Blizzard Causes New York City to Suspend Film Permits

With a blizzard bearing down, New York City has suspended film permits for Saturday.

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Among those whose permits have been pulled are productions affiliated with Fashion Week, director Kasi Lemmons' musical Black Nativity for Fox Searchlight, NFL Films documentary Year of the Quarterback, reality series Coffee Cake and feature film Welkom Home. Mayor Bloomberg's office of media and entertainment said some permits for production vehicles related to Sunday's ABC broadcast of the Los Angeles Clippers-New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden have also been pulled. But a spokesperson for ESPN, which produces the NBA games that air on ABC, said the storm will not impact Sunday's broadcast. 

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As of Friday noon EST, the weather is rainy and windy, fairly miserable for pedestrians. About 15 inches of snow is expected to arrive in the city, with much of the damage happening during evening hours. 

At the moment, the Broadway League says that that the show will go on for the theatrical community. "As of now, all Broadway shows will play as scheduled," said Elisa Shevitz, director of communications at the Broadway League. "For information about returns and exchanges, theatre-goers should contact their point of purchase."

Toy Fair 2013, which kicks off Sunday and is expected to bring 31,000 attendees including a contingent of film studio executives to New York's Javits Center over four days, says it is moving for as planned. A Paramount spokesperson said a handful of staffers are expected to attend, and their plans remain unchanged at the moment. "Will be a wait-and-see," the spokesperson said.

The Grammy Awards, scheduled for Sunday night on CBS, also report no issues. "We're good," said a spokesperson. "Most of our folks already are in town, and we're proceeding as planned."

Others are taking caution. The AMC movie theater chain is shuttering more than a half-dozen locations in the Boston area, where snowfall could rise as high as three feet.

Still that's the exception for now. Silvercup Studios, the Long Island City home of CBS' Elementary and Person of Interest, has not been impacted. “From our end, everyone is working normally. We don’t anticipate any disruption,” said Silvercup CEO Alan Suna in a statement.

Steiner Studios, the vast production facility in the Brooklyn Navy Yard where HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Girls are filmed, was proceeding as scheduled on Friday. The studio – which has constructed a replica of Prohibition-era Atlantic City for Boardwalk, weathered the more sever Hurricane Sandy intact.

Said studio chief Doug Steiner in a rather tongue-in-cheek statement on Friday, "Because of our unique micro-climate, we expect to be fully spared from the ravages of this storm as well."

Kaufman Astoria studios, also in Long Island City, was open for business on Friday though Jeni Kohan's Netflix series Orange is the New Black was planning to wrap by 3 p.m. so the cast and crew could make it home before the storm is expected to take a turn for the worse during the evening rush hour. 

"We expect to weather this storm without much interruption in shooting schedules,” said Kaufman Astoria president Hal Rosenbluth.