TAKING DOVER STREET.(The Talk of the Town)

Like residents of other photogenic parts of the city, people who live between the Brooklyn Bridge and the South Street Seaport have become accustomed to seeing their blocks turned into movie sets. Film trucks idle day and night in the street; there's no parking; klieg lights illuminate the bedroom windows; and, as one resident put it the other day, "arrogant guys with a thug attitude tell you to stay off your own sidewalk."

Even by local standards, last Tuesday's shoot, for "I Am Legend," a forthcoming Will Smith disaster movie, was remarkable. "I Am Legend" is, in terms of size, length, and logistics, one of the most ambitious location shoots that has ever taken place in the city. Since shooting began, in October, "Legend" has been establishing a new precedent for the aggressive takeover of public space. The movie camped out in Washington Square Park for weeks in October and November, restricting access for most of that time, and occasionally setting off loud explosions in the wee hours. Tuesday night was the first of six night shoots on Dover Street, near the Seaport. In addition to simulated gridlock on Dover, there was to be a panicked evacuation across South Street, and a Black Hawk helicopter was to land on a two-hundred-foot barge in the East River.

At 5 P.M., more than a thousand extras were waiting in two huge heated tents that had been set up in a lot near some basketball courts. There were men and women of all ages, and lots of kids, some of whom were doing their homework at long wooden tables. The film is set in a plague-ridden Manhattan; the infected extras had hectic splotches of red makeup on their faces. Some of the extras (or "background artists," as they were referred to by the P.A.s) were making seven dollars and fifty cents an hour, and would be working well past midnight. On Tuesday, the temperature was thirty-four degrees; by Friday it would be in the teens.

At quarter past five, a P.A. began going around in the tents, making sure that the evacuees had their motivations down. "O.K., people, listen up," he yelled through a megaphone. "You are tired. You're on the verge of despair. But you're not panicked--not at first. Later, you panic."

The fact ...