| Hollywood ‘Weekends’
in Turtle Bay If you were surprised and curious one weekend last spring to find East 47th Street from First to Second Avenues completely filled with huge white trailers and trucks, even spilling around the corner on to Second Avenue, you might have been even more surprised to learn that they belonged to moviemakers from Universal Pictures. And that they would be in Turtle Bay for the next 15 weekends, producing the first film ever made inside the United Nations buildings. The movie, called “The Interpreter,” is billed as a suspense thriller. Scheduled for release early next year, it stars Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and is directed by Sydney Pollack, who has set the standard for the genre. Permission to film inside the United Nations involved a great deal of negotiation on the part of Mr. Pollack and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was instrumental in persuading officials from the U.N. General Assembly and the Security Council to give the production team the unprecedented access. The entire film was shot in New York City, thanks to the efforts of Governor Pataki, New York City officials, unions, local vendors, as well as Universal Pictures, which reversed earlier plans to shoot some of the scenes in other locations. Thus, according to Mayor Bloomberg, the filming has meant “hundreds of additional jobs for New Yorkers, and millions more (dollars) for our local economy.” And since the film’s crew and stars were in Turtle Bay for a full 16 weekends, neighborhood businesses surely were among those that benefited. The “Interpreter” is the story of an African-born U.N. interpreter (Nicole Kidman) who inadvertently overhears a death threat against an African head of state scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly, and realizes that she has become a target as well. Sean Penn plays the federal agent charged with protecting her, but who suspects that she may not be telling the whole truth. For Turtle Bay residents living near the United Nations, the weekends of shooting the movie were “suspense thrillers” in and of themselves. There was the scene of two police helicopters chasing boats down the East River as a third, larger, helicopter filmed the action from above. There was the scene of a motorcade, lights flashing, leaving the United Nations front entrance under heavy guard of New York police – extras hired for the day – lining both sides of First Avenue. And there was a whole team of extras acting as demonstrators at the corner of First Avenue and Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Park, not unlike the real thing except they chanted precisely on cue, only to lay down their placards and take a break between camera shots. The movie is currently scheduled to open on February 18, 2005. Meanwhile, the mystery of the big white trucks and trailers has been solved: They contained dressing rooms, kitchens, beauty salons, gyms and equipment storage. By arrangement with the United Nations, which restricted all filming inside the U.N. buildings to weekends, the trucks also used our Turtle Bay space only on weekends, moving around the city for the rest of the week.
The Turtle Bay Association is a nonprofit (501c3) community organization.
224 East 47th Street, New York City 10017 |
