The city of New York wants to see the 75th annual Academy Awards ceremony–or at least a portion of it–happen on the East Coast.
With the 2003 Oscars just three months away, Variety reports a New York consortium, including Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, Cablevision Systems chairman Jim Dolan, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki, actor Robert De Niro and director Spike Lee, is once again sending a proposal to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to ask if part of the Academy’s special “History of Film” presentation could be broadcast from New York and have it be focused on the city itself.
This bid follows an attempt last summer by the New York representatives to move the entire Oscars ceremony to the East Coast. The proposal was quickly shot down, as the Academy cited the 10-year contract it has with the newly built Kodak Theater in Hollywood.
The group believes a New York Oscar event would help the city recover from the effects of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. According to Variety, this is one of the main reasons the Recording Academy moved 2003’s Grammy Awards ceremony to New York for the first time in four years.
“This is not about taking away from Hollywood,” Weinstein said in an interview with the New York Times last summer. “This is about Hollywood helping New York.”
