In 2016, Sam Hutchins, a location manager for movies including “Joker” and “Jack Reacher,” was looking for a subway station to film a scene in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.”
Hutchins, a 20-plus-year veteran of the film industry, contacted Ruthie Jones, the director of the MTA’s films and special events unit, to show him some locations.
“For the longest time, we always used Hoyt-Schermerhorn in Downtown Brooklyn,” Hutchins told The Post. “But there is only one dead platform, so you get lookie-loos peeking at the production.”
Jones, who is the liaison between all productions and the transit giant, suggested a new spot at the corner of Bowery and Kenmare Street. She walked him to a very large but unassuming red door on the street that unlocked a secret space below.
“She turned the key, and you are in this empty station, and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, this is crazy.’ More importantly, it had been untouched. It’s like a time capsule. It’s the New York City of the 1980s.”
Prior to the showing, the station had been used by the NYPD for an anti-terrorism drill in the wake of the 2015 Paris terror attacks. But since Jones began pitching it to location scouts such as Hutchins, the abandoned platform in the Bowery Station has become an underground studio of sorts for film crews looking to re-create an authentic New York City subway scene.
“Dozens of productions film here a year,” Jones told The Post. “It’s by far our most used station.”
In the Netflix hit “You,” Penn Badgley’s stalker character Joe saves his love interest/victim Beck when she drunkenly falls on the track after dropping her phone at the Bowery Station. If you look closely, the station sign says “Greenpoint Ave.,” but you can still spy the Bowery “B” in the tiles behind it. And in 2018, Jimmy Fallon took the Korean boy band BTS down to the station to film their first big appearance on “The Tonight Show” — keeping them out of reach from their hoards of fans, no doubt.
Other shows such as “The Last O.G.,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Mr. Robot” and “Broad City” have adopted it as a set. The abandoned island platform was also the staging spot to create movie magic in many flicks including “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” with Tom Hanks; “Isn’t it Romantic,” starring Rebel Wilson; the drama based on James Baldwin’s 1974 novel, “If Beale Street Could Talk”; and the upcoming Steven Spielberg remake of “West Side Story.”
The gritty station has even drawn some of the most glamorous creatures in the Big Apple: fashionistas. In September 2019, Tom Ford staged an exclusive fashion show that turned the platform into a runway lined with giant stage lights and portable air conditioners. Months earlier, Valentino shot Naomi Campbell on the platform wearing a glamorous green sequined dress for its fall 2019 campaign.
“It’s such a unique space. And it’s yours to play with it. It’s your sandbox,” said Hutchins.
While the JMZ trains run on the other side of the station, this particular Bowery Station platform was taken out of service in 2004 during a construction project. It’s basically a self-contained space and off limits to the general public. One track on the abandoned side is still intact, so trains can be brought in to film.
The nearly forgotten space got a boost in 2016 when Jones took over her current role and wanted to offer more variety as filming in the Big Apple continued to increase. “I found out Bowery was available, so we started using it. Hoyt is great for a lot of reasons, but it’s an active station, so there is nothing preventing customers from seeing what is going on,” said Jones.
“Bowery offers an exclusivity to the production. They don’t have to worry about impacting customers or paparazzi photos being leaked. It’s like being on a closed set as far as they are concerned,” said Jones, adding that it’s also safer and easier to get big stars like Tom Hanks in and out while maintaining the authenticity of a working station.
Plus, productions can make over the space to fit their aesthetic or a specific era.
“The reason that [the] station works is because it [can be made to] replicate a lot of other stations around the city,” said location manager Samson Jacobson. He filmed numerous scenes for “If Beale Street Could Talk” there and had the columns painted different colors to make it seem like separate stations.
“There are three different parts of the platform, so you can theoretically make it look like three different stations,” said Jacobson.
To complete the period-specific set, a real train that would have been seen on the tracks during the early 1970s was brought in.
But if filmmakers want to have a station filled with graffiti, they have to simulate the street art in post production.
And if there’s a change in color scheme during filming, the production pays for all the materials and labor for the MTA to paint and then repaint the station to its original state once the action wraps up.
When making “Joker,” Hutchins thought the rough look of the Bowery Station suited the dark grit of Gotham. But filming the gruesome scene where the villain played by Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix shoots three Wall Street guys on the train would have been too disruptive to actual commuters.
“There are still trains on the other side of the wall [in Bowery], and there are gun shots [in this scene]. He was literally murdering people,” said Hutchins.
So they filmed a subway car in a studio and re-created the backdrop of Bowery Station on an LED screen.
“The subway is chaotic enough,” said Hutchins. “You don’t need to add your own spice to it.”