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| Every week Tony Soprano drives out of the Lincoln Tunnel, whips around the Helix, and snatches the turnpike toll ticket from the dispenser with pure delicious contempt. In the background, Alabama 3 sings, "You're one in a million. / You've got that shotgun shine./ Born under a bad sign / With a blue moon in your eyes." And as T, as some of the other characters on "The Sopranos" TV show call him, heads South, he approaches Newark. Over there on the right in the Ironbound, he passes the HYDRO - P U building with its discolored bricks - dirty tan, dirty green, dirty pink, dirty white - and it's billion broken windows. | |
| This ghostly four story derelict looks like something you've seen in a documentary about the fire bombing of Dresden during World War II. .... Tony is fiction, Hydro - P U is not. You've seen this abandoned wreck of a building too. It's just after exit 15E.. You can't miss it. The sign used to say Hydro Pruf, but the R and the F are missing. This is the old Arkansas Chemical Company on Foundry St in Newark. Before they went belly-up in the early Eighties, they manufactured Hydro-Pruf, a water repelling substance that textile makers applied to fabrics. |
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Hydro Pruf was invented by Nathaniel C. Shane Sr, born in Paterson
in 1901. He also developed the grass catcher for lawn mowers
and the first aerosol hair coloring. In 1988 the company went
out of business and tip toed out of Newark in the middle of the
night., leaving the Foundry St building as a textbook on environmental
irresponsibility. Federal inspectors later found nearly 22,000
barrels and small containers of dangerous chemicals at the site.
These included trichloroethylene and vinyl chloride both known
human carcinogens. There was also arsenic and lots of asbestos,
and traces of radioactive materials. To top it off, there was
also almost 8000 gallons of sulfuric acid loosely stored near
the sites drainage systems. Of course, none of this matters to
Tony Soprano. He's going home to N Caldwell which is goofy because
the way from the tunnel isn't down the turnpike unless you want
to go by way of Richmond, VA Hey T., anybody knows to go to your
place you get on Route 3, hook onto 46, and slip through Little
Falls or Great Notch! Commentary from Jeff Page - "The Road Warrior" - The Record |
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Ask any out of towner what comes to their mind when you say New Jersey and they'll probably say the New Jersey Turnpike. We may never know if this influenced the creators of the Sopranos to base many of the locations in the opening scenes along this highway. Along it's Northern stretch many of the refineries use storage tanks as if they were bill boards. These tanks are located in the South bound lane just South of Newark Airport at mile marker 96.5 . Photo Credit - Mike M. |
| Heading North on the NJ turnpike near exit 13 we see the Goethals Bridge off in the distance. Photo Credit - Mike M. |
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Hearsay has it that producer David Chase gave his staff several camcorders and told them to video tape various neighborhoods throughout Northern New Jersey. This montage of Northern NJ was used to create the opening theme for each episode. Pizzaland, located at 260 Belleville Tpk in North Arlington has been a local landmark for about 35 years. It's barely bigger than a taxi stand and does most of its business as take out orders. Pizzaland's interior and their pizza is as I remember it the night it opened when my Mom took me and my sister there for Pizza. I vividly remember the owner getting his finger stuck in the soda machine. We sat there amused watching him getting soaked. Aside from the great Pizza, they make a killer Italian Hotdog! |
| In one of Hudson County's lower income neighborhoods the store fronts change often. Watch closely in the opening credits and you'll see a male crossing the street at the corner. Pause the image and we discover that he's passing the Pulaski Savings bank in Harrison, NJ. Today it appears to be a local consumer electronics and video rental store. Photo Credit - Mike M. |
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Take Rt 1&9 North from Newark along the truck route. You will go over this bridge, if you stay on 1&9 North you will end up by Wilson Carpets home of the Wilson Giant. |
| It's somewhat difficult to see in this photo, but beneath the Budweiser sign we find the Sunoco gas station used in the montage of drive buy business used in the opening credits. Tony also made a phone call from a parking lot across from this location in episode 14. Photo credit - Mike M. |
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You see Carpet Man for only a second or so among the fleeting New Jersey images in the opening montage of "The Sopranos," which starts its third season Sunday night. Since 1974, Carpet Man has stood outside Wilson's Carpet & Furniture at 220 Broadway in Jersey City right under the Pulaski Skyway. He's 25 feet tall, has a beard, wears a yellow hat, and holds a roll of green carpet in his huge arms. "I bought him for $12,000 in 1974," says Norman Wilson, the real carpet man. The statue was designed as Paul Bunyan and used -- with an enormous blue ox -- in Amoco advertising in the Sixties, Wilson says. "He's in three pieces: head, torso, and legs." The producers of "The Sopranos" never approached Wilson about filming Carpet Man. "They don't show the name of the store anyway," he says. "It's been great for business. I get people who say they came to Jersey City to see two things: the Statue of Liberty and my statue." Standing next to Carpet Man are the legs -- in pink pants
-- of another large man, but with no torso, no head. "I
use that one for half-price sales," Wilson says. |
| Driving North on Rt 21 in Newark we see a brief glimpse of this old railroad bridge the crosses the Passaic River at River Road and Midland Avenue in Kearny. Its stone supports made this rather easy to identify. |
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This is certainly one of the more obscure locations used in the opening scenes of each episode. If you watch closely you will see a swampy area with what appears to be metal frame work sticking out from the water. The frame work is actually the top "crown" of one of the transmitting antennas used by WNEW radio. Back in the 1970's, after the station moved, they simply cut the antennas at the base and let them fall into the swamp. I was there and was fortunate to get this picture as they were falling! In the opening credits the scene was filmed in the Southbound lane of the New Jersey Turnpike, just before exit 15W. I took this photo from Rt 7 which intersects the turnpike in Kearny, NJ |
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