My Neighborhood is Literally Evil
This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #177. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
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A tongue-in-cheek but also painfully earnest look at pop culture and anything else that deserves to be ridiculed while at the same time regarded with the utmost respect. It is written by Matt Marrone and emailed to Stu Horvath and David Shimomura, who add any typos or factual errors that might appear within.
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I live down the street from Dr. Kristen Bouchard’s house in the Paramount+ series, Evil.
As my longtime reader knows, a lot of shows are filmed in my neighborhood, but in the past few years, nothing has made its presence felt as much as Evil, with its temporary No Parking fliers frequently posted along the street, crew members chowing down at craft services, and cranes, wires and other filming equipment lining the sidewalks.
If you’ve seen the show, you know the Bouchard house is pretty memorable, tucked underneath the Amtrak line that eventually crosses Astoria’s iconic Hellgate Bridge, which is visible from my son’s bedroom window. I’ve known about the show, and of course the house, for some time. But it wasn’t until Evil recently came to Netflix that I started watching.
I’ve noticed a few things about how it portrays my Ditmars neighborhood within greater Astoria. So, as a service to those of you also discovering the show, I’d like to, as a neighbor of the Bouchards, separate myth from reality about our little slice of the city.
For example, does the Amtrak train really cross over Astoria roughly once per minute? And is it really that loud? Admittedly, I haven’t timed each scene at the house to be truly scientific about it, but the show makes it seem near constant, as if living under the tracks means the rumbling of trains is the soundtrack of your existence. It definitely adds a nice flavor for storytelling, and, having just started watching, I’m wondering whether it becomes even more important later on. But is it myth or reality? While this seems like TV magic, as someone who lives near the train but not under it, I decided to stand in front of the actual house and listen to be sure. I’ll share my findings at the end of this column.
In the meantime, here are some other myths and realities that deserve to be separated from each other:
- Does Michael Emerson live in Astoria?
If you clicked the link at the top of this column – here it is again, lazy bones – you’ll know that Emerson once drove right past my house on the show “Person of Interest”, which filmed often in my neighborhood. Now, he’s showing up at the Bouchard residence, even going so far as to date Kristen’s mom and bring gifts to Kristen’s kids. So, does he live here? This is obviously a MYTH, as Michael Emerson is only acting. In reality, he is Benjamin Linus, the head of the Dharma Initiative who lives on a mysterious island that changes location by spinning a wheel.
- Is there really a cemetery right in the middle of our neighborhood?
The Bouchard girls stroll over to a cemetery on a Halloween episode. I’d love to dispel this as a myth, because they’re clearly walking in Astoria Park, where no dead people are currently interred (to our knowledge). But this is actually REALITY.
- Do people here really have all that extra space in their homes? Why live anywhere else in the city?
In that same Halloween episode, the girls go down to the Bouchard basement, where they say they haven’t gone in a long time. The basement is used for storage and there is even a gaping hole in the wall that leads to another space of some kind. So, to the first part of the question, this is clearly a MYTH. While it might not qualify as a legal apartment by New York City housing law, no way they haven’t found someone willing to pay a few grand to live down there and supplement the Bouchard mortgage. As for the second question, go ahead and stay in Brooklyn, hipsters.
- Is there really an ancient battle between good and evil being staged, at least in part, in a seemingly typical house in northeastern Queens – one which features devil children and demons that haunt your dreams?
I can’t speak for the real-life residents of the Bouchard house, but in my home, where two young boys reside, I can confirm this to be REALITY.
To those of you still with me: Thanks for reading this far. If you’ve skipped down to the bottom just to find out about the trains, well, that’s sort of . . . weird? But I’ll take it.
However, I must apologize. I didn’t go and listen. Normally I would be happy to blame laziness, but they’re actually filming the final season there as I type this. As much I would love to be on the show, I don’t think someone standing in front of the Bouchard house timing trains with their iPhone stopwatch would help drive the plot, even if it might do a much better job of capturing the true spirit of the community. Then again, I’m still on Season 1, so what do I know?
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Matt Marrone is a senior MLB editor at ESPN.com. He has been Unwinnable’s reigning Rookie of the Year since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @thebigm.
