ELF soon became a holiday hit following its November 7, 2003 release.
Amidst its 20th anniversary, fans want to know more about the festive film and where it took place in real life.
Is Gimbels in Elf a real store?
Gimbels was a real department store — however, it was no longer operating at the time Elf was filmed.
As ABC News reported, director Jon Favreau — who also played Dr. Leonardo in the film — told the outlet: “We approached the person that had the rights to Gimbels. And we decided to set it in a building catty-corner to the Empire State Building.”
The outlet noted that Favreau chose that location so that Buddy — played by Will Ferrell— “would be kicked out of the Empire State Building and stumble directly into the store decorated like the North Pole.”
They decorated the building — Manhattan’s Textile Building, per Business Insider— with nutcrackers and the Gimbels sign for outdoor filming.
According to the American Business History Center, Gimbel Brothers was founded in 1842 by GermanJewish immigrant Adam Gimbel in Vincennes, Indiana.
By the 1920s, it was “the largest and most profitable department store retailer in America.”
At its highest point in the 1940s, more than 500,000 people visited the Gimbels Thanksgiving Parade in Philadelphia, per the outlet.
This came before the Thanksgiving Parade in New York, run by “arch-rival Macy’s.”
Millions of people watched both parades on network television.
Elf was not the only Christmas movie to include the Gimbels name, the store also “had a starring role” in the hit 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street.
Despite years of success, Gimbels closed during the late 1980s.
Why did Macy’s refuse to be in Elf?
As Favreau revealed to ABC News, the Elf team asked Macy’s if they could use the store for the movie, but Macy’s declined.
He told the publication: “Because we’re using a Santa, of course, everybody thinks Macy’s.
“But Macy’s didn’t like the idea that there was a fake Santa working there. They felt it would blow the illusion for kids.”
Where was Elf filmed?
Elf was filmed in New York City, with some indoor scenes also being shot in Vancouver, British Columbia.
As ABC News reported, the interior scenes of Gimbels were filmed inside a Vancouver department store.
Actor Artie Lange — who played the Gimbels Santa — told the outlet that some scenes were shot in an old insane asylum in the Canadian city.
He said: “They gutted an old insane asylum and made it a sound studio.”
According to On Location Tours, the Gimbels exterior was filmed at 5th Avenue and East 30th Street in New York City.
Per the outlet, other New York filming locations included:
- The Empire State Building
- Rockefeller Center
- Central Park
- The Bethesda Terrace Fountain
- The Queensboro Bridge
- 55 Central Park West on the Upper West Side
As Business Insider reported, another location included the 23rd Street Subway entrance east of Broadway.