Main Street Garden Park is a public park occupying a full city block between Main, Commerce, Harwood and St. Paul streets in Downtown Dallas. The 1.75-acre park was created as part of a wider effort to bring new public space and residential life into the eastern end of the downtown core, with construction beginning in 2008 and the park opening in 2009. Designed by Thomas Balsley Associates, it includes a large central lawn, fountains, landscaped garden areas, a children’s playground, dog run and pavilion, surrounded by some of Downtown Dallas’s most distinctive historic and modern architecture. One feature predates the park by decades: the large illuminated letters spelling “PARK”. They originally hung on the gold-ringed parking garage that once occupied the site and were saved when the structure was demolished, restored and installed in the new park as a reminder of the block’s earlier history.
The site of Main Street Garden Park appears in RoboCop (1987), while the park itself was later used in Queen of the South (2016–2021). RoboCop (1987) was filmed before the park existed, when a large parking garage still occupied the block, but one particularly recognisable piece of that building survives in the park today: the illuminated “PARK” sign seen behind RoboCop during the City Hall hostage sequence. Queen of the South (2016–2021) filmed at the completed park in 2015 for the third episode of its first season.
In RoboCop (1987), the future site of Main Street Garden Park can be seen during the hostage crisis at Detroit City Hall. Disgruntled former city councilman Ron Miller enters the building with a gun and holds Mayor Gibson and members of his staff hostage, demanding his old job back along with a recount, a larger office and a new car. Police surround the building while Lieutenant Hedgecock attempts to negotiate with him, before RoboCop arrives and enters City Hall. During the exterior part of the sequence, RoboCop is seen standing across the street with the enormous parking garage behind him and its illuminated “PARK” letters clearly visible. RoboCop eventually reaches Miller from inside the building, punches through a wall to grab him and sends him crashing through a window. The City Hall exterior was the historic Dallas Municipal Building on Harwood Street, while the parking structure visible across from it occupied the block where Main Street Garden Park now stands. When the garage was later demolished, its “PARK” sign was preserved and installed in the new park, creating an unusual surviving physical link between modern Downtown Dallas and the 1987 film.
In Queen of the South (2016–2021), Main Street Garden Park was used during production of the season-one episode “Estrategia de Entrada” (2016). City of Dallas filming records show that the production filmed at the park on 21 October 2015 as part of shooting for episode 103. The episode follows Teresa Mendoza as Camila Vargas continues to test whether she can be trusted, including an elaborate staged interrogation by men posing as DEA agents and a later drug transaction in which Teresa recognises that the buyers are attempting to pay with counterfeit money.
Dallas City Hall
Dallas City Hall is the seat of municipal government in Dallas, Texas, and one of the city’s most distinctive examples of modern…
The Oasis Bar and Grill
The Oasis Bar and Grill appears in Dutton Ranch (2026). The series was filmed across North Texas, with Midlothian used for this specific bar scene in season 1.
Fort Worth Police Department – West Division
Fort Worth Police Department – West Division has appeared in Dutton Ranch (2026–), where it stands in for the fictional Rio Paloma Sheriff’s Office.
Roughnecks
Roughnecks appears in Dutton Ranch, the Yellowstone spin-off and sequel series about Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler. Roughnecks is used as Split Heart Bar.
The Hewitt House
The Hewitt House appears in the remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and it's sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006).
Bagdad Cemetery
Bagdad Cemetery has appeared in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The cemetery is used for the film’s disturbing opening images of grave desecration.
Hooper’s
Hooper’s appears in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The film was not shot at the house’s current Kingsland location, but the building itself is the same house.
The Gas Station
The Gas Station appears in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), where it is used as the Last Chance Gas Station. The location is one of the main stops.
Oasis Motel
Oasis Motel in Gretna, Louisiana, appears in "Dallas Buyers Club". In the film, the motel becomes one of the places connected to Ron’s underground operation.