The World At Large

The New York Times has a feature up where they're letting readers ask questions of a location scout who works in New York.  The answers aren't up yet, but the questions are delightful.  For example:

I work on Water Street and John, across from what still is, but will no longer identify itself as the AIG building. Frequently assembled there are the various trucks you see at movie shoots, yet I can’t imagine what fascination this area would hold for anyone; and it only becomes more of a corporate wasteland as you proceed down Water, toward the Battery. What are they doing here?

Then there's local pride:

Hi Nick, don’t underestimate the cool spots in Hudson County, located right across the river in NJ. Don’t forget that On the Waterfront (an amazing movie) was filled in Hoboken!

And moral:

In these tough ecnonomic times, it would be nice if the cast/crews were given per diem to patronize local eating establishments–has this ever been considered? I saw a film crew on my area set up a catering tent in front of a deli that has been there 15 years. Disrespectful I think.

Envious:

Why are NYC apartments in movies so much larger than any apartment anyone I’ve ever met actually live in? Is it because the average NYC walk up is too tiny to fit a crew, lights, etc., or is it just that people in the rest of the world would not relate to a character who lived in a studio with a loft bed and no closet?

And ultimately fed up:

Can you please influence some of your clients to stop shooting in Greenpoint, Brooklyn? We’re sick of it. Thank you.

In my frequent tirades about the dullness of movies based in Los Angeles and New York, about the hunger those of us in other parts of this world to see the places that are beloved and familiar to us on film, I think I forget that it's possible to overlook vast swaths of those great metropolises.  It's been interesting to me to see the praise lavished on movies like (500) Day of Summer and Greenberg simply for being set in those comparatively quiet and lovely parts of Los Angeles like Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Echo Park.  There's so much to cities.  It's a pity films often seem determined to see so little.