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Each month we will showcase a City agency employee or an industry specialist who helps to facilitate production in New York City.
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Ralph Musolino, Parks and Recreation Manager for Manhattan Districts One and Two December 1, 2006 - From Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park to Serpico to Searching for Bobby Fisher and more, Washington Square Park - with its iconic arch and fountains - has hosted countless productions over the years. Balancing the popular area for film shoots with the needs of residents and others who use the park for a variety of activities can prove to be a daunting task. That's where Ralph Musolino comes in. Musolino, the Parks and Recreation Manager for Manhattan Districts One and Two, facilitates the relationship between a production at one of his many parks and local residents. Besides Washington Square Park, Musolino oversees all Manhattan parks from 13th street down to Battery Park and Bowery to the West Side Highway. Musolino got his start serving others, running group homes for mentally handicapped adults. He then moved on to running the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center on Carmine Street and 7th Avenue for six years. Now, as Parks and Recreation Manager, Musolino makes sure that all parks are clean and safe. “A lot of the parks I oversee are great places to socialize and hang out,” said Musolino. “People think places like Washington Square Park aren’t safe areas, but in reality there is nothing to be afraid of. It’s a safe park.” Recently, Musolino dealt with a large production at Washington Square Park that provided quite a challenge. “So many things are going on at once at the park – chess players playing, kids in playgrounds, NYU students. Six film shoots could be going on at once and no one would know because so much is happening around there,” he said. All of this activity in such a tight area (Washington Square Park is approximately 9.75 acres) begs the question – how does someone keep the peace with so many New York City residents and a large scale production? “First of all, we let the community boards know about the shoot,” said Musolino. “We have a parks employee on the shoot at all times to make sure nothing is blocking sidewalks or streets and that the production is following all the rules we agree to beforehand. We don’t let them shoot during weekends, we make them do most of their shooting before 6pm, we make sure the lighting faces into the park and not out into the street, among other things.” Musolino finds the best tactic for his job is to imagine himself as any ordinary New York City-dweller. “I try to think, ‘If I lived across the street would I be inconvenienced?” said Musolino. “I want to make sure the production creates the least amount of [inconvenience] as possible, when the least amount of people are in the park.”  More Industry Stars | |
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 design by  The City of New York Mayor's Office of Film Theatre & Broadcasting 1697 Broadway Suite 602, New York, New York 10019. |
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