It is almost ten years ago since the launch of otsoNY.com, and throughout this month of October, the creator Mark Rogers recalls those early days.

otsoNY Creator: Mark Rogers

The idea for a New York film location website first came to light in late summer months of 2009. “I remember it was around August time, when I made the decision,” recalls Mark. “I had come back from a 10 day trip to New York with hundreds of photographs and hours of actual video footage, and initially I offered my research to Lindsay Blake, who ran a film location blog. At the time, Lindsay was more focused on LA film locations rather than New York ones, so decided not to take me up on my partnership offer, which was fair enough. After all, if she had agreed, otsoNY wouldn’t have been launched!”

Having an avid interest in New York and films, the initial visit to the island of Manhattan was somewhat of an eye-opening experience for Mark. “It seems crazy to think now, but back in 2009 I was fairly naive in my method to tracking down New York film locations. Before the trip, I had searched online for sources, and besides Movie-Locations.com, MovieLocationsGuide.com and IMDB.com, of which took a half-hearted approach for recording film locations, there wasn’t actually that much information available. So, I had no choice but to track down the handful of locations that interested me by scouting for onset photographs and matching their locations with Google Street View, which at the time was not an easy task.”

Film Poster: Delirious

Arriving in New York armed only with a location map and his good sense of direction, Mark began the time consuming task for tracking down the physical locations. “With the grid system, Manhattan is reasonably easy to navigate,” explained Mark. “The very first film location that I photographed was the redbrick property at 1 Gramercy Park West, between East 20th Street and East 21st Street. It was a pre-war co-op building in downtown Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighbourhood built in 1918, and contained 10 units on 4 stories. My interest in the property lay in its appearance in the 1991 comedy ‘Delirious’, although I suspect it was only ever used for an exterior shot, but I was a big John Candy fan, especially for brilliant performances in ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, ‘The Great Outdoors’ and ‘Uncle Buck’, so it didn’t really matter too much.”

1 Gramercy Park West, between East 20th Street and East 21st Street

1 Gramercy Park West, between East 20th Street and East 21st Street

1 Gramercy Park West, between East 20th Street and East 21st Street

Besides John Candy, the film starred Mariel Hemingway, Emma Samms, Raymond Burr, David Rasche, Dylan Baker, and Charles Rocket, and used Prince's 1982 song as its title theme.

The storyline follows Jack Gable played by John Candy, who is a soap opera writer with little in the way of a love life, and even less job security takes a knock on the head one day and wakes up in the very television show he has been writing. He discovers that through his typewriter he can control events in his new reality. At first, Jack believes this will help him impress Laura played by Emma Samms, the actress who plays the program's star, but soon he realises that no matter how much power he has, he can't control everything.

John Candy in Delirious

Other film locations from ‘Delirious’ included the Ice Rink in Central Park and the office building at the corner of West 52nd Street and Sixth Avenue.

Click HERE for a full list of film locations from Delirious

In the next article of this series, Mark talks about the film, 'No Reservations', and its fake restaurant.