Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir drops a Depression-era private eye named Ben Reilly into a grimy, rain-slicked 1930s New York — but almost none of it was shot anywhere near the East Coast. The series, which also stars Li Jun Li as nightclub singer Cat and Lamorne Morris as journalist Robbie, was filmed across Los Angeles, and viewers can watch it in stylised black-and-white or full colour.

Much of the action happens on soundstages and backlots. The main New York street — home to Millie's Diner and the B. Reilly Private Investigator office — is the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, a set so well-used it previously stood in for Jim Carrey's apartment in The Mask and a key scene in Minority Report. Universal Studios' New York Street backlot doubles for the abandoned theatre exteriors and several fight scenes.

Koreatown supplies some of the show's most recognisable real locations. The Prince, a retro lounge previously seen in Mad Men and New Girl, appears early on, and Ben reads the news on the steps of Immanuel Presbyterian Church. Across the street, the fictional Redcliff Hotel is actually The Talmadge, a brick apartment tower dating to 1924.

Downtown LA does the heavy lifting for the hotel scenes. The Geoffrey Hotel in episode two is the Hotel Per La, a Marriott Autograph Collection property in the 1922 Bank of Italy Building, with a rooftop pool and standard rooms around $250–$350 a night. Silvermane's lair, the fictional Hillhurts Hotel, is the 1923 Millennium Biltmore — once the largest hotel west of Chicago and the birthplace of the Oscars — with rooms from roughly $205.

Several scenes use stunning historic interiors most Angelenos never see. The lost New York Penn Station platform was shot in the Dutch Chocolate Shop, a 1914 space with ornate groin-vaulted arches hidden behind cheap storefronts until its rediscovery in 2012. The bar in episode four is The Wolves, a Belle Époque-style cocktail bar inside the Alexandria Hotel, its stained-glass arches and salvaged antiques topped by a ceiling reportedly from an old train station dining hall. The mayor's scenes unfold at Cicada, the Art Deco restaurant with 30-foot gold-leaf ceilings seen in Pretty Woman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Further afield, the Variety Arts Theater (a 1924 historic monument that once hosted Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy) doubles as the abandoned theatre interior, the Mary Andrews Clark Home in Westlake stands in for the hospital, and Faber's lab is the Fort MacArthur Military Museum in San Pedro, a 1914 coastal defence base. The season finale reaches the Angeles Abbey Memorial Park mausoleum in Compton, a dramatic indoor crypt complex long favoured by film crews.

For travellers, this is essentially a self-guided architecture tour of LA's golden age — Art Deco towers, Beaux-Arts hotels and hidden salons, many of them working bars, restaurants and hotels you can book or visit. The Biltmore and Hotel Per La are genuinely sleepable, and you could comfortably combine several downtown locations in one walking day. It's also a fun way to explore Koreatown and San Pedro, neighbourhoods that often get skipped on first trips to Los Angeles.

Story: Atlas of Wonders