imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Sunday, November 06, 2005
BLEECKER STREET BATTLEGROUND
Oh goody, Oliver Stone is doing a movie about 9/11. That alone is an abomination. He's been filming on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, and the merchants there are up in arms. Normal business (picture left) has ceased and become "so hellish, they may as well be in a Stone movie."
STONE FLICK RATTLING VILLAGE
(Note: Link will be timed out by tomorrow.)
"We don't have any business today because they have closed the roads," Boris Stein, owner of cafe Village Delight, fumed to PAGE SIX's Beth Landman. "I'm so angry, I am calling my lawyer."
"I may be a lesbian, but I have three kids to feed," wailed Aprile Gardner, owner of furniture store Davis & Gardner. "I'm bitching because Oliver Stone and Nicolas Cage are disrupting the West Village. They blocked all of our businesses, they are kicking over mailboxes and they are loud.
"They have taken over the neighborhood. I'm p- - - -d. They all live in L.A., and they are taking advantage of New Yorkers. Oliver Stone - I'm not impressed. Billy Bob Thornton is coming down to shoot [a different movie] next week, but he has warned us ahead of time and is compensating us."
David Shebiro, owner of music store Rebel, Rebel, held the phone away from his ear so we could hear the whirring motor of a bus being used on the Stone set. "Listen to that," he said. "It's like a [bleep]ing airplane. The police would ticket someone else. The city gets compensated, but city people suffer. I'm sitting here idle. There's nobody in my shop."
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A spokesman for the production said Stone was unaware of any unhappiness. "The makers of this film have gone to extraordinary lengths to be sensitive to New Yorkers in both the scheduling and locations for the local production," the flack said.
"Thanks to PAGE SIX for bringing this to our attention. The production staff is now reaching out to the store owners to apologize and make satisfactory arrangements for possible loss of business."
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