The Mamdani administration hopes to persuade even more film, television and other productions to shoot in New York City rather than locales like Long Island, the new head of his media and entertainment office said Monday after being appointed.
A key message: There’s nowhere like New York City, which the state calls “the single most filmed location in the world.”
“We have the Brooklyn Bridge. We have the Empire State Building. There’s so many amazing sites that you can’t get anywhere else,” Rafael Espinal, the new head of the office, told Newsday.
Espinal, a former city councilman, state representative and leader of the Freelancers Union, said he aims to cut red tape and make the city hospitable to the creative industry, one that had nearly 300,000 people employed, generating billions of dollars in economic activity, according to a news release announcing his appointment.
“It goes back to making sure that New York City is working optimally and helping create permits, making it frictionless to run your productions here,” Espinal said. “I want productions to look at New York as a very easy place to do business — of course, respectful to the laws, respectful to our communities — but ensuring that there’s nothing within our systems that are tripping them up and allowing them to get production moving on time.”
Production companies that film in New York State are eligible for a tax credit of 30% of certain production expenses, including “production costs directly related to the production of a qualified film,” according to the website of Empire State Development, the state’s primary business-aid entity.Â
There is no special New York City tax break for TV and film.Â
City Council Speaker Julie Menin — who once headed the office — said at the announcement in Brooklyn that without the tax credit, “we would lose a tremendous amount of production.” Menin said that there had been a 5% city tax credit in the Bloomberg administration, but “that was eradicated” to instead do free subway and bus ads for productions made in the city.
Neither Nassau nor Suffolk counties offer special tax breaks, beyond the state program, according to Diana Cherryholmes, chair of Suffolk’s film commission. She declined to comment further and referred inquiries to the county executive’s press office. Mike Martino, a spokesperson for County Executive Edward P. Romaine, said by text: “We offer scouting and coordination of local permitting, nothing financial.”
Anthony Labriola, co-director of Nassau’s film commission, declined to comment and referred an inquiry to Chris Boyle, spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. Boyle didn’t return a text.
Empire State Development’s website calls Nassau County “one of the busiest production hubs in the state outside the five boroughs.”
“Across Long Island, the proximity of suburban towns, oceanside villages and locations is a draw, as are the many beaches and state parks that allow producers to appear to be far from the city without having to travel too far,” the website says, listing Apple TV+’s “Dickinson” and “On The Rocks”; HBO’s “Bad Education,” “The Plot Against America” and “The Undoing,” Amazon’s “Hunters” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and 20th Century Studios’ “The Greatest Showman,” as being filmed on Long Island.
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.