In a year of successive urban emergencies, the New York City transit strike was one city drama that caused relatively mild inconveniences for those working in the television industry.
The strike of New York’s 34,000 transit workers, the first in 25 years, shutdown bus and subway service throughout the city.
On the first day, the networks made provisions to get talent in early for the live morning shows. Once there, coverage was light and relaxed.
Last Tuesday morning, the New York Times reported that a Fox 5 news team stumbled upon a young woman in labor stalled in traffic on her way to the hospital. A Fox promo made the most of the incident, urging viewers to “see how a Fox Five crew helped her out.” (The crew alerted a police officer.)
Most feature film and dramatic TV production in the city had either just completed production or was shutdown for the holidays, Reuters reported.
Two productions that went on last week were the Weinstein Co. thriller Awake, and the NBC midseason legal drama Conviction. Both were in production at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens and neither suffered serious disruptions.
