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Very cool. I'm a fan of the show, so this will be exciting to see one of my favorite areas of Brooklyn ... again.
MTV's "The Real World" Coming To Downtown Brooklyn
From: NY Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/20...lltel_lof.html
A cast of 'pioneers' to invade Belltel Lofts for 'The Real World: Brooklyn'
This 27-story art deco beauty is the home of "The Real World: Brooklyn." Click for more pictures.
BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Updated Sunday, June 1st 2008, 11:16 PM
The young and beautiful cast of next season's "Real World" will live the suite life in a $6 million, two-story penthouse perched high above downtown Brooklyn.
The art deco-era Belltel Lofts on Bridge St. was named Sunday as the site of the MTV reality show's 21st season after weeks of frantic speculation.
"We're excited," said David Bistricer, owner of the 27-story building that once held a telephone company but was converted to condos last year.
"It is what it is. It's the 'Real World.'"
The 6,000-square-foot, two-story penthouse includes two terraces, five bedrooms and 10-foot windows. A Jacuzzi and other amenities are also on the way, said Bistricer, whose building beat out 24 other Brooklyn digs for the starring role on the show.
He also said there are safeguards in place to make sure the reality show's stable of rowdies don't irritate the 100 families who call Belltel home in real life.
The show, which premiered in 1992, has been shot twice in Manhattan and in other large cities across the world, including London and Chicago.
Each season the seven members of the cast - some of whom have been as young as 18 - have become increasingly promiscuous and rambunctious.
"We've done a lot and the 'Real World' has done a lot to institute measures to make sure this doesn't bother the neighbors," Bistricer said.
A contract signed Friday prohibits taping in the gym and other common areas of the 90-year-old building. A spokeswoman for MTV did not return calls for comment.
The site will have the dubious distinction of being the smallest of the 20 previous "Real World" homes.
Since MTV announced the series would jump to Brooklyn from its current Hollywood set, blogs have speculated that the cast would be housed in Williamsburg.
But Bistricer said producers made the right choice. "Williamsburg is a story that is three years old," said Bistricer. "Downtown is a story in the making."
Very cool. I'm a fan of the show, so this will be exciting to see one of my favorite areas of Brooklyn ... again.
Well that's it, the last draw. Brooklyn as we knew it is now dead!
Is it "The Real World" or something quite different?
lol in 3 months i'm moving to poly for school.... which is a block away from belltel
Only for around ~ 9 monthsOriginally Posted by kliq6
craziness.
People still watch that show?
Well, now we know where the puddles of vomit, the child-like catfights, and the stumbling drunks will be.
If you live in the neighborhood, put aluminum foil in your windows. It f*cks up the filming.
I experienced a close-to-home situation like this once before while I was attending SUNY Buffalo.
Back in the late summer of '02 MTV chose to film my school's greeks for the 2003 season of Fraternity and Sorority Life, which also coincided with the US Weekly ranking of us as the number six party school in the nation. Naturally, we celebrated all this national attention with lots of alcohol and a healthy dose of drugs, but we weren't really sure what to expect having MTV roaming our campus.
It was somewhat weird, but ultimately it got old quick. One minute you're eating food with friends in the student union and next thing you know bright lights and a six-person production crew are 40 feet away from you, pointing their cameras in your general direction and making you feel incredibly self-conscious. But as it happened more and more (they came to the bar I frequented several times) and you saw them around a lot (their Land Rover SUVs were instantly recognizeable because a) nobody else owned those cars in Buffalo and b) they had super bright lights inside them on at all times), you learned to not care.
Er, I forget what this has to do with anything. I guess I just wanted to reminisce about the good ol' days.
Did "Real World" boost Belltel deals?
Belltel Lofts in Downtown Brooklyn, where the next season of MTV's "The Real World" will be filmed.
By Katherine Dykstra
Since they started more than a year ago, sales at Belltel Lofts, the conversion of the former Verizon building in Downtown Brooklyn, have been, in a word, slow.
Back in February, Prudential Douglas Elliman's Terry Naini, who also owns a unit at Belltel, was hired to increase traffic at the building. And she did.
Not long after coming on board, she was contacted by a series of "scouting agents" who eventually revealed themselves to be working for MTV's "The Real World," the reality show that throws badly behaved twentysomethings from vastly different backgrounds into the same living space and then "watches what happens."
Within months, a deal was done. According to developer David Bistricer of Clipper Equities, the show will be filmed in two duplex penthouses, one north-facing and one south-facing, on the 26th and 27th floors of Belltel Lofts. The units, which will be combined, are 2,700 square feet apiece, and each has four bedrooms.
The rent? "Much more than $50,000 a month," said Bistricer.
Though the number of units sold hasn't increased dramatically (Naini said in February the building was less than half sold, while Bistricer said it is now 45 percent sold) there's hope that the buzz created by the show will draw attention — and buyers — to the property. And there's even some evidence.
"Last week we sold seven apartments," said Prudential Douglas Elliman's Ilan Bracha, who took over the building's sales not long after the contract with "The Real World" was signed. "We have three negotiating."
Bracha estimates that since the announcement, traffic has increased "35 to 40 percent." The building is hoping to get a further sales boost from Belltel ads that appeared late last month in the New York Post featuring "The Real World" logo.
"Buyers are coming in just to take a look because of the buzz," Bracha said, noting that the story has been all over the local news media, not to mention on blogs. "And then they're buying because of the building."
"In my opinion, 'The Real World' contract is worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars in advertising, branding and PR," Naini said. "They have to mention Belltel in every episode and have a shot of our lobby in each episode. Every bit of press about 'The Real World Brooklyn' will have Belltel in it, and as you can imagine MTV is a much stronger press machine than Clipper Equities, the developer."
Bistricer knows this as much as anyone.
"They have 30 million viewers that look at this show," he said. "It's the longest-running reality show on TV. It's very well-regarded."
Well-regarded might be a stretch, but the show certainly has fans.
"My sister is 38, and she watches it religiously," said Jeff Ross, who with his wife bought a unit in Belltel in October of last year. "She was like, 'You'll be the center of the world!'"
Located in Downtown Brooklyn, Belltel is not without its conveniences, subway access being one of them. This, Naini said, was one of the major selling points for "The Real World" team. Another? The fact that they could have as much elbow room as they needed because the upper units are still empty.
Nearly all of Belltel's sold units are in the lower half of the building. Despite the lack of light (some of the bedrooms have no windows at all), buyers have been drawn to their spacious floor plans and low prices, some of which were less than $500 a square foot. In contrast, the units on upper floors with terraces, views and heftier price tags have languished.
"['The Real World'] didn't have a lot of choices," noted Naini. "How many buildings are half empty? They needed a building that would allow for that. They're not going to disturb anyone because they're so far away."
For the most part, the residents of Belltel don't seem to be too worried about disruptions. Some are even looking forward to the arrival of the camera crews.
"I don't have any negative feeling about it at all," said Jody Arenella, who moved into her new three-bedroom Belltel apartment with her husband and two children last October. She looks forward, she said, to running into Real Worlders in the building's amenities rooms. "[Though] they go to bed really late and sleep until afternoon. We're the opposite."
That said, there are certainly residents who aren't keen on the situation, and even more peeved that they didn't have a choice in the matter (Arenella, like most, found out about the acquisition online rather than from anyone affiliated with the building.) But as for her, she is hopeful that the attention will be a plus.
"I think it's going to be great for the neighborhood," said Arenella. "There's not one grocery store in the neighborhood, and I need a grocery store. So I think that by drawing so much attention, it will bring the services a lot faster."
Her hope may already be coming to fruition. Bistricer is in talks with a "major coffee retailer" to occupy the retail space in the building. He said the retailer was turned onto the project by "'The Real World' contract."
"They heard of our building because of 'The Real World,'" he said.
real world back in the ghetto
Definitely not the ghetto. Hopefully MTV won't try spinning it that way.
^ Agreed.
MTV has already ruined its image and televsion in general. Keep your fingers cross when they make it to Brooklyn.
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