Flashdance Locations

Locations Manager(s): John R. Woodward

Flashdance Filming Locations:

The beginning of the movie where she is riding her bike is down James Street past Alleghaney general hospital. [Thanks to JB]

The Hall of Sculpture, located inside the Carnegie Institute at 4400 Forbes Ave - Pittsburgh (Oakland neighborhood), was used as a backdrop in the filming of this movie. Alex runs through the Hall of Sculpture near the beginning of the movie after she fails to apply for the dance competition. [Thanks to Steve]

The mystery of Alex's apartment: The address of Alex's warehouse studio is given as 7 Wood St in the movie. This is the address of Conestoga Hall of Point Park University. It does not look like anything shown in the movie. I believe the movie only shows the alley in front of Alex's apartment entrance. [Thanks to Jim K] We now know where Alex's apartment was located and, unlike most of what you'll read on the web, some of the location still exists and looks very similar to 1983. Although we had found it in the meantime, thanks to Megabyte for writing in with the correct spot as we hadn't updated the page. As this is an exclusive, we'll hold this one back until the launch of our new locations feature that will have ALL the key locations for Flashdance if we can just track down the nighttime bike-ride sequences that were filmed in Los Angeles :) Can anyone help with these locations please?

Mawby's bar was an empty store on 5th st off Los Angels Ave, downtown. They made the Bar from scratch. [Thanks to Ronald Karabatsos -who played the owner of "Mawby's in the movie!]

Hannah's House location is at 2100 Sidney St. in Pittsburgh's south side. The house is on 21st street in the South Side of Pittsburgh. It is one block from East Carson Street. This address is on the southeast corner of Sidney St and South 21st St. Hannah lived in the back portion of this address with an entrance on S. 21st St. The number on her door is 2100. This can be verified by going to maps.google.com and using "Street View" to see the number on her door. The movie gives a clear shot of the outside of her apartment building. In the movie the apartment entrance has a pediment, which has since been removed. [Thanks to Susan / Jim K]

The restaurant scene where Alex is eating lobster is often said to have been filmed inside the Grand Concourse restaurant in Station Square in Pittsburgh. This is wrong. The ceilings and decor aren't right. It was apparently filmed at swanky former celeb hangout Bistro in LA.

The incline she rides on in the first scene of the film is the Duquesne Incline (also near Station Square.) [Thanks to Susan]

I believe I know the bike route Alex Owens takes in the opening scenes of Flashdance:

-In the first scene, Alex starts at the corner of Warren Street and Catoma Street when she is petting the kitten. The first scene ends. She continues to rides down Warren St, then turns left on Henderson St. She continues on Henderson until Fountain St where she makes a left hairpin turn.

-The movie picks up on second scene where she makes the hairpin turn. In this scene you can see a red-looking house with two white-trimmed windows on the right side of the street. You can also see a modern building which is a Allegheny General Hosipital building (Synder Pavilion) to the far right in the background. The second scene ends. She then makes a right turn on Porterfield St, a left on Hemlock St, and right onto James St.

-The third scene then begins with her riding down James Street. There's a yellow truck on her left and the James Street Parking Garage of Allegheny General Hospital on her right.

-The fourth scene then begins with Alex on a bridge. This is where there is discontinuity. One of your sources (B. Bridgeman) seems to believe this is the 6th Street Bridge which is close to James St. However, this is the Smithfield Street Bridge that is on the south side of Pittsburgh. This scene is looking east into the morning sun.

-And I have never even been in Pittsburgh!... I was able to figure this out using Google maps and the James Street reference on your site from your source JB. The address of the red-looking building is 14 Fountain St according to google. It looks like its been re-sided in a lighter color, but then boarded-up since 1982. [Thanks to Jim K for that excellent shot list!]

I understand that the steel mill that Alex works in is located in an area of Pittsburgh called the strip district and the address is 25th and Liberty. Also the factory is still there but it has been turned into loft apartments (what a coincidence) [Thanks to Jina]

Tunnel mystery: some say that the scene takes place in the Armstrong Tunnel near Duquesne University. But Sue B wrote in to say that the tunnel scene is The 2nd Street Tunnel, a widely filmed and photographed tunnel on 2nd Street under Bunker Hill in Downtown Los Angeles, California. [Thanks to Sue B]

Ron Yochum kindly wrote in with the results of his sleuthing: The "Tunnel Mystery" is solved. I noticed it while watching the What a Feeling video the other day on YouTube at 0:30 seconds. The footage was shot in the early morning, likely before 7 am, facing east-south-east. You can see her enter from the right, and the Liberty Bridge in the distance, and a pedestrian railing. Here you can see the end of the tunnel where she rode in from, notice the railing in the video is the same as what is there today and the approach would be the same. You can see the tunnel from a Google Street View, the other side of the tunnel directly behind the pedestrian steps leading up to the bridge level here. Its hard to see the tunnel from the perspective of Google, but I instantly recognized it when I saw it because I've walked through that tunnel thousands of times. I work in the building next to the tunnel and for the company that once owned the property (Station Square). [Thanks to Ron Yochum]

HOWEVER, Bradford Thompson kindly wrote in to say that he is 100 percent certain that the above is wrong: Using the "What a Feeling Video". The vid opens facing the Liberty Bridge (facing east at sun rise). The lower railroad bridge is for "The T" - public trans. This shot is probably from what is now a Station Square parking lot. It cuts to Alex riding across the Monongahela River on the Smithfield Bridge. Camera facing west as she bikes away from downtown. Now, the tunnel...that is a walkthrough under the Smithfield bridge so you can get from the Station Square Parking Lot to the north side walkway across the bridge (the south walkway is harder to get to). So the rail you see is the stairway up to the bridge walkway. Also - that stairway is 20 ft. from the Grand Concourse Restaurant. Smithfield Street is 1 block south of Wood Street. I park in that lot and walk that path every day. See, I work at Point Park University in a building across from 7 Wood Street. Cool, huh? The incline which connects to Station Square is not the Duquesne, it's the Monongahela. [Thanks to Bradford Thompson]

The steel mill scene was shot at the "Homestead Works" mill (US Steel)

The bridge shot is the 6th street bridge connecting downtown with the North Side. [Thanks to B. Bridgeman]

The dancing traffic cop (see trivia section for more) was stationed (possibly for his entire career) at the corner of Wood & Liberty. Until shortly after the film's release, the area was locally renowned for its department store's window displays, particularly during the holiday season. Sadly, displays are long out of use, and the stores are no longer open at night. [Thanks to C.T. Warren]

I was working as a (female) industrial construction electrician in Pittsburgh in 1983 so I often saw the Paramount studio location trucks around town. In fact, they shut down one of the sites I was working on in order to shoot some scenes of the "Alex" character welding. These were NOT at a steel mill as is often reported. We were building the Pittsburgh Light Rail Transit system of trolleys at that time which included a short subway system. To build the underground tunnels they had to open up some of the city streets -- they would demolish the pavement and then dig down, create the tunnel and lay the rails and then build a frame work to cover the site and re-pave the road. At the time Flashdance was being filmed we were working in a two block long opening in 6th Street, a major downtown avenue along which there are several churches and (at the time) a major department store, Gimbels. The location scouts chose this site to film because it was easy to access with their gear trucks and equipment. So they arranged to clear out our crews for several days to shoot the "job site" scenes in there. We heard that they were shooting a film about a "female construction worker" and I joked that they were putting one out of work to do it (though actually they just sent me to another site in the project that our company was working on.) I also often saw the Paramount location trucks in Oakland, parked by Carnegie Museum, where they filmed some of the dancing school scenes and outside shots of "Alex" and her boyfriend. [Thanks to Kerry -arguably a real life Pittsburgh 'Flashdancer' at the time - see the Trivia section for her story -Ed]

I was the Location manager on FLASHDANCE. The lobster eating scene was filmed at the Bistro Garden (which is the 2nd floor) of the Bistro Restaurant in Beverly Hills. Most of Jennifer riding the bicycle at night was filmed within a specific grid of the downtown Los Angeles warehouse district -- not in Pittsburgh. The dance recital where Jennifer's double does the break dance spin was filmed on the top floor of The Patriotic Hall on Figueroa St just south of downtown L.A. I could go on and on... [Special Thanks to John R. Woodward. Please do update us with more!]

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