Film
Midwood has long played a part in both film and television production. The film industry established itself in the neighborhood in 1907, when the Vitagraph company occupied a studio at Avenue M and East 14th Street. Scenes from films like "Hey Pop" and "Buzzin’ Around," starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, were filmed on streets in Midwood. Warner Bros. purchased the studio in the 1920s, using it for short subjects, and moved the studio operation to Hollywood in 1939. The building is now home to the Shulamith Yeshiva School for Girls, but a large smokestack bearing the name Vitagraph is still on the property, visible from the BMT Subway line, as are two brick walls from the original studio. Many Vitagraph Employees resided within the community. After Warner Bros. vacated the land (in the late 1960s-early 1970s), Yeshiva University purchased it for Brooklyn Torah Academy, the Brooklyn branch of their high school. The Shulamith School purchased the property years later, when it merged BTA into Manhattan Torah Academy. Present day, many within the community have no clue that the Shulamith School building's and property were once a film studio in its heyday. The Brooklyn Historical Society and the Museum Of The Moving Image (Astoria, New York) have a collection on The Vitagraph Studios. One private present-day longtime resident possesses a small but "private" collection (and wealth of history) on the Vitagraph Studios. An Old Vintage aerial photograph of The Vitagraph Complex (and its streets) hangs today on a wall in the Offices of the ' Midwood Development Corporation.: http://www.facebook.com/MidwoodDevelopmentCorporation
The Vitagraph Studios were later featured in a New York Times Article (2007), and in the PBS, WNET-13 TV Special 'A Walk Through Brooklyn,' hosted by David Hartman and historian Barry Lewis. Old historic photographs of the studio show that part of it also existed across the Brighton line subway tracks where Edward R. Murrow High School now stands.
"The Leading Male" Men's attire, which was once located at the corner of Kings Highway and East 12th Street, was the source for the disco attire that John Travolta and the other male cast members wore in the film Saturday Night Fever. A duplicate of the white suit Travolta wore in the film was at that time displayed in one of the showcase windows.
Read more about this topic: Midwood, Brooklyn
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“[Film noir] experiences periodic rebirth and rediscovery. Whenever we have any moment of deep societal rift or disruption in America, one of the ways we can express it is through the ideas and behavior in film noir.”
—John Briley (b. 1925)
“To read a newspaper for the first time is like coming into a film that has been on for an hour. Newspapers are like serials. To understand them you have to take knowledge to them; the knowledge that serves best is the knowledge provided by the newspaper itself.”
—V.S. (Vidiadhar Surajprasad)