Hollywood on the Hudson, Online Tour

[Follow the route on the map (left). Click on the red links below to see pictures of the film locations.]

1. A fitting start to the tour is at the intersection of First and River Streets where you will see a plaque declaring “Columbia Pictures’ The Age of Innocence, the classic novel by Edith Wharton was filmed on location here in 1992.”

   The tall buidling in front of you is the Rice Building, which was featured in a scene in The Age of Innocence.

2. If you continue down River Street, you’ll be following the paths taken by Daniel Day-Lewis in The Age of Innocence, and Jack Nicolson, Meryl Street and Tom Waites in Ironweed.

   River Street building facades are versatile enough to provide filmmakers with the look of 19th Century New York City, or mid-twentieth century small towns.

3. Turn left at State Street and walk up to Second St. On the northeast corner you’ll see the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. It was inside this grand building that Merchant & Ivory filmed the climactic scenes with Christopher Reeve, Vanessa Redgrave and Madeleine Potter in The Bostonians.

Turning right onto Second Street and heading south, you'll come upon an imposing structure on your left known locally as “The Castle,” which offered The Age of Innocence the exterior and interior settings for Mrs. Mingott's home.

The lavish opera ball and the beginning of the film was also shot in the beautiful rooms that lie within these stone walls.

5. Continue your stroll southward on Second Street, and on the corner of Second and Congress you’ll see the Rensselaer County Courthouse. Imagine it at night, lit by lampposts, with horse-drawn carriages clip-clopping by. That is how it looked in The Bostonians, where it was used to represent a Boston Muisc Hall.

6. A little further down on that same block of Second St. is the Troy Public Library where, in the second floor reading room near the fireplace, one of Meryl Streep’s scenes in Ironweed was filmed.

7. As you enjoy your walk down Second Street for about three more blocks, passing Russell Sage College and numerous vintage brownstones, you will eventually come to Washington Park where scenes from The Age of Innocence were shot.

Washington Park is one of only two private residential parks in the country -- the other is Gramercy Park in New York City, where Ellen Olenska, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, had her home.

8. For several days and nights in March of 1992, artificial snow covered this area in preparation of a crucial scene in The Age of Innocence where a desperate Daniel Day-Lewis, as Newland, insists that Ellen meet with him secretly the following day, despite the prying eyes of passersby.