Church Avenue Station

Church Avenue Station is a New York City Subway station in Brooklyn, served by the F and G trains. The station is located in the Kensington / Flatbush area, beneath Church Avenue, and is one of the subway locations in New York that has been used regularly for film and television work. Its platform tiles, columns, signage and underground layout give productions a recognisable subway setting, while the station can also be dressed with temporary signs to represent other stations in the city.

Church Avenue Station has appeared in Mr. Robot (2015–2019), Joker (2019), Grand Army (2020) and Russian Doll (2019–2022). In several productions, the station is not presented as itself, but is altered with signage or used as a stand-in for another New York subway stop.

In Mr. Robot (2015), Church Avenue Station appears in “eps1.0_hellofriend.mov”, episode 1 of season 1. Elliot follows Mr. Robot off the subway at the station after the flight back to New York. The scene is slightly strange geographically, because Mr. Robot says they need to go to Brooklyn even though Church Avenue Station is already in Brooklyn. The station later appears again in season 3, when Darlene takes Elliot on the subway as they go to check the safe deposit box connected to their mother. In that scene, the real Church Avenue tiles can be seen on the wall behind them, while added station signage was used for the production.

In Joker (2019), Church Avenue Station was one of the subway stations used during the film’s New York-area production. The film uses several subway locations to create Gotham’s transit system, and Church Avenue belongs to that wider network of real New York stations turned into Gotham locations. The station is part of the film’s subway-location work alongside other New York stations used in the production.

In Grand Army (2020), Church Avenue Station appears as a stand-in for Grand Army Plaza Station. Owen and Jayson busk on the platform, but the scene was filmed on the upper level of Church Avenue Station rather than at the real Grand Army Plaza stop. The station’s appearance is altered for the scene, allowing the production to use Church Avenue while presenting it as a different Brooklyn subway station.

In Russian Doll (2022), Church Avenue Station appears as a stand-in for 77th Street Station. The production added signage to make the Brooklyn station look like the Upper East Side stop, even though the real location is Church Avenue. The subway scenes use the station’s platform layout and underground look while disguising its actual identity inside the story.

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