The Stray Cats of New York City

Spend enough time in any part of the city and you’ll start noticing the resident stray cats foraging when no one is around. We’re getting ready to shoot in a park on the East Side, and every day, I’ve noticed these two guys running around. They’ve been very shy but seem hungry.

Cats 01

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Frenchie’s Gym – Not Your Local Crunch

Hidden on the second floor of this building adjacent to the JMZ elevated train line in South Williamsburg is Frenchie’s Gym, a slice of authentic old school Brooklyn culture that has somehow managed to avoid the gentrification wrecking ball rapidly swinging toward it.

Gym Ext 01

Blink and you’ll miss it. From the ground level, the only evidence of a gym is this red awning over a wooden door. No neon signs with enormous fist icons, eXtreme in-your-face fonts, or toned girls with clipboards trying to sucker you into trading your soul for a duffel bag.

Gym Ext 03

But to those that look closely, the door alone should give an early indication that Frenchie’s has infinitely more character than any modern gym you’ll find anywhere in New York City. Old polished wood, worn with age, surrounds chicken-wire glass. The type of door they don’t make anymore. The type of door no one would ever put on a modern gym.

Gym Ext 04

This is the kind of door that reminds me of a Raymond Chandler novel – private dick Philip Marlowe standing in front of it, hand on the knob, sucking on a cigarette and debating whether or not the low pay he’s getting for the case is worth the risk of going upstairs to question a suspect who looks like the guy on the glass.

Of course, Marlowe would go up, and I had to too.

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My Car Is Not An Ashtray

Yesterday, we shot overnight in a somewhat sketchy section of Brooklyn. Today, I was in charge of wrapping out the location – basically, babysitting while the electrics and grips gather their equipment from the previous night. It was raining, so I spent a lot of the day parked in my car.

At around 8 AM, this Hassidic Jewish guy showed up on the sidewalk . . .

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Mercedes on Church St

Great Mercedes I saw parked on Church St south of Canal – anyone know anything about its make?

car

Also, modern cars should still have dual enormous horns visibly attached to the outside.

-SCOUT

Remnants of the Old W-burg Shopping Districts

I love seeing these signs gracing lamp poles in the North Williamsburg area because, to my understanding, they were put up long before the area went through its current day gentrification.  Sort of like if you put in shopping district signs, maybe a shopping district will follow?

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The Oscars of Greeting Cards

I was talking with the owner of a building the other day about getting shooting access. As it turns out, his main business is in greeting cards. I never knew it, but apparently, this is the award a group like Hallmark wants to win for designing a perfect greeting card – the Louie Award.

greeting card . . .

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