Oscar in the News Again: Moving to New York???
I don't think I can remember a year where the Academy stayed in the news so much in the Oscar off-season, especially during the summer! But here they are again, and this latest news seems kind of strange, especially since the Academy has denied having had talks about this issue.
Lots of news this week ... but first though, the story broke late last week that a number of officials in New York City were trying to persuade the Academy to hold all or at least some of the next Academy Awards, the big 75th anniversary celebration, from New York City, as a way of helping the city recover from the terrible events of September 11, 2001.
Some of the named people trying to convince the Academy were New York Governor George Pataki, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO James L. Dolan, and Miramax Films co-chairman Harvey Weinstein. Bloomberg was quoted as saying that New York City is the entertainment capital of the world, and that there would be no better way to demonstrate that than to hold the premier event in show business in their city. Apparently, Daniel Doctoroff, New York's deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding has been leading the charge from the Bloomberg administration to bring the Oscars to New York as a way to help bolster the city's economy. In addition to the Oscars, they are working on bringing the Super Bowl to New York, as well as the 2004 Democratic and Republican conventions.
The initial word from the Academy was that a complete move to New York to do the entire show there was out of the question, as the Academy has a 20-year contract with the new Kodak Theater in Hollywood to host the show there, and I mean, that theater was built primarily for the Academy Awards show. So it's safe to say that the Academy will not be moving the entire show to New York, barring some unforeseen surprise. The Academy has never held an entire show in New York, but from 1953 to 1957, it was commonplace for part of the show to be held in Los Angeles, and part of the show to be held in New York, at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood and the NBC Century Theater in New York. Now I could see them doing something like that, especially for something like the big 75th anniversary celebration.
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