Filming Locations
Locations, all within Metro Detroit, included Highland Park, Center Line, Warren, Royal Oak, and Grosse Pointe Park. The house used to depict Walt Kowalski's house is on Rhode Island Street in Highland Park. The Hmong gang house is located on Pilgrim Street in Highland Park. The house used to depict the residents of one of Walt's sons is on Ballantyne Road in Grosse Pointe Shores. The church used in the film, St. Ambrose Catholic Church, is in Grosse Pointe Park. The hardware store used, Pointe Hardware, is also in Grosse Pointe Park. VFW Post 6756, used as the location where Walt meets friends to drink alcohol, is in Center Line.
The barber shop, Widgren's Barber Shop, is along 11 Mile Road, near Center Street, in Royal Oak. The shop, founded in 1938 in a space now occupied by another business, moved to its current location, west of its original location in 1970. The film producers selected that shop out of sixty candidates in Metro Detroit. According to Frank Mills, the son in law of owner Ted Widgren, the producers selected it because they liked "the antique look inside." Eastwood asked Widgren to act as an extra in the barber shop scene. In the area around the barbershop, vehicle traffic had to be stopped for three to five minutes at a time, so traffic in the area slowed down.
Read more about this topic: Gran Torino, Production