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First Avenue[1] is near the location of an apartment complex that Dana Barrett moved to following the events of the Ghostbusters.

History[]

It was also the first known place where Psychomagnotheric Slime came to the surface and the first known place it tried to kidnap Oscar. It made contact with Dana's baby carriage wheels and attempted to steer the carriage, with Oscar inside, away. It crossed onto First Avenue and passed four lanes and honking cars. The carriage stopped suddenly, just before it was about to get hit by a bus driving by in the fifth lane. The horn honked as it drove past the carriage. Dana ran into the street and picked up Oscar, holding him close to her. After Dana enlisted Egon's help, he, Ray, and Peter ran a sweep on First Avenue. Dana showed them where the incident took place. Behind them, the corner shop was selling Christmas trees. She told them how the carriage stopped right in the middle of the crosswalk. Peter took charge, dashed into the middle of the street, and started directing traffic. Cars honked at them. Ray tried to tell to stop Peter in vain. Peter told the annoyed motorists they were scientists and to get out of the way. He thanked them. A taxi driver braked and honked. He asked Peter if he was gonna get out of the way. Peter told him to relax and pointed out he was on the meter. Ray used a P.K.E. Meter on the spot where the carriage stopped. Egon used the Giga meter. Both were lit up. They got their first readings on the Psychomagnotheric Slime. Ray declared they hit the honey pot and speculated something was brewing under the street. He revealed the P.K.E. Meter got a reading of 1,118. Egon stated he got 2.5 GEVs on the Giga Meter. Dana asked them what that meant. Ray and Egon exchanged looks. They decided to dig a hole in First Avenue in the evening. Under the guise of Con Edison, the team began the fake construction job. Although, only Egon made the hole with the use of a jack hammer while Ray and Peter went to get coffee, for an hour, at Libby's Coffee Shop.

A police squad car braked near Egon. The First Cop yelled "Hey!" from his seat to get Egon's attention then asked him how he was doing. Egon asked the officer if he was talking to him. He was. Egon improvised and told him it was cutting fine. The officer asked him why he was cutting. Peter and Ray exited Libby's Coffee Shop and exchanged looks. Egon repeated his question. The officer was waiting for an answer. Egon called out to the "boss" and gestured at them to come over. They walked back over to Egon. Peter spoke in a thick stereotypical accent of a blue collar man. Peter asked Egon who told him to stop cutting. The officer repeated himself again. Peter turned to the First Cop and played along, asking him if he told Egon to stop cutting. The officer confirmed that and repeated himself. Peter stalled with rhetoricals and pointed out they let the police work. Ray emulated Peter's blue collar impression. Ray explained they were working overtime because "some diaper bag downtown" was being a jerk and making them work on a Friday night. Peter agreed. He asked Egon. Egon shouted, "Yo!" They all giggled. The officer capitulated and told them to take it easy. The squad car drove away. Ray asked Egon what he had been doing. Egon was incensed and pointed out that while they were getting coffee for an hour, he dug a big hole in the middle of the street. Ray looked down the hole in amazement and gathered Egon uncovered an old air shaft that went on and on. Egon took readings with the Giga Meter while Ray aimed his flashlight down the hole. Egon remarked it was very intense and suggested they get a deeper reading. Ray agreed. They stood back up. Egon noted someone had to go down there. Ray agreed. Ray looked up and realized Peter and Egon were staring at him.

Ray was volunteered to go down into hole. He discovered the abandoned Van Horne Pneumatic Transit Station was directly under First Avenue and it was filled with a River of Slime. The same police squad car from before returned along with Con Edison. Ray took a sample with the Slime Scooper. The police confronted them. They had verified with Mr. Fianella, from Con Edison that there was no work scheduled for First Avenue that night. A Con Edison Supervisor asked Peter and Egon what was going on. Peter shifted back to his blue collar persona and referred to them as boneheads. He claimed three thousand phones were out on Greenwich Village and he had eight million miles of cable to check. He pretended to be displeased they came to shake his monkey tree again. The Con Ed Supervisor pointed out the fact that the phone lines were across the street. Peter improvised and smacked Egon's hard hat angrily. Peter "blamed" Egon for setting up in the wrong spot despite his reluctance. The First Cop told Peter to stop and implored him tell him another story. Without breaking character, Peter claimed there was major gas leak. He pointed to some steam that happened to be nearby and rhetorically asked them where they thought all this was coming from. The river of slime started to grab at Ray. As Ray was pulled up in a panic, he knocked out several lines and caused a power outage. The Ghostbusters were arrested soon after. After they went back into business, they turned onto East 76th Street from First Avenue one night.

Trivia[]

Ghostbusters II Trivia[]

  • In the August 5, 1988 draft, the incident with the baby carriage chase takes place on Sixth Avenue instead of First Avenue.[2]
  • The baby carriage chase at the start of the movie is geographically accurate. It starts at Dana's apartment building at 325 East 77th Street and heads south to the intersection of East 77th Street and First Avenue where it stopped. After the carriage is nearly hit by the bus, the green awning of Cho-Sen Food Shoppe Ltd. is visible, further proving the intersection is E. 77th and First.[3]
  • Chuck Gaspar, physical effects supervisor, built five radio-controlled carriages for the baby carriage chase. DC motors were placed in the buggy baskets, drive shafts, a steering system, and two braking systems to stop the wheels and slow the carriage were utilized. Gaspar brought in two-time national champion driver of miniature cars Jay Halsey, both having worked on Dirty Harry movies, to steer the carriage.[4]
  • Two blocks from the intersection of East 77th and First, Louis' bus stop scene was filmed.
  • First appearing in the September 29, 1988 draft, the street sweep, then on Sixth Avenue, ended a little differently. The P.K.E. Meter didn't pick up any readings but the Giga Meter did, underscoring the importance of the new device.
  • In the November 27, 1988 and February 27, 1989 drafts, on page 26, Peter gets nostalgic outside and points out the old cash machine, dry cleaners and video store he and Dana used to go to.
  • The First Avenue scene with Egon and Ray getting readings was also filmed at the same spot at the intersection of East 77th Street and First Avenue in New York City.
  • In the August 5, 1988 draft:
    • On page 27, Ray uses a jack hammer to make the big hole.
  • The digging scenes on First Avenue were filmed on a similar street in Los Angeles at the intersection of East 8th Street & South Los Angeles Street.
  • Filming the digging scene did not go well. Generator fuses blew, the crew got cranky, and Ivan Reitman thought the pacing was ruined by the police car driving away too slowly.[5]
  • The part where Ray realizes he was voted to go down the hole took at least 8 takes.[6]
  • In the September 29, 1988 draft, the blackout scene is timed differently:
    • On page 28, Ray is hauled up but they stop the winch after the First Cop returns with a Con Edison Supervisor and talks to Peter. They don't fall for his phone lines story and Peter suggests a gas leak. They slap handcuffs on Peter and Egon. Suddenly there is a bright flash from down the hole then there is a blackout. Ray utters a "sorry" in the darkness.
  • For the first montage a night shot of Ecto-1a was filmed at the corner of East 76th Street and First Avenue, evidenced by 3-Star Diner, located at 1463 First Avenue.[7]
  • In the September 29, 1988 draft, on page 105, Peter and Ray disagree on how to take the Statue of Liberty to the museum. Ray thinks they should keep to the middle of the channel, they're okay to 59th, and they should take First Avenue to 79th. Peter tells him there will be bridge traffic so they should take 72nd straight up to Fifth.
    • In the February 27, 1989 Draft, this scenes take place from page 109.
  • The intersection of East 77th and First Avenue, where the end of the carriage chase in Chapter 1: Start was filmed, is two blocks from this intersection where Louis Tully's bus stop scene was filmed.[8]

Ghostbusters: Back in Town Trivia[]

Ghostbusters: Answer The Call Trivia[]

  • The back of the P.K.E. Meter (2016) prop has a label that references Ray and Egon's readings of 1118 on the P.K.E. Meter and 2.5 GeVs on the Giga meter in Ghostbusters II, Chapter 5: Investigating Oscar.

Appearances[]

Primary Canon Appearances[]


Expanded Universe

Secondary Canon Appearances[]

References[]

  1. The Prosecutor (1999). Ghostbusters II, Chapter 10: Their Day in Court (1989) (DVD ts. 30:38-30:52). Columbia Pictures. The Prosecutor says: "Dr. Venkman, would you please tell the court why it is that you and your co-defendants took it upon yourselves to dig a very big hole in the middle of First Avenue?"
  2. Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 14). "Paragraph reads: "Cars, trucks, and buses speed by on Sixth Avenue as the buggy races toward the corner."
  3. Spook Central, Dana's apartment
  4. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 6. Cinefex, USA. "Paragraph reads: "To create the wild ride, physical effects supervisor Chuck Gaspar--a veteran of the first film--built five radio-controlled carriages. "We placed DC motors inside the buggy baskets. To drive the wheels we used a drive shaft from a drill attachment that could work at right angles to the motor. We also used some three-inch chrome drive shafts to attach to the wheels themselves. These shafts were tied in with the chrome carriage to conceal what was driving the buggy. They looked nice and they were not too bulky. We then designed a steering system and ran cables through the tubes of the carriage frame and into the basket part where they were operated by another big servo. We also used a servo to operate a braking system we installed. Actually, there were two braking systems--the original brakes which automatically locked the wheels and our own brakes which allowed us to slow the buggy gradually." A regular on the Clint Eastwood production team, Gaspar drew upon his most recent experience with Dirty Harry to execute the sequence. "To steer the buggy, I brought in Jay Halsey who is a two-time national champion driver of miniature cars. I used him on The Dead Pool to drive the little black Corvette that races underneath real cars in San Francisco traffic. For Ghostbusters II, he had to steer the buggy from as far away as seventy-five feet and make it maneuver in and out of traffic without tipping over or slamming into any cars. The sequence ended up being much more elaborate than in the original script. For one shot,, we had to tilt the buggy up on its side on cables and go on two wheels down the street. Jay also had to steer it past huge buses without hitting them. He was great with the controls--so good he could make the buggies do wheelies." The buggy ride was filmed at the beginning of the production during two weeks of location shooting in New York."
  5. Goldstein, Patrick (June 1, 1989). "Return of the Money Making Slime" Rolling Stone #553, page 54. Wenner Media LLC, New York City, New York, USA. Line reads: "This is still L.A., downtown L.A. to be exact, normally a deserted isle, especially on a drizzly, cold spring night. Two blocks away, you can find a platoon of skid-row bums huddled under cardboard boxes, sharing sips of wine. On the set, several hundred extras are milling around a "crowded Manhattan intersection." Posing as Con Ed repairmen, the Ghostbusters are on the hunt for slime. Ramis is jackhammering a hole in the middle of the street. Just when it looks like he's hit pay dirt, a patrol car stops to investigate. The scene is not going well. Generator fuses are blowing out. The crew is cranky. Murray is yawning. It's no wonder Reitman is wearing a groove in the sidewalk behind his camera position. When you're rushing to finish a $30 million movie, time is money, the meter is running. He quickly decides what is ruining the pacing. The cop car isn't leaving the scene fast enough. "That is the slowest cop car I've ever seen," Reitman growls."
  6. Goldstein, Patrick (June 1, 1989). "Return of the Money Making Slime" Rolling Stone #553, page 54. Wenner Media LLC, New York City, New York, USA. Line reads: "The night's scene concludes with the three staring down the manhole, then at one another - no one is volunteering to slide down into the slime-filled sewer. On the eighth take, they're completely in sync - they move as if attached to one another with imaginary puppet strings. Who'll hit the sewers tonight? Ramis looks at Murray. Murray eyes Ramis. Then they both slowly swivel their heads, staring at Aykroyd. He rolls his eyes skyward, praying for divine intervention. His woeful gaze is painfully funny."
  7. Spook Central First Avenue page
  8. Spook Central, "Dana's apartment"
  9. Ray Stantz (2024). Dark Horse Comics- "Ghostbusters: Back in Town Issue #2" (2024) (Comic p.13). Ray Stantz says: "We started in the abandoned Beach pneumatic transit system tunnels under First Avenue."
  10. Winston Zeddemore (2017). IDW Comics- "Ghostbusters Annual 2017" (2017) (Comic p.8). Winston Zeddemore says: "Some of us had the good sense to not get arrested for digging up a street in the middle of NYC."


Gallery[]

Primary Canon Images[]

Primary Canon (Expanded Universe) Images[]

Behind the Scenes Images[]

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