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AWAKENINGS
filming locations
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CREDITS
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An
unusually subdued Robin
Williams plays Dr Malcolm Sayer, a character based
on Oliver Sacks, the introverted psychiatrist who woke
near-comatose patients with the drug L-Dopa, only to
see them react violently to the drugís side effects
and lapse back into their vegetative state.
Set almost entirely in Brooklyn,
where the movie opens in the thirties with young Leonard
(who grows up to be Robert
de Niro) carving his name on a bench at the foot
of Manhattan Bridge.
Fast-forward to 1969, and Dr Sayer arrives at the (fictitious)
'Bainbridge Hospital', where Leonard and the other vegetative
patients are resident.
'Bainbridge' is the real Kingsboro
Psychiatric Center, 681 Clarkson Avenue off
Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, dressed as the late sixties
by production designer, the late Anton Furst. Sayerís
home is on City Island in the Bronx, only a few steps
from Oliver Sacksí real home, while the house of Leonardís
mother is a brownstone in Brooklynís classy Park
Slope district. Leonardís elementary school
can also be found in Park Slope.
The botanical garden, where Dr Sayer relaxes, is The
Enid A Haupt Conservatory
of New
York Botanical Garden, Bronx River Parkway
at Fordham Road in Bronx Park, the Bronx. You might
recognise the conservatory from Scorsese's
The Age Of Innocence.
The dance hall, where the newly-awakened oldsters find
out that Prohibition is over, was Casa Galicia, now
the Brazilian Missionary Church,
3922 30th Street, Long Island City in Queens.
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FILMING
LOCATIONS FOR AWAKENINGS
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CHECK
OUT
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The Enid A Haupt Conservatory
of New
York Botanical Garden, Bronx River Parkway
at Fordham Road in Bronx Park (tel (718) .817-8700,
admission charge)
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ASSOCIATED
FILMS |
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