Yonkers film industry sees boom in location shoots, but lacks production facilities
Thirteen years ago, Kohle Yohannan received a knock on the iron door of his 20th Century castle in Yonkers.
His visitors were members of a production team for the movie “Mona Lisa Smile,” who inquired about using his then-dilapidated manor, known as Greystone Court, as a location for the film.
Yohannan said yes and worked out a deal to allow a film crew to stage parts of a movie on his property. It was the beginning of a lucrative formula that made it possible to restore and renovate the 28-room estate.
“Historic buildings deserve the right to outlive us all and pop culture”™s willing to help you pay for that,” Yohannan, a cultural historian and writer, said. “This should have taken me 25 years to renovate, but with the film and photo shoots, it expedited the process in a way I never could have guessed.”
Yohannan is one of many Yonkers residents who have benefitted from the surge of location scouting in Yonkers for movies, TV shows, photo shoots and music videos. His property is booked annually for at least two films and six to 10 photo shoots for advertising or editorial publications. The daily costs to rent the castle can range from $5,000 to $20,000.
“We”™ve got everyone from the biggest pop stars, to the most important directors, to the biggest advertising people and they”™re jockeying for a piece of Yonkers. That”™s a pretty cool thing,” Yohannan said. “You couldn”™t have said that 10 years ago; people would laugh at you.”
When Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano took office in 2012, one of his first initiatives was to revamp the city”™s film office to attract more production business to Yonkers.
“We had 35 days of filming happen in 2011,” Spano said. To find a way to increase that, the mayor said he “asked the governor”™s film office to come down and help us.”
The state suggested a few key changes. The city eliminated a permit fee and hired one person to run it”™s film office and be the point of contact for production crews.
- Inside Yonkers City Hall is an unused courtroom often booked for various productions. Here is how HBO used this room for its miniseries “Show Me a Hero.”
The contact person who has helped usher in this new era for Yonkers as a prime real estate for Hollywood”™s cameras is Melissa Velez-Goldberg, who has been the director of the city”™s film office since April 2013. Her office is known as the one-stop shop for anyone looking to film in the city, eliminating the need for location scouts and production crews to have to contact multiple departments. Velez-Goldberg connects them with homeowners and businesses and helps figure out parking and police presence, when necessary.
By eliminating the filming permit fee, Yonkers created a financial incentive to attract production crews away from nearby municipalities, namely New York City, where there are additional fees for the application and first-time projects.
Crews looking to use Yonkers as a backdrop can expect one fee for the location paid to the owner of the property at which the production takes place. That expense ranges depending on the size of the crew, the nature of the scene and the amount of time spent using the space.
“It was just doing a couple of simple things like that that made an impact,” Spano said.
Between 2012 and 2014, there was a 61 percent increase in film permits administered in Yonkers. For 2015, the mayor”™s office said it has collected more than $100,000 in location fees for crews using public property in the city.
While the city and homeowners who rent their properties for filming have seen a boom in the local industry, the city”™s efforts have not included the principals of the only existing soundstage in the city, who say they were evicted earlier this year.
Roger Paradiso and Michael Tadross, partners and producers at Greenwich Street Productions, ran that soundstage off Tuckahoe Road, called Yonkers Stage. They said they were told by the property”™s owners in September 2014 that it was being sold to a distribution developer for FedEx.
Yonkers Stage ”” a 16-year-old facility that was the site of the press conference for Spano”™s film office rejuvenation announcement in September 2012 ”” was given a nine-month eviction notice in September 2014 by the property owners, Royal Ahold, a Dutch food conglomerate that owns the Stop and Shop supermarket chain, because it decided to sell the property to FedEx Corp.
As part of the plan for the FedEx facility, the shipping company will receive up to $2.33 million in sales tax exemptions on construction materials and tax rebate on the property, according to documents with the city”™s Industrial Development Agency.
Spano, the chairman of the Industrial Development Agency, was absent the day in July when the rebates were voted on and granted by the agency.
“(We) had our best years in the last five years and we were promised support from the mayor,” Paradiso said. “We brought a lot to the community; we liked the community. We tried to help and we feel we were unceremoniously dumped.”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jeoUFfAhQE[/youtube]
The producers said the city would help them find a new home for Yonkers Stage and showed them a couple of options, but nothing came of it.
“The city didn”™t make a lot of effort,” Paradiso said, and city officials “have not called us since the day we left in April” of this year.
Christina Gilmartin, spokeswoman for the mayor”™s office, said she was not aware of a relocation promise to Yonkers Stage, but said the mayor and other departments would help anyone who can identify a possible location for a new soundstage.
Velez-Goldberg said she hasn”™t been privy to all of the conversations, but said the city”™s planning department “has been working with a few developers who are interested in possibly having a soundstage here.”
“It”™s something that we want and we”™re pushing for it,” she said, “but there”™s so much that goes along with it,” including zoning and permits.
Owen Holland ”” whose Yonkers-based business, Action Camera Cars Inc., uses retrofitted vehicles with cranes and camera equipment to film chases and actions scenes ”” said the city should be doing more to complement the movie industry with set places to stage scenes and have green screen options.
“The amount of work in New York right now is at critical mass. There”™s literally no more studios available,” he said. “To make the most of it, they”™d need a studio here.”
Despite a lack of soundstages, Yonkers has attracted some high-profile films and television shows in recent years.
In a case of profits wrung from art illustrating life, the recent HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero” was filmed where the story it depicts took place ”” in Yonkers. The series, which chronicles the controversial Yonkers low-income housing conflict of the 1980s and 90”™s, took months to film as crews bounced from City Hall to the courtroom to downtown housing complexes.
The city has also provided settings for NBC”™s The Blacklist and HBO”™s Boardwalk Empire, which have filmed multiple episodes in Yonkers. Most recently, Robert De Niro was in the city to shoot a forthcoming feature film about Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.
Taking their cue from Yonkers”™s recent success, nearby municipalities are looking to tap into the burgeoning film market as well.
The White Plains Common Council passed legislation in October to help streamline the film permit process by establishing a fee policy for productions. In a letter to members of the council, Mayor Thomas M. Roach said he hopes the change will bring more film companies to White Plains.
Even with such measures in place elsewhere, Velez-Goldberg said she doesn”™t consider municipalities to be in competition with each other.
“If we don”™t have it, we”™ll send (film projects) to the neighboring town or county,” she said. “There”™s certain things that we just don”™t have in Yonkers and we work together with the county and the state and we help each other out.”