13 Going on 30 | 305 West 4th Street — Matty's Door

Everything Jenna actually wants is behind one door, and she has to find it the hard way. Matty Flamhaff, the neighbour she abandoned at thirteen for a chance at the popular table, is now a photographer living in the West Village. The film puts his apartment at 305 West 4th Street, on the corner where West 4th meets Bank Street.

It is a 1915 building on one of the strangest corners in Manhattan. This is where the grid gives up: West 4th Street, which ought to run below West 10th, instead crosses it, then crosses 11th and 12th as well, a leftover of the old village lanes that were laid before anyone drew a plan. Standing here you are geographically in the wrong place, which suits a film about a woman who is chronologically in the wrong place.

The scene works because the building is ordinary. Brick, fire escape, a modest entry, buzzers. Nothing about it says a romantic lead lives upstairs.

It remains a private residence — the sidewalk is the whole visit. Stand at the corner and look at the buzzer panel from a respectful distance. The hesitation before pressing a button is the most honest thing in the movie.