Episode 2 - Heart of Darkness

[airtommy]

3 hours ago, Dadrian said:

I thought the Kovics restaurant was solved as “A Great Place for Steak” (camara man’s report) 

Well, that was supposedly the part of the scene where they go outside and Artie beats up the guy.  But it's a possibility for the interior, for sure.

[Dadrian]

53 minutes ago, airtommy said:

Well, that was supposedly the part of the scene where they go outside and Artie beats up the guy.  But it's a possibility for the interior, for sure.

Okay. I had it backwards on the inside and out. Gotcha. 

[Matt5]

Interior scene, off the lobby at 1000 Venetian Way. I took these last week compared to the July 1984 filmed scene.

[airtommy]

On 10/22/2019 at 8:49 PM, Dadrian said:

Per a certain cameraman:  “That was on the John F. Kennedy Causeway aka NW 79 Street. It was in front of a mob connected restaurant called “Hy Uchitel’s Place for Steak”.

 

On 10/23/2019 at 12:13 AM, airtommy said:

Hy Uchitel's Place for Steak was at 1335 79th St Causeway.  I can't find any interior photos on Google or Pbase.  Unfortunately this building seems to have been bulldozed just months ago.   Google Street View no longer has pics, but Bing Streetside does, so we can see the back side of the building (kind of).  https://binged.it/2n2KOre

An advertisement in the May 6, 1983 edition of the Miami News:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18249850/the-miami-news/

Edited March 27, 2020 by airtommy

[Matt5]

1 hour ago, airtommy said:

 

An advertisement in the May 6, 1983 edition of the Miami News:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18249850/the-miami-news/

Great post - this location is in the midst of many others used in this episode.

 

[Tom]

Am 20.10.2019 um 02:23 schrieb airtommy:

The circled building has a red light on top and what looks like a green light below.  This looks familiar to me. 

I tried to re-open this old still unknown location (the parking lot brawl, the restaurant itself was Hy Uchitel´s) and triangulate the location with what we see in the background.

Going by the distance, the angle of the shoreline we see this location must have been on the SW-end of Dodge Island. 79St. Causeway with Hy Uchitel´s steakhouse is too far away, the E-end of Dodge Island where they also filmed has the wrong angle and distance and Venetian Causeway (1000 Venetian Way as location) is also too far away and has both bridges (Mac Arthur and Dodge Island blocking the view on Miami Downtown (see the comparison with Miami Squeeze below).

I recreated a shot from SW Dodge Island with Goodle and it seems to match (red light/tower=Biscayne 1 and the lower square shaped building to the right is there as well in the right distance from Biscayne 1! The other skyrises left and right of Biscayne 1 did not exist in July 84. 

But: on the 1980 and 1986 aerial of Dodge Island there is no matching building structure (in the parking lot scene we have a perpendicular building structure in the background posing as the restaurant with a normal roof and a big tree or bush in the middle)!

Also, a parking lot is missing. So, this remains a mystery to me. But maybe someone else has an idea how this could have worked?

[Tom]

Am 9.1.2020 um 00:36 schrieb airtommy:

Considering the possibility that the Blue Dolphin setup shot was taken at Tin Lizzie at Biscayne & 125th St:

It looks like we see a mid-rise condo in the distance and a parking garage in front of it.  This condo and its parking garage up at 135th St seem like a very good match.

But the problem is that when you look north from 125th St, there is another building (12955 Biscayne) blocking your view of the parking garage.  According to Historic Aerials, that building was there in 1984.  Here is my shot from 125th looking north (using zoom):

 

I think @airtommywas right with the background building and I think I have found the "Blue Dolphin Lounge". Here´s the summary why:

• the matches with the bg building and the garage deck in front are unique. The 5 visible and lighted "chambers" (there are two more but they are different) on top match as does the diagonal ramp and the configuration of the garage and the building as a whole. What we see behind the Dolphin Lounge is definitely that building/garage at 135 Street. Congrats airtommy!
• Based on above, we need to find the building which is left of the Dolphin Lounge sign - the building is only briefly visible before they cut to the inside (Tin Lizzie Lounge at 12500 Biscayne), so it was no fake sign just at the curb of Biscayne. And Tin Lizzie itself is too far away for the distance we see in the episode plus the building at 12955 Biscayne would block the view as airtommy has correctly stated.
• Now I skip 1 hour of search because there is (and was also on 1980/86 aerials) NO building on the western curb next to Biscayne Bvd on that stretch between 125 and 135 street, but ONE: the Wells Fargo building at 12700 Biscayne, just 2 blocks north of Tin Lizzie, AND: it has the exact small brick-pattern facade like the partial structure we see in the episode! This cannot be a coincidence! And the street lamp is there pretty much at the right place as well!

I checked with the old aerials. They are blurry so we cannot see exactly the sidewalk and the front entrance to compare the concrete floor we see in front of that building (the entrance area or building facade as a whole could have been changed since then), but the distance, the brick wall and the distance (600m/660 yards to the park deck/background building) and the Google view show that the distance works with the correct zoom lens and that there is no building blocking the view (in the episode the camera was close to the building and my Google street view is in the middle of the street, thus we see a bit different angle here than back in 1984!

For me that looks like a 90+% match that the Blue Dolphin Lounge was a fake sign next to an office building at 12700 Biscayne (I could not find any records whether this was a Wells Fargo branch or a real Dolphin Lounge in 1984).

 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Tom

[Dadrian]

Really awesome @Tom on both of these. 
 

About the Blue Dolphin...It’s gotta be it!

One question: the brick pattern in the MV screen cap looks a slightly different to me than the more current photo—some of the bricks in the former appear larger than the others, and not so in the latter. Could be poor image quality from the original, or even new bricks in the newer photo. Regardless, you got my vote. 

[Tom]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Dadrian:

Really awesome @Tom on both of these. 
 

About the Blue Dolphin...It’s gotta be it!

One question: the brick pattern in the MV screen cap looks a slightly different to me than the more current photo—some of the bricks in the former appear larger than the others, and not so in the latter. Could be poor image quality from the original, or even new bricks in the newer photo. Regardless, you got my vote. 

Thanks! 

I think the brick size is a pretty good match and these slim bricks are not used very often. I agree that there are some bigger bricks visible in the episode, but if you look closely these few especially located on the edges look just like small horizontal brick lines patched over sloppily instead of bigger bricks and the slots between the bricks generally not filled up nicely compared to today. Also, on today´s facade there are some lighter bricks that may seem different and bigger under low light conditions like in the episode. Anyway, 90% of the bricks visible in the episode are exactly matching the size and appearance we see on Google.

On top of that: I think the zoom I recreated from the bank position towards the 135 Street building  not only shows that we see an unblocked view but also exactly the same angle and size of the building with the parking garage from there like on TV (they used a strong zoom and then pulled it in when moving left towards the building)- that is another unique proof that that location at 127 Street is the only possibility on that whole stretch to create that view on the 135 Street structure. 

I placed both pictures exactly above/below each other at the end of my last post above for better vertical and horizontal comparison and hoped that you and the others especially airtommy would notice that exact match of size and angle. And that many coincidences ain´t coincidences anymore!

Edited January 18, 2021 by Tom

[Dadrian]

@Tom even Lester would be impressed! 

[miamijimf]

Go back to Calling All Detectives:  Group Effort, page 25 (pink text).   See on this thread the post on Sept 17th 2012.  It confirms what the lady said about the Blue Dolphin really being the Tin Lizzie.  I remember communicating with her on FB and talking to her.

Edited January 18, 2021 by miamijimf

[Tom]

vor 57 Minuten schrieb miamijimf:

Go back to Calling All Detectives:  Group Effort, page 25 (pink text).   See on this thread the post on Sept 17th 2012.  It confirms what the lady said about the Blue Dolphin really being the Tin Lizzie.  I remember communicating with her on FB and talking to her.

that was only the interior. But as proven in my post the Blue Dolphin Exterior shot was not the Tin Lizzie (which was the interior only and I have mentioned above anyway) as one building would have blocked the view and the distance to the background buildings would not match at all. Also the Tin Lizzie building is 20m away from Biscayne which is much more than we see in the episode where the buildings is only 3m off the curb.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Tom

[airtommy]

Another view of the bricks:

[Tom]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb airtommy:

Another view of the bricks:

 

 

Thanks for posting the last frame before they cut to the interior scene filmed inside the Tin Lizzie. 

The entrance area for sure has been renovated since, eg. some of the brick facade and the door recess removed and an additional window added between the entrance door and the other windows. Also the floor of the entrance area has been changed.

But the unique brick facade, the (parallel) distance to the street, the correct floor level of the entrance door (steps at the door in the episode, steps close to the ped walk today) and the correct distance to the 139 street building make this a sure bet. Also the distance between the entrance door and the first white window behind the Dolphin Lounge sign matches. 

The final clincher is probably that we can even see the long white windows behind the Blue Dolphin sign. They used the sign to block the windows from sight. I marked them in the screenshot. This makes this a sure location find!

Picture below shows the entrance area today.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Tom

[Bilders]

You guys are all amazing! Keep it up

[Tom]

HY UCHITEL´s PLACE FOR STEAK 1335 79 ST. CAUSEWAY, NORTH BAY VILLAGE

Just to remember: this former restaurant allegedly run by Russian mobsters was said to be the interior for the dinner scenes with Artie and Kovacs (Rick Bravo remembered a restaurant operated my some mobsters at 79 St.Causeway). As the building was razed recently, I took some 3D pictures with Google from above as long as they are still available there and not updated. I post them here as a safe haven, as @C Glideis back and will start updating his website soon. The building fully matches its original state in 1986.

These pics prove that the parking lot scenes where Artie beats the guy were NOT filmed there, as the building layout and the roof type do not match with the building we see behind Crockett&Tubbs. Let alone that we have no free and short view on Miami downtown from there as proven in this thread above.

In order to avoid potential confusion with Rick Bravo´s memory of that location, I also checked another former mafia bar at 79 St. Causeway further down east (Happy Stork at 1872 79 St Cswy; https://www.miaminewtimes.com/location/happys-stork-lounge-and-liquor-6413368) but it was a wash too. This building and its parking lot have the same mismatches as Hy Uchitel´s (uchitel is Russian by the way and means "teacher").

My best guess is that they edited three locations together: La Carreta at Calle Ocho for the exterior establishing shot, Hy Uchitel´s for the interior and an unknown parking lot at Dodge Island (see details why only this area matches for the distance and the background) for the parking lot scene afterwards.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Tom

[Dadrian]

@Tomnow you can finish your dessert  

[pahonu]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

HY UCHITEL´s PLACE FOR STEAK 1335 79 ST. CAUSEWAY, NORTH BAY VILLAGE

Just to remember: this former restaurant allegedly run by Russian mobsters was said to be the interior for the dinner scenes with Artie and Kovacs (Rick Bravo remembered a restaurant operated my some mobsters at 79 St.Causeway). As the building was razed recently, I took some 3D pictures with Google from above as long as they are still available there and not updated. I post them here as a safe haven, as @C Glideis back and will start updating his website soon. The building fully matches its original state in 1986.

These pics prove that the parking lot scenes where Artie beats the guy were NOT filmed there, as the building layout and the roof type do not match with the building we see behind Crockett&Tubbs. Let alone that we have no free and short view on Miami downtown from there as proven in this thread above.

In order to avoid potential confusion with Rick Bravo´s memory of that location, I also checked another former mafia bar at 79 St. Causeway further down east (Happy Stork at 1872 79 St Cswy; https://www.miaminewtimes.com/location/happys-stork-lounge-and-liquor-6413368) but it was a wash too. This building and its parking lot have the same mismatches as Hy Uchitel´s (uchitel is Russian by the way and means "teacher").

My best guess is that they edited three locations together: La Carreta at Calle Ocho for the exterior establishing shot, Hy Uchitel´s for the interior and an unknown parking lot at Dodge Island (see details why only this area matches for the distance and the background) for the parking lot scene afterwards.

I think it’s better than just your guess.  It’s not uncommon at all to use one building for an establishing shot and a completely different location, or even a set, for the interiors.  Very often, it’s the second unit, with no sound equipment, that gets those kinds of establishing shots.  Unfortunately that makes it tough for all you location hunters because it’s very possible that an interior you are searching for was from a building that was never even shown on the outside.  Your determination is commendable!  

Edited February 2, 2021 by pahonu

[Tom]

HY UCHITEL PLACE FOR STEAK interior

forget about the furniture and the look (this was later changed by Hy Uchitel) but the basic configuration of the main guest room (walkway to the right, guest seating to the left, size & ceiling height of room) seems to be matching between the episode and an old interio picture that I found. Please read the photo description.

Edited February 3, 2021 by Tom

[Tom]

Am 18.1.2021 um 18:17 schrieb Tom:

I recreated a shot from SW Dodge Island with Goodle and it seems to match (red light/tower=Biscayne 1 and the lower square shaped building to the right is there as well in the right distance from Biscayne 1! The other skyrises left and right of Biscayne 1 did not exist in July 84. 

But: on the 1980 and 1986 aerial of Dodge Island there is no matching building structure (in the parking lot scene we have a perpendicular building structure in the background posing as the restaurant with a normal roof and a big tree or bush in the middle)!

Also, a parking lot is missing. So, this remains a mystery to me. But maybe someone else has an idea how this could have worked?

So, I tried once more to suss out the location of the parking lot when C&T&Artie leave the restaurant. For this, I even assumed that the parking lot in itself could have been filmed on two locations. (for those who look closely: they work with shot-countershot technique when C&T stood outside the restaurant and when the downtown background was shown. Thus, we never see the building and the skyline in one shot. This means, technically, they could have used two locations for the parking lot scene with the downtown background and the parking lot with the building in the background. Would have been too much effort, but possible.

I scanned all parts of Dodge Island, Hy Uchitel and the North bay village surrounding and the studio with all nearby locations (Tin Lizzie, the fake Blue Dolphin building) for the building structure when they leave the restaurant. There is no such building anywhere on the 1986 or 80 aerials. There are two key clues I searched for: the inner corner of two smaller building parts with the bush and the normal slanted roof on the building part right above of Crockett&Tubbs. Both is not existent on Dodge Island (only flat roofs, no bushes, no corners) and the other spots. Mystery. I am stumped.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Tom

[Dadrian]

3 hours ago, Tom said:

I am stumped.

It will be found, Tom. Given your “found” record, and the interest you show in the case, either I would have to be “had”, or be a complete idiot to believe otherwise. 

That was my best Castillo impression. 

Honestly, these location posts are among my favorite parts of the forum. 

“Keep on goin’.” 

Edited February 4, 2021 by Dadrian

[Tom]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb Dadrian:

It will be found, Tom. Given your “found” record, and the interest you show in the case, either I would have to be “had”, or be a complete idiot to believe otherwise. 

That was my best Castillo impression. 

Honestly, these location posts are among my favorite parts of the forum. 

“Keep on goin’.” 

Thanks Marty! You are the „glue that keeps us together“! 

[Tom]

Am 2.2.2021 um 23:13 schrieb Tom:

HY UCHITEL´s PLACE FOR STEAK 1335 79 ST. CAUSEWAY, NORTH BAY VILLAGE

Just to remember: this former restaurant allegedly run by Russian mobsters was said to be the interior for the dinner scenes with Artie and Kovacs (Rick Bravo remembered a restaurant operated my some mobsters at 79 St.Causeway). As the building was razed recently, I took some 3D pictures with Google from above as long as they are still available there and not updated. I post them here as a safe haven, as @C Glideis back and will start updating his website soon. The building fully matches its original state in 1986.

These pics prove that the parking lot scenes where Artie beats the guy were NOT filmed there, as the building layout and the roof type do not match with the building we see behind Crockett&Tubbs. Let alone that we have no free and short view on Miami downtown from there as proven in this thread above.

In order to avoid potential confusion with Rick Bravo´s memory of that location, I also checked another former mafia bar at 79 St. Causeway further down east (Happy Stork at 1872 79 St Cswy; https://www.miaminewtimes.com/location/happys-stork-lounge-and-liquor-6413368) but it was a wash too. This building and its parking lot have the same mismatches as Hy Uchitel´s (uchitel is Russian by the way and means "teacher").

My best guess is that they edited three locations together: La Carreta at Calle Ocho for the exterior establishing shot, Hy Uchitel´s for the interior and an unknown parking lot at Dodge Island (see details why only this area matches for the distance and the background) for the parking lot scene afterwards.

In February I speculated that this location was razed and will be gone from Google soon too and that I should save pictures of the building as long as it is there.

Well, a few days ago, Google updated its satellite pics and former Hy Uchitel´s place for steak building is already gone!

BTW: the Hy Uchitel bull logo that we know from this restaurant´s leaflet, can be seen in the episode on the plate. Very small, but I have checked with the BluRay and it fits. Proof enough for this location!

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Tom

[Tom]

ARTIE ROLLINS WIFE´S APARTMENT:  WEST-SIDE OF 1000 VENETIAN WAY, GROUND LEVEL, 3rd APT FROM THE NORTH

CGlide already suspected on his website years ago that the apartment of Artie Rollins´ wife was filmed inside 1000 Venetian Way where they also filmed Penny McGraws apartment and Artie´s cover apartment. But it was only a hunch based on location logistics as there is no other fitting location in this episode. I think I found 90% proof now that it was filmed there and where exactly.

On the west-side of the 1000 Venetian Way complex there are some ground level apartments with green hedges perpendicular to the building. Behind Crockett we see the same green hedge and one higher one parallel to the building behind it. The parallel hedge is gone now, but it was there on the 1986 aerial. 

Furthermore, behind Crockett above the hedge we see a whitish highrise with significant horizontal and vertical pattern and a front that looks parallel to Crockett. When we compare the background when looking west from Venetian Way we see exactly such a building, the  Miami Marriott Biscayne bay at 1633 N. Bayshore Drive (with a front in a 45 degree angle that looks exactly towards Venetian Way when we simulate the angle between both points!), in the middle between the highrise at 555 NE 15 Street, exactly at the venetian Causeway western end and the Double Tree Hilton Miami at 1777 N Bayshore that was used in Death and the lady.

All three highrises existed already in 1984, as we can see behind Artie with the Doubletree Hilton nearing completion. This is proof that they filmed Artie´s place on the west side of the building as well and just changed floors for filming his wife´s apartment. Another small location found with minimal clues as they filmed the scenes with C&T&Artie´s wife in close ups only.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Tom

[Tom]

1000 Venetian as seen from Downtown, Mac Arthur Causeway in the foreground