The stairs Arthur Fleck dances down, in full clown makeup, midway through Joker, are a real public staircase connecting Shakespeare Avenue and Anderson Avenue at West 167th Street in the Highbridge section of the Bronx. It is a set of city-maintained steps that residents used to get between two streets on a hill, and it had no particular fame before 2019.
It has a great deal now. The steps became one of the most geotagged and reproduced backdrops in the city almost overnight, and the surrounding neighbourhood has had to absorb a level of tourist and social-media traffic that a residential side street was never built for.
An ordinary piece of city infrastructure
New York City has a fair number of outdoor step-streets in its hillier boroughs, functional public infrastructure rather than landmarks, and the Highbridge staircase is one of them: plain concrete, a single straight run with landings, flanked by apartment buildings on a working residential block.
Todd Phillips's location team chose it for exactly that unremarkable, workaday quality — it needed to read as a real, slightly grim corner of a decaying city, not a postcard. The colour grading and the graffiti-streaked walls around it do the rest.
What happened after the film
Joker was a significant commercial hit, and the staircase scene was heavily marketed and endlessly recreated online — the specific choreography of Phoenix's dance became a recognisable meme in its own right, imitated in the exact spot by a steady stream of visitors.
The consequence for the block has been substantial and, for many residents, unwelcome. Visitors arriving to film themselves dancing down a residential staircase produced noise, obstruction, litter and traffic on a narrow street with no capacity for it, and local coverage in the years since has repeatedly documented friction between residents and the steady tourist flow.
This is a case worth being candid about rather than glossing over: the location is real, freely accessible, and genuinely popular to visit — but it is also someone's front step, on a residential block with no facilities, no signage, and no infrastructure for the attention it now receives.
The rest of Gotham, largely New York
Joker's Gotham is constructed almost entirely from real New York locations rather than a built backlot city, which is part of why it reads as grimier and more textured than most superhero films. Interiors and other exteriors were shot across the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan, including the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn (dressed as a cinema and later a talk-show stage) and the since-closed Brooklyn Army Terminal for Arkham Asylum's exterior.
The Bronx staircase, though, is the one location that has taken on a life independent of the film — a public backdrop that now functions as an informal, unofficial tourist attraction with none of the management that attraction status usually implies.
Visiting the location
- Where
- Shakespeare Avenue at West 167th Street, Highbridge, the Bronx, New York.
- Getting there
- The 4 train's 167th Street station is a short walk away; the 161st St–Yankee Stadium station on several lines is also close.
- Access
- A public city staircase, free and open at all times. It runs directly between residential buildings.
- This is a residential street, not a tourist site — keep noise and time on the steps to a minimum out of basic respect for the people who live there.
- Do not block the staircase or the pavement; it is in daily use as a pedestrian route.
- Go outside evening and weekend peak hours if you want the steps without a queue of other visitors doing the same shot.
- There is nothing else to see on the block — this is a five-minute stop, not a destination to build a day around.
Frequently asked questions
Where exactly are the Joker stairs?
A public staircase connecting Shakespeare Avenue and Anderson Avenue at West 167th Street, in the Highbridge neighbourhood of the Bronx.
Can anyone visit the Joker stairs?
Yes — they are ordinary public city infrastructure on a residential block, freely accessible at any time. Visitors should be mindful that people live there.
Have the Joker stairs caused problems for residents?
Yes. The volume of visitors filming themselves on a narrow residential staircase has caused documented friction with local residents over noise, obstruction and litter.
Was all of Joker filmed in New York?
The great majority, yes — across the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan, using real locations rather than a built backlot city.