You don’t need to have watched Joker to know about the dancing scene. That scene has been a key part of the film’s promotion and appears on the movie’s poster – and after the film was released, it turned out that the famous dance scene was a pivotal sequence in Arthur Fleck’s narrative.
Those wanting to see the filming location in real life will have to head over to New York City, where the steep flight of stairs is located.
More precisely, they will want to the Bronx, in the neighbourhood of Highbridge.
It’s there, tucked between two avenues, that Fleck (portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix) is seen dancing in full Joker attire in the film.
As Time Out points out, the steps can be found between two not-totally-parallel avenues, Shakespeare and Anderson Avenues, along 167th Street.
You can catch a glimpse of the stairs online by entering the address 1170 Shakespeare Avenue in Google Maps and placing the cursor at the intersection of 167th Street and Shakespeare Avenue.
If you do so in Google Street View, you will find yourself at the bottom of the vertiginous flight of stairs.
Staircases such as the one seen in Joker are known as “step streets” in New York City and can most often be found in the Bronx and upper Manhattan.
They were created to allow pedestrians to circulate in hilly areas of the city where motorised transportation wasn’t an option.
The longest step street in the city is located in the Bronx on 230th Street and covers three blocks between Riverdale and Netherland Avenues.
