Hudson University

Hudson University is a fictional university frequently depicted in Law & Order and its spin-offs, and less frequently in many other television series, and in the DC Comics universe. It is generally described as being in New York City, which sits alongside the Hudson River.

Television

Blindspot

Hudson University is the location of an active shooter case in the NBC drama Blindspot in Season 1, Episode 19.

Blue Bloods

Hudson University was mentioned in the CBS drama Blue Bloods in Season 2, Episode 14 when 3 protesters were arrested for assault on a police officer and also in Season 4, Episode 19 after an English Professor was found murdered. It was also mentioned in Season 1, Episode 13 and Season 5, Episode 8.

Castle

Hudson University is also used in ABC's Castle starring Nathan Fillion in the episodes "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice," where the victim was a student at the fictional school; and "A Deadly Game," where the police encounter Ukrainian exchange students at Hudson who have bought counterfeit IDs. The school appears again in the episode "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind," as the location of an altitude chamber. The school was mentioned in the episodes "Head Case" and "Dial M for Mayor" as the employer of the episodes' victims. It is alluded to in "The Fast and the Furriest" as the school of the victim, an evolutionary biology major who was killed while supposedly tracking Bigfoot. In "Time Will Tell," the target of an assassin who may or may not have been from the future was a physics student at Hudson. Most recently, in "PhDead," Richard Castle became a guest college professor at Hudson University to solve a student's gruesome murder.

The Cosby Show

Hudson University is also used in the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show as the medical school Cliff Huxtable attended.

Degrassi: The Next Generation

Hudson University is also used in the Canadian teenage drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. One of the main characters, Jimmy Brooks, receives acceptance to the university's Law program.

Law & Order

Over the years, Hudson University has seen several detectives visit its campus in search of suspects and witnesses, especially in cases that involve college students and professors. By using a fictional school rather than a real college, the writers of Law & Order are able to weave the university into several narratives without the fear of misrepresenting the rate of crime at one of New York's actual institutions of higher learning.

Hudson University is a composite of several colleges and universities located in New York including Columbia University, Barnard College, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, College of Mount Saint Vincent, Hunter College, Lehman College, New York University, City College of New York, Queens College, Union Theological Seminary, General Theological Seminary, Pace University, Fordham University and LIU Post, all of which have been used as filming locations. For filming purposes, NYU is one of the least used locations in the series due to the high cost of filming in the university's buildings and surrounding area (one of Lennie Briscoe's daughters, Julia, was once said to be a film student at NYU, but the show never filmed there). An episode showed Hudson University on a map of New York City where the real life Yeshiva University is located, and a Season 20 episode, "Innocence", depicted a fictional "Hudson Innocence Project" modeled on the real life Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. That same episode also identified Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter as a graduate of Hudson's Law School, making him the first Law & Order prosecutor to have graduated from a fictional law school. Another episode gave an address of 504 Riverside Drive, which is near International House of New York in Morningside Heights and far from Yeshiva.

In Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Detective Elliot Stabler's daughters Maureen and Kathleen are students at Hudson University. The seal of the university is visible in the background during a scene in the season 12 episode "Gray," indicating that the university was established in 1876. In the season 16 episode "Devastating Story", Olivia Benson makes an in-joke about Hudson's high crime rate, informing her son Noah (who is still an infant) that he is never to attend.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which takes place in Valley Glen, California, depicts a Hudson University in New York, to which two of its main characters, Amy Juergens and Ben Boykewich, have been accepted.

Unforgettable

Hudson University was used on the CBS drama Unforgettable in the episode "Day of the Jackie," in the episode "Till Death," with scenes set in the campus bookstore and Dean's office, and once again in "Breathing Space".

The Flash

Hudson University was used in The Flash episode "Revenge of the Rogues", where it was the location of the creation of the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. project. It appeared in the episode "All Star Team Up", where it was the site of the murder of an engineering professor named Lindsay Kang at the hands of robotic bees controlled by Brie Larvan.

Murder, She Wrote

In Murder, She Wrote Season 8 (1991-1992) Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher heads off to New York to teach a criminology class at the fictional Hudson University. In episode 2 of Season 8 "Night Fears" Jessica is challenged by another professor to a contest to see who can solve a string of crimes taking place on the Hudson University campus.

Beauty & the Beast

In this CW television show, Hudson University is the fictional location in which J.T. Forbes works as a bio-chemical professor. The school logo is seen in episode 5 of Season 1 when J.T. was taking technological items from school campus.

"The Mysteries of Laura"

On the Season 2, Episode 8 of "The Mysteries of Laura", "The Mystery of the Ghost in the Machine," Hudson University is the college the suspect in the case attends. Detective Laura Diamond recognizes the colors Blue and Gold in the background of a computer screen shot of his dorm room as the school's colors.

Comics

Hudson University is a fictional location in the DC Universe. It was first mentioned in Batman comics in the late 1940s. Like many fictional locations in the comics, Hudson University's corresponding location in the real world is never made clear. According to the Atlas of the DC Universe (published by Mayfair Games), it is located in the fictional city of New Carthage, New York.

Notable former students at Hudson University include Dick Grayson/Robin (who only attended for one semester), Professor Martin Stein, Crystal Frost, Louise Lincoln, and Duela Dent. The father of Amy Winston was a professor of English at Hudson.

In New Adventures of Superboy #51 (1984), a teenaged Clark Kent is shown pondering whether to accept an offer to attend Hudson University, but eventually chooses Metropolis University in Metropolis instead.