[Kingpin]

Another new one, the assembly room (used as the Ghostbusters' dormitory) and (I believe) Captain's Quarters appear in 1982's Honeyboy as the apartment Rico shares with his mother:


-Visible from the 6:24, 15:14, 36:17, 1:03:12 marks.

The third floor landing of the staircase also shows up as part of the apartment building's stairwell, visible prominently at the 36:10 and 1:03:58 marks.

Honeyboy has actually proved to be quite sneaky in the way they redressed the interior of the station... One scene featured Rico (Erik Estrada) opening the door to let his PR agent (Morgan Fairchild) and a photographer into the apartment shared with the rest of his family, and visible through the door was the third floor landing of the staircase.

For a while I was wondering if they'd filmed the sequence on the third floor, with false walls... And while false walls were used in the shot, it was filmed in the second floor assembly room and the dormitory, with the aid of a photographic backdrop of the third floor staircase landing.

The SoCal Ghostbusters' 2010 tour of Fire Station №23 once again proved invaluable in trying to work things out, so it seems only right to post Vincenzo330's videos here for future reference:

[Kingpin]

Another entry for the catalogue, 1991's Life Stinks with Mel Brooks:


(Higher-res alternative: LINK)

In contrast to most other films, this one actually exclusively uses the exterior of Fire Station №23, with the roof being the most prominently-used location, starting with a lengthy scene starting around the 7:35 mark, and then reappearing at 53:58.

Notable in the roof scenes is that some of the set dressing from The Wild Pair, which saw the mothballed motor room for the station's freight elevator made up to be a restaurant dumbwaiter, are still visible behind Jeffrey Tambor (notably the prop "car" and the casing for the call button) which were still present at the motor room when the SoCal guys visited in 2010 (see video below, from the 0:22 mark):



Meanwhile the 5th Street facade of the station shows up at 20:06, and the Winston Street rear entrance appears at 54:35.

Also of note, this film stars Michael Ensign as one of Brooks' corporate employees, creating another connection to the Ghostbusters franchise.

[mrmichaelt]

Quoting this post from FE thread here for reference:

A note on floors: there really are four floors in addition to a basement in the real Hook and Ladder 8—but it sounds like the "secret floor" wasn't discovered until more recently. Contained logs from previous firefighters.

The real thing is more of a storage hallway than a floor. The attic we're seeing in the trailers looks to occupy the full length and width of the building, with a floor aligning with the bottom of the first row of windows down from the roof.

source

I always forget the firehouse used to be twice as big and it was essentially cut in half. That might account for the sealed narrow floor since all there was were the ledgers and logbooks. Maybe the other component of it was lost when the firehouse was halved.

[Hairy Biker]

Quoting this post from FE thread here for reference:

A note on floors: there really are four floors in addition to a basement in the real Hook and Ladder 8—but it sounds like the "secret floor" wasn't discovered until more recently. Contained logs from previous firefighters.

The real thing is more of a storage hallway than a floor. The attic we're seeing in the trailers looks to occupy the full length and width of the building, with a floor aligning with the bottom of the first row of windows down from the roof.

source

I always forget the firehouse used to be twice as big and it was essentially cut in half. That might account for the sealed narrow floor since all there was were the ledgers and logbooks. Maybe the other component of it was lost when the firehouse was halved.

Wouldn't that passage be on the wrong side for that?
I was under the impression thats the right side was removed to make way for the road.

[Kingpin]

Wouldn't that passage be on the wrong side for that?
I was under the impression thats the right side was removed to make way for the road.

For some reason, the 3D model that the Forgotten New York team textured with the 1914 plans of Hook & Ladder №8 was mirrored... The windows on the back of the model, and the now-demolished gateway for the alley are a dead giveaway:




As the plans have been flipped, that would suggest the hidden attic space is on the Varrick Street side of the firehouse.

[mrmichaelt]

Wouldn't that passage be on the wrong side for that?
I was under the impression thats the right side was removed to make way for the road.

I listened to that video 3x because of I had to make sure what I heard was right. It sounds like they got rid of the left side of the original and placed the right side (the finished side) in its place. At the 7:30 mark.

Edit: We're kinda getting into the weeds about Hook and Ladder, Kingpin did make a thread about it:
viewtopic.php?t=47161

[Kingpin]

Another new entry, 1992's Breaking the Silence, which adds to the growing list of TV movies Fire Station №23 has starred in.

Notable areas are the second floor landing of the apparatus bay staircase, and parts of the third floor Chief's bathroom, Bedroom and Reception/Sitting room, corridor, secondary bedroom and third floor landing... Sadly, the video quality is one of the poorest examples I've seen... And what reference it could've offered is largely lost in a soup of 1990s VHS noise and low-definition.

[Kingpin]

I've recently been pointed to some great information by Stuart, who curates the Ghostbusters Reference Library, which was located on the account of Luke Whitelock, a layout artist who used SketchUp to plot out the sets for the replica of the Firehouse, covering both the replica of the exterior Hook & Ladder №8, the replica interior ground/first floor of Fire Station №23, and the sets for the upper storeys, which drew inspiration from the Los Angeles fire station.

From this point on, I'll let Luke's posts detail the process:

I can’t tell you the thrill of getting to Art Direct something as iconic as the Ghostbusters Firehouse. I started on the film sometime around December 10th 2022. My first task was to take the LiDAR scan of Firehouse no 23 in Los Angeles and get it to fit inside the footprint of Hook and Ladder 8 in New York. Some people probably don’t realise that in the original movies all interior scenes were shot at FH 23 in LA whilst all exteriors were shot in NY. We were going to attempt a composite set for the ground floor where we see both interior and exterior for the first time together on one set. The only problem is working out how to fit a 160’ long set into a 96’ long footprint and get it to fit on a stage where we also required at least 60’ of real estate to the front of the Firehouse in order for Ecto 1 to do its dramatic turn down Varick Street. So the first few days were spent working this out. I knew we needed to get drawings out after the Christmas break and that meant less than 3 weeks to get the lions share of the 3D model complete this included the Ground Floor interior and the second and third floor composite of all the living spaces. A ton of work and these first few pictures are of me working at home late into the evening to try and get ahead. Not something I would suggest and not something I would normally do (big shout out to my wife for her understanding) but I’m such a huge Ghostbusters fan myself I really felt the pressure to get this design right. Happy to answer questions below and please like and share and follow for more in my Art Department Diary of Frozen Empire.

-Source

Yes that’s right I modelled the entire ground floor interior and exterior as well as the first and second floor composite sets in SketchUp and I did all of the construction drawings in LayOut. SketchUp is an incredibly powerful program when used correctly it beats all the competitors hands down, don’t let anyone tell you that this program is not the real deal. Not only did I do all my construction drawings from this model, I was able to share it with other set designers in the team who were working on other parts of the building in programs like Vectorworks and Rhino with no problem. We did CNC cultist from the model, Steelwork fabrication drawings, 3D printed elements that were also taken from a LiDAR scan all inside Sketchup not to mention some great renders that were done with VRay for SketchUp. If you want to learn my workflow check out my in depth SketchUp and Layout Courses available now on my website just click the banner on the reel and become a SketchUp and LayOut Master today. Beginners courses are also available. Let me know your thoughts on Sketchup below, do you love it or hate it? Let’s have a conversation.

-Source

So prior to me starting on the picture, there was a LiDAR scan commissioned of both the LA Firehouse interior and the New York Firehouse exterior. This is the LiDAR scan of the ground floor of the LA Firehouse. My job at this stage was to work out how we would fit the interior into the ground floor footprint of the New York Firehouse. Luckily they were both the same width on the interior. But the length proved a problem. LA firehouse is 157’ long with the New York interior being just about 72’. I had to work out how to take some real estate out without compromising the original feel and scale. Firstly we were able to chip around 27’ out. We did this as the original location Venkmans office had 27’ of dead space behind it going to a secondary large exit door. So we just bought that wall right up behind Venkmans office wall. Secondly the front of the firehouse in LA had a large vestibule at the front which enabled us to cut a a further 10’ from the overall. I then took 6’ from where the jog happens. I needed the overall length to be around 111’ to fit the stage so the rest of the space was saved by taking around 6” out of each bay across the length. So what you see on screen is very very close to the original.

-Source

Research is so important especially with a film like Ghostbusters. I like to think I know the Firehouse like the back of my hand but when I started researching I found so much info on Firehouse 23 (the interior location for the original ghostbusters Firehouse) it got really exciting when I found a website called GBFans.com. A video was uploaded to this site back in 2010 when a branch of Ghostbusters fans (the Denver Ghostbusters I believe) invaded the location and took loads of video footage of the ground floor and upper floors that were used in the original movie. Like a giant jigsaw I was able to take screen grabs of their footage and piece together info like what the newel posts on the staircase look like close up, what the mouldings on the stairs looked like. The patina on the wood of the lockers, the size and position of the drain covers in the floor, by studying the heights of the people I could scale the height of the tile dado, what’s inside the roller shutter. And best of all the upstairs rooms for which we used the panelling and introduced it into Gary and Callie’s bedroom verbatim. This is a small sample of the literal thousands of screen grabs I used to piece this all together. The colour of the vinyl floor around the pole holes, the lustre of the brass, how chipped the paint is around the safety rails. The hairline cracks in the glaze on the tiles. The brick floor - yes it’s a brick floor. The plaster details in the ceiling, the arch above the main doors - which was covered over in the original film with a plug however we see it revealed in the post credit sequence of “Afterlife” so it’s making decisions like should we keep the arch or not that define what we do as set designers, you are telling a story with the scenery. Filling in the gaps of the last 40 years. Are the lockers still there? Would they have replaced the roller shutter (more on this in another post) all fun talking points and one of the most fun and interesting research jobs I’ve ever had the pleasure of undertaking.

-Source
-The video tour Luke makes reference to

Some new, never-seen-before photos of Fire Station №23 during its renovation:

So already in the first week we hit the ground running. I need to have a full set of Plans and elevations ready to go by January 4th. What I tend to do is block out the design in SketchUp, I’ll set up all my scenes (plans, sections and camera views) keeping everything pretty loose at this stage. I’ll then take this basic model straight into Layout and set up my viewports. This is a great way to work because once it’s set up in Layout I can just keep chipping away at the design in Sketchup and the drawing will automatically update as I go because it’s dynamically linked to the model. That also means that at any given time I can quickly produce a WIP drawing for either discussion purposes or basic costing. I think these first few passes were working out how I can nick some real estate back out of the length without compromising the design. You’ll see at this stage we had the original half moon window behind Venkmans office. You only see this for a split second I. The original movie when the OGs are viewing the firehouse for the first time. We decided to omit the window from a cost point of view. As a lot of the practical lighting will be rigged high in the ceiling it was also unlikely we’d ever see high and wide enough to see the window. So you see as we’re designing we are constantly adapting the design to suit factors like access, lighting, SFX rigs stage space, stage height and budget. This is also a fun part of the design process because I get to model up those iconic lockers, or Venkmans office and I was very lucky to see original drawings of the iron columns that survived since 84. You’ll notice the ones in this model are just proxy ones. As a Ghostbusters nerd this was like all my Christmases coming at once! Got any questions about the design process? Ask away.

-Source

I think it's safe to say that Luke's work on the set spoke for itself, and it definitely deserved highlighting in it's own right.

The fact it's utilising so much information from Fire Station №23 is no-doubt one of the main reasons why the replica felt convincing, as was the effort the set builders went to replicate it.

Here is a selection of photos, both from Luke's Instagram page, and from the tiling company that was working on the set (and who posted these photos way too prematurely):




















For clarification: the floor with the kitchen and the floor with Trevor and Phoebe's bedrooms were physically connected, so you could either use the stairs or the firepoles to travel from one to the other, however they weren't connected to the street level set.

[Kingpin]

A new entry, thanks to an anonymous editer on IMDb:

Femme Fatale (1991):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igw78GiKvUw
(I can't embed the film as normal due to its content restrictions.)
The station shows up at the 35:37 mark, and features the third floor prominently, with some appearances by the first floor and the exterior. And yes, that is Colin Firth.

[mrmichaelt]

Here is a selection of photos, both from Luke's Instagram page, and from the tiling company that was working on the set (and who posted these photos way too prematurely):




















For clarification: the floor with the kitchen and the floor with Trevor and Phoebe's bedrooms were physically connected, so you could either use the stairs or the firepoles to travel from one to the other, however they weren't connected to the street level set.

I can't find the exact post. Do you have the link?

[Kingpin]

I can't find the exact post. Do you have the link?

Sure, here it is:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C41MRdMiUFz/?hl=en-gb

[JWils23]

I will say it is incredible how they were able to recreate this firehouse on a sound stage with such detail. While seemingly meshing it with aspects of H&L 8 in NY. Watching this movie took me back to walking through old 23’s and then to pop on here and see this thread with all the detail is so cool.

I was lucky enough to get to visit old 23’s back in 2005 when I was an explorer (cadet) with the LAFD. I was working at a station downtown and we were touring the district examining architecture. During the weekend, fire companies typically drill and lucky for me I was on the engine that day. Now the best part of this story is that at that time, I had no idea the interiors were shot in LA. I thought that everything was filmed in NY or in a studio using that movie magic (ah the days of being a naive 19 year old). We had hit a few other spots in the area, then the captain said we were going to check out an old firehouse and walk through, examining the pre-33 construction.

We drove by the front, and I remember thinking how cool (albeit rundown) the station was. I love the old history of downtown, and the construction. We went around back and parked on Winston st and entered the back of the building. One thing that’s mentioned in that write up above is you don’t realize how long that building is, and how narrow it is until you’re in it. As soon as we walked in the back door and started walking across the app bay I had Deja vu. I couldn’t figure out why I knew this building, had never been to it before, but I felt like I knew it intimately. It wasn't until we got to the front of the app bay and I see the front doors from the inside and then the staircase that it hit me like a ton of bricks. But how could this be? Wasn’t it filmed in NY? My mind was racing but I’m also trying to listen to the radio for any runs, and the crew because I know I’m getting quizzed on this later. Plus if I start geeking out, I know I’m getting hammered on later for it. I waited for the opportune moment to whisper to the rookie with me “is this the Ghostbusters firehouse ?” And he tells me yes and that they’ve filmed all sorts of other things there.

At this point I’m on cloud 9. I’m standing where Bill, Dan, Harold and Ernie stood. I’m walking up the famous staircase. I’m seeing them sitting at the table eating Chinese food with the last of the petty cash. If I would have been able to slide down the pole I could have died happy haha. I don’t remember if I had a camera phone at that point in time, but even if I did I wouldn’t have had it on me. Having a phone on you as a rookie/explorer was a definite no no. I’ve thought I wish I could have taken pictures but then on the flip side I got to soak it all in versus seeing everything through a junk phone camera in 2005.

Anyway, being able to walk through the fire house from floor to roof and see it all, and then see how they recreated it on screen brought me right back. It’s a shame the city has done what they do best, and play politics while such a beautiful landmark has crumbled away. Even in its heavily dilapidated form in 2005 it was still incredible, I can’t imagine what it looked like in 1910 when it first opened. It’s interesting to think what it would be had the dept not decided to switch locations on the museum to 27’s in Hollywood. Though that area was pretty rough when I was there 20 years ago, and it’s declined even more rapidly since then so moving to Hollywood was probably the right call. Just wanted to share that story and commend the teams that recreated this with such amazing detail, they did a great job.

[Hairy Biker]

I really hope Ghost Corp mothballed that set for the future.

[RedSpecial]

It was reportedly struck not long after Adam savage visited to film his behind the scenes series, unfortunately.

[Kingpin]

I really hope Ghost Corp mothballed that set for the future.

If there is another movie after Frozen Empire, and should the Firehouse feature in it, I can guarantee it'd be a whole new set build... The next film, if it happens, may not get filmed in the U.K., and may not need as much of an interior set as this year's film required. Even big marvel films like Doctor Strange that reprise certain locations, like the Sanctum Sanctorum, will build a whole new set for the location, rather than reuse the one from the previous film.

Given we've talked about Adam Savage and Tested, I supposed it makes sense to put the videos of his set tour here for quick-reference:




-Here's hoping there's a more extensive video of the basement set in the future.

[mrmichaelt]

In Luke Whitelock's two latest instagram posts, he does talk about second floor construction and a little about the third. He does confirm once and for all the darkroom from GB2 is on the third floor but since the room is not used in the movie, they ditched plans to fully build it and only made the door which is seen on last week's Tested video. Nice having a statement about that at last.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5dJlIdCsxz/
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5doM96iHuN/

[Ecto24601]

Any word on the phone booth room from GB2? That's one of the biggest oddities to me.

[d_osborn]

Any word on the phone booth room from GB2? That's one of the biggest oddities to me.

That was on a soundstage in Burbank, along with the dark room.

[mrmichaelt]

Any word on the phone booth room from GB2? That's one of the biggest oddities to me.

No word yet. I've wondered about it's in-universe location as well. In last week's Tested, in addition to Trevor and Phoebe's bedrooms and what we know now is the darkroom, there's a fourth room on the third floor...

[Kingpin]

I recall reading something, and I think it was possible sourced from Luke's instagram/Firehouse set designer diary, that the darkroom and adjoining laboratory (with phone booth) are located through the door at the top of the stairs, at the back of the third floor).

[mrmichaelt]

I recall reading something, and I think it was possible sourced from Luke's instagram/Firehouse set designer diary, that the darkroom and adjoining laboratory (with phone booth) are located through the door at the top of the stairs, at the back of the third floor).

Luke replied that phone booth lab is on the first floor.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5dJlIdCsxz ... 191656216/

"first floor at the back of the firehouse, unseen in frozen empire"

[Kingpin]

A little sneak preview of one of the bedrock parts of this whole project: the newest attempt to produce plans of Fire Station №23, based on the LiDAR scan Luke posted on his Instagram (which is probably my 4th, or 5th attempt to map this beast of a building out.)

It's still an early work-in-progress and very rough in some areas, but so far, so good.