By Amy Zimmer
DNAinfo News Editor
MIDTOWN — The Plaza Hotel's famous Oak Room was taken over by a production crew Monday morning filming a new medical drama called "Weekends at Bellevue."
The show, recently picked-up by FOX, is based on Dr. Julie Holland's memoir of the same name. Holland was the weekend doctor in charge of Bellevue Hospital's psychiatry emergency room from 1996 to 2005.
"The serial killer, the naked man barking like a dog in Times Square, the schizophrenic begging for an injection of club soda to quiet the voices in his head, the subway conductor who watched a young woman pushed into the path of his train," were among the case files documented in Holland's memoir, according to the book jacket.
Perhaps the book was destined for television.
"Holland supplies not only a page-turner with all the fast-paced immediacy of a TV medical drama, but also a fascinating glimpse into the inner lives of doctors, struggling to maintain perspective in a world where sanity is in the eye of the beholder," the jacket said.
The pilot, adapted by Lisa Zwerling of "ER," will star British screen and stage actress Janet McTeer, who received an Oscar nomination in 2000 for her work in "Tumbleweeds."
The cast Monday morning was dolled up in shimmering dresses and suits to film a party scene in the stately wood-paneled Oak Room, one PA said.
The Plaza is no stranger to the big or small screen.
It's made appearances on CWTV's "Gossip Girl," which was filming nearby just last week, and HBO's "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos."
The hotel and residence on Fifth Avenue and Central Park South also been featured in "Scent of a Woman," "Crocodile Dundee," "Sleepless in Seattle," and the original "Arthur" movie from 1981, among many others.
