A. A residential neighborhood.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Dexter's new neighborhood in Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. In Episode 3 (of Season 4), "Blinded By The Light".

Dexter sets out to stop a neighborhood vandal, by scaring him.

He waits across the street for Jesse Brightman to come out of his home, and when he does, Dexter pulls on a mask and follows him.

But just then, the Neighborhood Watch patrol (which has been formed as a result of the vandal's destructive pranks) spots him and mistakes Dexter for the vandal.

The chase is on, as Dexter runs away, darts between houses, with the mob in hot pursuit, and finally eludes them in the back yard of one of the homes.

Coming back to his own house, frustrated, Dexter is aggravated by the glaring security lights on Elliott's house, and thinks to himself: "This neighborhood is going to kill me."

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A residential street - but nowhere near Miami.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. This chase scene, which was supposed to be in Dexter's neighborhood, was actually a mix of two different Long Beach neighborhoods.

Most of the scene was shot on the 4100 block of Locust Avenue, in the Bixby/Los Cerritos neighborhood in Long Beach.

• When we first see Dexter in this scene, crouching in the dark and wearing a mask, he is on the east side of Locust Ave, and the house we see behind him is at 4120 Locust.
  
  
• He is watching the vandal's house across the street, which is at 4105 Locust.
  
  
• When Dexter sees young Jesse Brightman come out of the house, he pulls down the mask and crosses over to the west side of Locust, where he begins to follow Jesse as they walk north on Locust.
  
  
• But then the Neighborhood Patrol shows up. When Dexter turns around to look at them, the mob is standing next to the white picket fence which surrounds the house at 4065 Locust (the house immediately south of the vandal's house).
  
  
• Fleeing the mob, Dexter runs up across the lawn of the house at 4115 Locust, and almost reaches Trinity's house (which shouldn't even be in the same neighborhood, so it isn't shown) at 4119 Locust, before ducking between houses, and losing the angry mob in one of the back yards.
  
  
  

But when Dexter emerges again, the producers do a fake cut to a completely different neighborhood, six miles away, namely, the Bluff Park section of south Long Beach, where Dexter's new home really is.




• We first see him running across the lawn of a house at 3335 E. 1st Street. (That's on the north side of 1st St.)
  
  
• Pushing his way past the rose bushes & hedges, Dexter next reaches his neighbor Elliott's house, at 3329 E. 1st Street,
  
  
• Before finally reaching his own house, at 3319 E. 1st Street.
  
  
  



Here is an aerial photo of Locust Ave, with the houses marked.  And here an aerial photo of 1st Street.

And here is a map link of both areas.




I shot the photo below in November 2009.



[ Warning: These are private homes.  Do not trespass on their property, knock on their doors,
or do anything else that might disturb the residents. ]

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  A Dexter fan who lives in the area, Susan Loomis, alerted me early on that they had been filming on Locust Avenue. So, when this scene showed up on the show, I naturally checked to see if it was Locust. And it was. (Thanks, Susan!) Identifying the individual homes was just a matter of using Google StreetView to match the houses to those seen during this chase scene.