Big Fire on 9th Street?
This just in from a tipster: “I was just running and saw that the Fire dept. has shut down 9th street between 7th & 8th Avenue. Tons of fire trucks. Not sure what’s happening.”
This just in from a tipster: “I was just running and saw that the Fire dept. has shut down 9th street between 7th & 8th Avenue. Tons of fire trucks. Not sure what’s happening.”
The productions use local catering companies, as in New York City companies. Nobody’s saying that the entire cast and crew walks down the street to the diner for lunch, that would be a logistical nightmare. Of course the meals have to be catered.
The vast majority of the crew members that I meet at shoots live in the five boroughs, most of them in Brooklyn and Queens.
I have an issue with treating public streets like private property. And, if the production company is dumping so much money into the economy, can’t they hire help to ease congestion and ensure pedestrians have freedom of movement when there is no shooting–ie, MOST of the time? They may put some money in the local economy (but not much–they bring their own food and interfere with usual shopping), but residents pay taxes and pump money into the local economy EVERY DAY. As a citizen, I have zero patience with some kid with a walkie talkie trying to keep me from my front door.
Actually it’s not just about parking–it’s closing off our streets, blockading us from walking down them, etc. And they DON’T employ that many locals–all those union crew guys live in NJ. they don’t purchase anything locally–bring in their own caterers. Oh yeah, that great publicity is going to enrich us all– after seeing the movie in 2011 shitloads of tourists will come down 9th Street on those red double decker buses.
I saw the aftermath of the fire, too–but I’ve been searching all the local news sites and don’t see any reference to it–so maybe it IS part of the film shoot. A cop told me it wasn’t, but you can’t trust a cop.
I can understand people’s frustration about losing parking spots, and I think that there are some steps the city could take to make things easier on car owners when a shoot comes to their neighborhood (such as suspending street cleaning regs for the surrounding area).
But the benefits are huge. The tax break brings the state at least $1.10 on the dollar in taxes alone, and the smaller city incentive helps to employ thousands of locals, who in turn support their own local businesses, pay taxes, and improve the city in intangible ways.
this is quite the series of posts about a fire. at least i now know what happened 😉
this is actually a live action remake with nicholas cage as the sorcerer. and i will support them shooting here and elsewhere in nyc, even if it’s a nicholas cage movie.
It’s all very exciting… not that long ago, i could have touched a Gossip Girl if I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to…
This all sounds like sour grapes to me. So what you have a little bit of a harder time finding parking a few days a year? Is that really so terrible in exchange for thousands of people being employed directly (and then the additional revenues that come from tourisism, etc. that are helped as well).
I work in the film and television industry, the trucks that have the Pennsylvania plates are from a company called Haddads.
They are the best trucks on the east coast, and no New York doesn’t have any company that has anything remotely as nice as theirs, that’s why you see them on every major production.
New York needs to keep the tax incentives more than you know, jobs have already started going away like they did in Seattle, everything started filming in Vancouver, now New York productions are going to Toronto, and they don’t always take the crew with them.