Is There Too Much Filming Happening In Ditmas Park?
While this neighborhood has certainly been no stranger to movies, television series, and commercials being filmed here, we’ve had a number of neighbors comment on recent posts, as well as email us, saying that they’re becoming fed up with the entertainment business’s continued love affair with Ditmas Park.
With Steven Spielberg’s “St. James Place” setting up shop in the neighborhood today, tomorrow, October 6, October 7, October 8, and October 9, one neighbor groused to us that people won’t be able to park on several well-traversed streets (go here for a list of streets where you won’t be able to leave your car) for what amounts to almost a full week. And, of course, we don’t mean to single “St. James Place” out (which has done some amazing set work around the city, transforming other Brooklyn neighborhoods into Old New York) – in the past week, CBS’ “Elementary” here, as was “The Intern,” starring Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway.
As one of our readers recently commented on our “Elementary” post:
This IS a neighborhood, NOT a film set. If they intend to use our neighborhood as a de facto film set, then they had best start taking up less space, for less time. Most of the time there is absolutely NOTHING going on, no work, no filming, nothing except them taking up parking spots. This is not once in a while, this is getting to be constant, and it is only going to get worse. If these people love our neighborhood so much as to basically encamp here, why doesn’t someone make them spend some of their millions and do some neighborhood improvements. What do we, the residents(taxpayers) get out of this? Perhaps we’ll get to see some actor walk by? Or, perhaps we can watch any number of PAs avail themselves of the catering truck, that is taking up parking spaces.We’ve reached out to the city to see if we can get an exact count of how many productions have filmed in our area over the past couple of years, but while we’re waiting to hear back from them, we thought we’d go through our own posts and see what the increase has been like. As filming has increased throughout Brooklyn (there was, for example, so much filming in Brooklyn Heights that the neighborhood event got a reprieve from film and TV production), the same has occurred in Ditmas Park, at least according to our admittedly unscientific assessment.
From January through September of this year, we counted 42 movie, television, or commercial film shoots happened in our neighborhood – as compared to 27 during the same time last year. May and June of this year were the busiest months for filming, with us posting about 10 filmings in May and eight in June. In 2013, the numbers were significantly lower, with just two filmings that we spotted in June and three in May.
What do people think? Do you like spotting the stars in the neighborhood, or would you rather the movies go away? Have you noticed an increase in filming where you live, and has that made a difference in your quality of life (parking, walking around the neighborhood, etc.)? Have you ever made an official complaint to the city about any problems you’ve encountered with film shoots in the area?
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