Yonkers courts film industry

'Royal Tennenbaums' and 'Catch Me If You Can' were filmed in Westchester city

A still from the Royal Tenenbaums, which was filmed in Yonkers
A still from the Royal Tenenbaums, which was filmed in Yonkers

The city of Yonkers has amped up its policies so as to attract more film production, the Wall Street Journal reported.

While some notable films — “Royal Tenenbaums” and “Catch Me If You Can” — were filmed there, the Journal noted, film production has largely dropped off in the last ten years. But city officials are ready to reverse that trend.

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Yesterday, the Westchester city’s Office of Film and Photography announced they would cut a number of fees and working on speeding up the permit process so as to attract more films to the area.

“The big battle was always ‘we’d rather be in Manhattan,'” Roger Paradiso, co-chairman of Greenwich Street Production, a local film studio, told the Journal. “Prices drove them out of Manhattan. This is contiguous to the Bronx, It’s almost part of New York City. This is the next logical place they would go.” [WSJ] — Guelda Voien