A minor remodeling accident last week at Cinespace Studios blew out of control when a freelancer allegedly suspected asbestos contamination and decided to play hero and call in an EPA inspector.
The freelancer works on the production of “Boss,” the 8-part TV series – that originally had planned to film in Pittsburgh — headquartering at Near West Side Cinespace. The production occupies large offices on the studio’s fourth and fifth floors.
Kelsey Grammer stars as Chicago “Mayor Kane,” and a large, elaborately furnished office on the fifth floor, once the province of a former top Ryerson Steel executive, will substitute for “Mayor Kane’s” City Hall offices.
“Boss’” production offices are on the studio’s fourth floor.
On the stage of the 350,000-sq. ft. facility, a construction crew has been working to finish the remodeling of the stage in preparation for “Boss” interiors scheduled to start filming sometime next week.
Remodeling came to a halt Wednesday when a construction worker accidentally bit into an old wrapped steam pipe. The pipe released a cloud of dust that conceivably might have been asbestos, since the fittings are in a building constructed over 100 years ago at a time when asbestos was used as a standard building material.
In a questionable situation like this, a building manager would normally protect his tenants’ best interests by cleaning up the accident and requesting a city-dispatched or private company environmental inspection to assure the safety of the premises.
Before that could happen, however, a freelancer working for “Boss,” who either seeing the accident first-hand or learning about it, took it upon himself to summon a city EPA inspector, according to a source close to the situation who asked not to be identified.
Since the freelancer did not consult with his “Boss” production manager or inform Cinespace studio manager Alex Pissios of his intentions, Pissios was surprised to find an independent EPA inspector on the stage taking air samples Wednesday afternoon.
By that time, not only were phones and Emails buzzing overtime around town, but the freelancer allegedly had sent Emails to local union officials and L.A. studio heads to make sure they knew about Cinespace’s “potential asbestos problems,” the Reel was told.
Pissios brought in a 30-man cleaning crew Thursday night that worked around the clock to scour the stage and the two floors occupied by the “Boss” contingent.
The next day at Pissios’ request, Carnow Conibear & Associates, a Loop environmental and occupational health consultants who specialize in asbestos and lead contamination, performed ambient air sampling within various areas of the building according to a standard analysis test.
Carnow Conibear’s finding? “The results of the sampling were representative of normal background building conditions” that are totally acceptable to all workers, stated the report.
The pipe dust was ruled inconsequential but not so harmless was the momentary bad rap Cinespace took, which could’ve been detrimental to Chicago’s future production business.
To exonerate the studio and himself, perhaps the freelancer will want to Email Carnow Conibear’s report to the same people he contacted over his earlier concern about the asbestos “crisis” that turned out to be a false alarm.
