From the second season on, Det. Nicholas Knight worked out of the 96th Precinct police station.   From Tracy's directions to Vachon in "Black Buddha", this is usually taken to be located at Queen and Spadina.  And, in fact, the pub­lic library that was filmed as the station in Forever Knight actually is on Queen - though Queen Street East, not Queen Street West.   It is indeed the Queen streetcar that runs in front of the building.
        However, this library is located on the corner of Queen and Saulter, which, for the purposes of the television series, became the entrance to the police parking lot.   This means that the police station is not at the intersection of Queen Street with Spadina Avenue.   (Not that Saulter could ever pass for Spadina, which is unusually broad for a downtown street, and, like Queen, has a street car line.)   It follows that, in "Black Buddha", Tracy must just have been giving Vachon directions to the nearest main intersection.
        So, is the station east or west of Spadina?   Actually, there is a possible clue.  Given the frequency with which we see Nick turning west onto Bloor at Honest Ed's (a gaudily lit store at the corner of Bloor and Bathurst Streets), the station is probably somewhere west of the Queen/Spadina intersection, between Spadina and Bathurst.   If the station were east of Spadina, it would make more sense for Nick to cut north to Bloor via Spadina, rather than Bathurst; but this is not the route we normally see him use.   If the station is west of Spadina, on the other hand, it would be very reasonable for Nick to continue west on Queen to Bathurst, drive north on Bathurst to Bloor, and then turn west onto Bloor, when he needs to drive to somewhere in the western part of the central city area.
        The main entrance to the 96th Precinct police station is on the corner of the building, right by the broad drive leading to the parking lot.   It is fairly impressive structurally (though more so on film than in real life), with a short flight of stone steps and an arched canopy set into the facade.   It is marked by a large illuminated sign, angled so that it can be read from either di­rect­ion.   There is also an official bill­board with a lot of notices posted on it.
        There is a second entrance at the far end of the building where the drive ends and the parking area starts.   This is much less impressive:   just a single door up a short flight of steps with a railing.   However, like the main entrance, it is marked with an illuminated sign.

The Squad Room

Going by the room num­bers, the var­ious inter­con­nected por­tions of the set built for the police station all represent rooms on the second floor of the 96th Precinct building.   Although uniformed police officers frequently pass through, those people who are seated - and presumably are actually assigned to that particular part of the station - generally are wearing regular clothes.  The principal room of the police station set, therefore, would seem to represent the detectives' squad room.
        The squad room can be considered to be divided into sections.   At the front, there is an entrance corridor, separated from the squad room proper by an information desk.   There is an open central area with the desks where the detectives sit, with offices down the outer wall of the room.   Opposite these, along the inner wall, are doors accessing the interview rooms.   And, beyond those, at the rear of the room, is an area used for storage cabinets and computer access to police files - though, in Season III, it was partly converted to a conference area, with a table around which several people could sit to discuss a case.

Two large windows run across the front of the squad room; and three separate offices run down the outer side of the room, all also having large windows.   Windows also comprise much of the wall area between the three offices and the open central area of the squad room proper.   All are fitted with Venetian blinds; and these are usually kept with the slats open.   As a result, there is considerable natural light in the squad room during the day.   Artificial light is sup­plied by fluorescent strips running across the room.

At the front of the room, a double glass door separates the squad room from a stairwell that, presumably, runs down to the main entrance on Queen Street.   Although the camera angles used rarely allowed even a glimpse of what lay beyond the doors, there seems to have been a payphone on the wall of the landing.
        A corridor runs from the double doors along the front of the room.   It is cut off from the squad room proper by a long in­form­a­tion desk, which is manned by a sergeant.
       The front cor­ridor has two tall win­dows, which must look out onto Queen Street, though this cannot be seen through the glass.   For the first few episodes of Season II, a bulletin board was hung between the windows; but this was quickly replaced by a

The building must continue beyond the squad room, for there are more than two windows on the Queen Street façade of the building.   However, in Seasons II and III, access to this area was either through a hallway at the rear of the squad room, or down a corridor that runs on the far side of the interview rooms.   As far as the squad room itself was concerned, the front corridor ended in a short cul-de-sac, largely filled with a tall wooden cabinet containing what appear to be trophies.   As this seems to me to be a nonsensical layout (and potentially dangerous in case of a fire), I have decided that, in Season IV, this wall has been removed so that the front corridor can run through to the rest of the building.   Since this area has not been built onto the set, however, camera angles have to avoid filming down that way.   But that was almost always true in the real show, too; so this alteration actually involves no change to the set.

The front desk is blank grey on the corridor side, except for a notice saying "Information". But, on the other side, it has a large number of pigeonholes for sundry forms.   The police blotter is kept open on top of the desk.

To the right of the information desk, from the desk ser­geant's per­spect­ive, is a bank of filing cabinets close to hand, on top of which are monitors for some of the closed-circuit sec­ur­ity cameras in the buildings.   Four clip­boards hang on the wall just by the desk.   There are also some posters stuck up on the wall.
        Closing off the gap at the end of the desk is a low swing gate, which provides a formal boundary be­tween the front corridor and the squad room, though the barrier is more psychological than phys­ical.   Nevertheless, as seen in "Hearts of Darkness", the press are not supposed to go into the squad room itself.   (It should, perhaps, be pointed out that, in that episode, the director had the gate removed to facilitate filming - precisely the sort of nonchalant disregard for consistency that irks fans.)

Whereas police personnel pass freely through the gate into the front section of the squad room proper, visitors are expected to wait, unless the person they are to meet is around to see them. For this reason, there is a wooden bench just inside the gate, on the left as you face the front of the room.   It was here that Tracy sat - and nearly dropped off to sleep - when she was newly assigned to the 96th Precinct, and Reese left her there while he broke the news to Nick that she'd be partnering him on the night watch, to which her circadian rhythms had not yet adapted.
        A partial alcove for this bench is formed by a short partition, which is solid (probably painted plywood) below but half frosted glass above - the same sort of construction used elsewhere in the station for the various partitions that divide the squad room into work sec­tions.   The swing gate is attached to this partition, running between it and the front desk.   A television or monitor screen depends from the ceiling.   The alcove walls are used for posters, with a large bulletin board positioned just above the bench itself.

Beyond the bench is a bank of filing cabinets (the first three black, and the rest almond), which contain records of past cases and their dis­pos­i­tion.   On top is a long row of small brown file boxes - the kind that hold filing cards. Although we've not seen Nick or either of his partners consult the filing cards, they often are found over at the cab­i­nets pulling files to consult at their desks.
       A white cup­board is set at the end of the filing cabinets.   We've never seen anyone open the door of this cupboard; so it's impossible to be sure what actually is supposed to be kept inside it.   However, it may contain office supplies, or something like that.
        Just beyond the white cupboard is a

In the front section of the squad room, only one pair of desks is set on this side of the room, since space has to be left at the front for people to come in and out, and go to sit on the bench.   But there are two pairs of desks on the other side, behind the reception desk.  A space down the mid­dle of this front area is left for people to walk to the rear of the squad room.   Although we do sometimes see people in the background cut across to the side corridor, Nick and his partners have always had their desks further up the room.   Therefore, when they are in the front part of the squad room, they are coming from or going to their desks; so they normally use the central corridor.

The centre portion of the squad room contains four structural support pillars.   These are square in section, painted the same grey as the walls, and have wainscoting around the base.
        Two of the supports are set on the outer side of the room, two on the inner side.
      The first inner support is situated several feet out from the wall, just beyond the short partition that separates the front and central portions of the room, which is to say that it is more or less in front of the doors to the interview rooms.   There is a "No Smoking" sign posted on it.
        Its mate is set opposite, just near the door to the Cap­tain's of­fice and the desks used by Nick and his partner, with a second outer support situated inside the side rear exit.   Between these two outer support columns run two partions, which are used to delineate a side corridor by the offices.   As usual, these partions are solid grey on the bottom portion, with rip­pled glass on top.
        The re­main­ing support is located a few feet into the room from the central rear exit.   This is also freestanding; and people walk past it on one side when heading to the exit, but cut inside it on the other side when heading to the inner side rear exit.

The centre portion of the squad room has two doors on the inner wall, each of which is labelled as leading to an interview room, though, in fact, only the one on the right opens directly into such a room.   Being fairly complicated sets, the pair of interview rooms themselves are described below in a separate section.
        Initially, of the pair of doors, only the righthand door opened.  People were often filmed going in and out; and it was pos­sible to see into the room beyond through the open door:   the sets were connected, providing the full police station set with a complex of interrelated rooms, giving a realistic impression of a working environment.   In Season II, the view through the door from the squad room showed a small con­ference table and bul­le­tin boards.
        For most of the series, the lefthand door remained closed (or at most ajar) when viewed face on.   However, after a couple of episodes an "EXIT" sign was placed over it; and, thereafter, if the camera angle was oblique (so that it was impossible to see in), then people might be filmed going through it, heading down a corridor that, presumably, had not actually been built and hence could not be shown.   In the later episodes of Season II, at least one wall must have been finished, since the occasional peek was allowed; however, the cautious camera angles indicate that the corridor had not been completed.
        Two-thirds of the way through Season III, the corridor portion of the set was finally finished.   Thereafter, the door was usually left open.   The new corridor has the usual grey walls common throughout the station.   At the end is positioned a security camera with a bright blue light on it.   It is clear from the layout of the station that, at this point, the corridor doglegs to the right and runs down towards the front of the building, going past the door to the main interview room.
        Once the new corridor had been built, suspects and detectives were sometimes seen going down (or coming up) it just before or after interrogations were conducted.   In my virtual Season IV, therefore, this continues to be the usual route for Nick and Tracy to take when they are going to or coming from interrogating a suspect.   However, it should be pointed out that this is not consistent with the practice in episodes that were filmed before the corridor was built:   at that time, when detectives coming from interrogating a prisoner returned to the squad room, they came in through a door further along on the inner side of the squad room, at the end of the cross-corridor at the rear of the room.   (Towards the end of Season III, this route was used when going to the evidence locker , instead.)
        From the corridor (or the door to the corridor), there is a short further length of wall along to a corner, which serves to demarcate the rearward bounds of the central portion of the squad room.   What lies behind this short section of wall was never filmed; but, as it is far too narrow to be a room, and too long to be a closet, it seems most likely that either the corridor is perplexingly broad, or it doubles round to a stairway.
        On the squad room side of this section of wall, there is a large bulletin board, on which is permanently affixed a large yellow poster adhorting people to re­port corruption, along with various bul­let­ins from the Legal Bureau.   It is no­tice­able that no one is ever seen reading any­thing posted here - the more obvious be­cause they do stop to use the water cooler that is set in front of it (the infamous water cooler which Captain Reese can't get to work, though other people never have any trouble with it).
        At the corner, a clock is attached high on the wall, sticking out into the room, so that it is maximally visible to the detectives working at their desks.   In the episode "Forward into the Past", we were shown its installation in the 1950s.
        Further on, near the central rear exit, a television monitor screen depends from the ceiling, matching the one at the front of the squad room.   Each is angled so that it can be seen easily from all the nearby detectives' desks, providing maximum viewing coverage

Beyond the corner of the central section, doglegged off to the side, is another open area which serves as a sort of reference department for the detectives, with storage cabinets and maps on the walls.   Functionally, however, it is cut in two by a de facto corridor that runs across the rear portion of the squad room.   Thus, even though around the corner from the water cooler a large map of Toronto has been pinned up, there are always people walking back and forth in front of it, going in and out of the squad room by one or another of the exits.   Effectively, therefore, this wall is cut off from the reference area, and serves instead as a sort of corridor wall, with the rest of the reference area as an alcove off it.
        Just around the corner from the squad room proper, a cluster of clip­boards hangs on the wall.
        Further along is the map of Toronto.   Although it is unusual to see anyone actually using this map, it has occasionally proved helpful - as, for example, in the episode "Hunted" in Season II, when there were multiple crimes in the same part of town.
        In Season III, a long low wooden cabinet was added, running along the wall of the end corridor underneath the map.   This is divided into fairly wide pigeon holes, suitable for taking large envelopes or file folders.

The corridor running across the rear of the squad room ends in a door, which is usually kept open, since it is in regular use.   In Season II and the first part of Season III, this door was the route taken by Nick and his partner when going to interview suspects (being later replaced in this function by the new corridor described above).
        Through the door, there is a hallway, running to the left, and dog­leg­ging round to an­oth­er part of the building.   The first few feet of corridor were built early in Season II, so that the door could be opened, and used as one of the entrances to the main set.   At that time, there was a bulletin board on the wall just opposite the door to the squad room, clearly visible whenever it was open.
        The full cor­ri­dor was built during Season III; and the bulletin board was shifted to the end of the corridor.   A second one was positioned on the wall common with the squad room, and a third at the far end of the corridor.  As in the squad room proper, the walls of the corridor are a light neutral grey tone.
        There is another door at the far end of the corridor, which seems to lead into a separate section of the station, for the walls beyond seem to be a lighter colour.   Unlike most of those in the squad room, this is a double glass door, similar to the door that leads into the squad room from the front stairway landing.
        The extension of the corridor enabled the filming of scenes in which Nick is shown walking along towards the squad room, talking either to Tracy or Captain Reese.   As well, this became the route taken to go to the evidence locker , another set that was built midway through Season III.   (The corridor is, of course, still part of the squad room set in Season IV.)

The rear section of the squad room proper starts at the far end of the table, where a short partition cuts the alcove off from the end of the central corridor, so that one walks down by the other side of this partition to reach the central rear exit.   Like the side cor­ri­dor, this has a door that was originally left closed; but early in Sea­son II, a short stretch of corridor was built so that the door could be opened.   A coat rack was usually set there in Season II, replaced in Season III by a poster on the wall.
        The corridor turns off to the left as you leave.   Exactly where it goes was never stated; but, given the side rear exit only a short distance away, it seems likely that the corridor turns round on itself to a flight of stairs leading down to the first floor about midway along the rear of the building.
        Although Nick and his partner are often seen coming in this way wearing their overcoats (suggesting that this is the route they take when returning from the crime scene or heading out to interrogate a witness), this exit only leads indirectly to the parking lot:   presumably when they come in this way, it is because they have made a stop somewhere else in the building en route to the squad room.   It should be noted, in particular, that uniformed officers take prisoners in this direction from the interrogation room, or come in through this door with them when bringing them to be interviewed; so it seems likely that this staircase continues down to the basement, where the holding cells are.

The rear wall of the squad room proper is dominated by a large blackboard, which details the duties and cases of the various detectives attached to the 96th Precinct.   It starts near the side rear exit, and runs right along the wall to the central exit.   Interestingly, they have actually had different things written on this board at different times - though exactly what they put up there is another matter.

The door to the side rear exit is usually kept closed, except (obviously) when people are coming in and out.   It has a fairly large window, which affords a view of the wall of the staircase beyond.  For reasons best known to the set designer, this seems to have been painted in magenta or red:   the colour is clearly seen through the window, even when the door is shut.   It is reasonable to assume that the door leads to the landing of a staircase which goes down to the side entrance of the police station, de­bouch­ing at the parking lot at the far end of the building.   Certainly Natalie, and Nick and his partner, sometimes come in this way wearing coats.   However, this is probably also used as a quick route to the next floor, since many of the people going to and fro are uniformed officers carrying things.

Just inside the side rear exit, underneath the black­board, is a small table holding a coffee machine.   This is pop­ular with the detect­ives, who often stand there for quite a while chatting together while getting a refill.   Although not attached to the detectives' squad, Natalie also seems to be privileged to drink their coffee - maybe because she is so often over there, delivering her reports.

On this outer side of the squad room, there is a cor­ridor cut off from the mid­dle of the room with a series of light part­i­tions.   These are solid at the bottom, but topped with frosted rippled glass.   Each partition is set be­side a pair of desks, with gaps so that people can readily go in and out of the cor­ridor with­out having to go the long way round, and access is easy both to and from the offices along the corridor.
        One end of each of the two rearmost sec­tions of the side-corridor part­itions abuts one of the columns that provide structural support in the rear of the squad room.   Indeed, as a rule the partitions of this type that have been put up to divide the squad room into sections either abut a support column or are attached to a wall.   However, the remaining end of each partition is usually free-standing, suggesting that the arrangement is for convenience in defining the sections of the room.

The side cor­ri­dor runs from the cof­fee mach­ine down almost to the far end of the squad room.   The final partition section runs along outside the front office.   At the end of the corridor, the partition is attached to a short wall, on the other side of which is the front stairwell.   There seems to be some sort of white notice board mounted on the wall, and a speaker (intercom or alarm) located high up.   Sometimes a poster is also stuck above the notice board.  On the squad-room side of this dogleg are set the filing cabinets by the front desk.
        In Season II, when Nick and his partner reported to Captain Cohen, she usually talked to them while standing at the end corner of the partition.   However, Captain Reese is tall enough to have gotten into the habit of leaning over the partition to talk to any detective whose desk is on the other side.   Alternatively, of course, he can walk straight out of the office, through one of the larger gaps between the partitions, and into the centre area of the squad room.   If he wants to talk to one of the detectives further up or down the room, the central corridor can be used for access.
        The central corridor is also the route likely to be used to get to the front exit.   But, for the rear central exit, the captain has two options - to go along the side corridor and turn along by the blackboard to go to the rear door, or to go across the side corridor, turn into the main area of the squad room, and then walk up the central corridor, which leads straight to the rear door.

Going down the side corridor, you pass three offices, set along the side of the building, with the same type of large window found along the front of the room.   These look out on the laneway leading to the parking lot (though obviously no view through the glass is possible, since the interior of the station was not filmed on location, but rather was a permanent set on the soundstage).

It seems probable that the front office is occupied by another senior officer, since someone else presumably has charge of the day shift.   Certainly, it has one desk prominently inside, positioned so that the person sitting there has their back to the wall that is common with the front staircase.   On this wall is a large bulletin board; and a filing cabinet is set in the corner near the window.
        In some episodes, a man can be seen sitting at the desk.   One can easily imagine the senior officer of the previous shift lingering to complete paperwork.   However, the office is often empty, presumably during the later portions of the night shift, when its regular occupant would be at home.
        In "Beyond the Law", Nick and his partner took advantage of this to use the office to interview an angry consular official, whom it would not have been politic to take into an interrogation room.   They couldn't use their own captain's office, since an RCMP officer was in there making a phone call.   The general lack of privacy in the precinct is demonstrated by the fact that, with the blinds open, the RCMP officer was quite visible in the centre office through the window between the offices.

The central office is occupied by the captain in charge of the shift that Nick and his partner are on - Amanda Cohen in Season II, and Joe Reese from Season III on.   Because of the frequency with which scenes were set there, the captain's office is described in detail in a section below.

The use of the rear office is unclear, although, logically, it would be the office for whomever is in charge of the third shift.   People are often seen moving around inside; but no scene was ever filmed there.
        In my virtual Season IV, I use it as a meeting room.   For this purpose, I dress the set with a large wooden table that has a selection of chairs around it.

On the other side of the partition, are four pairs of desks running down the squad room, each pair set facing one another, end-on to one of the sections of the partition.   The forward two pairs of desks are in the front part of the squad room; but the rearward two pairs are in the central portion of the room.   At the front of the room, there is also a pair of desks on the inner side of the room.   But, in the central part of the room, desks are set only along the partition to the side corridor, for the wall opposite is occupied by the door to the observation room and the corridor to the interrogation room.

Nick and his partner have the pair of desks second from the end of the room.   Nick's is the one to the rear, facing front, while his part­ner's faces the back of the room.  This arrangement affords for easy conversation; and one may as­sume that the other pairs of desks are also assigned to partnered detectives.
        During Season II, most of the detectives in the squad room were seen using rather old-fashioned typewriters, though there were computers on some desks - though not Nick's or his partner's until late in the season.   Until then, they had computer access only at the back of the room, in the reference alcove.   But, throughout most of Season III (and, of course, since then), they have had computers at their desks.   There has, however, been some inconsistency in this regard - generally when the script calls for them to use a typewriter (as, for example, Tracy does in one episode to fill out a form).   They also, of course, have the usual desk paraphernalia:  telephones, desk organizers for such things as pens and paperclips, in and out trays, desk lamps, and blotters.
        Each pair of desks is set suf­fic­ient­ly apart from the side partition that it is possible to walk down between.   One can therefore get to Nick's desk from the side corridor either by walking down by the partition, or by going around his partner's desk to the central corridor.   However, the latter is the more usual route.
        Nick's partner's desk is located just outside the captain's of­fice, and just opposite the corridor to the in­ter­rog­a­tion room.   In fact, it is possible to walk in a straight line from the office, past the back of Tracy's chair, and across to the corridor to go to interrogation.
        The side partition by their desks ends in a support column.   If he is just coming to or going from his desk, Nick often leans against it when talking to his partner; and other people use it as a handy stopping point when they have come around from the side corridor to talk to them.
        Late in Season II, in "The Code" (an episode which was set in wintertime), a coat rack was set up by the support column so that Nick and his partner can hang up their overcoats in the squad room.   This means, of course, that they thus have them to hand, rather than leaving them in their lockers, and having to go and fetch them whenever they need to go out of the station.

Captain Reese's Office

In Season II, Nick and his then partner, Don Schanke, reported to Captain Cohen; in Season III, Nick and Tracy reported to Captain Reese (as they do in my Season IV).   But, in either case, the cap­tain's office is the mid­dle of the three offices that run along the out­er wall of the squad room.   From the per­spec­tive of Nick and his partner, this location is either convenient - or extremely incon­ven­ient - depending on the circum­stances, since their desks are right outside.   Reese tends to keep his door closed a lot of the time.   His desk is set opposite, facing the door.
        The room has a very open feel to it, since all the walls have large windows.   Behind the desk is a window out onto the street.   On either side are windows through to the other offices.   And the wall to the squad room and the door also have windows.   These are fitted with Venetian blinds, so that Reese can have privacy, if ne­cess­ary, when talking to some­one.   Usually, though, the blinds are kept with the slats open.   Though the view is somewhat impeded, it is always clear to Reese what is going outside his office.   People can often be seen through the open blinds, moving around either in the next office, or out in the squad room.

The door opens flat against a short section of wall common with the squad room.   It connects to a side wall, which has a low piece of furniture placed midway along.   Basically, though, this wall is just a large window, through whose blinds the front office can be seen.   Functionally, the area just in front of it serves only as a corridor for the captain to come out from around the desk.
        The outer wall of the office has a display of medals in a case to the left of the window.   This clearly relates to the squad, rather than the person occupying the room, since it did not change when Captain Reese took over the precinct.   A small cabinet is located underneath, next to the desk:   Captain Cohen kept a computer on it.
        The desk is located in front of the window.
        On the other side of the window, in the corner of the room, is a tall filing cabinet.   When Captain Cohen had the office, there were also several plaques on the wall; but these must have been personal awards, returned to her family after her death.   Reese has nothing on this wall.   As for the cabinet, the files Reese keeps here are not just for the personnel assigned to his command, since, in "Outside the Lines", he pulled out his records on one of Tracy's father's protegés who was working under­cover with the Drug Squad.
       Beside the filing cabinet and running along the other side wall, there is a long wooden cabinet.   The top of this is convenient for laying things on, so that the top of the desk doesn't get too crowded.   Reese's predecessor, Amanda Cohen, for example, sometimes put a photograph of her family on it.
        The room is not large; but, like other small sets, the office looks larger on film than it was in reality, because the outer wall could be removed and the camera positioned well behind the desk, giving a broad field of view.
        The wall common with the squad room is free of permanent furniture.   It is here that people usually stand when talk­ing to Reese.  How­ever, the room does sometimes have a chair or two set in this area, since visitors do not necessarily feel compelled to stand when talking to him.   The chair is sometimes seen pushed up against the wall when not in use; but (depending, I suppose, on the whim of the director) it is usually just removed from the set when not needed.   In the same way, a coat rack is sometimes positioned in the corner of the office at the end of the long wooden cabinet; but, if the story doesn't call for the captain to don a coat (and it usually doesn't), then the rack is absent.
        Reese uses the same desk as his predecessor.   Of course, it still has a telephone, pens, and - when appropriate - files on it.   But he has arranged it somewhat differently from Captain Cohen.   Most noticeable is the new desk lamp, which has a striking green shade.  But, like Cohen, Reese also has a picture of his family on his desk.

The Interrogation and Observation Rooms

When the set for the new police station debuted in the second season premiere, there were two doors in the middle of the squad room opposite the desks assigned to Nick and his partner.   Both bore labels designating them as interview rooms; but, initially, only the door on the right actually opened.   It led into 2-15, a room designed for multiple functions.   There was a table in the middle, with chairs; a map on the back wall; and a bulletin board on the wall common with the squad room.   Thus, although the room was certainly employed as an interview room (though for talking to witnesses rather than suspects), it was also used for case conferences, and for private discussions (between, say, Natalie and Nick).   And it had a fourth function, which was the one that carried over into Season III:   the room was set up for observation of a second room, designed for interviewing people who were actually suspected of committing crimes or of withholding evidence that could help the detectives.   A one-way mirror was set into the inside wall perpendicular to the squad room; and this allowed visual monitoring of whatever was going on in the other interview room.   There was also a television monitor, set to the right of the one-way mirror.

The room on the other side of the one-way mirror, 2-15A, was not accessed directly from the squad room.   Instead, its door was on the side of the room opposite to the wall that was common with the squad room.   Clearly, it opened onto a corridor; and this had to run down on the far side of the pair of interview rooms from the squad room proper.   In Season II, this corridor seemed to head along parallel to the main squad room, linking somewhere beyond the door to the end corridor, since Nick and his partner would return via the end corridor when they had been interrogating a prisoner.   The numbers on the doors in the squad room would belie this layout; but there is no other logical explanation for the characters' movements.   In actual fact, it would make more sense to arrange things that way than to have two parallel corridors, one at the end of the squad room and the another only about six or seven feet away, which is explicitly the situation once the extensions to the set were completed in mid-Season III.
        Opposite the one-way mirror, the wall of the second interview room was marked with horizontal lines indicating height.   The room could therefore be used for witness line-ups.   More usually, though, it had a table and chairs set in the centre, used by the suspect and the detectives.   Any uniformed officer assigned to escort the prisoner had to stand at the side or the corner of the room.

A few episodes into Season III, the interview and interrogation room complex was rebuilt.   The basic layout remained the same.   There was still one room directly accessible from the squad room; and this still had a one-way mirror through which one could see into the other room.   And the second room was still accessed indirectly from a corridor.   However, the decor was completely redone.   (It is this new version of the interview complex that appears in my virtual Season IV.)
        Furthermore, as has already been discussed, partway through the third season, the second, leftward door opposite Nick's and Schanke's desks was fully opened for the first time - and thereafter usually left open to show the corridor that had been built leading off it.   Nick and his partner therefore now use that, rather than the end corridor, when going to (or coming from) an interrogation.
        This corridor runs parallel to the side wall of the witness interview room.   It does not, therefore, run straight to the second interview room.   Instead, the corridor turns at the end, and continues along to the right to the door to the interrogation room, which opens on the right side of the corridor.   Brief glimpses of the corridor were occasionally seen when the door was open; and, even in Season II, a bit of it was completed so that Nick and his partner could be seen outside the door.   However, the full rightward extension of the corridor was only seen properly - and then only briefly - in the series finale.

The new interrogation room is psychologically more intimidating than the original, with an eerie glow up the side and rear walls, each of which has a sort of little plinth at the bottom which houses blue lights.  The struc­ture con­tin­ues up the corners of the room, so that the flat areas of the walls seem as though they have been inset.
        Instead of horizontal lines for measuring prisoners' height, the back wall has a pattern of squared lines (perhaps tiles).   These serve the same function, how­ever, since the heights are marked at either side (metric on the left, feet and inches on the right), so that the room can still be employed for witness line-ups.
        The wall com­mon with the squad room is now made of large grey bricks.   Since these look structural (and it is surely only the decor that has been altered), it must be assumed that they used to be covered with plaster or plasterboard and then painted, and that this has been stripped off.   How­ever, the wall com­mon with the observation room still has plain grey painted walls, just as before.   And it continues to be dominated by a large mirror which, from the other side, serves as a window through which the interrogations can be observed.
        The wall with the door is marked with the same squared tile pattern as the back wall of the room, but without the height indicators.   It is pierced on either side of the door with a window made of glass blocks, through which light enters the room.   The brilliance of this light is quite striking, the more so when one considers that, on the other side of the wall, there is only an interior corridor.   The light coming in through these glass-block windows has to come from the ceiling lights, which are probably fluorescent lights, like those elsewhere in the police station.   The relative brilliance of the light coming in suggests that the interrogation room is kept fairly dark, presumably to in­crease the disconcerting effect of the strange blue lighting.
        The door into the interrogation room is in the middle of this wall, flanked by the windows.   Like the one-way mirror, it is essentially unchanged:   a plain grey door, with a little shuttered window set in it so that one can see into the room from the corridor.  The room number is on a black plate set under this peephole on the corridor side.

The other room of the interrogation complex was also rebuilt early in Season III.   From an all-purpose room serving for witness interviews and conferences, it became an observation room dedicated to the function of observing the interrogations being conducted in the adjoining room.   The walls were therefore cleared of dis­tract­ing maps and bulletin boards; and the room was emptied of furniture.   It is dominated by the the big one-way mirror.
        Each wall stylistically matches the corresponding wall in the interrogation room proper.   That is to say:   the wall common with the squad room - the wall with the door - has been stripped to its underlying grey brick construction; the wall common with the corridor has a squared tile pattern; and the remaining walls are painted a plain dark grey.   This provides a subtle visual tie between the two rooms; but, from the perspective of someone looking from the observation room, through its open doorway, into the squad room, there is a considerable shift of style from the previous decor:   the new observation room, with its dark, undecorated, block-wall design is much harsher to look at than the serviceable light grey-painted multi-purpose room of heretofore.
        Like the new interrogation room, the observation room is fenestrated on the corridor-side wall, though, in this case, with a single long glass-block window, stretching right along the whole wall.   As with the interrogation room, this admits brilliant light.   The ob­serv­a­tion room is notice­ably dark, the bet­ter for ob­serv­ers to con­cen­trate on the scene in the ad­join­ing room.   So that they can also hear what is going on, a speaker is set up near the ceiling to the left of the one-way mirror.

The Holding Cells

The holding cells are clearly in the basement of the station, since the windows are high in the walls, which are the typical cement blocks found in base­ment rooms.   The interior walls are covered with plain tiles, rather like large bathroom tiles - which presumably makes them easy to clean.
        The door into Holding is at the top of a short flight of steps.   It has a solid construction, with a peephole.   Above the door is an illuminated exit sign.   The hall outside is very similar in construction to the Holding area itself.   Like the entrance corridor down the steps, the outer hall runs - for such of its length as we can see - along one of the outer walls of the police station.   It presumably leads to a staircase coming down from the upper floors; and this staircase probably continues up to the central rear exit on the second floor (the one at the rear of the detectives' squad room), since this is the route taken by prisoners being taken back to the cells after interrogation.
        Once down the steps, the corridor continues across the front of the Holding cells.   There are two high windows along this wall.   Each seems to have six panes of frosted glass.   In some shots, branches can be dimly seen outside, suggesting that there is some form of shrubbery as a foundation planting on whichever side of the building is out there.   From the exterior views of the police station, it is clear that there is no such shrubbery adorning the frontage on either the Queen Street or drive sides of the 96th Precinct building.   The holding cells must therefore be somewhere at the back of the building.
        The entrance corridor runs right along to the side wall of the room, thus bordering the cells at the top of the room.  We've never quite seen it end; but there is certainly a rear wall to the cell on that side of the room.   This appears to be an interior wall, since it has no windows.
        There is a second corridor turning off the first, midway along the room.   This runs down between the cells; and it is this corridor that has the doors into the cells.   The Holding area thus has a T-shape, formed by the two corridors.   There seems to be a water fountain at the junction of the two corridors.
        There are two cells, one on either side of the room.   If one walks down the corridor between the cells, one comes to a blank end wall - presumably one of the inner structural walls of the station.
        A chair is often located at the far end of the corridor between the cells for the Custody Sergeant to sit on.   However, the chair is sometimes shifted outside a cell if there is a prisoner inside who is considered to need more super­vision.
        Each of the cells has vertical bars on both corridors, and on the door.   Inside, there is a single bunk bed against the back wall, and a toilet-and-sink unit (with no screening around it).   In most ep­i­sodes, the camera angle ex­cluded the toilet; you can usually see no more than a small corner of it.
        The presence of only a single bunk bed would suggest that each cell is supposed to hold one inmate.   However, the actual number of prisoners held in a cell can vary by quite a bit.   Although usually there are only one or two in the jail area, if the budget allows or the script calls for it, more may be put into each cell, despite the limited accommodation.   One may conclude, therefore, that this is clearly only intended as a temporary holding facility.

The Evidence Locker

The evidence locker only appeared in two episodes in the third season:   "Games Vampires Play", and the series finale, "Last Knight".   Probably in the basement of the station, it is accessed off a windowless corridor, and has blank concrete walls. On the side of the corridor, the locker takes the form of a wire cage, with a locked door.   Just inside the door, to the right as you face the door, is a desk.   Presumably, there is usually someone on duty here, checking evidence in (and out, if a detective needs it for a case, or it is being sent for forensic analysis).   No doubt, anyone coming into the evidence locker is also noted, along with the times they entered and left the room.   However, in "Games Vampires Play", Nick came down surreptitiously looking for the equipment used to play a virtual vampire game.   Since he had been told not to play it but concentrate on finding who murdered the man who created it, he therefore must have chosen to come at a time when the evidence locker was unattended.
        The other walls of the evidence locker have metal shelving, on which the evidence is stored in uniform brown cardboard file boxes, each labelled on the front with the case identification.  Along the rear wall, the shelves are fairly full of boxes.   However, Nick found the one he was looking for on the shelves by the corridor, which presumably hold the evidence on current cases.   At any rate, those shelves were at that time far from full.

The Locker Rooms

Like the evidence room, the men's and women's locker rooms each appeared in only one episode - though two different men's locker rooms were shown.   The first men's locker room was seen in "Father's Day", in the second season, when Schanke was trying to find someone to cover for him so he could be with his daughter on Father's Day.   A corner of the women's locker room was seen in "Trophy Girl", in the third season, when Captain Reese insisted that, even though she was not under suspension, Tracy still had to take a few days' leave to recover after shooting a suspect.  And a different men's locker room was seen in the series finale, "Last Knight"; it was there that Tracy cornered an escaped criminal and was shot.
        None of the locker rooms seems to have windows; and it seems likely that they are in the basement of the station.

The men's lock­er room seen in "Father's Day" is large, having at least two double aisles of brown lockers.   These have separate doors for the small top section for storing personal belongings, and the tall thin lower section for hanging up clothes.
        The double aisle construction means two sets of lockers are back to back; so there is room at the end for posters to be stuck up.   Furthermore, at the end of the aisles, there are a number of bulletin boards.

The women's locker room is sim­i­lar to the men's, though the walls and lockers are grey, and the latter have only one door, with the top and clothing sections only as interior compartments.   Tracy keeps her gun in the upper compartment when she goes home; and, presumably, it is also where she puts her purse when she is on duty.
        Only a small section of the women's locker room was ever seen.   The impression, however, is that it is rather smaller than the corresponding locker room for the male officers.

The men's locker room in "Last Knight" was part of a larger complex, including a washroom and a shower room, through all of which the suspect fled, with a posse of police in pursuit, before finally being brought to bay in the locker room itself.   Unlike the other locker rooms, this has tiers of large square lockers separated by racks for the men to hang up their clothes.   The units are painted in a drab olive green, and have a rather military appearance.
        To make sense of the existence of two quite different men's lockers in the series, one might consider the possibility that the male detectives and uniformed personnel have separate facilities.   In that case, "Last Knight" shows us the complex of service rooms designated for the use of the uniformed personnel - whose sections of the police station did not otherwise appear on the show.   (I suspect that, in actuality, the men's locker rooms were filmed on location - at two different locations.)

The Parking Lot
and
the Rear of the Police Station

Two of the walls of the 96th Precinct police station are built in the same formal style, with large windows separated by columns:   one fronts on Queen Street, and the other on a broad drive.   This is actually a cross-street, standing in for the laneway to the parking lot of the police station.   Its width makes this side of the building easily visible from the main street, hence the handsome frontage.
        Beyond the building itself, the laneway turns into a parking lot for both squad cars and the private vehicles belonging to - in particular - the detectives attached to the station.   We have seen un­i­formed officers leaving the building, heading for their cars; but we have also seen Nick and Schanke going out to theirs.   In the second season episode, "Hunted", for example, it was here that Schanke was drugged and kidnapped, with a taped message left for Nick to find in his Cadillac.
        Although a lighted sign marks the rear entrance to the building, the door is clearly marked as "No Entry", except for police personnel.   A flight of steps with an iron railing leads down; and one turns right at the bottom to go to the parking lot proper.

When a prisoner is taken from the holding cells to be transported elsewhere, whether to court or jail, a different exit is used.   This is at the rear of the building, about half way along the rear wall.   The architectural style here is decidedly utilitarian:   there is no doubt that this is the back side of the precinct building:   it is dirty brick, with much smaller windows (which, significantly, have grilles over them on the ground floor level).   Basement windows are clearly visible.   Presumably, on the other side of the exit or round the fourth side of the building, there are further such windows; and some scrubby shrubbery must be planted, since the set for the holding cells has branches visible through the glass.
        For those who are curious, the dark sign on the wall between the windows prohibits unauthorized parking.   The red and white sign designates this as the parking spot for the captain's car.   (It is, after all, the spot nearest the station.)   The small white sign says "Police Vehicles Only"; and the larger one further on, high up, says something about parking, though it's not possible to make out the fine print at the bottom.   And finally, the polygonal sign at the corner states that this area is private parking, with one car maximum permitted:   this is the spot where the paddy wagon was parked in "Killer Instinct", when Nick was framed for murder.   Just around the corner are the steps up to the parking lot entrance, the one used by the police officers when they go to their cars.

When a prisoner is taken out to transport, he is walked along to where the paddy wagon is parked.   Once the prisoners are loaded into the van, it turns out and around the corner, driving past the rear exit, and along to Queen Street.
        Note that the paddy wagon turns left up the lane.   The parking lot, on the other hand, is to the right.   It has one central lane, with cars parked on either side.   Nick normally parks the Caddy on the outer side of the parking lot; and his partner's car is parked close by.   Across the way are a group of fairly utilitarian looking buildings.
        Set in the asphalt of the lot, near to the rear of the station, there is a manhole cover leading down into the sewers.   In "Hunted", when Nick had to go and rescue his partner in daytime, this was the route he was forced to take to get to the location where Schanke was being held.
        There remains one more wall:   the one running from the back of the building up to Queen Street.   This was never filmed; but the views along Queen clearly indicate that there are buildings right up near the station.   This suggests another plain wall.