Roosevelt Island Public Bathrooms A Catastrophe Says Movie Director - So Teamster Drives Him To Manhattan To Potty

Image of Roosevelt Island Tram Bathroom

How bad are the Roosevelt Island public bathrooms and how far would you go to avoid using them when nature calls? Well, if you are the director of the movie City of Lights which shot scenes on Roosevelt Island last August, the answer is that you will go very far to find an acceptable toilet. The director described his Roosevelt Island bathroom ordeal at his blog Movies 'til Dawn:

...A funny thing happened on the evening of this shoot. I had to go to the bathroom. Now, I wouldn't normally blog an event of this low order but I'll make an exception in this case since this proves the power of the position of the director. I didn't have a trailer, you see. And the public bathrooms at Roosevelt Island were, to put it nicely, a catastrophe. So I waited for an interval when a new lighting set-up would be started -- in this case it was the tram station scene posted below--and asked my DP Vanja Cernjul how long it would take. "Close to an hour" was the answer. "Make it an hour fifteen", I replied. He was surprised. Usually the director is looking to spend less time lighting, not more. Then I found my Teamster--the driver who took me to set every morning and home every night--and told him that I had to be driven to my apartment in Manhattan, that we had just over an hour to get there and get back with a "short wait for something I have to do once we're there" factored into things. He didn't blink. Like the fine Teamster he is, he just said "Let's move".

And so I had the singular experience of commandeering a Teamster to take me to the bathroom in my apartment, which was a hell of a lot nicer than the wretched accommodations at Roosevelt Island....

No word on what Andy Garcia thought of the Roosevelt Island public bathrooms. City of Lights was not the production which is the subject of earlier post regarding RIOC President Shane threatening to arrest former RIRA President Katz for seeking a donation from a film crew for the residents association.

Perhaps RIOC members will not be threatened with arrest if they provide clean bathroom facilities in their apartments for movie crews in exchange for donations to RIRA.

Below is You Tube video clip of Roosevelt Island Tram scene reluctantly deleted from City Of Light starring Andy Garcia.