Photo Courtesy of Curbed
MTV has begun moving equipment to the top floor of Pier 41 in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn New York on 204 Van Dyke Street for the 21st season of The Real World set to film in early September 2008.
Equipment was being setup at the BellTel Lofts, but problems getting the permits for construction and the delay it was causing to the shooting schedule for The Real World Brooklyn, a new location was sought.
The first option MTV sought was in Carroll Gardens at 116 Third Place over a week ago but negotiations broke down due to logistics.
Plan C was enacted quickly focusing in the Red Hook area to what has been described as a building that has been completed since 2006 but has had difficulty selling.
The BellTel Board contacted the MM Agency stating, “At this point we really don’t care. Here today gone tomorrow and vice-versa. We’re moving on! It’s just another show that really does not impact us. I wish them luck where ever they go even if they come back here. RW is just another business, it just happens to be show business.”
Businesses in the Red Hook area have already been approached to sign confidentiality agreements from Viacom, parent company of MTV, such as the Bait and Tackle bar.
This wouldn’t be the first filming in the building on 204 Van Dyke Street as it was used in 2004 to film the bar scene in the Will Smith movie, Hitch.
Photo Courtesy of Columbia Pictures
Related posts:
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll visit the site hopefully sometime this week. Will get back to you with the details!
I visited Red Hook on Saturday, August 16. I took some pics of the New York and Back to New York residences for Wikipedia, and decided to do the same with Pier 41.
What a fucking shithole of a neighborhood. I mean, there is NOTHING of interest there. A bunch of houses mixed in with warehouses. The neighborhood is even referring to as “residustrial” by a local artist. There are no stores or restaurants around, the streets are so worn down that the cobblestone underneath is exposed, and if you want to go anything, you have to take the bus or walk a long while to either other parts of Brooklyn or go into Manhattan. (I wonder if the production will provide cars for the cast mates.) The only two things of any value are the nice Fairway supermarket, and the IKEA store on Beard St. where people can take a free bus to the nearest subway stop, or the free water taxi to Manhattan. It’s amazing to me to consider that people actually opposed the building of the IKEA, when you consider how it’s pretty much the only attraction to this dump. Compare this to the New York residence, which is right in SoHo, on Broadway, two blocks from the Angelika, or the Back to New York residence, which is in Greenwich Village, both of which are bustling places of tourism, commerce, recreation, etc. I feel sorry for the Brooklyn cast. Aside from having a waterfront view of the Statue of Liberty, they’re getting gypped.
You are either a very uniformed person or just insanely negative. Prolly both. But thats fine. They couldnt havent gotten a better place and every single person who worked on this production was quite aware, including the cast. This space was a huge coup for MTV. Why do you think they packed their bags and ran away from their original location?!
Because they had trouble securing permits for construction. So what? What does this have to do with the poor quality of that neighborhood?
Here Here…I guess I’ll see this for myself later in the week but even getting there looks like is going to be a hassle
Yeah, really. I took the subway from Manhattan to get there, and walked from the nearest subway stop to the pier. It was like 30-40 minutes. Luckily, I was able to take the free water taxi from Ikea to Wall Street to go back. You can see the pics I took of all three seasons’ residences at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Real_World.
This is right near the wonderful Red Hook projects. I wonder how MTV will edit the shots to show this secluded area as bustling and attractive. Oh, that’s right…they won’t. They’ll have the cast in other parts of Brooklyn and the uninformed viewer will assume they are near their residence.
Red Hook is just one of many extremely cool parts of Brooklyn .It is like an oasis from every other part however. An amzingly funky yet connected area. One step in the space chosen by MTV on Pier 41 and i’m sure they gave the order to try like hell to get it. I’m also sure (and I know personally) they were thrilled to find out that the space come with many other MAJOR perks. The deal was sealed within a week and everyone was quite happy.
An oasis? More like a mirage. Walking and walking through Brooklyn to find this one spot, and when I got there, there really wasn’t anything there. That describes it perfectly.
{ 1 trackback }