrò, Savoca, Motta Camastra and Acireale. The company was based in Taormina, and crews went back to Sicily more than once for the dry, sunny weather the opening needed.
Piazza Sant’Antonio, Forza d’Agrò, July 2023. Jeanne Griffin · CC BY-SA 4.0
Forza d’Agrò
In the film young Vito leaves his hiding place in a donkey cart on the way to America; years later, before going back, he visits the church.
A hill village south of Taormina. Park below and walk up; the private Godfather tour from Taormina stops here.
Production designer Dean Tavoularis chose East 6th Street between Avenues A and B for the film’s old Little Italy, and it was used for the Festa of San Rocco. The block was completely remade: its shopfronts became cigar stores, social clubs, butcher shops and theatres, down to the pushcarts and the dirt and dung on the cobbles.
To let
To let
To let
To let
Asphalt and four plain shopfronts. Four barrow-loads will do it.
A festa in Little Italy, 1908. Bain Collection, Library of Congress. George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domainAvenue A at East 6th Street, 2021. Kidfly182 · CC BY-SA 4.0
A photographer on a roof caught both decades at once: the old year below him, 1974 just down the street, out of shot. An ordinary East Village block of homes. Walk it from Avenue A to Avenue B.
Where we read it
Waiting behind the rails at Ellis Island, between 1907 and 1915. Bain Collection, Library of Congress. George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domainThe main building on Ellis Island, 2019. David Brossard · CC BY-SA 2.0
New York Harbor · Trieste
No one was renamed here.
NotePassenger lists were not written at Ellis Island. They were made abroad, from the moment a ticket was bought, and inspectors were told not to change a name unless the immigrant asked.
The film’s clerk is a story, and so is its island. Ellis Island could not be used because it was yet to be restored, so the production went to Trieste, where the wholesale fish market became Ellis Island for the 1901 sequence. The Great Hall was carefully restored in 1986 to look as it did a century before.
The Salone degli Incanti, the old fish market on the Trieste waterfront, 2017. Fred Romero · CC BY 2.0
Salone degli Incanti, Trieste
The interior shots of young Vito arriving in New York were filmed in the Salone degli Incanti. Giorgio Polli designed the hall in 1913. It is now an exhibition space.
An exhibition hall on the waterfront: go in when a show is on; the front is always there to see.
Ferry from the Battery or Liberty State Park; book ahead with Statue City Cruises. Ferry tickets come only from Statue City Cruises, leaving the Battery and Liberty State Park, and include the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.
Where we read it
Save Ellis Island
Hard Hat Tour of the Ellis Island hospital
Ellis Island, New York Harbor · $55 · six tours a day
Ninety minutes inside the hospital complex on the island’s south side, abandoned since 1954. Hard hats provided; ages 10 and over; not wheelchair accessible. The ferry ticket is separate.
The Palacio Nacional, Santo Domingo, 2017. Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) · CC BY-SA 4.0Hotel El Embajador, Santo Domingo, on a 1958 slide. Collection of David Pirmann. David Pirmann · CC BY 2.0
Santo Domingo · for Havana
New Year’s Eve in the Presidential Palace.
Filming in Santo Domingo began on 2 January 1974, with the city standing in for Havana; the New Year’s Eve party was shot in the Presidential Palace. Rain held the shoot up, and Pacino was ill for about three weeks.
Guido D’Alessandro designed the palace; it opened in 1947 and has never been a president’s home. In its Room of the Caryatids, 44 carved women stand in for columns.
See it from the street. A free one-hour tour may be booked two weeks ahead, Tuesday to Friday at 10am and 3pm; no shorts, T-shirts or flip-flops.
Hotel El Embajador
The hotel was built by order of the dictator Rafael Trujillo, and part of Part II was filmed in it. It opened on 12 February 1956. Barceló now runs it as El Embajador, a Royal Hideaway Hotel.
Where we read it
Barceló
El Embajador, a Royal Hideaway Hotel
Santo Domingo · Opened 12 February 1956
The 1956 hotel built under Trujillo, where part of the film’s Havana was shot. Avenida Sarasota 65, Bella Vista.
Lake Tahoe from Homewood, on the West Shore, in winter 2013: the public view near Fleur du Lac, not the estate. User:JGonera (WMF) · CC BY-SA 3.0
West Lake Boulevard, Homewood, California
The compound
Shooting began at Lake Tahoe on 1 October 1973. The Corleone compound was Fleur du Lac, a 1934 estate built for the industrialist Henry Kaiser, which the crew restored and added to. The estate is where the First Communion party for Michael’s son was filmed.
Private homes behind a gate: named here and not pinned. Lake Tahoe’s public West Shore is all around it.
Where we read it
The Tropicana at night, 2015, nine years before it came down. Tristan Surtel · CC BY-SA 4.0Tropicana Avenue at Las Vegas Boulevard, February 2026. DCAllStar · CC0
Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard · Gone
The Tropicana
The company filmed in Las Vegas at the Tropicana, though the only hotel named in the film is the Desert Inn. Alan Lee, a part-owner of the Tropicana, played the casino owner Klingman.
The hotel came down in October 2024. A 33,000-seat ballpark for the Athletics is rising on the site, due before the 2028 season.
Where we read itThe Melrose Avenue gate of Paramount Pictures, 2014. Coolcaesar · CC BY-SA 4.0
5515 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood
The Senate, on a stage
Vito’s Little Italy apartment, the old Corleone house in Long Beach, New York, and the Senate caucus room were all built on the Paramount lot.
The lot is open on studio tours from the Tour Center at 5515 Melrose Avenue; book ahead.
2959–2973 Wilshire Boulevard, Westlake, Los Angeles
Washington, on Wilshire
The Sheraton West Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard played the hotel in Washington. It opened in 1929 beside Lafayette Park, was renamed the Sheraton-West in 1958 and closed as a hotel in 1993. It is now 142 low-income flats, and a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
Homes now. See the front from Wilshire Boulevard, across from Lafayette Park.
Where we read it
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Studio Tour
5515 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood · Daily · $71
Two hours on the lot where Vito’s apartment and the Senate caucus room were built: the New York backlot, the Bronson Gate and the soundstages. Over-10s only.
Robert De Niro in the trailer for Mean Streets, 1973, the year before Part II. Warner Bros. (trailer for Mean Streets) · Public domainRobert De NiroYoung Vito · 1973
Francis Ford Coppola in 1973, as Part II was being written. Photograph by Bernard Gotfryd. Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer · Public domainFrancis Ford CoppolaDirector · 1973
Lee Strasberg, Hyman Roth in Part II, in 1976. Unknown photographer · Public domainLee StrasbergHyman Roth · 1976
Al Pacino played Michael, Robert De Niro the young Vito and Lee Strasberg Hyman Roth. Francis Ford Coppola directed and wrote it with Mario Puzo, Gordon Willis shot it and Dean Tavoularis designed it. De Niro went to Sicily on a long research trip, looking for the young man inside the older Godfather.
1 Oct 1973First day, at Lake Tahoe
200Minutes long
6Academy Awards
3Of them to Coppola: picture, director, screenplay
It opened in New York on 12 December 1974. Robert De Niro won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Where we read it
Coppola as director, co-writer with Puzo and producer; Willis as cinematographer; Tavoularis as production designer; principal photography from 1 October 1973 at Lake Tahoe; 200 minutes; the New York opening on 12 December 1974; six Academy Awards, three to Coppola, and De Niro’s for supporting actor.
10 places you can visit on three continents. Fleur du Lac at Lake Tahoe is private homes, named and not pinned; the Hotel El Embajador is listed by its address.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A hill village south of Taormina. Park below and walk up; the private Godfather tour from Taormina stops here.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A hill village about 30 minutes’ drive from Taormina. Walk up through the old quarters.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A hill town inland from Taormina. The lanes are public; drive or take a tour.
1Piazza Sant’Antonio, Forza d’Agrò, July 2023. Jeanne Griffin · CC BY-SA 4.0
Province of Messina, Sicily
Forza d’Agrò
Part II’s Corleone was filmed in Forza d’Agrò, Savoca, Motta Camastra and Acireale.
A hill village south of Taormina. Park below and walk up; the private Godfather tour from Taormina stops here.
A Hard Hat Tour of the Ellis Island hospital, a private car to Savoca and Forza d’Agrò, the Paramount studio tour, and walks in New York and Santo Domingo.
Save Ellis Island
Hard Hat Tour of the Ellis Island hospital
Ellis Island, New York Harbor · $55 · six tours a day
Ninety minutes inside the hospital complex on the island’s south side, abandoned since 1954. Hard hats provided; ages 10 and over; not wheelchair accessible. The ferry ticket is separate.
Two hours on the lot where Vito’s apartment and the Senate caucus room were built: the New York backlot, the Bronson Gate and the soundstages. Over-10s only.
Dates, 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.
The full register
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
12 of 12 places · 14 of 14 Moments
Forza d’Agrò
Province of Messina, Sicily
Out of Corleone
Young Vito leaves his hiding place in a donkey cart; the grown man comes back and visits the church.
Savoca
Province of Messina, Sicily
Corleone
Savoca is one of four places that make up the film’s Corleone.
Motta Camastra
Province of Messina, Sicily
Hiding
Young Vito hides from the boss in Motta Camastra’s lanes.
Salone degli Incanti, Trieste
Riva Nazario Sauro 1, Trieste
The clerk’s pen
In the arrival hall a clerk mishears an interpreter, and the boy from Corleone is written down as Vito Corleone.
Ellis Island, 1901
Young Vito’s Ellis Island is the wholesale fish market in Trieste.
Ellis Island
New York Harbor
The real island
The film could not shoot on Ellis Island, which was yet to be restored.
East 6th Street, between Avenues A and B
East Village, Manhattan
The Festa of San Rocco
The feast of San Rocco fills the rebuilt block on East 6th Street.
Fleur du Lac, Lake Tahoe
West Lake Boulevard, Homewood, California
The compound
The Corleone compound on Lake Tahoe, and the First Communion party.
The Tropicana, Las Vegas
Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard
Las Vegas
The casino owner Klingman is played by Alan Lee, a part-owner of the Tropicana.
Paramount Pictures
5515 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood
The hearing
The Senate caucus room is a set on the Paramount lot.
Vito’s apartment
Vito’s Little Italy apartment is a set on the Paramount lot.
The Town House, Wilshire Boulevard
2959–2973 Wilshire Boulevard, Westlake, Los Angeles
Washington
The Sheraton West on Wilshire Boulevard plays the hotel in Washington.
Palacio Nacional, Santo Domingo
Avenida México, Gazcue, Santo Domingo
New Year’s Eve
Havana’s New Year’s Eve party is shot in the Presidential Palace in Santo Domingo.
Hotel El Embajador, Santo Domingo
Avenida Sarasota 65, Bella Vista, Santo Domingo
A Havana hotel
Part of the film’s Havana is shot in the Hotel El Embajador.
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