Broadway 1957 · Film 1961 · Film 2021
Two gangs, one neighbourhood, and a city that kept changing under them. The first film shot on a block as it was being knocked down. The second rebuilt it in New Jersey. Here is what is still standing.
The prologue · August 1960
The opening of the 1961 film is cut together from two places on opposite sides of Central Park. Snap, and the film cuts.
0 cuts
West 68th Street. Snap your fingers to cut.
West 68th Street, between Amsterdam and West End
Seven street numbers from the prologue, as the shoot used them. None of the buildings is still there.
Nobody home yet. Pick a number.
The street scenes ran along West 68th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues: the Spano garage at no. 210, St. Matthew’s rectory at no. 216, the Royal Garage at no. 222, the dancers’ warm-up at no. 231, the Endicott Express store at no. 241, gang scenes mid-block at no. 243 and the Sharks’ dance outside no. 249.
San Juan Hill
A fourteen-block area west of Central Park, the neighbourhood of San Juan Hill, was razed for middle-class housing, a performing arts centre and a new Fordham campus. Its rooming houses held Irish porters, German elevator operators and Puerto Rican families.
The campus covers 16.3 acres and is home to ten resident organisations, among them the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic and New York City Ballet. Inside David Geffen Hall, an exhibit from the Lincoln Center archives tells the story of San Juan Hill and Lincoln Square.
The plaza is open to walk through. 75-minute guided tours leave the David Geffen Hall Welcome Center Tuesday to Friday at 10.15am, noon, 1.45pm and 3.30pm.
David Geffen Hall Welcome Center · Tue–Fri · 10.15am, noon, 1.45pm, 3.30pm
75 minutes behind the scenes on the campus built over San Juan Hill: rehearsal spaces, backstage and the theatres.
Book a tourThe Legacies of San Juan Hill festival continues with Mathis Picard on 9 October 2026 (choose what you pay) and Gerardo Contino’s Cuban band on 30 October 2026 (free).
Every place in this World
Three versions of the story, three sets of streets. Pick a side.
11 places on the map, spread across two states. Pick a side to light its turf.
Not on the map: The Osborne, a private home. Positions are drawn from each place’s real coordinates, squeezed to fit.
Paterson, New Jersey · summer 2019 · 21 km from West 68th Street
A car park in downtown Paterson. Raise the street.
Spielberg’s film, shot in summer 2019
Landing 1 of 6 · St. Nicholas Avenue, 111th to 113th Streets
In July 2019 Spielberg’s production lined St. Nicholas Avenue between 111th and 113th Streets with 1950s cars and turned a corner shop at 113th Street into a laundry. The 2021 prologue, America and Tony’s search for María’s apartment were filmed in the streets of Washington Heights and Harlem over ten days.
Public streets in Harlem. Walk St. Nicholas Avenue from 111th to 113th Street.
Cast and crew
Press a name.
West Side Story opened on Broadway here on 26 September 1957. It ran for 732 performances and closed on 27 June 1959. It won Tony Awards for Jerome Robbins’s choreography and Oliver Smith’s scenery.
A working Broadway house. See it from Broadway any time; go in with a ticket to whatever is playing.
205 West 57th Street · a private building; this is Carnegie Hall, across the road
Leonard Bernstein lived here from 1951 until about 1960, in apartment 4B, and rented a third-floor studio to compose in. He finished the score of West Side Story here, as well as Wonderful Town, Candide and On the Waterfront. After he took over the New York Philharmonic in 1958 the family moved to Park Avenue, and later to the Dakota on Central Park West.
A private apartment building. It is not open, and it is not on our map.
Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins co-directed the 1961 film; Robbins left early in the shoot and Wise finished it. It won ten Academy Awards, including best picture and supporting awards for Rita Moreno and George Chakiris. Natalie Wood was dubbed by Marni Nixon, Richard Beymer by Jimmy Bryant, and two of Moreno’s songs by Betty Wand, which led to a lawsuit. Bernstein wrote the music and Sondheim the lyrics.
Ariana DeBose won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for the 2021 film; Spielberg was nominated as director and producer.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: the 94th Academy Awards (2022)
Spielberg and Tony Kushner made Rita Moreno an executive producer, and she returned on screen as a new character, Valentina.
11 places you can visit. Bernstein’s Osborne apartment is a private home, named here and not mapped. The East 110th Street schoolyard and the Navy Yard are places to look at from the street, not to enter.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A public street through the Lincoln Towers estate. The tenements are gone; walk the block between Amsterdam and West End Avenues.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The plaza is open to walk through. 75-minute guided tours leave the David Geffen Hall Welcome Center Tuesday to Friday at 10.15am, noon, 1.45pm and 3.30pm.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working Broadway house. See it from Broadway any time; go in with a ticket to whatever is playing.
West 68th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues
In August 1960 the cast went to New York to shoot the prologue around 68th Street, which was demolished shortly afterwards to build Lincoln Center.
A public street through the Lincoln Towers estate. The tenements are gone; walk the block between Amsterdam and West End Avenues.
Lincoln Center Plaza, Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side
A fourteen-block area west of Central Park, the neighbourhood of San Juan Hill, was razed for middle-class housing, a performing arts centre and a new Fordham campus.
The plaza is open to walk through. 75-minute guided tours leave the David Geffen Hall Welcome Center Tuesday to Friday at 10.15am, noon, 1.45pm and 3.30pm.
1634 Broadway at West 50th Street
West Side Story opened on Broadway here on 26 September 1957.
A working Broadway house. See it from Broadway any time; go in with a ticket to whatever is playing.
Stay
A hotel a few blocks from Lincoln Center and West 68th Street. It is not in either film.
Upper West Side
Not a filming location: an Upper West Side hotel with Lincoln Center close by, and a rooftop bar with fireplaces. West 68th Street is a short walk north.
Check roomsGo there
A backstage tour of the campus built over San Juan Hill, the museum from the 2021 date, and film-location walks.
David Geffen Hall Welcome Center · Tue–Fri · 10.15am, noon, 1.45pm, 3.30pm
75 minutes behind the scenes on the campus built over San Juan Hill: rehearsal spaces, backstage and the theatres.
Book a tourFort Tryon Park
Medieval art, architecture and gardens above the Hudson, where Tony and María have their first date in the 2021 film.
Plan a visitManhattan
Live marketplace results for New York movie-location walks and bus tours. Check each itinerary for the places you want.
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Two nights of the Legacies of San Juan Hill festival at Lincoln Center this October.
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Take it home
Two original posters from our own store, two books about the show and its city, and Bernstein on record.
An original 1963 US one-sheet, 27 × 41 in, art by Joe Caroff. Rolled, previously folded; near mint.
In stock
View posterAn original 1973 Polish poster, 23 × 33 in, art by Marian Stachurski. Rolled, mint.
In stock
View posterJulia L. Foulkes
The show, the films and the neighbourhood under Lincoln Center, by the historian who wrote Lincoln Center’s San Juan Hill essay.
Find the bookMisha Berson
West Side Story and the American imagination, from Broadway to the screen.
Find the bookLeonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic · LP, Columbia Masterworks MS 6251, 1961
Bernstein conducts his own concert suite of the score, coupled with On the Waterfront.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyLeonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim · CD, Hollywood Records, 2021
The cast recording of Spielberg’s film.
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.
12 of 12 places · 12 of 12 Moments
West 68th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues
The Jets and Sharks prologue, shot in August 1960 on blocks already marked for demolition.
Lincoln Center Plaza, Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side
The neighbourhood razed for Lincoln Center, used as an outdoor soundstage before it went.
1634 Broadway at West 50th Street
West Side Story opens on Broadway, 26 September 1957.
205 West 57th Street
Bernstein finishes the score in his Osborne apartment and studio.
East 110th Street between Second and Third Avenues, East Harlem
The playground confrontation and the basketball game, cut into the same prologue.
St. Nicholas Avenue, Harlem
The 2021 prologue and America, filmed in Harlem and Washington Heights.
550 West 155th Street at Broadway
Tony and María exchange vows.
99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park
Tony and María’s first date among the medieval art of the Cloisters.
Sunset Park waterfront, Brooklyn
Cool, danced on the piers over about five days.
Lincoln Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn
A Flatbush church plays the police precinct.
Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn
The rumble, in a warehouse dressed as a salt shed.
Downtown Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson’s Ellison Street dressed as Broadway and 68th Street, sixty years after the real blocks came down.
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