Mayor William Pikolycky is ready to welcome Steven Spielberg and his film crew to Woodbine.
Laurie Boyd, the city clerk for Woodbine, said she has been fielding calls lately from people in different states who want to visit the small Cape May County town.
“There are people from all over. I’ve had calls from people in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware who want to come see the filming,” Boyd said.
Their sudden interest in visiting Woodbine can be summed up with one name: Steven Spielberg.
In what is stirring a lot of excitement in town, the Academy Award-winning director is scheduled to begin filming in Woodbine on Monday for scenes in his new UFO-themed movie, reportedly called “The Dish.”
“It’s show time,” Woodbine Mayor William Pikolycky proclaimed of the filming. “Everybody is ready. That’s the main event that’s going on.”
Pikolycky, Boyd and others in town really aren’t sure while Woodbine has been selected by Spielberg as a backdrop for his film. All they know is that Woodbine and Cape May County are ready to welcome Spielberg and his production crew.
“Anything we can do to encourage this is a good thing,” Boyd said. “Cape May County is a very hospitable place. We will show them southern New Jersey hospitality.”
Spielberg is scheduled to shoot scenes in different parts of Woodbine from Monday to Friday using local residents as extras to play train station passengers and car drivers.
Filming has already started, or is planned, in other neighboring towns, including Buena Vista Township and Tuckahoe in Upper Township, Boyd said.
Filming for the movie has already started in other parts of Cape May County. (Photo courtesy of NBC10 Philadelphia)The filming locations in Woodbine have not yet been revealed by Spielberg’s production company. Pikolycky said he understands that the railroad tracks running through Woodbine will be used for some filming, as well as DeHirsch Avenue near the Woodbine Developmental Center.
About 175 production people are already in town to begin work on the film, giving Woodbine’s restaurants and retail shops an economic lift from the influx of visitors. Hotels in neighboring towns are also benefiting by having the film’s production crews fill their rooms.
“It’s a real boost to the whole area, not just to Woodbine, but the surrounding communities as well,” Pikolycky said.
Wanting to share some of Woodbine’s history with Spielberg, Pikolycky hopes to give the director a personal tour of Woodbine’s Sam Azeez Museum housed in the stately, red-brick former Brotherhood Synagogue built in the 1890s.
Pikolycky believes the museum would be of special interest to Spielberg, who is Jewish and directed the Academy Award-winning Best Picture “Schindler’s List” about German industrialist Oskar Schindler’s efforts to save more than 1,000 mostly Polish Jews from the Holocaust in World War II.
The museum chronicles Woodbine’s founding in 1891 as a settlement for Eastern European Jews. Woodbine became known as "the first self-governing Jewish community since the fall of Jerusalem,” according to the museum’s website.
“What I’m really working on is to get Spielberg to come to the museum. I asked them to throw me a bone during a little down time,” Pikolycky said of his request to the production company to give Spielberg a personal tour.
Even if the tour doesn’t work out, Pikolycky said Spielberg’s presence in town and the filming alone will be monumental for Woodbine.
“I really feel excited about the whole thing,” he said. “Everybody is excited.”
The Sam Azeez Museum, housed in the former Brotherhood Synagogue, chronicles Woodbine's history.
