Welcome to Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero’s Chop Shop

A heavyset man sits in a seat pulled from a junked car, reading Waste News. Around him are cars in various states of disassembly. A Mercedes pulls up…

This is Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero’s body shop from The Sopranos, Cleveland Auto Body. It features in one of my favorite episodes, where Pussy and Tony commiserate on the difficulties of rearing teenagers. Later, after Pussy is killed for being a government informant, his wife Angie takes over the body shop and nearly becomes a mobster herself.

The location for Cleveland Auto Body is on Cleveland Avenue in Harrison, NJ, just outside Newark and a short walk from the location used for Satriale’s. I had the opportunity to visit this Sunday, excited to see where these scenes really took place.

Today, it is Mavis Discount Tire, and has gotten quite a facelift. The old Cleveland Auto Body sign is gone, along with the junk you saw in The Sopranos. In its place is a clean, modern tire shop.

Here’s how it looked in season 2:

And how it looks now:

Across the street, you can see the exact same houses as in the Sopranos scene. They don’t seem to have changed a bit. It was a lot of fun to see the same backdrop as some of my favorite characters!

Seeing how Tony pulls into a bay directly across from the houses above in this episode, I think this is a new building. I don’t see bays facing in that direction now. But, it’s hard to say for sure.

The neighborhood is halfway between industrial and residential, with a newer, upscale apartment building nearby. Between the classed-up auto shop and the new neighbors, the neighborhood is a little fancier than it was in Big Pussy’s day.

It was a great time seeing the exact same spot where some of my favorite scenes took place!

Dig into these posts for more on The Sopranos:

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