“The Post,” which starred Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, was set in old the Washington Post building on L Street, NW, circa 1971. To recreate the location, the production found an aging AT&T office tower in White Plains, N.Y., that was run down and slated for demolition.
Twentieth Century Fox is now embroiled in litigation with the owner of that building, who is accused of pocketing a $100,000 security deposit. The owner alleges that Fox damaged the building’s walls, removed ceiling tiles without replacing them, and overused the power system.
Fox filed a suit Thursday in federal court in New York, accusing the owner — White Plains Development LLC — of breaching the location agreement by concocting phony allegations.
“It was clear that these claims were merely a pretense for White Plains Development to steal Fox’s money,” the lawsuit alleges.
Fox paid $300,000 to rent three floors of the 1955 building on Hamilton Avenue for several weeks in the summer of 2017. The empty floors were renovated to stand in for the newspaper’s executive offices, newsroom and press room.
Filming wrapped in mid-June, and the production vacated the building by the end of July. According to Fox, the owner — White Plains Development LLC — had two days to submit any alleged damages that would be deducted from the deposit. Fox alleges that the owner waited more than a month to submit the list.
Fox also argues that many of the issues predated the filming, and that the renovations were not supposed to be removed because the whole building was to be gutted anyway. The owner has not responded to Fox since September 2017, according to the suit.
The owner did not respond to a request for comment.