Netfl ix opening new East Williamsburg studio
RAMOS
think I have ever had an experience
where everything was
all about me. It gave me everything
I never knew I needed.”
COURIER L 24 IFE, JULY 23-29, 2021
In her new offi ce, Ramos
surprised Steinweiss with
framed lyrics to his song “The
Good and the Bad,” which is
about their journey together.
Steinweiss said she hopes
the show, more than anything,
will highlight the importance
of an arts education in city public
schools, where many of the
programs have been gutted.
“There were a lot of
changes in the Department of
Education,” said Steinweiss,
who taught within the agency
for over 13 years before resigning
in 2011. “And this program
that Anthony was a part of,
this beautiful program that I
built for 13 years, they closed
the program.”
After a brief stint in former
City Councilmember Vincent
Gentile’s offi ce, Steinweiss
went back to her roots, opening
her own business in 2016
where she trains teachers and
students in arts education.
“It is a necessity,” she
said. “It shouldn’t be an afterthought,
it shouldn’t be an after
school program.”
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Lights, camera, Brooklyn!
Netfl ix will open a new
production studio in Brooklyn
in September, Bloomberg
reports, in a massive space
where it will produce fi lms
and TV shows.
The 170,000-square-foot facility
at 333 Johnson Ave., a
warehouse-laden section of
East Williamsburg, will boast
six sound stages, as well as editing
and meeting rooms. Two
shows are set to be fi lmed at
the site to inaugurate its opening.
The streaming giant is
also in the process of opening
a new, 100,000-square-foot
Manhattan offi ce near Union
Square. The company currently
subleases offi ce space
from Twitter in Chelsea.
Netfl ix benefi tted from $4
million in state tax credits
over 10 years to build the new
offi ce and studio, conditioned
on their creating at least 127
jobs at the new offi ce by 2024,
in addition to the 32 jobs the
company already had in the
city in 2019, and retaining
them for at least fi ve years after
that. When the project was
announced in 2019, Gov. Andrew
Cuomo said it was expected
to bring $100 million of
investment and thousands of
jobs to the city.
Netfl ix has fi lmed plenty of
movies and shows in Brooklyn
in recent years, including “Unorthodox”
and “Grand Army.”
Netfl ix has received numerous
state tax credits for fi lm and
TV production: just in the fi rst
quarter of 2021, the state issued
over $33 million of tax credits
to the streaming giant for one
fi lm and three TV series shot
in the Empire State, according
to a report from Empire State
Development, the state’s economic
development arm.
A spokesperson for ESD
could not provide details on the
present number of Netfl ix employees
in the city, nor could a
rep for the Mayor’s Offi ce of Media
and Entertainment. Representatives
for Netfl ix did not respond
to requests for comment.
A rep told Bloomberg that
the company plans to hire locally
for production crews and
to patronize local businesses
for meals.
Red Hook-based indie fi lmmaker
Elias Plagianos, whose
works include “Distemper”
and “Sombra City” and who
fi lmed a TV pilot called “Hudson
Falls” during the pandemic,
says that he’s excited
to see Netfl ix set up shop in
Brooklyn, and believes it’s a
sign of New York’s increasing
status as a fi lm hub.
“This Netfl ix Studio is another
move in the right direction
and makes it even easier
for me to tell my LA based
friends that Brooklyn not only
inspires creativity in a very
unique way, it is also clearly
one of the best places to make
movies, and television in the
world,” Plagianos said.
Plagianos is planning on
pitching projects to the studio,
specifi cally indie fi lm and
TV content fi lmed and set in
Brooklyn, and created by locals.
“While there is a pledge
for overall jobs and spend, I
would like to see Netfl ix make
an informal pledge to support
Brooklyn fi lmmakers in some
substantial way,” he said.
The building, a former steel
factory, is owned by commercial
real estate developer Steel
Equities, which purchased
the site for $52.5 million in
2019, city records show. Steel
Equities also purchased a
28,000-square-foot warehouse
down the road, at 375 Johnson
Ave., last year for $20 million.
BY BEN BRACHFELD
A century-old Flatbush
building, which once housed a
movie palace, is looking for a
new tenant to bring a renewed
lease on life to the joint.
The building, 1085 Flatbush
Ave., now houses the
Cortelyou Road Church of
God, which owns the building
and wants to rent out most of
the 15,000-square-foot space
and keep a sliver for itself.
For more than half a century,
the building was home to
the Rialto Theatre, from 1916 to
1976. Since then, it has been the
location of various churches.
The building has 1,400
seats in its main area, and still
boasts a screen at the back. Designed
by architect R. Thomas
Short and developed by impresario
A.H. Schwartz of Century
Circuit Theaters, the Rialto
opened during the silent era
of motion pictures, and had its
own orchestra and organist to
accompany the fl icks.
The era was also the golden
age of grand movie palaces in
Brooklyn, and specifi cally in
Flatbush: the Rialto competed
with the Kings Theatre, the
Kenmore Theatre on Church
Avenue, the Flatbush Theatre
on Church east of Flatbush, the
Astor Theatre at the corner of
Snyder, and the Albemarle Theatre
at the corner of the street
with the same name.
All of those theaters have
long since closed and been taken
over by other establishments,
except for the Kings, which reopened
as a live performance
venue in 2015 after sitting vacant
since closing in 1977.
The church has gotten inquiries
from theater operators
and from religious organizations
about taking over the
space, a representative of commercial
realtor TerraCRG told
Brooklyn Paper. Asking rent
is $25,000 per month.
Full stream ahead
Flatbush church at
home in old Rialto
Theatre seeks new
tenant for building
BROOKLYN
Hot ticket
(Left) The Rialto Theatre, as seen in a 1930s postcard. (Right) The building now houses the Cortelyou Road Church of God. File photos
Continued from page 23
Netfl ix has fi lmed in Brooklyn before (as in the cancelled “Grand Army,”
pictured) but now a dedicated studio is in the works. Jasper Savage/Netfl ix