Crains New York - August 6, 2012 - (Page 3)

IN THE BOROUGHS BROOKLYN Court St.’s mom & pops defy odds Cafés, pizzerias and others find antidotes to age and change READY TO ROLL: Domenic Rom is already in talks with directors scheduled to shoot out of state. BY SHANE DIXON KAVANAUGH Like many areas in Brooklyn, the adjoining neighborhoods of Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens have undergone sweeping changes in recent years. Row houses there can now fetch as much as $3 million. Pricey cars dot the curbs of low-key streets. Celebrity sightings—from Jay-Z to British novelist Martin Amis—are increasingly common. Yet out along Court Street, one of the neighborhoods’ main shopping drags, there is a surprising degree of continuity. In the 13-block strip between Warren Street and Fourth Place, nearly 20 longtime, mostly ItalianAmerican mom-and-pop stores still do a healthy business. They range from cafés to a clothier— many of them Court Street from dating back to Warren Street to Fourth Place the early decades of the past century, and nearly all ESTIMATED of them boastNUMBER of shops ing one or two over 50 years old antidotes to the ravages of age and relentOPENING YEAR for less change. P.J. Hanleys, strip’s These oldest veteran Court Street and Brooklyn’s oldest bar stalwarts have been able to escape the rising rents that have NUMBER OF killed scores of Caputo’s Bake their erstwhile Shops (established 1904) that could neighbors, besqueeze into Trader cause their Joe’s store forebears had (opened 2009) the foresight to down the street snap up their spaces while they could. And nearly all of them have found ways to adapt to the area’s ever-evolving tastes while carefully preserving as much of the old ways as possible. As waves of new families trickled into Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens in the 1990s, veteran sausage purveyor G. Esposito & Sons Jersey Pork Store, for example, started hawking rice balls, sandwiches and pasta alongside its curtains of handmade sopressata and pepperoni that hang from the pressed-tin ceiling. Up the street, the owners of D’Amico Foods have also tweaked and retweaked their business—while Postproduction gets credit Biggest tax incentive in the U.S. should bring film-editing work to NY BY MIRIAM KREININ SOUCCAR Domenic Rom already handles the editing and finishing work on major New York-based productions like 30 Rock and Boardwalk Empire. But now his company is aggressively going after a new piece of business—the postproduction for movies and television shows that are filmed in other locales. Mr. Rom, executive vice president of Technicolor-PostWorks New York, the largest postproduction facility in the state, and others in his industry have a powerful new tool of persuasion.Late last month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law a bill that triples the state’s tax credit on postproduction work, to 30% in New York City and 35% upstate. “Right now, most movies that shoot in, say, Iceland or the Midwest just take their postproduction back to Los Angeles like they always have,” said Mr. Rom, who is already in talks with a number of directors scheduled to shoot movies in other states—including Spike Lee, whose movie Oldboy will be filmed in New Orleans this fall—to persuade them to bring their footage back to New York for postproduction. “Now we have the best incentive in the country.” With the ink barely dry on the new tax credit, local postproduction firms are salivating at their expected uptick in business. They are planning facility expansions and hiring sprees and are banding together to create a massive marketing blitz. Film executives say there are even some postproduction companies in Canada and the United Kingdom that are considering setting up outposts here. “We believe this incentive will at least double the amount of postproduction business that comes to New York, creating thousands of jobs,” said Yana Collins Lehman, managing director of Trevanna See TAX CREDIT on Page 32 buck ennis SHOPS 18 1874 25 Brother, can you spare $2K? City Hall hopefuls find donors focused on federal races BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS Burned-out political donors are being hit up by eager city candidates looking to rake in the maximum amount of moolah for next year’s mayoral campaign. But with high-stakes national races heating up, mayoral hopefuls’ requests are being put on the back burner. Calls have gone unanswered. Requests to host fundraisers have been turned down. Even on donor-rich Wall Street, candidates are coming up dry. “It’s amazing, the lack of interest [in local races] versus the presidential stuff,” said one investment banker. “I have a ton of colleagues who are doing Romney fundraisers. I’ve gotten a slew of invites for $2,500 cocktails. But the local stuff, there’s very little of that.” The five major Democratic candidates—Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, City Comptroller John Liu and former See MAYORS on Page 32 WHO’S RAISED WHAT FOR THE 2013 MAYORAL RACE The city’s matching-funds program will swell the totals below. $5.7M $2.8M $2.7M $2.6M $1.4M See COURT STREET on Page 10 Christine Quinn Bill de Blasio Scott Stringer John Liu Bill Thompson Source: NYC Campaign Finance Board LISTEN to a discussion at CrainsNewYork.com/podcasts August 6, 2012 | Crain’s New York Business | 3 http://www.CrainsNewYork.com/podcasts

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - August 6, 2012

Crains New York - August 6, 2012
Contents
In the Boroughs
In the Markets
The Insider
Business People
Opinion
Greg David
From Around the City
Report: Business of Sports
Classifieds
Small Business
Real Estate Deals
Helluva Town
Source Lunch
Out and About

Crains New York - August 6, 2012