Matt Damon Filming Throws Cold Water on Tribeca Fundraiser
By Carl Glassman
Cloudy skies brought a drizzle to Tribeca on Sunday morning, Oct. 18. Matt Damon brought a deluge.
Fake downpours on an already damp day whipped through the neighborhood from Duane Street to Harrison. It was the storm created for a scene in “The Adjustment Bureau,” a sci-fi romance being filmed Oct. 18 on alley-like Staple Street. In the brief scene, which required many takes, Damon dashes into the rain and down the street.
The ersatz rain appears to have dampened the success of Friends of Duane Park’s major fundraiser, the group’s 10th self-guided loft tour.
“Here comes the rain!” production assistants shouted from street corners throughout the day, halting passersby and warning of the next 45-second drenching from multiple sprayheads afixed to cranes 10 stories high.
But in tents set up in Duane Park, where volunteers sold tickets and took shelter from the “storm,” no amount of warning could make up for the loss of sales, according to Karie Parker Davidson, who helped organize the event for the park group.
“Because they’re making it rain in the park nobody is even walking over here to see what’s going on,” Davidson said as she sold tickets between downpours. “You have to walk through a rain storm to get here. All that foot traffic on Greenwich, they just figure we’re part of the film.”
That morning, Davidson had tried in vain to find an alternate location for ticket sales, and for a meeting place where the tour’s 125 volunteers could get their assignments.
“Some of our volunteers are not spring chickens,’ she said. “I was trying to make sure people weren’t standing in a man-made rain effect in 40 degree weather and sneezing on our guests.” She said a banner for the event, which hung in the park for at least two weeks, should have alerted the locations crew to the event.
Davidson estimated that ticket sales, which support maintenance of the park and will help pay for a new watering system, were down about 35 percent from the previous year. Some of that, she acknowledged, was due to the weather and the economy. But she blamed the filming for $5,000 of the loss.
In addition, she said, a crane and other equipment parked in front of 171 Duane Street, adjacent to Staple Street and one of the buildings on the tour, prevented tourtakers from entering. She encouraged ticket buyers to view that apartment while the crew broke for lunch.
Some people on the loft tour, Davidson said, complained that production assistants stopped them from crossing Staple Street as they tried to get to a Harrison Street loft, only to be doused while they waited.
The Friday before the event, Davidson said, she brought her concerns to a locations crew member, who told her the production would “up” its contribution to the park group to $1,000.
“I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,” Davidson recalled, adding that she had been unaware of any offer in the first place.
“If it were any other day I would be really happy with a thousand dollar donaton,” Davidson said, “but when you have a fundraiser that is now set for every two years because of the time and energy required and you create a massive rain effect that basically rains out the event, if you can’t make us whole at least meet us half way.”
As a compromise, Davidson asked for a $2,500 donation from Hundreds of Hats Productions, Inc., the company making the film. A week later they agreed.
"The film company seems to be coming through," Davidson told the Trib on Monday. "A silver lining."
Representatives of the film's locations department declined to comment.
According to Variety, the entertainment trade publication, “The Adjustment Bureau” has a budget of more than $60 million.
Noah Pfefferblit, district manager of Community Board 1, said the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting forwards copies of more than two dozen film permit requests to his office each month, most for small productions that merit little scrutiny. Pfefferblit said he thought “The Adjustment Bureau” shoot was just another one of those.
“It just said the scene will feature exteriors scenes at Staple and Jay Streets,” Pfefferblit said of the permit request, received two days before the shoot. “There’s nothing to indicate there would be anything out of the ordinary.”