Baltimore: The Wire locations, part one
As The A.V. Club discovered, there’s an upside to having much of your perception of Baltimore come from The Wire: The city is a lot nicer than you’d expect. Yes, we understood on a realistic level that Baltimore wasn’t just blocks upon blocks of Hamsterdam, but we were a little surprised by how charming Fells Point was when we arrived to meet Wire location scout Eric Bannat. Of course, right in the middle of Fells Point is the run-down building that was the headquarters for Homicide: Life On The Street. (Apparently it’s being turned into a hotel.) It has a giant plaque out front to commemorate the show.
For the first of our two-part Pop Pilgrims on The Wire—you didn’t think we could cram it all into one episode, did you?—Bannat took us to a bunch of spots that fans of the show should instantly recognize. From the basketball courts to the dog-fighting warehouse, from Marlo’s corner to the cops’ favorite hangout, everything is right there for any pop pilgrim to check out. (Many of the big interiors, of course, were sets, but you’ll still feel like Bodie’s sidekick walking around this neighborhood.)
On Wednesday, another whole bunch of locations you can visit in Bodymore, including the spot where—spoiler alert!—Omar got dropped.
- Die Hard's Nakatomi Plaza
- Los Angeles: The Graduate church
- Los Angeles: Dining with Reservoir Dogs
- San Francisco: Jimmy Stewart's Vertigo apartment
- San Francisco: City Lights Books, birthplace of a literary revolution
- Memphis: Ardent Studios - Home to Big Star, The Replacements, Isaac Hayes, and more
- Memphis: Arcade Restaurant - Set of Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train
- Memphis: Sun Studio - Home to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis
- New Orleans: St. Louis Cemetery - Set of Easy Rider's acid freak-out
- New Orleans: We visit locations from David "The Wire" Simon's jazz-heavy HBO series Treme
- New Orleans: Preservation Hall - Keeping the history of jazz alive
- Austin: We visit fictional Dillon, TX, home of Friday Night Lights
- Austin: The Texas Chain Saw... family restaurant?
- Austin: We're gonna need you to go ahead and visit the Office Space building
- Seattle: Kurt Cobain Park
- Seattle: The diner from Twin Peaks, Twede's Cafe
- Seattle: Fantagraphics Comics
- Eugene: The cafeteria from Animal House
- Philadelphia: The Rocky stairs
- Philadelphia: The Blob movie theater
- Philadelphia: The John Coltrane House
- Baltimore: The Wire locations, part one
- Baltimore: The Wire locations, part two
- DC: The Exorcist stairs
- New York: The Royal Tenenbaums house
- New York: The Ghostbusters firehouse
- New York: The Paul’s Boutique corner
- Chicago: The Blues Brothers bridge
- Chicago: The Wilco towers
- Chicago: The Ferris Bueller high school
- Cleveland: A Christmas Story house
- Cleveland: The Shawshank Redemption prison
- Cleveland: The Superman house