About a year and a half ago, Matt was called into a Movie production studio to answer some questions about his facial hair – specifically his moustache. It was fun and funny and he promptly forgot about it. Lo and behold, 18 months later, Matt shows up in a documentary called Mansome! And not only is Matt in the movie itself, he even makes the trailer! Pay close attention to second :29 – thats our Matt Levy!
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With Spring officially sprung, its time to head outdoors!
Everyone knows about Central Park and Battery Park, but with more than 1700 parks in the Five Boroughs of NYC, there’s GOTTA be more options. So we created this list of four of our favorite Brooklyn Parks and their upcoming events, each more awesomer than the rest.
What else can you say about the crowning achievement from the men who built Central Park? With a grand entrance that hosts the biggest farmers market in Brooklyn, Prospect Park also boasts the longest, uninterrupted lawn in the country, a weekly drum circle made up by the 3rd largest Caribbean population in the world, a world-class free concert series every summer, a historic Dutch farmhouse with free events every weekend, and a historic, century-old carousel, it should be crystal clear who the winner is in the Central vs. Prospect Park-off.
If you’re still not sure, PLEASE read this awesomely written throwdown between two NY Times park enthusiasts.
Next up: The Great GoogaMooga on Saturday May 19th and Sunday May 20th. Get your groove-on at this weekend-long outdoor festival, celebrating food, music and Prospect Park! There will be some fantastic bands throughout the weekend as well as food stands run by some of the best restaurants and eateries in the City!
One of Brooklyn’s best-kept secrets is in Bay Ridge: Owl’s Head Park has a breathtaking view of NY Harbor. There’s a dog run, lots of grassy hills and Brooklyn’s first skate park.
And don’t get us started on the history: Swaen Janse, a freed slave from Sweden came to New Amsterdam in 1654 and purchased the land that became the park. One of the founding fathers of the Dutch Village of Breuckelen lived on the land as well; Senator Henry Cruise Murphy drafted the Brooklyn Bridge construction bill and also was a proud founder of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (which predates the New York Times by ten years.) But in order for this private property to become public land, it took a civic Brooklynite – Eliphalet Bliss, a wealthy manufacturer – to buy the Murphy estate and on his deathbed, offer the land to the City of New York (at a discount) with the stipulation that it be used as parkland.
Next up: Viking Fest 2012 on Saturday May 19th from Noon to 5PM. Come see reenactment groups, Viking ships, combat demos, polish folk dance, Middle Eastern percussionists. Get in early because an authentic Norwegian band will be performing at noon sharp!
It’s always been clear that New York City is a place of constant transformation, and for good reason. The entire 18th century and the first half of the 19th were golden ages for the working waterfront – NYC was the trading, shipping and manufacturing hub of the world. Along comes containerization, and the waterfront got abandoned and destroyed.
However, in the last decade a new transformation has been taking place where a 1.3 mile ribbon of parkland along the East River has been renamed Brooklyn Bridge Park. Once completed, it will eventually link up to Fulton State Park under the Manhattan Bridge, and boast kayaking, floating pathways, fishing piers, waterside handball and basketball courts in coming months to years! In the meantime, a number of piers are open. Pier 1 is particularly poppin’ with a waterfront promenade, salt marsh, a sloping lawn, and dramatic granite steps recycled from the Roosevelt Island Bridge.
Next up: Funk Dance Party! Thursday, May 10th, 7PM. Feel like funkin’ it up? At this show you gotta Go-Go to get down. Chuck Brown is the innovator behind the Go-Go scene of the 70’s and he’s about to bring funk, R&B and hip-hop together to show you what it’s all about. Don’t miss the DJ opener, Rich Medina, as he brings you on a sonic journey through hip-hop, house, Afrobeat, funk and soul.
A true hidden gem, a trip into Marine Park is a trip into the wild. Sure, Central Park was designed as a park in which to get lost, but Marine Park’s 530 acres has got wide expanses of salt marsh, meadows and sand dunes. Get your mind away from the city by traversing thickets of shrubs, vines and beach plants. All this explorin’ has made us hungry! Good thing Joe’s of Avenue U has killer Italian heros. Utilize the knowledge of Park Rangers who can point out the 325 different kinds of birds, 50 species of butterfly and the occasional rabbit or hawk. All this nature and history too: in a recent archaeological dig, the excavators discovered food preparation pits dating back to the 9th century!
It’s a good thing Marine Park remained a wildlife preserve because it almost got developed out of existence: a real estate boom saw speculators developing a Rockaway channel to allow large ships to enter a proposed manmade harbor. Thanks to Alfred T. White, Brooklyn philathropist offered the city 150 acres in the area for parkland. Over the next 60 years a number of transactions quadrupled the land available for a nature preserve, but we’ve got to thank the godfather of attractive affordable housing for starting the trend.
Next up: Family Camping on Saturday June 9th at 6PM. Who says that you can’t camp in the city? Take your kids and enjoy a night surrounded by nature and the Urban Park Rangers! Families are chosen through a lottery system, so make sure to sign up for the lottery before May 30th. Dinner is provided.
By Jonah Levy
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The outside of the Andrew Freeman Home.
When you say “The Bronx” to any non-NYer, the first thing they think of is The Yankees. Fair ’nuff.
The second thing they think is gangs, drugs, and arson. Because from the 1970′s through the mid-80′s, the Bronx was synonymous with urban collapse and wide-scale destruction. Slumlords realized that instead of collecting rent from their working-class tenants, they could burn down their buildings and collect the more profitable insurance. Legendary sports announcer Howard Cosell epitomized The Bronx’s problems when he proclaimed “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning,” during Game 2 of the Yankees-Dodgers World Series, when a TV camera showed an abandoned building, up in flames, to the country and world.
Mark grew up in the Tremont neighborhood of The Bronx, just a few blocks from Yankee Stadium and he remembers being at that game. His folks (including legendary Gramma) were part of the middle & white working class flight from The Bronx. Luckily, they were sophisticated and progressive, so instead of moving to the ‘burbs like the middle class, or Co-op City like the working class, they landed in the liberal Upper West Side.
Jimmy Carter in the South Bronx, 1977.
The Bronx has had an inspiring, uphill climb since ’77. Thomas Wolfe depicted it as hell on earth in his novel (and the subsequent film) Bonfire of the Vanities. It became a standard campaign stop for politicians expressing their concern about urban problems; Jimmy Carter’s visit to Charlotte Street in ’77 was a turning point.
The Bronx started to rebound since then and is now having an all-star comeback. You read about it in the newspapers, you hear about it on the radio, and your eyes pop out of your head when you check the dollar signs on formerly derelict neighborhoods. SoBro anyone? Another marker of a neighborhood’s ascendancy – large-scale art projects, which Jonah, good buddy Josh Bernstein and I checked out last Wednesday night.
Crowds and crowds aim for art.
Brilliant mural by Daze.
This Side of Paradise is an awesome and massively expansive art installation inside the first two floors of an abandoned retirement home, the Andrew Freeman House, at 1125 Grand Concourse. Built as a gorgeous Neo-Renaissance palazzo-cum-old age home for formerly wealthy New Yorkers who shouldn’t have to suffer the indignities of living in anything less than opulence. The building itself had fallen on hard times in the 70s, but was recently revitalized by No Longer Empty, a vibrant community organization that uses old and abandoned spaces to showcase art and activities for neighborhood residents.
An awesome upside down installation.
Check the perspective on this room-size installation
The place was jammin! There must’ve been five thousand people there the hour we spent wandering the halls, checking out the art, engaging the community and marveling at the building’s faded glory. The crowd was gorgeous – multi-culti, multi-ethnic, old, young, black, white, fashionable, dorky, excited to be in a relic from history looking at art from the present and catching glimpses of the future. Fine art, graffiti art, installation, performance, sculpture, video, reconfigured rooms, you name it, it was goin’ down. The entire production was awesome and awe-inspiring. The exhibit is up til June 2nd, and there are tons of events through the end of the show. Any excuse to prove that The Bronx is lookin’ up is good by us!
PS: Quiz Time, hotshots: Why is it called The Bronx? Nobody goes to The Brooklyn or The Queens!?
Put your answer below in the Comments! Best answer gets a LUNY tshirt mailed to them!
By Matt Levy
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The Levys are the star video today on a new site called HooplaHa. It’s a website that spotlights positive people, stories & ideas and we think it’s the perfect stage for us.
See, we’ve been approached by at least a dozen reality TV producers, all of whom think we’d be perfect subjects for starring in a reality TV show.
Except for one thing; a prominent TV producer, complete with cigar, LA tan and $300 haircut put it this way. (Monologue that follows is excerpted from my memory.) “Boys, I’ve been in this business for 30 years and there are just five elements that make for great reality TV.
#1: BIG PERSONALITIES. Ya got that.
#2: A world that you inhabit that people CARE ABOUT, ya got New York, that’s good.
#3: A STAKE in the outcome of the episode, IE, something important has to happen as a result of the plot. Don’t worry, our writers can come up with that.
#4: A REVEAL. Something – either a surprise or an expected outcome, has to happen by the end of the episode; we can work that up too.
#5: CONFLICT. Ya know what? I just don’t see the conflict among you. Could you guys come up with a story arc or plot that cooks up some more conflict?”
So we went home and wrote a script which supposed that I was retiring from the business and my three sons were going to compete with each other to win the favor of the Tourfather; the Lead Levy would then be rewarded with the business. We figured that as each episode progressed & as one son moved ahead, the other two would ally and sabotage the third. This is total fiction: I am years away from retiring and Matt is my business partner and will inherit the business when I do.
So we went back to the hotshot producer and told him what we’ve told every reality TV producer since; we are not interested in inventing conflict, we are not interested in acting or fiction and if reality TV has no place for positive people, IE our functioning, loving family and to show us for who we are, then we’re not interested in being on reality TV. Simple as that.
A Personal Note About Positivity: I’ve always been a positive, optimistic and upbeat kinda guy. Some of that is a result of being blessed as an urban American male who is tall, strong, smart and healthy; some of that is a result of growing up in an loving, functioning, positive family. My parents were married for over 60 years and it is no exaggeration to call it a 60-year love affair.
I had an excellent NYC public education, followed by a series of fascinating and challenging careers. Starting off with cartography, I then moved into community development and managing complex and demanding NYC facilities and at a number of NYC agencies, some of which dealt with the worst urban problems of the 1980s. After my public career slowed, I started a small but vibrant business with my eldest son that allows us to meet interesting people from all over the world and show off the Greatest City in the World.
Our tour guides are the smart, funny and passionate, I am close with my sons, my sister and my Mom. I have loved and been loved by two wonderful women. In June I am marrying the love of my life. I own a 1904 Victorian house in the most beautiful neighborhood in NYC, which allows me to tend my gardens, bike and frisbee in nearby Prospect Park and occasionally travel to faraway lands. What’s not to be positive about?
So when HooplaHa approached us, we agreed that positive is always the way to go.
By Mark Levy
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The man, the Speed Graphic, the Cigar, it must be Weegee.
“There are 8 million stories in the naked city,” declared New York City – and America’s – premier crime photographer Weegee in his 1945 book, Naked City. And if you hustle over to the International Center of Photography at 6th Avenue and 43rd Street before September, you can see a handful of those stories in the exhibition “Weegee: Murder is My Business,” featuring over 100 original Weegee photographs, drawn from the more than 20,000 prints in the ICP’s Weegee Archive.
Chapter 4: Balcony Seats at a Murder
Weegee’s story is truly one of the 8 million Naked City stories worth getting to know, since it is so intimately tied to both 1930/40s New York, and to the images we all still carry around in our heads of the city’s perennial landscape of fear. Serenaded occasionally by screaming vintage police sirens or Weegee’s wonderfully weird voice, coming from touch screen gizmos (reputed to have been the model for Peter Sellers’ Dr. Strangelove accent,) you stroll through an arcade of Weegee’s wild life.
One case holds his oversize NYPD/NYFD press pass, his gawky Speed Graphic camera, hat, and the manuscript copy of the first few pages of Murder is My Business, the catalogue of the Photo League show that marked Weegee’s graduation from tabloid crime photographer to “artist.”
Weegee’s studio @ ICP – courtesy International Center of Photography
There’s a reconstruction of his lower East Side apartment/studio that looks as if Weegee had just run out the door to cover a fire or murder. Photos and texts tell of Weegee’s self-invention and self-promotion; born Usher Fellig in the Polish Ukraine in 1899, he took “Weegee” as his nickname to suggest that he was clairvoyant, like the popular Ouija Board. That supposed clairvoyance was mostly simple photographic sleight-of-hand.
The day that I visited the exhibition, I ran into a Londoner named Sean whom I had met the day before on Gideon’s Little Italy Gangster Tour. Sean motioned me over to a photograph of a dead man face down on a sidewalk – the February 2, 1942 murder of gangster Andrew Izzo outside the Spring Arrow Social and Athletic Club at 344 Broome Street. In that photo, a gun lay close to Izzo’s outstretched arm and hand, but Sean then pointed out a second, earlier photo, from when Weegee first arrived at the scene; the gun lay a couple of yards away.
The former Police Headquarters
Living directly across the street from Police Headquarters, where he kept a police radio on at all times, and knowing full well that an occasional small bribe won him special favors from the cops, Weegee had unparalleled access to his subjects – both dead and alive. After you take in the ICP exhibition, head down to Little Italy, and to the magnificent old Police Headquarters building at 240 Center Street. Once you’ve ogled the gorgeous gilt statue of Manhattan at the top of the cupola, and caught a nasty look from the doorman (now home to dozens of multi-million dollar apartments, as well as Calvin Klein, Stefi Graff and Leonardo DiCaprio), stroll around the back to # 6 Centre Market Place.
Weegee w/ camera above Frank Lava’s shop – courtesy ICP
Think back to that photo in the exhibition of Weegee perched with his camera on the narrow ledge of the bay window at the front of Frank Lava’s gun shop, the giant police revolver hanging at Weegee’s feet. Directly across the street is the back entrance to Police Headquarters, where cops would conduct their “perp walks” that allowed the press to get their photos and the cops to get their credits in the captions. Like #5 next door – once home both to Weegee’s apartment , the John Jovino Gun Shop (now around the corner on Grand Street), and a basement firing range – these and the other tenements of Centre Market Place have recently had gentrifying facelifts. But if you squint just right, you can see the paddy wagons pulling up and hear the cops barking orders at the handcuffed suspects.
Same shop, different gun.
There are dozens of locations of famous Weegee crime photos from this neighborhood, but the most iconic of all lies just a few blocks north, at 10 Prince Street. There, on a balmy night in November, 1939, Angelo Greco was shot down while standing in the doorway of his candy store. While other photographers snapped their “ten-foot shots” – close-ups – Weegee stepped across the street and caught the wider view, of the upstairs neighbors leaning out windows and gawking from fire escapes. There are even a few kids reading the funny papers, oblivious to the carnage below.
Not only can you place yourself in Weegee’s shoes there on Prince Street; you can hear him tell the story himself:
http://tedbarron.com/BWF-June-2009/22-Weegee.mp3
Once you’ve heard Weegee pronounce “moi-duh” and stood below that fire escape, (and taken a Gangster Tour!) Little Italy will never again seem like just a place to get good cannoli.
The same balcony today, as seen in "Balcony Seats at a Murder"
By Dr. Kevin Dann
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We Levys are many things. Animated, energetic, colorful, vocal, tall, the list goes on and on. But one thing we are definitely not… is Irish. Nope, not one bit. Can’t even fake it.
Irish Pride! With a name like "Levy" how could you tell?
Which means that when St. Patty’s Day comes, we just knock back a few whiskeys and tag along for the ride. The Irish community, from poor starving immigrants of the 1840′s to the proud citizens of today, represents an intrinsic element in our city’s history. The Irish were the first massive wave of foreigners to land on our city’s shores. They suffered sneers, jeers and rocks thrown at them from America’s first anti-immigrant cabals.
Americans never did wear their politics lightly.
After more than a generation of this discrimination, NYC’s Irish community made a foothold in the political classes and the police force from which they never strayed, making it clear that New York was their home and they would never abdicate their pride nor place; setting a wondrous example in a city that has welcomed wave after wave of newcomer ever since.
A typical anti-Irish employment advertisement.
And then… there were the Irish New Yorkers who didn’t do their people proud. The ones who never rose with the tide. The ones who watched John Fitzgerald Kennedy take the oath of office as our first Irish American president in-between rounds of beating, shooting, stabbing, and threatening their way through life. They were the most ruthless Irish Gang the city had ever seen: The Westies.
This was the Hell’s Kitchen gang that made The Mafia look like a Boy Scout Troop.
Slick lookin' kid . . . but dangerous as hell.
The first Irish gang boss of Hell’s Kitchen was Owney “The Killer” Madden. A man as skilled at murder as he was at charming the ladies. He got sent off to prison for killing a romantic rival and missed out on the opening years of prohibition, He came out of jail behind the bootlegging curve and never quite caught up.
Starting in the 1960′s Hell’s Kitchen was run by gentleman gangster Mickey Spillane (no relation to the pulp novelist of the same name,) who ran the gambling and loansharking rackets as well as the Longshoreman Union. Well dressed and sophisticated, Spillane wasn’t above the occasional kidnap-and-ransom scam, otherwise known as a “snatch-job.”
Spillane’s biggest mistake was in 1963 when he pulled a snatch-job on an innocent, law-abiding accountant named John Coonan, whose 17-year-old son Jimmy never forgot it. Jimmy Coonan ended up as Spillane’s biggest rival for control of “The Kitchen” and through Coonan’s Mafia connections, Spillane met his end on the wrong end of a gun in 1977.
Jimmy Coonan: Boss of Hell's Kitchen
Coonan ended up well-connected to the Mafia Families of New York and in turn, started to dress and act like an Italian Mafioso (an “Al Cologne” as some of his associates called them.) This didn’t sit well with some of his subordinates in the Hell’s Kitchen Irish syndicate. Eventually things soured with Coonan’s bodyguard and underboss Mickey Featherstone and after Featherstone was framed for murder, he turned rat and told the Feds everything they needed to know to put Coonan and the rest of the Westies away for life.
That was in 1988. Now, in 2012: Coonan is still behind bars, Featherstone is living under an assumed name in Witness Protection and “The Kitchen?” It’s filled with fancy bars and restaurants and overpriced condos like everywhere else in this damn city!
Wanna learn more about The Westies and their rotten deeds in NYC? Come on NYC Gangster Tour’s Hells Kitchen Pub Crawl, this Friday at 5pm or Saturday at 11am! (email info@nycgangstertours.com for tickets)
By Wise-Guy Gideon Levy
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I hope it doesn't land on shin...or my car
1) We bet you know about the Jewish Museum on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan’s Museum Mile. Maybe you know about the Children’s Museum in Crown Heights, which was the first of it’s kind in America. What happens when you put em together? The Jewish Children’s Museum, also in Crown Heights! This five-story, multi-media based museum is on Eastern Parkway, aka Brooklyn’s Museum Mile, directly across from the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic World Headquarters. This Orthodox movement is the largest Jewish organization in the world and they sponsor the Museum as part of their spirited outreach to Jews and gentiles alike.
That is one big challah!
Over 180,000 visitors of all ages and faiths have made the pilgrimage since it opened in 2005. Exhibits include the 6 days of creation, the “Spiel of Fortune” and a giant (inedible) challah. An interactive crafts workshop allows the opportunity to make your own tzedakah (charity) boxes; a 180-degree theater offers an inside look at the central themes of Jewish thought and a rooftop mini golf course goes through the six major events of Jewish Life. Betcha I can make my Bar Mitzvah a hole-in-one! Come in April for the grand opening of their new exhibit, a Voyage Through Jewish History! The Jewish Children’s Museum is located at 792 Eastern Parkway at the corner of Kingston Avenue.
2) Scott Witter, the curator and sole employee of Brooklyn’s Other Museum of Brooklyn, is highly protective of his collection of artifacts. B.O.M.B. is a museum of found art, comprising relics from Brooklyn’s yester-years, with a sheen of hard-left political activity, decrying “Mayor Moo-Moo” and his “theft of Brooklyn’s heritage,” particularly the historic buildings of Admiral’s Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Widder is devoted to getting in the way of the Bloomberg administration’s plan to wipe out the aforementioned 150 year old structures and build a 75,000 sq ft supermarket plus an additional 160,000 sq ft retail development plus industrial development.
Scott finds a lot of relics on his walks to Coney Island and Gravesend Bay with Dashi, his adorable mutt. Sometimes he makes it out to Arthur Kill, the waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey to investigate a scuttled shipwreck. Is it art? Is it junk? Whatever you call it, its a museum that is first and foremost dedicated to the preservation and landmarking of Admiral’s Row. If you want to sign a petition to support this cause visit their website or go to 109 Hall Street between 7 & 9pm on Tuesdays or make an appointment.
The clowns laugh at you as walk past. Spookiest...exhibit...ever
3) The Micro Museum is an esoteric art museum, smack-dab in the middle of a very active stretch of Smith Street for over 25 years. Artists from all over the country have exhibited their work here. They’ve been adding new pieces all the time, and as the colorful & eccentric founder Kathleen Laziza says “People are always coming to find the micro changes.”
On loan from the Met...isn't it great when huge museums help out micro museums?
Multi-media quirkiness is prominently displayed, from furniture that tells stories when touched, to a stair-master that screens video art of people blowing kisses at the user (the most perfect exercise machine in the world!) Interactively overloaded, this museum is definitely for all ages. The founding artists – Kathleen and her husband Will – are present and willing to chat about their collections every Saturday from 5 to 7pm. The Micro Museum is located at 123 Smith Street and is open to the public most Saturdays from noon till 7pm.
4) Okay, you may have heard of the next museum because we promote it so damn often. We even raised $4000 for it at the 5th Annual Panorama Challenge! The City Reliquary is the most civic of organizations and very close to the heart of LUNY! (Matt is the Vice President.) Exhibiting cultural relics of forgotten New York, pieces of famous buildings and community collections of all stripes, they also throw some bangin’ events. From low-key craft nights to magic workshops to cocktail soirees, there’s something goin down every third Thursday of the month.
VERY civic
The most recent exhibit features the work of Enrique Miguel Thomas whose deep connection to the subway system is displayed on the subway maps he “improves” with sharpie and watercolor. “New York City Above and Below: Works by Plein Art Artist Enrico Miguel Thomas” is open along with other collections from 12pm to 6pm every Saturday and Sunday. The City Reliquary is located at 370 Metropolitan Avenue.
5) Saving the best for last, Building 92 is a bit under the radar for a simple reason. It’s not hidden inside someone’s house; it’s not self-described as esoteric and it doesn’t play to any religious niche. It’s only 4 months old! Housed partially in a former Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Commandant’s House built in 1801 and partially in a new platinum LEED certified structure, this museum is fully devoted to the past, present and future of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Live! From New York! Can you spot the SNL prop?
This isn’t your staid history museum. In addition to a maritime history timeline, there is an awesome interactive, time-lapse, birds-eye-view map of the Wallabout Bay Area; it goes through 400 years of history in five minutes!
The anchor from the USS Brooklyn, the 2nd last ship to leave the Navy Yard
From the most important ship building factory in America during WWII to today’s diverse tenants of the Navy Yard as industrial park; from the sets of Saturday Night Live to the Crye Precision factory that produces bulletproof vests to des, today’s Brooklyn Navy Yard is impressively dynamic.
In an alternate universe, the 2nd Avenue line's terminus is at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
Building 92 puts a real focus on the community. The building contains an employment center that partners with the Brooklyn Workforce Initiative. They offer workshops, classroom space, bus and even bike tours of the Yard coming up in the summertime. Admission is free at Building 92 between 12pm to 6pm Wednesday through Saturday. It’s at 63 Flushing Avenue. See you at the Museums!
By Jonah Levy
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Congratulations Oscar winners! I love Meryl Streep! I think of her as a New York movie star. In one of my previous lives, I manned the velvet rope at a party where she was expected; you think you’ll be prepared. But she looked me in the eye, smiled and was incredibly modest and beautiful. That’s when I fell in love. I would have let her in even if she wasn’t on the list.
She won her last Oscar in 1982 for Sophie’s Choice, which was filmed in beautiful Victorian Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, right around the corner from Levys’ HQ, where in 2006 the film The Savages was filmed, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney (below). Whenever I can, I bring visitors past both houses.
As exciting as it is to see where favorite movies were filmed, I think it’s more fun – and easier – to see a movie or TV show being shot. It all comes down to knowing what to look for and where to look. While you’re strolling around NYC you have a pretty good chance of passing by dozens of these flyers taped to a lamp post.
The bright color and the logo at the top right (for Film, Theater and Broadcasting) are the giveaways. Look for the“Production Name” scribbled on the form, and then enter that name into imdb.com to learn that, in this particular case, “Magnus Rex” is the code name (yes, CODE NAME!!) for the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.
Sweet. Now you know when the movie/TV is being filmed. But where exactly are they shooting? In a restaurant mid-block? In the park? Unless you happen to stumble across the extremely obvious signs pointing to “Set,” you’ll have to do some legwork. “Holding” signs means that’s where actors wait for their turn in front of the camera.
But if you don’t see those signs, then look for trucks with this logo:
Or this logo, which is the Pennsylvania company that provides equipment for film shoots:
The trucks will look like this:
And the actual film shoot may look as dull as this (HBO’s Boardwalk Empire filming inside a building down my block):
If it’s a big shoot you probably have to walk past blocks worth of trucks for wardrobe and lighting and cameras and catering and makeup etc. And then you may find a police car in your way.
Wait a minute, that’s the GOTHAM Police Department. Now you’re really close!!
But just as you get right up to the action, there’s probably someone with a walkie-talkie telling you to “please keep moving.” That’s a PA, or Production Assistant, one of the least appreciated jobs in film. Their entire job is to stand there and repeat that all day.
So be polite and be observant – there’s probably a place they’ll let you stand and watch as long as you pay attention to the rules (like not taking photos) or as long as the crowd doesn’t get too big, or block traffic, etc. That’s your goal. To be as little trouble to the PAs as possible. It’s rare when they have time to chat or are willing to give you the inside scoop about what scene is being filmed or when; who’s expected on the set that day; when the actors are going to come out of their trailer, In the case of Dark Knight Rises, security was tight and nobody was saying anything.
However, I did get to see some cool props. This must be a Bat-Something, right?
Sometimes you walk around and all you get is confused. Tower Heist re-filmed the Macy’s parade about a week after Thanksgiving.
Sometimes you can get close to the shoot and it’s totally obvious. Yep, that’s a Muppet!
While I will sneak a shot of a Sesame Street character, I generally have a rule about paparazzi photos of humans.
I don’t stalk.
First of all, it’s a very un-New York thing to do. I think celebrities like the way they’re normally treated in NYC — as human beings with a job and a private life. When NYC is the set for a movie, it can be a little different, especially if you’re Kim Cattrall filming Sex and the City II (see above). But I’ve walked past dozens of big stars and nobody blinks an eye. Sure, we’ll talk about it for weeks afterwards, but in the moment, we like to play it cool.
However, if you do happen to be a mega-fan of one of the stars on-set, hang around, be friendly with the PA and wait. When your hero comes by, be polite, pay attention to their busy schedule, ask for a quick picture and treat them like a fellow human being.
Now, if you’re coming to New York City and this has you psyched to see some film or TV production in action and you want to cheat a little, check out one of my favorite websites: http://www.onlocationvacations.com. It’s an awesomely accurate film & TV production calendar website that we guides use to find shooting locations, as quickly as a few days in advance.
While film productions come and go on a regular basis, television is more long-term. Here’s some of the shows that are NYC regulars:
Law and Order SVU
Damages
Boardwalk Empire
Blue Bloods
Smash
30 Rock
The Good Wife
Gossip Girl
Unforgettable
The Corrections
Person of Interest
Have fun scouting!
By Jonathan Turer (holding the Oscar for Best Tour Guide in a Short Tour)
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New York City Highlights Tour: Top Manhattan Attractions by Bus, Foot, and Subway
Tasting New York City: Guided Food Tours and Manhattan's Top Sight-Seeing Attractions
The World Trade Center Site and Events of Sept 11
Visit the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center Site
Marvelous Music of NY: Musical History by Coach, Foot or Subway
Starring New York: TV, Movies & Celebrities - Bus, Subway & Walking Tour
Ethnic NY: Chinatown, Little Italy, African Burial Ground & Irish Five Points
Gateway to America: Tour the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
Central Park Vistas and Strawberry Fields Tour
Jewish Heritage of the LES: Immigrants & Noshes
Jewish Gangsters of the Lower East Side
NYC Artists Tour: From Graffiti to Galleries
Sandwich Tour of Hell's Kitchen
HEY HO! LETS GO! Punk Rock on the Bowery Pub Crawl & Walking Tour
See New York City by Land and Sea: Bus Tour and Harbor Cruise
Architectural Highlights Tour of New York City
Irish Heritage of NYC - Pints, Poetry & Pugilism
Uptown and Harlem Highlights - Private and Group Tours
Brooklyn Pizza & Italian-American Food Adventure!
From Graffiti to Galleries: BROOKLYN REPRESENT!
Walk The Majestic Brooklyn Bridge; visit DUMBO & Fulton Ferry
Brooklyn’s Beat: Tour Brooklyn with Native Brooklynites!
Brooklyn's Edible Ethnic Eats! A Foodie Tour through Brooklyn
Tour The Bronx: Hip-Hop History to Yankees Glory
Staten Island Adventures
NYC Artists Tour: From Graffiti to Galleries
Irish Heritage of NYC - Pints, Poetry & Pugilism
Bohemian and Beat Poets of Greenwich Village
HEY HO! LETS GO! Punk Rock on the Bowery Pub Crawl & Walking Tour
BIKE BROOKLYN BEER BLITZ! A 4 hr Bike Tour of Bklyn's Former Breweries!
Jewish Gangsters of the Lower East Side
Jewish Heritage of the LES: Immigrants & Noshes
Sandwich Tour of Hell's Kitchen
Unique Neighborhood Tours
Holiday High-Lights Tour of New York City
African-American Heritage: History Before Harlem
