30 years on – 14 Goodfellas filming locations you can still visit in New York

Goodfellas Filming Locations

September 19, 2020, marked 30 years since Goodfellas was released in American theaters. Here are 14 Goodfellas filming locations you can still visit in New York. They are listed in chronological order as they appear in the film. Most are open to the public. The majority are located in Brooklyn and Queens. Please be respectful if you visit one of the private residences listed below.

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The boyhood home

After the opening credits, the first scene shows a young Henry looking out his window, down at Pine Street in the East New York section of Brooklyn. This is one of the few neighborhood references in the movie. The scene was shot on 32nd Street, just one block east of what is now the elevated N-W line, which runs above 31st Street in Astoria, Queens. This area is home to Kaufman Astoria Studios and the Museum of the Moving Image. The streets of Astoria are like one big movie set. The neighborhood also doubled for Little Italy in A Bronx Tale.

The pizza joint, post office, and parking lot (where a teenage Henry sharpens his skills as a reliable arsonist) were all in this same neighborhood. Unfortunately, of all the Goodfellas filming locations in Astoria, only the boyhood home is still standing. It’s on the east side of the street, between 24th Avenue and Astoria Blvd. The owner is used to film buffs stopping by.

Nearest subway station: Astoria Blvd

The diner where Jimmy and Tommy hijack their first truck

The first scene of Henry’s adult life was shot in the parking lot of the Airline Diner. Henry and Tommy (played by Joe Pesci) steal a tractor-trailer from an unsuspecting victim who just happens to leave the truck running with the keys inside. The diner is real, but it’s located in Astoria, near LaGuardia Airport. You can see pictures from the movie throughout the diner.

Nearest Subway Station: Astoria Blvd

Henry and Karen’s first date

At 28:39 into the movie, we see Henry and Karen on an awkward double date in a classy, white-tabletop restaurant. One minute later, he’s rushing her out the door. You can see the white brick exterior. It was removed in early 2020, but the arches below the abandoned elevated train tracks are still there. If you peek through the windows of the abandoned restaurant at the corner of Hillside and Bessemer, you’ll see some tables and other equipment left over. There’s a flea market, which doubles as a bingo hall on the other side of the building. Until around 2012, this was a neighborhood Italian restaurant called Salerno’s.

Richmond Hill is also the site of another one of the Goodfellas filming locations. A later scene, where a couple of young boys discover the lifeless bodies of Johnny “Roast Beef” and his wife seated in the front of their Pink Cadillac, was shot around the corner, under the abandoned train tracks.

Nearest subway station: 121 St/Jamaica Av

The Friedman’s neighborhood

The calm, middle-class, suburban street, where Karen’s parents live, is meant to be in sharp contrast to where Henry grew up. In the movie, the Friedmans live in one of the five towns in Nassau County. The scenes were filmed on Alfred Lane (closest to the intersection with Sussex Road) in New Rochelle, Westchester County. The new owner of the neighbor’s house has since done some remodeling and is used to gawking tourists driving slowly down the block. Across the street, the house where Karen’s parents lived is still standing as well.

The wedding hall where Henry and Karen got married

The former Oriental Manor Ballroom, where the wedding scene was filmed, is now a furniture store. This spot is not worth a visit by itself, but it is located in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, which was once Brooklyn’s Little Italy. Many Italian restaurants and bakeries are still there, although there are now Asian and Eastern European shops and restaurants mixed in as well. If you want to spend an afternoon or evening exploring the remnants of Brooklyn’s Little Italy, 18th Av (the nearest intersection) is the place to start. It’s also known as Christopher Columbus Blvd. 

Nearest subway station: 18th Av (D)

The apartment building where Janice lived

Once Henry starts making some money, he quickly decides that one woman is not enough. So he sets up his main mistress in a posh apartment, with the understanding that he may need to crash there a few nights a week. The exterior shots are of the Warrenton Apartments in Forest Hills, Queens. In real life, the wig shop was also in Forest Hills, along Queens Blvd.

Nearest subway station: Forest Hills – 71 Av

The bar where they had the Christmas party

The bar scenes in the days after the Lufthansa heist were filmed at Neir’s Tavern, which claims to be the oldest bar in New York City. The iconic scene where Frankie Carbone (a fictional character) shows off his female companion’s new fur coat (much to Jimmy’s dismay) right after Jimmy gets done scolding Johnny Roast Beef (“What’d I tell ya, don’t buy nothin’! You’re gonna get us all pinched!”) about pulling up in a brand new Cadillac was filmed here. 78th Street is a one-way street. For filming, they shut down the street. Johnny’s Cadillac is parked in the wrong direction, but hey, obeying the law wasn’t part of these guys’ everyday lives.

We almost lost Neir’s in 2019, due to a rent dispute. As of 2020, they are still open. The walls are lined with Goodfellas memorabilia. Even the menu has nods the most high profile movie ever filmed there. If you only have time to visit one of the Goodfellas filming locations, this should be the one. They are very friendly to gawking tourists.

Nearest Subway Station: 75 St-Elderts Lane

The Pink Cadillac with the dead bodies

Around 1:47:20 the movie takes its darkest turn. A couple of young boys approach a brand new Pink Cadillac, which is parked under elevated train tracks. The bodies of Johnny “Roast Beef” and his wife are inside. Seconds later, one of the best uses of music in film begins, not with Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 b-side of the “Dancing in the Dark” single, but with the instrumental last half of “Layla.” This scene was shot in Richmond Hill, just a one-minute walk from where the first date scene was filmed.

Nearest subway station: 121 St/Jamaica Av

The diner where Jimmy destroys the phone booth

The former Clinton Diner has done the most to capitalize on its association with Goodfellas. It even took the name! While Tommy was getting made (whacked), Henry and Jimmy were sitting at a diner waiting for the news. While Henry claims they were in Florida at the time, the scene was shot in the diner, which is located in a warehouse district in Maspeth, Queens. If you look to the west, you can see the top of the World Trade Center from the parking lot.

During the summer of 2017, a fire destroyed most of the interior. The signage is still there, and the parking lot always seems to be full. But as of 2020, the diner has not reopened. You’ll need a car to get here.

The house where Tommy gets whacked

Henry Hill has said that Joe Pesci’s portrayal of the real-life Tommy DeSimone is 90 to 95% accurate. In addition to the changing of his last name and marital status, the scene of his death is also the result of creative licensing. He disappeared in early 1979 and was declared legally dead in 1990, the same year Goodfellas was released.

The true story may never be known, but the house that was used for the murder scene is located at the intersection of 80th Street and Shore Road in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. Bay Ridge is an upscale neighborhood in the western part of Brooklyn. The area between the Belt Parkway (locally known as the Belt Parking Lot by frustrated motorists) and 4th Avenue (which the R train runs under) is known for its quiet streets with private driveways and perfectly mowed lawns. Aircraft from above tend to make more noise than people in the streets.

From 80th Street, you can see the garage where they park their gray Buick. The garage door has since been replaced by a similar-looking one, and the surrounding area has been painted blue (it’s white in the film), but the surrounding brick and white fence are the same as they appear in the movie.

Nearest Subway Station: 77 St

The house where Henry’s brain turns to mush

At 1:54:29, we see Henry standing at Jimmy’s front door, wiping coke residue off his nose. As he tries to sell Jimmy some silencers, you can see the 220 St sign behind his head. The house is at the intersection of 220 St and 94 Rd in Queens Village. It’s a quiet residential street, located two blocks north of Jamaica Ave. It still looks the same. Look for the white gate in front of the front door.

The strip mall where Henry and Karen try to hide from the helicopter

In the hours leading up to the big arrest, Henry has a seemingly endless string of errands to run. At one point, he and Karen go to a strip mall to use a payphone and hide from the helicopter. This would have been in Nassau County, but the scene was shot in Staten Island. The strip mall is still there, but the stores have all changed. It’s located at 2795 Richmond Ave.

The house where Henry gets busted

At 2 hours and 3 minutes into the movie, Henry gets busted in his Rockville Centre driveway. In the movie, he’s trying to take Lois to the airport to deliver a package. The actual filming location was in Fort Lee, NJ, at the intersection of Inwood Terrace and Deerwood Road. You see the house a few times prior to the bust. The street is named after a two-acre park, located on the other side of the intersection. This is one of the only prominent Goodfellas filming locations outside of New York.

Where Jimmy stores his swag

In one of the final scenes, Karen goes to see Jimmy for money. After giving her a wad of cash, Jimmy directs her along a street and encourages her to go into a dark building to get some swag. As her nerves get the better of her, she takes off in her car. Then we see the signs for Smith and 9th Street. That’s a stop along the F-G subway line in Brooklyn. She’s parked under the elevated F-G tracks, and you can see the Gowanus Expressway (I-278) off in the distance. She’s walking south on Smith Street towards 9th. Jimmy is standing at the northwest corner of Smith and Huntington, with St. Marie’s Park in the background. 

As of 2020, the street is not nearly as desolate as it appears in the film. And the scrapyard across the street has since been taken over by the city.

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All pictures were shot with my Panasonic Lumix ZS100 4K Point and Shoot Camera.

Have you visited any of these sites? Any that I missed? 

Here is a link to my Goodfellas Tour of NYC.