Astoria Studios To Build 7th Sound Stage; Pols Hail Project

The new facility, the studio’s seventh sound stage, will be located on 36th Street between 34th and 35th Avenues and will cost about $8.3 million.

Initial funding, consisting of $2.5 million in grant money, was secured by Council Speaker Peter Vallone and Councilmember Walter McCaffrey (Woodside), both Democrats. That grant and additional money for demolition has been earmarked in the City Council’s budget for the project, which also includes construction of a support facility.

In announcing the project, studio Chairman George Kaufman and President Hal Rosenbluth said that groundbreaking would take place this fall and that the new studio could be open as early as next summer if the weather cooperates.

Acknowledging the help of Vallone and McCaffrey, as well as Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Governor George Pataki and others in funding the project, Kaufman declared, "The entire film and broadcasting industry around the world will benefit from the work these men and women have put into working with us to see to it that New York City continues to be a key player in the entertainment industry."

The expansion will also be a key element in retaining the famous studio’s top position as a feature film, television, video and electronic production center in the city and state and on the eastern seaboard. The announcement of the new project comes amid efforts, led by movie star Robert DeNiro, to establish a major film-making studio in the old Brooklyn Navy Yard.

In his remarks about the new project, which is expected to generate $55 million in direct and indirect revenues to New York over the next 20 years, Rosenbluth stated:

"Adding a seventh large stage to the complex is bringing KAS closer to critical mass and should stabilize the studio’s utilization rate. The new KAS production center will not only attract new feature film, television and multimedia productions to New York, but it will enhance the city’s reputation as the premiere site for studio and on-location entertainment productions."

Hailing Kaufman and Rosenbluth for their successful efforts in attracting a continuous stream of film and television productions, Vallone stated, "The studio’s leadership has been indefatigable in its dedication to success."

McCaffrey, in similar comments, said he was "pleased that the Giuliani and Pataki administrations had at last followed the Council’s lead in providing resources for the expansion."

For the past nine seasons, the studios have been home to comedian Bill Cosby and "The Bill Cosby Show." The long-running children’s program, "Sesame Street," is also produced here. Among the top movies that were produced at the studio are "Ransom," "First Wives Club" and "Marvin’s Room." Woody Allen regularly shoots his films at Kaufman Studios and star actors who have come to Astoria to work include, among others, Rosie O’Donnell, Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Mel Gibson and Demi Moore.

In addition to the $2.5 million initial funding secured by Vallone and McCaffrey, other funding help came from: the New York State Empire State Development Corporation ($1.7 million grants and loans); Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the New York City Economic Development Corporation ($1.2 million loan and long-term leasing of the project site); Queens Borough President Claire Shulman ($125,000 grant).

Rounding out the funding package was a $2.3 million loan secured by the studio from the Astoria Federal Savings Bank, for which Kaufman thanked the bank’s president and chief executive officer, George Engelke.

McCaffrey and Vallone got the ball rolling for the new sound stage project in July 1995 when they secured a $500,000 grant from the Council. They followed up with another $500,000 grant the following June and a $1.5 million grant in June 1998.

The two western Queens lawmakers said they believed the studio will continue New York City’s preeminent status for studio and on-location entertainment production. McCaffrey stated, "Thousands of New Yorkers are directly or indirectly employed in this important sector of our economy and the expansion will provide high-paying permanent positions and temporary high paying construction jobs."

McCaffrey also noted, "At the critical stage of creating this expansion Speaker Vallone and I provided the first tangible funding to make the expansion a reality."

Kaufman Studios currently has six sound stages, including a 26,000-square-foot stage which is the largest in the United States east of Los Angeles. The complex, which is stretched out over several blocks around its main offices at 34-12 36th St., also houses WFAN radio and Master Sound Astoria, one of the country’s finest recording facilities, McCaffrey noted.

Besides Kaufman Studios, western Queens is home to the Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, which is presently undergoing a major expansion; Paris Film Productions, also in LIC; and Broadway Studios in Astoria. Together, all the western Queens studios account for about two-thirds of the film and television production space in New York City, according to industry sources.

McCaffrey noted that the Council "has also made a major investment over the past years," and at his urging, in the development of the American Museum of the Moving Image (AMMI), the only museum of its kind in the United States.

AMMI, a non-profit foundation, was created and helped to resuscitate the studios which had been established in that area in the 1920s and then became the Army Signal Corps Pictorial Center during and after World War II. When the Pictorial Center was phased out, the remaining facilities, aged and decaying, were leased by the city to Kaufman Studios, which rebuilt the complex over a period of years and established the site as a major film production center.