If you’re like us, you’ve seen the new episodes of TNT drama The Alienist every Sunday night and are amazed by the way the series masterfully recreates New York City since 1890. The season of this former crime drama, titled “Angel of Darkness,” follows alienist Dr. Lazlo Kreitzler (Daniel Brehl), personal detective Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning) and New York Times reporter John Moore (Luke Evans) as they seek to solve a kidnapping and murder case. Fortunately for viewers, the survey takes the characters from the Golden Age’s brightest mansion series to the most sinister streets of downtown. One of the best notable positions we’ve noticed to date is the Lost Gansevoort Market in Manhattan. Untapped New York spoke to decorator Ruth Ammon, who explained step by step how she and the production team recreate new York City’s historic sites in present-day Budapest. Don’t worry, there are no spoilers!
The confrontation between Moore and Howard with Goo Goo takes place in the busy alleys of Gansevoort’s market. This municipal outdoor market position, originally known as Farmers’ Market, opened in 1879 on Gansevoort and Washington streets, on the former site of a Hudson River railroad station. An army fort used to take over the place. At the end of the 19th century, the dominance surrounding the market position, a bustling advertising and advertising district bordered the Gansevoort-Chelsea docks and the growing railway along ninth avenue.
There were wooden yards, forges and paint factories, and food vendors crowded the streets. There were also slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants for which the district would eventually be designated as the meat industry has become the main one over time. The place of reception of the Gansevoort market was basically a place of reception of the market for products where farmers in the country brought their products. Reception activities at the Gansevoort market, mainly the wholesale sale of wholesale products, fruits, dairy products, specialty foods and alcohol, have flourished for decades amid the crime and dirt of their business environment.
By the mid-20th century, the area for the Gansevoort market had declined. Some of the land was taken through the Central Railroad of New York and vendors moved to other parts of Manhattan or outer districts. The open-air market was nevertheless replaced by a meat processing plant in 1939.
Then production designer Ruth Ammon is inspired and explains how she and her team brought Gansevoort Market and lost the New York sites to The Alienist:
Ruth Ammon: Good eye! This is the front of Bed Bath and Beyond at 620 6th Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets. It is also the original site of the New York momentary branch, the Siegel-Cooper branch (1887), a massive shopping mall spanning an entire block. It’s the biggesies of store in the world for a while. It was also highlighted by a giant fountain located in the middle of the first-floor atrium where the buyers gathered. We recreate the source through VFX.
We physically design and build about a hundred feet outside the gates the grounds in our back lot. We were able to dress up the huge windows with all the stunning products that would have seduced pedestrians walking down Ladies Mile, the nickname of this 6th Avenue strip. Our 3-D model set and models have been seamlessly incorporated into VFX extensions. We had to replace the front to adapt it to a scene filmed as location/internal front. The Siegel-Cooper construction is an architectural gem of New York, so it is not difficult to locate intelligent research. Over the years, there have been some construction adjustments that our researcher Natasha Pearl has discovered and shared with the visual effects department.
Coincidentally, I stopped in New York, my old 20-year-old home, before going to Budapest to gather some studios and stroll the streets. Although the branch was not in the script at the time, he had photographed vigorously the main points of this jewel of the Fine Arts because he had enjoyed it. During my stay in New York, I also had the thrill of visiting the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park, the Met, of course, and Central Park.
The Gansevoort market, the back branch of West Side Market, was created more as a concept or reminiscent of it as a true ancient geography. Some of the increase in exercise had been built during the first season for the Bowery complex. In Season 2, we changed this set with major modifications in the hope of creating a deep, dark abdomen in the Golden Age. I have enjoyed more seasons, and the structure one for the second season was rewarding and had a big impact. We’ve added structures, especially the meat packing structure, some of which were taken from my living memory in New York, dining at Florent! The addition of crossroads to the railway has given us a more forced expansion of attitude and wonderful shadows. The structure of the meat and fish stalls created a more advertising domain that would link the west side and Greenwich Village docks.
There are so many studies on New York covering this period, it would take years to go through, and I’d love that!
At the time, photographers like Jacob Riis were documenting everything. Jacob Riis our Bible. With all the explosive expansion of the city, others documented the wonderful achievements. “New York 1880” through Stern, Mellins and Fishman at the table of each and every one in the Department of the Arts. I also had some of my beloved Dover books on interiors, cars and gilded wagons, as well as food and beverages, which contained glorious illustrations of food over the centuries. I used many books about painters (and a stop at the Met): John Singer Sergeant, William Merritt Chase, Whistler, Cecelia Beaux. I had lived in New York for 20 years and each and every few reminiscences of walking the streets and avenues came to me here.
Let’s hope that day!
Ruth Ammon: We need to be exact and the paintings are very difficult to do well. We’re obsessed, but I rarely locate the right reaction angles to the story you need to tell. The most vital thing for me, given the scale and speed at which we operate, is the expression and soul of hitale. When there’s a cup of Starbucks left at the scene, it’s awful.
As discussed above, we had to compromise the staircase at the main front of Siegel Cooper’s branch for practical reasons and to fit into a previously filmed interior corridor scene. But it worked.
Ruth Ammon: Beyond the technical drawings, we created Sketchup 3-D models that live on the PC but need to be shared. We’d assign them to the walls of our convention hall so everyone can talk about them. We also had a glorious Hungarian team of modelers who built genuine models from each set. They were beautiful! It’s wonderful for the director, the director of photography and the team of assistant administrators to plan their photos and their day. As discussed earlier, when we can, we build virtual truth sets. It was the first time I had a chance to revel in this.
Ruth Ammon: Ahhhhhhh, it would possibly take a century to describe it. So many heartbreaking ups and downs. Budapest is a giant city with many 19th-century Baroque buildings that painted well for the outdoors and interiors of the Golden Age. The city has many charming spaces and interiors that are familiar to filmmakers around the world. Hungary also has a well-established history in cinema, so craftsmanship and art are components of culture. However, it is also a tourist destination for all of Europe, basically young single students. It’s fun, it’s charming, it has an attractive story and it’s inexpensive. During the summer, it is animated through festivals of all kinds that close the streets and parks. As our production progressed into the summer, we had to make many commitments that we had not anticipated. During our tenure in Budapest, many other foreign productions have exhausted the Hungarian painting group. In the breakdown of art, we ended up with a very foreign, Hungarian, American, German, British, Italian, Romanian and Croatian team, all of whom have become wonderful friends enjoying the culmination of Budapest in their spare time and proceeding in twenty members of Hangouts Zoom during COVID. Anyway, those kinds of projects are a dream for us. There are difficulties and troubleshooting in multiple languages.
It’s a wonderful lesson; I’d be happy to do it again.
The demonstration not only fabulously demonstrates the dress and décor of old New York, but also cares about the city’s everyday affairs. During the show’s opening weekend, TNT married local spouse Feed the Frontlines NYC and Delmonico’s famous eater’s famous eater (a place that sits largely at any of the stations and is one of New York’s oldest places to eat) to offer ready-ready food through its executive chef of a lot of New York City health workers Mount Sinai Manhattan VA Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital. The three-course foods included decided on the menu since the 1890s, such as vintage BLT salad, Delmonico steak and rice cake with milk.
You want to put on a piece of the show? There is a line of clothing and accessories organized at Bergdorf Goodman, encouraged through award-winning period costumes. The garments are animated through the elegant dress of the Golden Age, as well as the dark streets of the abdomen and are worthy of the elegant and modern New Yorker.
You can watch Ammon’s paintings in the new episodes of The Alienist on TNT on Sunday at 9 p.m. EST, or catch up on episodes already aired on the TNT website.
Then, the New York filming locations recreated for season 1 of TNT’s “The Alienist”
Interview through Michelle Young, reported through Nicole Saraniero
Unexploded New York discovers New York’s secrets and hidden gems. Discover the city’s most unexpected places and occasions for curious minds.
Rediscover your city.
Unexploded New York discovers New York’s secrets and hidden gems. Discover the city’s most unexpected places and occasions for curious minds.
Rediscover your city.