WHAT IS THE CITY: DEAN + NEWSREEL + DANSKA
Josephine Hayes Dean THE REBUILDING OF MASCOT FLATS 1992, 59 min, 16mm "This is a moving story about a group of homeless New Yorkers who set out to renovate an abandoned tenement building. Helped by Habitat for Humanity, including Jimmy Carter, the participants become proficient carpenters and tenant-owners. This group of ethnically diverse people overcomes bureaucracy, skepticism, and lack of money to attain finally a decent affordable place to live." –ALEXANDER STREET Newsreel THE CASE AGAINST LINCOLN CENTER (Newsreel #17) 1968, 12 min, 16mm-to-DCP More than 20,000 Latino families were displaced to make way for Lincoln Center, home to the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Symphony. This film examines the patrons of the art complex (corporations and wealthy families) and the culture displayed there. Juxtaposing the atmosphere of Lincoln Center with the vibrant street culture of a displaced neighborhood, the film correctly predicts the process by which the West Side was to be turned into a high-rent area for the upper middle class. Herbert Danska UPTOWN: PORTRAIT OF THE SOUTH BRONX 1965, 29 min, 16mm. Print courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; preserved with funding from the New York State Library, Division of Library Development. A study of a disadvantaged community within the city, situated in a triangle at the southern tip of the Bronx, UPTOWN includes scenes of tenements, streets, parks, churches, markets, dance halls, and playgrounds, revealing the way of life of its people, their desperation and their hope.