Crappy Presidents’ Day!
A presidential motorcade faced exploding cars and gunfire on Downtown’s Schermerhorn Street on Sunday — all part of filming for the Showtime terrorism thriller “Homeland.”
The scene featured a blazing sports utility vehicle and another burned out on its side on the block between Adams and Court streets, while soldiers swarmed the area and police and civilians ran for cover. The actual car explosion was filmed last Sunday.
This action is all taking place as the president drives out of the parking garage above the New York Transit Museum, according to a notice local civic group the Brooklyn Heights Association sent residents.
The fire was real, much to the delight of onlookers — but no danger to residents or nearby buildings, according to the man in charge of the gas.
“I have a good track record,” said special effects guru Roy Savoy of movie magic company KFX, who worked alongside New York’s Bravest.
The current sixth season of the drama features an incoming female president, and takes place between her election and inauguration. Meanwhile, Clare Danes’s lead character is living in Bedford-Stuyvesant and working in Williamsburg, so the show has been filming here often.
In fact, the crew will be back to light up Schermerhorn Street again next Sunday, when it films a scene featuring some 400 protesters.
Danes was not spotted on set on Sunday, but she did film at nearby Borough Hall last year — the first time the Manhattan native had ever visited Downtown, she told the New York Times.
