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Creating Gotham is an integral part of any Batman story.
It’s arguably even more important that The Penguin gets it right, though, as showrunner Lauren LeFranc’s crime drama miniseries won’t include Bruce Wayne or his crime-fighting alter ego.
Instead, Colin Farrell reprises his role as Oswald ‘Oz’ Cobb – aka The Penguin – for the show’s eight episodes. Set one week after the events of The Batman, The Penguin will depict the villain’s further rise to power in Gotham City’s criminal underworld.
LeFranc and production designer Kalina Ivanov travelled across New York to scout and shoot The Penguin, channelling the city’s real history, and a few New York movie references, into their new Gotham.
‘Our mandate from was The French Connection meets Scarface. I would always think of Goodfellas too,’ Ivanov tells Time Out. ‘The approach was cinematic from the beginning.’
But where exactly did The Penguin film in New York? Ivanov talks us through The Penguin’s locations and reveals why they were picked.
La Selva, Long Island
Located in Upper Brookville on Long Island, La Selva is a Mediterranean-style villa dating back to 1918. As soon as Ivanov saw it, she knew that it was the perfect home for Sofia Falcone (Palm Springs’ Cristin Milioti), the daughter of the recently deceased crime boss Carmine (Mark Strong), who fights Penguin for control of Gotham’s criminal underworld.
‘Carmine was a third-generation gangster, [and] he would have had really great taste,’ says Ivanov. ‘So we immediately knew we wanted his house to look like a Great Gatsby mansion in Oyster Bay. We ended up with a beautiful mansion in La Selva. It had all these elements that were so poetic. We ended up using the entryway, some corridors and basements, and the greenhouse for interiors, too.’
Hawksmoor NYC, Manhattan
While it only opened in September, 2021, Hawksmoor NYC has already established itself as one of the premier steakhouses in the Big Apple. It helps that its patrons eat their steaks on the ground floor of the distinguished United Charities Building, which was built in 1893.
When Ivanov was told to find a place where Sofia and the Penguin meet for lunch, Hawksmoor immediately came to mind. ‘This is a place of power, where her family used to take her,’ explains Ivanov. ‘In our story the restaurant is called “St Augustine”. The building is in the Renaissance revival style, with arches and vaulted ceilings. It’s incredible.’
Our mandate from was The French Connection meets Scarface
While Ivanov had a few back-ups, Hawksmoor was her number one choice, and she was delighted when producer Matt Reeves and LeFranc agreed. ‘They said it was a slam dunk. They knew it was important to show the rich, power-brokers in this setting, and how well protected they are. But it also feels really big and cinematic.’
South Bronx and Yonkers
In The Penguin, Crown Point is where the poorest people in Gotham live in horrendous conditions.
This is also how many people lived in 19th century New York, and Ivanov looked through the history books for inspiration when creating the show’s slum housing. She took particular inspiration from Five Points, an infamous crime and disease-ridden neighbourhood in what is now Chinatown.
The Lung Block, a small area in Little Italy that was ravaged by tuberculosis in the 1920s, was also an influence. Like Five Points, it became known for its unsanitary conditions and got its name because so many people died of TB there.
We wanted to use the real history of New York in the show
‘We wanted to use the real history of New York and make it the architectural language of our show. It was really powerful to be historically accurate.’
To create Crown Point, The Penguin shot across New York.
Some scenes were filmed in Chinatown, but, explains Ivanov, the majority were in South Bronx and Yonkers. Their five-pointed intersections offered a handy tip of the hat to Five Points.
‘New York doesn't have many five corners in Manhattan. That's not the geography of it. So we went to Yonkers for that. We are trying to say Gotham is New York, but we wanted it to look slightly different too.’
Crown Point isn’t just where the Penguin was raised, but this is also where he now operates. ‘So much of our story is about what happens to a city when it is neglected and public services stop functioning. It’s really about the haves and have nots. There’s this power vacuum that allows the Penguin to roam the streets and build something of his own.’
Queens
The elevated subways in Queens were selected by Ivanov because of the show’s ambition to match the look and feel of The French Connection. In the 1971 action thriller, Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle drives dangerously through the streets of Brooklyn following a subway train above him that a criminal has boarded. The Penguin even has an homage to that legendary sequence.
‘We followed the line of the elevated train,’ says Ivanov. ‘We then created our own red light district, dressing up the neighbourhood to make it look like it was dirty and had been flooded.’
West Side Highway
Since The Batman was shot in London and Liverpool, Ivanov was given the tricky task of recreating locations from the film in New York. She managed to work her magic, though, by building the entrance of the Iceberg Lounge, the nightclub owned by the Penguin, under the West Side Highway around 138th Street.
‘The West Side Highway is supported by these gigantic legs that look just like what (production designer) James Chinlund had built on The Batman. ‘It was magical to recreate something in New York from the movie that was done on a set in England.’
Diamond District
While New York’s diamond district is one of the most famous in the world, the area around 47th Street was too contemporary to be turned into Gotham’s version. Thanks to Ivanov’s eye, Gotham's diamond district took shape on 27th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
‘We created our own little jewellery store in slightly bigger buildings that had bigger lofts. I had the idea that the Penguin would build his loft inside a jewellery repair shop,’ says Ivanov. ‘I got it from researching the history of the street and the businesses. Doing that usually leads to some really interesting and creative solutions that you don’t have when you first read the scripts.’
When can you watch The Penguin?
In the US, episode 1 airs on HBO and Max on Thursday, September 19 at 9pm. Subsequent episodes air on Sunday nights, with episode 2 landing on Sunday, September 29. There are eight episodes in total.
The series will be airing on Sky Atlantic in the UK, with episodes landing the morning after they air in the US.
Read our review of The Batman.
10 famous movie locations you can actually visit.