Where's Walter Now?

If you’d ever have suggested that I’d post two entries devoted to Walter Steding back-to-back, I’d have verily scoffed at you. But, these are strange times, so here we are.

Sorry for another slowdown. My office held an “offsite” last week, which gobbled up a huge pile of time and energy, not least in that it meant we lost three days of office-time, meaning my department has been scrambling to catch up ever since. On other fronts, my wife just started a new job, and my kids are shortly getting out of school. There’s a lot of crap going on, so I haven’t been able to post as much as I’d like. I have some cooler stuff in the works, I promise, but please sit tight.

In the short term, however, in the wake of that last post about Walter Steding’s video for “Secret Spy,” I stumbled upon this other video of his, that being the title track to his album, Dancing in Heaven. Rife with Steding’s signature violin-playing and some very of-their-era electronic beats, “Dancing in Heaven” (shot in 1982) finds Walter and a gaggle of breakdancers holding court in what looks like a patch of New York City public space, with Walter overseeing proceedings on what looks like either a flagpole pedstal or bit of statuery.

In short order, I became predictably intrigued – where was this clip shot?

Watch the video first.

I posted it on Facebook and tagged my sleuthing pals Chung Wong and Bob Egan of PopSpots. Each gamely weighed in.

Chung wrote:

With the circular benches, traffic and office i thought it might have been TriBeCa Park by Beach St. But still trying to figure out what that column or pole on a pedestal is. Park benches look different but a background building looks similar.

Bob wrote:

contrast clue 1. My original thoughts were City Hall Park, Chrystie at Canal, and Asser Levy Park.

high contract clues for all the seekers

To my mind, TriBeCa Park – which I walk through every day on my way to work – seemed to make sense, given its proximity to Steding-centric spots like the former site of the Mudd Club at 77 White Street and the formerly arty bohemia of SoHo. Trouble is, there doesn’t seem to be a matching flagpole there, much less –as Chung noted – any curved benches.

I do have some other ideas, though.

What do you think? Where was this video filmed?