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My office is located and I live in Clifton, NJ, about 10 miles from midtown Manhattan. It’s a pretty typical north New Jersey working-class town, we have a city hall, a high school and other lower schools, a number of small business storefronts, and shopping mall at the edge of town. We also have a number of parks and one that I drive or walk (past or thru) often is Eddie Mayo Field, on Clifton Avenue.

About Eddie Mayo (Wikipedia):

Edward Joseph (Eddie) Mayo (April 15, 1910 - November 27, 2006), nicknamed “Hotshot” and “Steady Eddie,” was a Major League Baseball infielder who played nine seasons for the New York Giants (1936), Boston Braves (1937-1938), Philadelphia Athletics (1943) and Detroit Tigers (1944-1948).

…Mayo was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, but grew up in Clifton, New Jersey. Born Edward Joseph Mayoski, Mayo was the son of Polish immigrants who changed their name to Mayo.

…His best season was 1945 when he helped lead the Detroit Tigers to a World Series championship and was selected as the American League’s Most Valuable Player by The Sporting News.

…read more…

Being a location scout for film tv and photography, I’ve always thought Eddie Mayo Field might make a good filming location!

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The photos below were made from a private space in the Starrett - Lehigh Building at 601 West 26th Street in the neighborhood known as West Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, NY looking uptown and (in the panorama below) displaying, from the left (west) the Hudson River and New Jersey cross-town to right (east), the Empire State Building on the edge of the frame.

ALL location scouts LOVE the Manhattan skyline!

Manhattan at Night From West Chelsea Panorama

Manhattan at Night From West Chelsea photo used for nyc.locationscout.us home page header
all contents © nyc.locationscout.us

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Times Square in New York City is one of Manhattan’s most iconic locations. Out-of-towners, depending on the circumstances of their visit to Manhattan, may not see much else, but they are likely to see at least part of Times Square!

Times Square 42nd St at Night

42nd Street is a well-known east - west thoroughfare thru Times Square and is famous in its own right, comprising a long, colorful (and at times, infamous) chapter in New York City history.

Wikipedia | 42nd Street (Manhattan)

New York Times which established its offices and printing plant nearby. For a long period in the mid-20th century, the area of 42nd Street near Times Square was home to peep shows and other activities often considered unsavory. A comedian once said, “They call it 42nd Street because you’re not safe if you spend more than forty seconds on it.“

…read more…

In recent years a MAJOR rehabilitation of the western part of 42nd Street (as well as the rest of Times Square and many other former problem areas of New York City) has occurred which has been extremely successful for sending crime statistics plummeting, however, there are those who contend that the changes along 42nd St have robbed the city of a chunk of its character. The seedy and bawdy 42nd Street of the past has for certain been replaced by a wholesome mainstream environment, so much so that it is considered in some circles to be somewhat of a “Disneyland in New York“. Chain businesses abound where smaller, more distinctive (for better or worse…) businesses once existed, the former concentration of adult businesses along 42nd Street seems to have relocated itself primarily along 8th Avenue and in the case of adult book / video / DVD stores, it appears they must also be required to carry mainstream merchandise as well in order to be allowed to exist.

But the adult business was never ALL what 42nd Street was about, there were a good number of independent movie theaters that ran independent, low-budget, import and avant-garde “art” films and 42nd Street was an important part of the business models for many independent filmmakers for many years. Nowadays the smaller filmmakers are left to scavange for venues, other than perhaps well-known “art-theaters” in other parts of town, such as The Angelikas, Film Forum and Two Boots Pioneer Theater.

As an aside, the night I made the photograph above I had just come out of seeing Dark Knight at a Multiplex chain theater - 25 theaters on 6 floors to be exact and mine was on the top floor - it took like 10 minutes each way to get up and down!

There is an excellent section of the online New York History which details segments of the history of 42nd Street and Times Square:

New York History | Sex, money, and politics at the crossroads of the world | by Marc Eliot

“The history of the Times and Chrysler buildings, mayors Ed Koch, Jimmy Walker, Fiorello Henry La Guardia, and lots of other engaging details about the world’s most notorious intersection (back when Times Square was!).”

…read more…

As far as production might be concerned, a little common sense is in order. 42nd Street is literally “crossroads of the world” so if your crew is of any appreciable size with any number of vehicles involved, you are are liable to relegated to shooting on a weekend very early morning.

The New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting (MOFTB) issues film / video / photo permits needed for filming in New York City, which of course, include 42nd Street and Times Square.

NYC MOFTB News: New MOFTB Rules in Effect

Times Square, New York City, NY on Flickr

PLEASE NOTE POST IN PROGRESS! (pardon our debris

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Summertime Easy Livin’ / Bucks County, PA | Featured Location: Restored 1792 Grist Mill House Location - Bucks County, PA | 45908

“Featured Location: Restored 1792 Grist Mill House Location - Bucks County, PA | 45908 is currently available as a location for film, photo and video / tv.”

…Find out more about this remarkable Bucks County, PA residential location for film / photo / video|tv…

…more Bucks County, PA content…

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Rutherford, NJ is a great “Anytown, USA” location!

Park Avenue in Rutherford, NJ at Dusk

• Within the New York City Film Zone
• Contact Borough Clerk for Film Permits (Rutherford Borough Website)
• There is a castle in Rutherford! *William Neumann, Chairman of the Rutherford Historic Preservation Commission and a life-long resident, is also the unofficial Rutherford Film Commission.

…Neumann adds, “… Rutherford also has an artificial turf exhibition stadium in the middle of a large recreation area (just had some filming done there), an equity performing arts center with two stages and three screening rooms, a rowing club on the Passaic River used by Olympic teams for practice, a small college campus with a vacant library building, dorm rooms, small gym and a castle, an architecturally wonderful train station in the middle of a town square, a comfortably vibrant downtown with interesting restaurant interiors, a picturesque town hall with nice old-fashion council chambers, several schools that date to over 100 yrs, a very diverse housing stock and landscape with a lot of 1920’s Foursquares and 1880 Queen Annes, a district of quaint semi-un-molested Cape Cods, a small district of Meadowlands, two large isolated office buildings, a nearby small commercial (Teterboro) airport, connections to all major roads and highways…

…and a film friendly atmosphere that has hosted many commercial, industrial, advertising, TV and feature productions.

If I can add anything more, please know I’m at your service.

- Billy (oh… and we are right across the river from Rutt’s Hut!)”

• Rutherford, NJ Wikipedia page
• Photos of Rutherford, NJ at Flickr
• Rutherford, NJ Google Images search

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Click the photo for a better view

Yes, folks, it seems “Spring has sprung” in the lower Hudson Valley of New York State and New Jersey - the trees are budding, many trees / plants have leaves and / or blooms at this point - heck, the Forsythia flowers are going to start getting old and dropping off soon!

Harriman State Park is a local wilderness gem for outdoors-loving urbanites and suburbanites as well as filmmakers and photographers (…and of course, location scouts!

From Wikipedia:

“At 46,613 acres (186.4 km²), Harriman State Park is one of the largest state parks in New York. Located in Rockland and Orange counties 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City, it is a haven for hikers with over 200 miles (320 km) of hiking trails. The park is also known for its 31 lakes, multiple streams, public camping area, and great vistas. The park’s hiking trails are currently maintained by volunteers from the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference. On its northeastern edge, Harriman State Park borders the smaller Bear Mountain State Park.”

Harriman State Park, NY - from Wikimedia Commons
Click the photo for a better view

…read the rest…

The center of Harriman State Park is, “41.5 mi – about 1 hour 2 mins - up to 1 hour 30 mins in traffic” (per Google Maps) - which is, indeed, outside the 25 mile New York City film zone, but for some just-slightly less travel-distance-minded shoots - it may well be a moot point anyway?

Film / photo permit applications are obtained from the Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC) at the Bear Mountain Ranger Station in Bear Mountain State Park, which borders Harriman State Park’s northeast corner. You should contact PIPC with details of your shoot and they will determine applicable permit fees, which may include fees to have park staff supervise your shoot. I have always found the Harriman State Park photo/ film permit fees to be very reasonable and affordable and PIPC and park staff very knowledgeable and helpful. Depending on the scope of your production, you’ll have to work with PIPC to make sure they will be able to accommodate you with regard to their ability to schedule their limited staff for possible additional duty. Time must also be allowed for processing your permit application. I have always been amazed at PIPC’s efficiency and expedience processing my permit applications, but as much lead time as possible should be allowed for PIPC to do their jobs to process your permit application.

Filming is generally restricted to areas accessible to the general public and careful consideration should be given toward not only vigilantly protecting the park’s natural environment but also the impact your production may have on the enjoyment of the park’s resources by the general public. That said, there may also be restrictions on shoot times and dates, particularly with regard to weekends, major holidays and possible existing scheduled public events.

The absolute *best* course of action would be to hire a professional location scout / location manager to take care of all the details for you!

Since the park is close to New York City and adjacent to thriving business areas outside the city itself, there are plentiful options for overnight accommodations if needed, including a hotel at Bear Mountain. This hotel I am talking about at Bear Mountain State Park is nothing fancy from what I remember but there are definitely “corporate level” hotel chains represented in the area too.

Bear Mountain is also home to the historic Bear Mountain Inn, which, however, is currently closed for renovations. Contact the park office at the Bear Mountain Ranger Station for further details.

A little further north, the Thayer Hotel at West Point, NY (home of the United States Military Academy) is distinctive and elegant.

For more accommodations ideas go Googling or “let your fingers do the walking“.

The small towns along the banks of the Hudson River near Harriman State Park and other small towns that dot the rest of the perimeter of the park represent a diverse demographic range, so there are catering and dining options available to suit many culinary or budgetary parameters.

General shopping is available in the area locally along main thoroughfares and there are two major shopping malls in the area, Palisades Center in West Nyack, NY and the Woodbury Common shopping area off New York Thruway Exit 16. If you take Route 17 into New Jersey to the Paramus area, the Paramus, NJ shopping corridor, one of the largest shopping districts in the nation, is available about 30 minutes away. There is shopping all along Route 17 down to Paramus to its major crossroad at Route 4. Route 4 east or west of Route 17 is a major thoroughfare and Route 17 continues south to its terminus in Lyndhurst, NJ.

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The nyc.locationscout.us header photograph (also shown below) depicts part of the elevated roadway section of the Brooklyn - Queens Expressway (BQE or I-278) from ground level along northern Hamilton Avenue in Brooklyn that follows underneath the route of the BQE for a distance as they both snake thru Brooklyn, NY.

As its name suggests, the BQE is an expressway that connects the New York City boroughs (or “boros”) of Brooklyn and Queens.

On a recent location scouting assignment that included the adventure of driving multiple times all over many sections of Brooklyn and Queens, while passing by the area shown (as well as other sections of the BQE viewable from underneath), I was somehow taken the by the graphic juxtaposition of the graceful curve(s) of the road the BQE creates as it meanders along overhead and enormity of the trusses against the general grittiness and otherwise nondescript “ordinariness” of the many industrial areas underneath the BQE.* For me, the drizzly, gray, overcast day adds to the moodiness and melancholy - but I would love to have an opportunity to go back on a clear day, maybe a very late afternoon or early morning - maybe there are long streaks of sunlight that come streaming thru the trusses and create patterns of light and shadow on the environment below?

*The necessary cropping of the header photo from the original does little highlight these features - I believe the original composition illustrates it much better, so the original is included below:

Click either image for a better view
The BQE roadway up top is what you would expect on a major thoroughfare thru a very large city - multiple lanes and possible potholes, not as rough as that icon of bad road, BQE’s evil sister, the Cross Bronx Expressway - at various times traffic (usually) moving at a brisk pace, during which there will be the usual hot-doggers and tail-gaters, other times slowed to a crawl such as in the thick of weekday rush hours, accidents, construction or “police activity”. …lots of photos taken along the BQE…

From a location scout’s or a filmmaker’s point of view, my synopsis of the BQE would be, “urban, gritty, iconic New York City outer boros or ‘Manhattan-from-a-distance’ (some very impressive skyline views of Manhattan can be experienced while travelling on the elevated sections of the BQE…)”; you see more rooftops of 3-4 story buildings typical of many residential areas of New York City (which, if you didn’t know, includes the 5 boros of Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island…) than you can shake a stick at - ..”tar beaches“, boiler / furnace vents, all manner of rickety - looking tv antennae of every size cocked at every angle, satellite dishes, power and telephone wires, items tossed onto the roofs and forgotten about: shoes, soft drink cans / bottles, items of clothing, balls, etc… all of course covered with layers of soot and grime from oil furnaces and the daily exhaust of thousands of automobiles and trucks passing by…

From a production logistics point of view, other than low or non-impact vehicle-to-vehicle “running shots” or vehicle-to-environment (typically establishing shots or b-roll), actually filming on the BQE would seem to be a proposition that, while not necessarily impossible would likely be met initially with some hesitance by the many entities likely to be required to cooperate and assist, all the way from U.S. Department of Transportation (the BQE (I-278) is a spur of interstate highway I-78 and therefore under federal jurisdiction…) to likely the New York State Department of Transportation, New York City Department of Transportation, New York State Police, definitely the New York State Film Office, New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcast (MOFTB) and probably New York City Police Department Special Operations / TV / Movie Unit (if for no other reason than to possibly coordinate local traffic on city streets with regard to exits / on-ramps to / from the BQE on-ramp / exit ramps to / from local city streets). …and this is probably not a complete list…

If allowed at all, filming would likely be required to occur on a day or night of lowest anticipated vehicle traffic and impact on day-to-day normal activity, i.e. perhaps a very early Sunday morning or “apres” hours late evening and filming would likely need to be coordinated to allow one or more lanes of traffic to be either open at all times or quickly opened as needed so as to allow traffic to pass thru or around the set periodically - no filmmaker, photographer, producer or location manager should ever dream they are going to completely “own” a stretch of high volume interstate / inner city expressway for any extended length of time.

Suggestion: allow plenty of lead time for preproduction - expect lots of film permits and paperwork, hire the best location manager and location scouts you can find, be prepared to make lots of concessions in the interest of the welfare of the general public… and - oh, yeah… - bring a checkbook

At least one feature film is mentioned prominently as featuring the BQE - 1990’s Quick Change:

…via Wikipedia: Brooklyn - Queens Expressway…

“Motorists may encounter difficulity finding an entrance onto the BQE from Brooklyn side streets, as illustrated in the 1990 movie, Quick Change, starring Bill Murray. Murray and his cohorts escape from their Manhattan bank robbery in their getaway car, only to take the wrong turn from the BQE — they are unable to get back on. Murray finds a sign reading “To I-278,” but the arrow at the bottom of the sign rotates around, and around. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway is infamous for rush hour traffic congestion.”

Original graphic from Wikimedia Commons

Additional Linkage:

Flickr Photo Search: “Brooklyn Queens Expressway”

BQE Watch Blog

BQE at Gowanus Lounge

Bridge and Tunnel Club

Old NYC BQE in DUMBO Virtual Tour

BQE at StreetsBlog

Google Search using terms “Brooklyn - Queens Expressway” and “film location”

Flickr Slideshow - BQE

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Hardly anyone, leastly a location scout would argue that New York City has a boring skyline!

What’s very kewl too is there are lots and lots of places to view the NYC skyline from many angles.

Manhattan Skyline, NYC (c) nyc.locationscout.us

NYC Rooftops and Views contains some examples of some great cityscape locations available for film, photo, video and events.

FAQs

Information For Production Personnel

Location Research Guide

Location Request Questionnaire

Location Scouting and PreProduction Tips: VideoMaker.com

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From time to time I get film location services requests regarding filming in the NYC Subway.

Here is some info that might help you get started and understand some of what is involved.

Note - 2/17/2008: Some more editing and another bump
Note - 2/16/2008: this post was originally from April 19, 2007 @ 11:39 from the old locationscout.us.

I am bumping this post up because it accompanies the current image on the front of the website.

Full disclosure: The photo is NOT from a film shoot, it is a simple “passerby” photo of a train platform in Grand Central Station sans tripod, using available light, which, to the best of my knowledge, is an “allowed activity”. Just in case anybody is wondering, additionally, I believe the photo serves to illustrate this post, which I believe is of valid news, informational and redeeming social value, under which freedom of the press allows a number of rights to individuals engaging in such activities.

To the best of my additional knowledge, a “proper” film or photo shoot (i.e. including a number of crew, talent, electrical, stationary lighting, tripod, sound equipment, etc.) under most circumstances, would likely NOT be allowed by MTA on the Grand Central platform, although the Wikipedia page for Grand Central Subway Station states, “This station was used in a famous scene in the 1971 film The French Connection.” and this page on the MTA website lists a number of “film/TV productions featuring NYC Transit Subways or Buses” my own personal experience is that filming is only allowed, as MTA might deem appropriate, at a disused or otherwise secluded platform, presumably, with regard toward maintaining a high level of service for the transit system’s actual intended purpose of getting people from point “A” to point “B” safely and quickly as well as with the MTA ridership’s personal privacy in mind.

So if you would like to close Grand Central for your shoot (some food for thought?):

1. Bring lots of cash
2. Assume you will be filming in the wee hours, if at all
3. Would doubt seriously if it would hurt if your production was a popular tv show or big-budget mainstream feature with a household-name director and/or star(s) on the roster

Further disclosure: Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy(s) of MTA or the City of New York.

Contact MTA for more info.

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