It turns out that filmmaker Spike Lee will not be making Hollywood magic in DUMBO after all.
One week after The Brooklyn Paper reported that the beloved “Malcolm X” director would move his famed “40 Acres and a Mule” film company to 55 Washington Street, Lee revealed that only his big-bucks advertising wing, Spike DDB, would move to the former warehouse building at the corner of Washington and Front streets.
Nonetheless, the mere presence of Lee represents a victory for the borough of his youth.
Earlier this year, Lee said that high rents had forced him out of his main office space at 124 DeKalb Ave. in Fort Greene, where his film company had been for 22 years, and into a smaller space he already owned around the corner on South Elliott Place.
“Got priced out, the rent raise was insane,” Lee told The Brooklyn Paper in April.
The director, who gave Brooklyn the starring role in his signature films “Do the Right Thing,” “Crooklyn” and “Jungle Fever,” affirmed that he still had a working and personal relationship with the borough in the April interview — though he now lives in Manhattan.
The building where he will now ply his very-much-for-profit trade is one of DUMBO’s best addresses (the office of The Brooklyn Paper is also in the building). Workers are just finishing renovating a sunlit-filled, spacious corner area in the building’s sixth floor.
©2008 The Brooklyn Paper
By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:
You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.