Danielle Radcliffe, who was once seen on Smith Street.
Another day, another story about how Brooklyn residents are flipping biscuits over the amount of filming on their streets. This time, it’s the good people of Brooklyn Heights complaining that 14 productions in one month have led to impossible parking conditions, the inability to leave one’s home during a shoot (lest they ruin the effect of a pristine 19th-century wonderland that is currently being used as a background for Winter’s Tale), and, obviously, Colin Farrell racing a horse up and down the street at all hours. City Councilman Steve Levin recently came out in favor of making Brooklyn Heights a “hot spot,” which would mean a moratorium on film permits for the neighborhood.
But while this may seem like petty pouting, the flocking of filmmakers to Brooklyn has been a major sticking point in the last several years. Almost all areas of the borough have tried to pass some film permit ban, without much success, creating a disgruntled breed of Brooklynite … one that almost could pass for his Manhattan brethren. Here are the five best comments made by neighborhood locals from our favorite borough.
1. “Imagine every single thing that looks like the 21st century being removed from your block,” Stanton said. “Add snow blankets, and a horse with its double, and it’s a lot for our small streets to take.” –Brooklyn Heights/DNAInf0
2. “Enough is enough; tell ’em to go back to Tribeca.” –Dumbo resident Fred Connolly/Brooklyn Paper
3. “You’re obviously abusing DUMBO with an incredible volume of shoots because no one is complaining. You’ve had 5 shoots scheduled in the last 3 weeks. You’ve got a shoot for tomorrow, then the next day. I can just picture your agency saying, “Well, they haven’t complained yet (like we did a few years back, and got a Hot Zone declared) so lets just invade their neighborhood, take all the parking spaces whenever anyone applies for a permit. And you don’t even care how many blocks you give out. Frequently, they don’t even use 1/2 their streets, but yet we can’t park there. Oftentimes the crews do not even have the respect to take down their No Parking signs when they know the day ahead of time that they are canceling and rescheduling because of weather, so its double the inconvenience. Abusive! Will you declare us a Hot Zone on your own, or do you need the community to organize, and then I promise we will organize and complain ALL THE TIME. Gee, would Mayor Bloomberg like huge filming crews on his block every week?” –DUMBO’s Jane Jacobs/DumboNYC.com
4. “They always bring in outside catering, often from companies based in NJ. It’s time they came to Shelsky’s Smoked Fish, Oaxaca Taqueria, Court St. Grocers, Mile End, Cubana Cafe, and the many other small food shops who are at this point, negatively affected by these shoots.” –Carroll Garden restaurateur Peter Shelsky/Patch.com
5. “HELP US TOO … Greenpoint has a shoot it seems almost every day. Its bad enough I now have to dodge all the yuppy runners and breakless hippy bikers walking over the Polaski, to work; but the shoots are the worst.
1. The police give little to no notice when to move ours cars
2. They have no respect for us or our community.
3. They don’t clean up their no parking signsWe pay a damn lot of taxes to live here so we shouldn’t need their money.
I propose one 5 day shoot per year per 10 block area.” –Greenpoint resident Darren/Brooklyn Paper
