Hollywood’s star wattage has folks in Greenpoint blind with rage.
The normally sleepy North Brooklyn neighborhood has become a favorite shooting location for movie and TV producers, leaving residents fuming over snarled traffic and the disappearance of virtually all street parking.
“The thrill is gone. As far as I’m concerned, this is a nuisance,” said shopkeeper Larry Moore. “This is of no benefit to anyone around here.”
During a recent five-day stretch, three simultaneous shoots blocked off streets. A parade scene for “The Bounty,” an upcoming Jennifer Aniston flick, closed several blocks of Manhattan Avenue, while a hip-hop romance titled “Step Up 3-D” and a Martin Scorsese-directed HBO pilot, “Boardwalk Empire,” ate up parking spots on several more.
And at least five other projects have been filmed in the area in recent weeks.
Retiree Jimmy Conti, who has lived 32 years on a block where the Aniston project was filmed, said the production firm tried to make good by asking residents whether they wanted to sign up as extras for $75 a day.
Many did sign up, “but no one called,” Conti said. “They brought in their own people. They had the audacity to come into our homes [and] play us like fools so we’d shut up.”
Longtime resident Manuel Duran was just as upset.
“There’s already no parking in this neighborhood, but this is getting crazy,” he said. “One day on this block, one day on another block . . . the whole neighborhood is going crazy.”
Filmmakers are lured to Greenpoint by its industrial character, insiders say.
“A lot of people who come to film the city want to see gritty New York, not places that could be mistaken for Toronto,” said location scout Sam Rohn. “Neighborhoods like SoHo and TriBeCa used to be more industrial. Now they’re rows of high-end retail shops.”
Douglas Steiner, chairman of Steiner Studios, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, calls the borough the new destination of choice here for much of the industry.
“It’s an artistic community, very creative,” he said. “Manhattan is losing its eclecticism and diversity, and that benefits Brooklyn in a big way.”
Film-company reps declined to comment on the residents’ gripes. But the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre[cq] and Broadcasting insisted that it keeps a keen eye on the concerns of the neighborhoods being used.