Bedford Falls (It's a Wonderful Life)

Genesee Street is the main road through Bedford Falls. At the north end is a courthouse with a street heading east down Bridge Street, which departs the town. The street is 300 yards long, with over 30 stores and buildings, including a public library, a dance academy, a trust and savings bank, an emporium, a Western Union and American Airlines office, a barber shop, a florist, a beauty shop, a bakery, an antique shop, a "World Luggage and Sports Shop", a hardware store, a candy shop, an art store, a music store, and a theater (Bijou Theater).[2]

There is also a drug store (Gower's Drugs), a toy shop, a meat market, a newspaper office (the Bedford Falls Sentinel), a tailor's shop, a bicycle shop, a garage, a bowling alley and pool house, a hotel, a grocery, two cafés (including the Tiptop Café), a bonds store, a gas company, a telephone exchange, a police station and a building and loan (Bailey Brothers) that George (James Stewart) ends up running with his Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) after George's father dies.[3]

Down the center of the street, there is a tree-lined parkway with fifteen oak trees. The parkway is split off into three, as two roads cut through Genesee Street. One is Jefferson Avenue, which goes to the high school and Potter's Field, and the other is Washington Avenue. At the south side of the town, a road heads east, to New England and Sycamore streets. Another road goes southwest to the railway station.

The Bailey Building and Loan is at the corner of Genesee Street and Jefferson Avenue.[4]

The real Genesee Street, although non-continuous, stretches from Utica, NY to Buffalo, mostly along the route of New York State Route 5.

New England Street holds eight residential houses. One house belongs to Peter (Samuel S. Hinds) and Ma Bailey (Beulah Bondi) and is where George and his younger brother, Harry, grew up as kids.

Sycamore Avenue holds six properties. One of them was where Mary (Donna Reed) grew up. Another house down the street is 320 Sycamore, known as the Old Granville House. It was an abandoned house that became known to youngsters as the place to throw rocks at, and if you smashed a window you could make a wish. Both George and Mary threw rocks at the house after a high school party.[5]

George wished for a future of traveling and becoming an architect. Mary wouldn't tell George her wish but later in the film she told him she had wished to marry him and live in the house. The wish actually came true when in 1932, on the night of George and Mary's wedding, she bought it as their home. Through the years they redecorated the house, raised four children there, and lived the rest of their lives in the house.[6]

Bridge Street is at the north side of the town and connects to Genesee Street from the east next to the courthouse and runs out of the town via a toll bridge. Many other residents live up Bridge Street including the man who owns the tree George drives his car into when drunk. It is also the location of Giuseppe Martini's bar called "Martini's" (Romeo Restaurant), and behind the bar is the town's canal.

The toll bridge on the outskirts of the town is the location where George thinks about committing suicide but is saved by guardian angel Clarence Odbody. When the two are in the water (after George jumps in to "save" Clarence) and the toll man shines his torch-light into the water, you can see many of the houses on Bridge Street above the riverbank.

On the other side of the canal is a toll-house where George and Clarence go to get dry. In one shot of the toll-house, you can see many lit-up houses over the hills in the countryside, showing that the little town of Bedford Falls does actually spread out quite a bit.

The Bedford Falls railway station is the main form of transport to get in and out of the town. The location was used only once in the film when Harry (Todd Karns) comes back from university with his wife Ruth Dakin (Virginia Patton) as George and Uncle Billy were waiting there.[7] While waiting there George says to Uncle Billy that a train whistle is one of the three most exciting sounds in the world, along with anchor chains and plane motors.[8]

Bailey Park and Potter's Field are two different housing developments. Potter's Field is owned by Henry F. Potter and through his bank, while Bailey Park is owned by residents who have received mortgages through the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan. Bailey Park was built just south of Mount Bedford and north of the town. Potter's Field is a play on the term potter's field, which refers for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people.[9]

Most people who live in the Potter homes are very poor people and can't afford to live anywhere else. Even this slum housing is not truly affordable, as Potter's organization charges very high rents for their properties, while skimping on amenities. This had provided the impetus for the Building and Loan to open their own Bailey Park development, which featured higher-quality homes at more affordable prices, and chance for people of modest means to build equity in them. Many residents, including the Martini family (William Edmunds and Argentina Brunetti) are able to move out of Potter's Field to Bailey Park with the help of the Building and Loan.[10]