Boston locations


My father was an extra in a movie shot in Boston, and I'm trying to find it. I thought that it was The Friends of Eddie Coyle, but when I finally rented the video - on VHS - the scene at police headquarters wasn't there. Is it possible that the scene was cut from the tape release. I know I'm not imagining things, because I saw it on TV in the early 1980s with a friend of mine, and he said "Hey isn't that your dad?" Sure enough, it was.

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Hi. The Friends of Eddy Coyle is one of my favourites and yes, there is a scene in the police station where Richard Jordon discusses Eddy with Mitch Ryan, here in a very brief cameo. There are various versions of the film all of a different length with some scenes shortened so maybe you saw one of these. I am still waiting for the DVD of this classic which will, we hope, be the whole length version.

I spent a terrific day in Boston years back finding locations with my daughter & we spent some time at Sharon Station ( surprisingly deserted! ) and other sites around Boston - still my favourite city.

Ian. Wiltshire England.

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Thanks for the reply. My father was in the background in a hallway while two or three actors pass in front of him. It just lasts for a few seconds, but it would be great to see it again. I live in Dedham now, where some scenes were filmed. My bank is the one that was robbed.

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I just bought the DVD online and was eager to see what I could pick out in the film from around here-this came out well before I was even born and I always get a kick of seeing how things have changed.

I noticed a lot of the stuff around Dedham and "old" Route 1 down that way, I'm from the North Shore though and was hoping to see some stuff up here. Does anyone know where they filmed the quarry scene near the beginning where the gun deal is made under a stone crusher? Call me crazy but it almost looks like the old Rowe Quarry on the Revere/Malden line next to Route 1, shown from the back inside the quarry.

I noticed the supermarket scene was filmed in a "Dedham Plaza", is that still there today? Where was the place they dump the blue Ford with Eddie in it? Does anyone know where the rundown factory was where the gun deal is made in the middle of the night when the guys with the rifles have to walk out of the woods?

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I'm from East Boston and have passed the Rowe Quarry probably hundreds of times on the way to Saugus, etc. I was thinking the same thing you did - that the quarry scene was indeed Rowe's. Yates in the commentary says the location is a place just outside Boston but doesn't indicate North/South/West. I think you may be right.

The place where they leave the car at the end is I believe the old bowling alley in Dorchester or Neponsett that could have been seen from the Southeast Expressway (off the right as you head south). The bowling alley isn't there anymore but I think the mall is still there.

Don't know Dedham that well.

What I really like is the skyline as seen from the Memorial Drive side of the Charles (when Keats meets the hippies in the van) and from City Hall Plaza (the shot at the end that looks into Fanuell Hall). The city has changed a lot hasn't it!

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It is Rowe Quarry-
I just confirmed this by pausing the movie when it shows the vantage point from the Road Runner when he stops a distance away. They filmed it from the back corner, so you couldn't see Salem St. in frame. It just looks a little different because of the angle they used.
Here's a picture of it:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/RoweQuarryAlc5.jpg

You can see the part on the east side of the building matches the view in the film.
The cliffs surrounding it give it away too. Shame they tore that place down, I live less than a mile from it and actually played in the quarry a few times when I was younger. I thought they should have preserved the stone crusher.

In that Memorial Drive scene, look at the Hancock Tower, they're still building it, haha.

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If you click to look at the "Locations" where this movie was filmed at... you'll see this in there...

Malden, Massachusetts, USA
(Rowe Quarry gun purchase scene)

This should put an end to any doubt if it was Rowe Quarry or not :-)

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That was the old quarry in Malden, visible from US Route 1.. Also, the bar where Dillon works was on the corner of Mass Av and Newbury St in the Back Bay. The building was gutted and rehabbed about 20 years ago, was home to Tower Records, later Virgin and is now a Best Buy.

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[deleted]

Revere?

Is that the home (or former home) of WONDERLAND DOG TRACK?

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[deleted]

You may be thinking of The Thomas Crown Affair. There were a few scenes filmed in the old BPD HQ (Now the Back Bay Hotel).

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Got another one-

Anyone know where the scenes for Eddie Coyle's house were filmed? Supposedly a street in Quincy.

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I've been in Sansone's, the restaurant they drive by as they left the Garden. It probably doesn't exist anymore.

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Eddie Coyle's house was on Fayette Street in Quincy- the house is still there but with new siding (as of about 6 months ago anyway). The bowling alley is still there- it just got an update about 10 years ago.

I was watching them film the scene with Peter Boyle and James Tolkan in the North Quincy T parking lot back in 1972(3?) when I was in high school across the street. I am a huge fan of this film. The locations are different but the places are still there. For instance, the scene with Coyle talking about his broken fingers was the old Hayes-Bickford cafeteria on Boylston St and Mass Ave. It is curently the location of Spike's Junkyard Dogs(hot dog joint )- the bar was across the street(The Old Kentucky tavern)- it's some kind of store front now- it was a Best Buy. The scene where they let the bank manager go was the old airstrip at Squantum Naval Air base- now it's part of Marina Bay. The bank managers house was on Adams Street in Milton. I'd have to watch it again to pull out more info.


"They take your hand, they put it in a drawer and someone kicks the drawer shut. Hurts like a bastard."

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Thank you so much for listing those locations, Coyle's house AND where they release "Mr. Pahhtridge" were driving me crazy! Too bad the airstrip (I had been wondering if it was some land on Logan or something because you could see the harbor islands in the background) is gone. That cafeteria is another one that was bugging me. This all took place before I was born but I still like finding out where the stuff was filmed.

RE: Rowe Quarry, it had a lot of land in Reveah, but the official address of the place was in Malden and I believe most of it's land was in Malden as well, just over half or something like that. The northern tip was either very close or almost in Saugus too.

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After doing a little research, it seems the cafeteria at the beginning was on Tremont St. near Boston Common.

This site lists a Hayes Bickford cafeteria as having existed at 185 Tremont St.:

http://www.plazaview.com/Bickford%27s/IndexBickford%27s1922-1959.html

Street view on Google:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=185+Tremont+Street+,+Boston,+MA&hl=en&ll=42.352386,-71.064561&spn=0.000341,0.00066&sll=42.351995,-71.055815&sspn=0.008103,0.021136&t=h&gl=us&hnear=185+Tremont+St,+Boston,+Massachusetts+02116&z=21&layer=c&cbll=42.352386,-71.064561&panoid=nKoc3U46bUKnEeE9h7a87g&cbp=12,55.86,,0,-10.78

^The Masonic Building on the corner is 186 Boylston St. So maybe 185 was the back corner of it or something? If you stood there and turned around you would see the Boylston St. T stop at the corner of the commons (you can turn the street view around)... Look at this picture:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/.a/6a00e5523026f58834011570722db4970b-800wi

I think that's the Boylston T stop but maybe altered since 1972 when this was filmed and the phone booths are gone...

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Looking again at that pic from the film, the headhouse has both the Red Line and Green Line stations, that would make it Park Street. So this must have been on Tremont St. but up the hill further, across from where Finagle a Bagel and Burger King are today:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=park+st.+station+boston&hl=en&ll=42.35635,-71.062167&spn=0.000341,0.00066&hq=park+st.+station&hnear=Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts&t=h&z=21&layer=c&cbll=42.35635,-71.062167&panoid=EsCUCnE43pTb9lEA0i2J6Q&cbp=12,278.01,,0,9.69

I'll do some more research and see what used to be there if I can find it...haha

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Jon...hopefully you have seen the Criterion DVD release, which has the entire film intact, including a Richard Jordan/Mitchell Ryan scene in the HQ office. There are also stills from the movie among the DVD extras, and in these stills you see that another scene set in the HQ, with Jordan, Ryan and Steven Keats, was cut from the final release. Hopefully your father was in the first one.

You just keep throwing your feathers, mister, before I put you in a hospital.

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[deleted]

the bank that gets robbed in the start of the movie is still a back, off rt1 in dedham.

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Does anybody know where the strip mall was with bBarbs furniture, Friendlys Ice Cream and Woolworths?

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Dedham Plaza, Route 1, Dedham.

Then: https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4083/4839124710_c3b14dfaa4_z.jpg
Now: http://www.federalrealty.com/media/galleries/photos/original_size/500- 1125.gallery_large_4.web_1.jpg
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G - A - F - (low)F - C...... 👽

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Cool "then and now" post. Thanks!

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Thx, better late than never.



"You work your side of the street, and I'll work mine"

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