And… Work: Filming returned to New York

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about the small park in Sunnyside, Queens. A child sails back and forth on a swing. Other children ran to the jungle gym and played basketball.

But upon closer inspection, the street lamp on its side turned out to be a prop. So was the police car around the corner and the candlelit memorial at the entrance to the stadium. The woman rushed up the stairs, crying, “My baby!” He was an actor.

The cast and crew of the CBS police drama “Blue Bloods” snuck into the park one recent afternoon and turned it into a movie set. Donnie Wahlberg and Marissa Ramirez, the actors who play New York City police detectives, were on hand. Official voices were amplified over multiple walkie-talkies.

“Please calm down. Rolling. Wallpaper. And… an act“.

After a temporary hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 and disruptions caused by writers’ and actors’ strikes last year, motion picture production has returned to New York City.

In the weeks after the strikes ended, the number of permits issued by the city for projects filmed on public property quickly rebounded — doubling between November and December and continuing to increase since then. Last month, the city issued 389 permits for 88 different projects, including TV series such as “Daredevil,” “Law & Order,” “Elsbeth,” “The Penguin,” and “FBI,” as well as feature films. Major ones like “Friendship.” ”

“It’s accelerating,” said Pat Kaufman, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. “It’s happening.”

Throughout the city, several large-scale studios are under construction by developers hoping to attract a steady stream of film projects.

Efforts to encourage film and television productions to choose New York over other cities and states recently got a boost from a measure that expanded the state’s decades-old film tax credit, a program supported by the industry but criticized by critics who say it is. Bad deal for taxpayers. A new report, commissioned by the state government, concluded that the tax break was “at best a break-even proposition, and is likely to be a net cost to the state”.

However, motion picture production in New York generates an estimated 185,000 jobs, $18 billion in wages and $81 billion in revenue, according to the city. Officials say the industry’s recovery after a months-long shutdown is an important part of New York City’s overall economic health.

For some film industry workers across New York, forced layoffs during the pandemic and strikes have been devastating.

“I was out of work for six months,” said Alan Pearce, an experienced camera operator who has worked behind the lens on several New York TV shows, including “Succession” and “Billions.”

“It’s not like a vacation,” Mr. Pierce said. “It was very nerve-racking.”

Rossana Rizzo, a camera operator who has worked in the industry for more than two decades, said she was very sad to see her colleagues suffering. “I noticed people were selling things,” like movie equipment, she said.

Ms. Rizzo, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, has worked on several New York-focused shows, including “Pose,” “And Just Like That…” and “Russian Doll.” The hits made her hometown look different. “It’s funny how frustrating the city is without the film industry,” she said.

Ms. Rizzo and Mr. Pierce noted that motion picture production supports many other businesses. When the film industry is busy, “everyone is busy,” Mr. Pierce said. “Restaurants, delis, hotels, shops of all kinds, schools, churches, car rentals, dry cleaning, lumber yards and many more.”

It’s easy to see why New York City—with its dazzling skyscrapers, iconic bridges, stately brownstones, quirky residences, and unique cast of characters—has inspired camera creators for more than a century.

“Pick any corner of New York, and every corner you pick will be interesting,” said Anastasia Puglisi, executive vice president and co-executive producer at Wolf Entertainment, the giant company behind many TV shows filmed in the city. The “Law & Order” and “FBI” franchises.

“You get more in New York in terms of neighborhoods, different types of people, different socioeconomic locations, parks, skyscrapers, water — much more in New York than anywhere else,” Puglisi said. “Cinematically, filming here is a dream, because it has no end.”

(An exhibition currently on view at the Museum of the City of New York called “You Are Here” celebrates thousands of films made in New York over the past 100 years, from old classics like “Midnight Cowboy,” “Shaft,” and “Ghostbusters” to more recent favorites like “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Joker,” and “Hustlers.”)

Before the pandemic and the strikes, which lasted from last May to November, the film industry was booming in New York City.

Production peaked in 2019, according to the city’s information office: more than 80 TV series and 300 feature films were filmed that year.

A collaborative campaign is underway to ensure New York can compete with Hollywood in attracting television and film projects. A 266,000-square-foot development with high-tech soundstages, called Sunset Pier 94 Studios, is in the works along the Hudson River in Manhattan, and the larger, 340,000-square-foot East End Studios is coming to Sunnyside.

Additionally, several new studios were announced in Brooklyn, including two from Bungalow Projects, a real estate development company focused on building production facilities.

Co-founders Travis Feehan and Susi Yu have worked in New York for decades and recently surveyed studio spaces in Los Angeles to ensure their New York project would be comparable.

Many of the camera cranes and large LED screens used in feature films require very high ceilings, which is difficult to obtain in New York.

“If you look at a studio in Los Angeles or in Atlanta versus New York, in many cases, it’s much less good in New York,” Mr. Feehan said.

“This is a big, big, big job,” said Ms. Kaufman, the commissioner. “The more movies and TV shows we have coming here and using our city and our iconic locations, all of that — that’s another library that has to stay open on Sunday.”

Seeing New York on screen is also a draw for tourists; Companies like On Location Tours take fans on excursions to locations from scenes from “Sex and the City,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and more.

Sometimes the connection to New York is tenuous – after the death of actor Matthew Perry, fans laid flowers in front of the building used as an exterior shot for “Friends”, despite the fact that the sitcom was filmed in Los Angeles.

Even die-hard New Yorkers admit to having great pleasure when they discover their street is being used as a filming location.

Christine Burd conducts @olva social media account that tracks filming locations, is generally monitored and posted by local residents.

When film crews put up brightly colored flyers to reserve a parking spot for the production, “people get really excited to see it and want to share it,” Ms. Burd said. “It’s kind of like peeking behind the curtain and seeing a little bit of how movie magic works and what a movie set looks like.”

In December, Ella Morton was lucky enough to find a filming location in her neighborhood of Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. “There were so many police cars, I couldn’t tell if they were real cops or TV cops,” she said. “It was kind of a mix.”

Suddenly, Mrs. Morton was startled. “I saw a stately woman dressed all in black, and I said, ‘That’s Mariska Hargitay,'” she recalls. “And I thought, ‘Well, damn, I’m just getting into this.’

Ms Morton stood in shock as the ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ star was directed into action.

Although the scene was short, it did not disappoint. “I watched her walk solemnly from the porch to the car. “And that was the extent of it,” Mrs. Morton said. “Her gold captain’s armband was gleaming in the sunlight. “It was so perfect.”