Hero or Villain? Hollywood Has Put Greenpoint Business Owners in Dilemma
Four years ago, if you passed the corner of Franklin St. and Church St. in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, you might have noticed the Old Hollywood boutique, a small shop that sold handmade jewelry and clothing.
Nowadays, however, you’ll encounter Brooklyn Deli Market and an un-identified ATM machine there. Why the change? Alex Shulhafer, a former co-owner of Old Hollywood, who shut the store in 2013, blames Hollywood — the television movie industry for that.
Their filming caused a lot of trouble for Shulhafer’s business: detouring customers, littering on the street, and blocked sidewalks and parking spots.
“At least four or five times a month, sometimes three or four days per week, the street would be locked down for shooting a TV show or a movie,” Shulhafer said. “They (the filming crews) don’t really think about how they would affect the traffic walking down the street and just park huge trailers in storefront or the side walk.”
She tried to reason with the production companies but it didn’t always work. When the location scout team reached out to Shulhafer for her permission to film in front of her store, they were pretty approachable. But if the film crew has got film permits from the city, then good luck getting them talk to you, said Shulhafer.
“They sometimes are not directly parking in front of my store, so we wouldn’t get any compensation for that. But it still detoured a lot of my customers or potential customers. People are shy, and they see the block was packed with filming crews and wouldn’t come in since they don’t want to intrude or be caught in camera,” Shulhafer said she had lost significant revenues for that.
Alex Shulhafer is not the only one in Greenpoint that wants to yell “cut” to the influx of filming crews. Brooklyn is catching up to Manhattan as this country’s top filming destinations in recent years, data from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment shows. Among those favorite film locations in Brooklyn, Greenpoint has become more popular than ever. There are 875 TV shows filmed here in 2015 alone. And 119 movies were filmed in this area during the past four years, which makes Greenpoint the only neighborhood in New York City that hits three digits for film shoots.
The overwhelming film and TV filming activities have intruded into Greenpoint’s normal patterns. Local residents complain of parking problems, post-production littering, overuse of specific locations, and congested blocks. Some Greenpointers want their neighborhood back after the novelty wears off of seeing movie stars walking in their backyards.
Production companies have attempted to compensate the community and its residents by providing the neighborhood association with donations, bringing in complementary ice cream trucks during weekends or offering free passes to nearby parking garages. But none of those gestures have salved the resentment.
Among those directly affected, small business owners seem to take the biggest hits. More than some minor inconveniences like parking difficulty or stepping around filming equipment, it’s their business at stake.
However, some of them are luckier than Alex Shulhafer, the former business owner of Old Hollywood who had lost her business to the filming in her street. In May, the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) aired six ads featuring small businesses across New York City that have benefited from the fast-growing film and television production business in New York. According to the report from MOME in 2015, New York City’s production industry generates over $7 billion annually and employs over 130,000 people.
Café Grumpy, a quaint coffeehouse on the corner of Diamond Street, was just another coffee shop in Greenpoint until it was featured on the HBO show Girls.
When Grumpy first opened in Greenpoint, business was slow. It was, the café’s owner, Caroline Bell said in a commercial shot for the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, “Mostly people coming in during their breaks from filming and ordering a bunch of coffees that kept us in business, Bell said. “Also the little boosts from productions renting our space, even a few hours, kept the business alive and helped us expand.”
But many business owners in Greenpoint are not swayed by the benefits brought by the production business. Most are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards film productions in their blocks.
“You might think having production teams always around us, we would have more traffics here, but no,” Joshua Morales, the owner of Slick Willie Table & Bar said. “They normally have their own cratering services and sometimes they would even put a food truck directly in front of us. It is direct competition you know, as people might just order in the food truck instead of coming in here.”
Slick Willie Table & Bar opened in Greenpoint two years ago. It sits at the Meserole Ave, right across the street of Broadway Stage, one of the four biggest production companies in New York. Morales, like many business owners in Greenpoint, is troubled by the frequently blocked street because of filming and the lost revenues caused by that. But the film industry might compensate his loss another way. A few episodes during the second season of Master of None, a Netflix show, was filmed in Slick Willie Table & Bar and Morales is hoping as Netflix releases this series next year, the show will boost his business.
While waiting to see whether the filming industry can give a push to his business, Morales is actively trying to turn the disadvantages caused by productions into business advantages. “We are trying to reach out to production companies and give them coupons, discounts and happy hours etc.,” Morales said. “It’s not a bad thing to have some film crews hanging out here. We’ll see if that helps with our business.”
As the volume of film business in New York reaches an all-time peak, it also brings more issues and tensions between the local neighborhoods like Greenpoint and production companies, as well as between those in the community directly benefitting from productions and those have conflict interest.
There have been many attempts by the authorities to alleviate those tensions. A Greenpoint assemblyman, Joseph Lentol, introduced legislation earlier this year to designated certain blocks temporary no-film zones to give local residents a break.
“The assemblyman met with the Mayor’s Office to discuss the issue and they are interested in the idea of this legislation,” Edward Baker, the director of communications from Assemblyman Joseph Lentol’s office said. “He is hopeful he will have some more detailed information before the legislative session begins in January.”
This legislation proposed two new film-free zones in Greenpoint, one nearby Kent Streets, and the other by Kingsland avenues, said Baker.
But no-film zones normally can only provide a hiatus lasts for three to six months. The city still needs an overarching guideline to strike the balance between economic dividends brought by filming industry and local community’s need. City Councilman Stephen Levin, who represents hot-spot filming neighborhoods including Greenpoint, is trying to provide such guideline by digitalizing and disclosing more frequently of information regarding film shoot like when and where productions take place.
Levin’s office proposed Intro. 84 in 2014, a law that requires the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment provide monthly and annual reports of film and television production permits and collect data from production companies that would detail a production’s economic effect on local businesses. This bill has raised concerns from entertainment industry that the data collected might be misused and become a backdoor for regulating production in certain areas.
“The purpose of the bill is to provide neighborhoods with data to show what impact has been on their community,” Levin said. “We want to build a user-friendly online portal that can be easily accessed by residents and they can check updated filming information online, instead of looking everywhere for posters.”
New York’s $420 million annual tax credit has been paid back through a $9 billion annual contribution to local economy brought by the film and entertainment industry. A controversial bill like Intro.84 might have cooling effect on the production business, which is understandably not welcomed by many. Even though the bill is aiming to address some of the inconveniences that caused by filming in the neighborhood, Intro. 84 has still not been passed after several modification and public hearings.
“I don’t see the bill would move forward anytime in the short term,” Levin said.
Some Greenpointers like Alex Shulhafer is disappointed about the slow progress. “You can’t just ignore all the troubles caused by production because the government says it’s good for economy,” said Shulhafer. “Our neighborhood is overburdened by those filming activities, and someone needs to fix that.”
