New Prospect Place show in the Netherlands

tinus42

Hi, I'm from the Netherlands and I hope you don't mind that I butt in into your local discussions.

But can anyone tell me what kind of neighborhood the area around Prospect Place is? This place has been featured on Dutch television in the news show Netwerk for the past week. From the way Netwerk portrayed the area as it was a yuppie haven fallen on hard times because of the credit crunch.

Shootings and wife beatings happening on a regular basis does not gel with the image which they portray of the area. Call me cynical but I don't think they gave us the whole truth about Prospect Place. They even used the friggin theme tune of Friends for the series!

You can see the preview for this series here on YouTube:



MOD NOTE: embedded the video for ya





The site of Netwerk is http://www.netwerk.tv. They have online repeats there but I don't know if they work from a non-Dutch IP address.

jeffrey

Hrm. Interesting. Thanks for the heads-up about this show, tinus.

Might as well split this to its own thread.

I looked at Netwerk's Youtube videos stream and found this from one of the show's recent episodes:

ibike

Yea, I live on that block...not sure how I missed this. Very interesting and kind of funny.

jeffrey

It apparently takes place at the condos at 457 Prospect Place, according to the show's info page on the netwerk.tv site:
http://www.netwerk.tv/uitzending/2009-09-08/prospect-place-deel-3

MOD

Friends episode!!

julius orange

The Dutch will think there are no ethnic people here. That cast was even whiter than the cast of Friends.

tinus42

Julius Orange wrote: The Dutch will think there are no ethnic people here. That cast was even whiter than the cast of Friends.

That is strange, because if they've made a similar program about an apartment building in Amsterdam they'd definitely show ethnic people living there (Amsterdam is close to have a non-white majority).

Their angle was probably that this terrible credit crisis even affected the WASPy yuppies and having black people living in the condo would have deflected from that message because they think that the average viewer might think "it's just a bunch of poor immigrants suffering not people like me, where's the remote".

sweet tea

it is strange to think of portraying that block as mostly (let alone entirely) white, but to be fair, i bet the condo-owning population mostly is. (not entirely -- i can think of some exceptions -- but there is a noticeable racial split between renters and condo-owners there.)

arches

Seems like a stretch to tie Prospect Heights (errr...Crown Heights) into the credit crisis - particularly since the guy in the interview _quit_ his job by choice because he didn't like the working conditions.

Who knows....maybe they're holding back for episode two where we'll find out that the condo conversion at 457 Prospect Place was actually financed by illegally securitized micro-loan CDS contracts using leveraged assets collaterialized by the Madoff Fund. But I doubt it. ;-)

tinus42

You can see episodes 1 and 2 at these links:

Episode 1 (scroll to 13:50 minutes)
http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=10033447

Episode 2 (scroll to 14:20 minutes)
http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=10038527

No idea if they're country locked.

jeffrey

tinus42 wrote: That is strange, because if they've made a similar program about an apartment building in Amsterdam they'd definitely show ethnic people living there (Amsterdam is close to have a non-white majority).

One of Amsterdam's legendary sons, one of the best ever to play the game:

tinus42 wrote: Their angle was probably that this terrible credit crisis even affected the WASPy yuppies and having black people living in the condo would have deflected from that message because they think that the average viewer might think "it's just a bunch of poor immigrants suffering not people like me, where's the remote".

It may be they had just a few specific contacts or friends they used as the centerpiece of the show and didn't opt to research further into folks (yuppies no less...if that's what they were looking for) of other ethnicities right here in the same general area.

Pity. Would have been a lot more interesting if they'd branched out at least somewhat.

***edited to add: What sweet tea said above about condos or whatever group of people they found at that particular condo seems to make a lot of sense

arches

tinus42 wrote: You can see episodes 1 and 2 at these links:

Episode 1 (scroll to 13:50 minutes)
http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=10033447

Episode 2 (scroll to 14:20 minutes)
http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=10038527

No idea if they're country locked.

Yup...those links work. What a downer....let's focus on the positive....they have a very nice roof deck!

jconnolly

I love it. I live on the 4th floor directly across the street from 457 prospect pl. Can't wait to check this out when I'm not using my iPhone.

tinus42

And here is the final part 3:
http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=10059507
Starts at 13:00 minutes.

steve austin

Thank you Tinus 42. I enjoyed watching. To answer your question, the area is somewhat different and somewhat the same as represented in the show. If you live in a newly renovated condo and hang out with your friends who also live in the condo and moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan then I guess that is what it is like. The block itself, however, is a mixed bag of people going to work and dudes hanging out all day, listening to music, getting drunk and smoking weed.

snowboardqueen

Lol, from an American point of View, that was the funniest thing I have seen in a while.

The block and area to exact is very mixed. I know the Netherlands has quite a few actors of color (mixed and full blooded African), because I have worked in that market, so I'm not sure why none where cast. Perhaps, the producer, writer and/or creator's choice?

It's if an American cast a show based on your country and cast every citizen looked like an Albino, but they had ice blue eyes instead of pink ones. I hope that did not sound offensive to Albinos, just trying to make the point of extreme stereotyping and type casting.

Also, Grand and prospect Pl is in Crown Heights. there is a debate of sorts of where the boundary is.., but Crown Heights begins East of Washington Ave.

Thanks for the heads up on this show.

whyfi

sweet tea wrote: it is strange to think of portraying that block as mostly (let alone entirely) white, but to be fair, i bet the condo-owning population mostly is. (not entirely -- i can think of some exceptions -- but there is a noticeable racial split between renters and condo-owners there.)

Noooo... In my building (a condo on the block in question), there are 15 adults, 6 are white. 457 seems similarly mixed, from those I've met and seen going in and out.

won't ub my nabor

I assumed this was "reality" based, but from SBQ's comment I'm not sure. Are these actors or "real people"?

jeffrey

I'd assumed it was a reality show too, not a scripted series.

snowboardqueen

I'm not exactly sure for that show yet.., but American reality shows are cast, but with "real people", and have scripts.

sweet tea

WhyFi wrote: [quote=sweet tea]it is strange to think of portraying that block as mostly (let alone entirely) white, but to be fair, i bet the condo-owning population mostly is. (not entirely -- i can think of some exceptions -- but there is a noticeable racial split between renters and condo-owners there.)

Noooo... In my building (a condo on the block in question), there are 15 adults, 6 are white. 457 seems similarly mixed, from those I've met and seen going in and out.

huh, well shut my mouth. guess i've been doing more of that ass-u-me business than i realized. :oops:

sillybilly

First, it's not a new "show" in the Netherlands. "Netwerk" is a 60 Minutes type program. The "457 Prospect" report is a 3-part series. That's it.

Second, the building is very diverse.

Third, one of the building's residents is friends with the Dutch journalist who heard that it's odd that many of the residents, who are all professionals with advanced degrees, are either unemployed or are facing unemployment. Normally, in a recession, manufacturing and service-related jobs are the ones to be lost. So that was the story angle.

Fourth, we were all not friends living in Manhattan who decided, "hey, wouldn't it be great if we moved to crown heights and colonize a building in a gentrifying neighborhood." Indeed, some of us are long-time Brooklyn residents.

Fifth, no one in this piece is a paid actor. It's also not a reality show. It's a news report (human interest/economy piece).

Hope this clears up some confusion. I'm sure if the piece wasn't in Dutch, much of this would be clear.