AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, THE: NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM: THE CITY AND THE WORLD {EPISODE SEVEN} (TV)
Summary
Part seven in an eight-episode Ric Burns documentary that chronicles the history of New York from its inception as a Dutch Colony to its aggressive and destructive urban renewal campaigns of the 1950s.
As New York City receives word of the end of World War II on August 14th, 1945, the city erupts into celebration, particularly converging in Times Square. The troops return home in the ensuing months, prompting further celebration. This newfound spirit reinvigorates the political and infrastructural forces of the city, creating what is referred to as a “pinnacle” of progress and a huge variety of manufactured and produced goods. This helps to support the vast working population of the city and they engender a sense of community amongst themselves. However, the massive shift in defense spending to the West and South plants the seeds for an eventual economic and social crisis in the city. Fiorello La Guardia sees the end of his third and final term as mayor in January 1946; observers note that the he was “worn out” from his tenure during the Great Depression. He is succeeded by ex-policeman William O’Dwyer; La Guardia dies from pancreatic cancer in 1947. During this time, pioneers in urban planning like Robert Moses and Le Corbusier advocate radical alterations to city design to be totally oriented around automobiles. Le Corbusier in particular advocates the destruction of the city, to be replaced by “slabs” connected solely by intricate highway systems to facilitate eternally flowing traffic. This school of thought leads to the destruction of many small, long-established, tight-knit neighborhoods within the city, completely changing the physical and social dynamic of the urban environment.
The postwar years see the establishment of the United Nations within New York City, cementing its position as the “capital of the world” in the minds of many. The building itself proves to engender a striking visual design based on Le Corbusier’s work, and inspires a massive surge of office building construction throughout the 1950’s in Manhattan. This orients New York as a city known as a corporate haven and economic powerhouse. Simultaneously, hundreds of thousands of poor African-Americans move to New York from the South, looking for work; this is contemporaneous with the advent of regular flights to and from Puerto Rico, allowing many thousands of Puerto Ricans to immigrate to New York as well. Both of these groups find it difficult to advance socially or economically, largely relegated to menial work and cordoned into slums. By the end of the 1950’s, New York’s vast industrial sector begins to wane due to increasing competition from other cities and lower production costs in offsite facilities. New York finds itself unable to adjust to new industrial trends, such as the decentralization of industry due to the advent of the cross-country highway system. Moses, whose sweeping vision for New York City guides it for decades, hoping to unify the city and connect it to the highway system with the aid of federal funding.
This period sees unprecedented new changes in urban planning and development, and Moses seeks to capitalize on these changes. To do this, he creates his own piece of legislation which would name him “construction coordinator” of New York City, essentially empowering him to represent the entire city when dealing with the federal government about housing and transportation development. This leads to a federally-mandated effort at urban renewal, known as “Title I,” hoping to clear away the slums and provide affordable housing for the poor. The idea is to get the city to use eminent domain to seize parcels of slum properties, tear them down, and amalgamate them into larger properties for redistribution for housing development. Although intended to help the poor, in practice the program allows for housing developers with their own ulterior motives to acquire the properties and use them for their own benefit. They also have no interest in helping the many poor African-American, Puerto Rican, and minority populations in desperate need of affordable housing. Most tenants evicted by Title I are not able to relocate to their old neighborhoods; those that do are forced into low-cost housing projects and further segregated from the rest of the city. Hundreds of thousands of poor minorities are displaced by the urban renewal project, causing a great deal of social and economic strife and destroying swaths of the city beyond recognition.
Moses also pioneers the use of “superblocks,” attempts to create structures not bound to a strict grid system and employing greenery to fill in negative space. Title II soon comes into being as an effort by the federal government to underwrite mortgages of people looking to become suburban homeowners, encouraging people to move out of the city. Coupled with the development of the highway, including the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, this further decentralizes the influence of the city while increasing American reliance on the automobile as a means of economic progress. The development of expressways in the city forces the evacuation of tens of thousands; politicians are uneasy about this development but Moses continues with his plans undaunted. The problems underlying the expressway development are exemplified in the Cross Bronx Expressway, which ends up destroying many vibrant and long-standing neighborhoods. One community, East Tremont, takes umbrage at Moses’ decision and stages a protest in 1952, a rarity at the time. Despite promises from Bronx assemblymen that the wishes of the community would be respected, Moses is able to swiftly change their minds on the matter. Construction begins in 1955 and dozens of large apartment complexes are bulldozed to make way for the Expressway; construction efforts are extremely difficult due to the challenge of blasting through highly trafficked zones and the need to keep the adjacent subway line running. In the end, thirteen major roadways are constructed and over 250,000 people are displaced by the project.
The devastating aftereffects of the expressway project destroy the fabric of neighborhood life in the Bronx, leading to widespread poverty and urban decay. By the 1960’s, the effects of urban renewal become more apparent in their deleterious effect on the city’s citizens. Moses further solidifies his hold over the city’s construction and holds multiple positions simultaneously, engaging in more large-scale projects such as the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. His projects end up consuming a great deal of industrial property, slowly and subtly eroding the city’s economy. Development of the subway system all-but halts and the mass move to the suburbs accelerates. As white citizens move into the suburbs they are largely replaced by African-American tenants, downgrading the land values of the vacated housing. Advances in seaborne shipping render the city’s many longshoremen obsolete, causing the city’s piers to largely deteriorate from neglect. The demolishment of Penn Station in 1963 proves to be symbolic to many of the problems involved with the city’s construction practices. This event creates support for a preservation movement within the city.
Moses continues to acquire influence over the city as the years progress, and by the mid-1960’s he largely achieves his “master plan” for New York City, creating a “metropolitan arterial tapestry.” In 1961, he conceives of a super-highway in the heart of Manhattan itself, stretching from Chinatown to Greenwich Village; he is wholly fixated on the flow of traffic over that of the living conditions of the people therein. This plan would have destroyed thousands of historic structures in lower Manhattan. Residents of the Village are appalled at this plan and band together to oppose it, led by architecture critic Jane Jacobs. She strongly opposes the regimented urban plans of Moses and Le Corbusier and forces people to reevaluate the nature of what a city is and what function it serves for its people. Her philosophy is much more focused on the way in which people live and interact with each other rather than the economic or structural planning behind a city’s function. Jacobs and her followers stage public rallies in opposition to Moses and his campaign of urban renewal. Moses staunchly rebukes them, believing that his plan is for their own good and that they simply do not realize this. Their organization, motivation, and capacity to cooperate prove to be powerful forces for change. On December 11th, 1962, at a meeting of the Board of Estimate at City Hall, the city unanimously votes to turn down the proposal for the Expressway, representing a major victory for the people of New York City in influencing urban renewal projects and in the makeup of the city itself, eschewing the “new is better” mentality. On April 19th, 1965, legislation establishing the Landmarks Preservation Commission is signed, saving hundreds of historically significant structures from being demolished.
Despite the waning of urban renewal, the 1960’s see new problems arise due to an economic crisis. This is directly responsible for the proliferation of ghettos for the increasingly downtrodden minorities of the inner city; crime rates and tension between races are at an all-time high. This leads to race riots breaking out in the streets, including a violent outbreak in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1964. Mayor John Lindsay takes office on January 1st, 1966, promising to help quell the racial violence engulfing the city. Protests against segregation laws and ghettoization become commonplace in light of further economic problems, including the war spending situation on the Vietnam War. These factors contribute to an atmosphere of “chaos” and mass dissatisfaction with the city by the end of the 1960’s. Arson in the Bronx becomes commonplace due to both unsafe building codes and duplicitous landlords looking to profit off of insurance claims. Lindsay’s efforts to address these problems prove to be expensive and funding is difficult to come by, leading to increasingly massive debt problems. The consequences of this debt is seen in the fiscal crisis of the early 1970’s, especially in 1975 when the bank consortium lending New York money withdraws their loans until the city can pay them back. City leaders look to the federal government for aid, but they decide not to issue any federal loan guarantees, believing that the city must save itself from bankruptcy. The rest of the country largely shares this assessment, viewing New York as representative of the worst aspects of then-modern America.
In the midst of this downward spiral, art and culture evolves out of the inner city in its own fashion, including graffiti, hip-hop, and rap music. Eventually the federal government reverses its position and decides to grant aid to New York City. With a massive rebalancing of public service spending and paying back outstanding loans, New York is able to overcome the financial crisis by 1981. The 1980’s sees a vast revitalization of the economic forces of New York City, the most prominent of which is a revitalized Wall Street and the rebirth of the New York City Stock Exchange. Many lost jobs over the years are replaced by the 1990’s as businesses move back into the city; the city’s density becomes enticing to companies whereas it was once undesirable. This allows the city to open itself back up to globalization as more and more diverse immigrants arrive in large numbers. The end of the 20th Century sees the juxtaposition of the continuing societal tensions within the city with its great strides in economic and social progress.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: November 30, 1999 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 2:18:14
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 121880
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Public affairs/Documentaries; African-American Collection - News/Talk/Docs; History - American; New York (N.Y.)
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1999-2003
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Margaret Drain … Executive Producer
- Judy Crichton … Executive Producer
- Ric Burns … Executive Producer, Director, Writer
- Kerry Herman … Coordinating Producer
- Susan Mottau … Coordinating Producer
- Kate Roth Knull … Senior Producer
- Steve Rivo … Producer
- Mark Samels … Producer
- Lisa Ades … Co-Producer
- Robin Espinola … Associate Producer
- Daniel Vatsky … Researcher
- Meghan Horvath … Researcher
- Sujin Seo … Researcher
- Lewanne Jones … Researcher
- James Sanders … Writer
- Brian Keane … Music by
- Mark Adler … Theme Music by
- David Ogden Stiers … Narrator
- Robert A. Caro … Interviewee
- Kenneth T. Jackson … Interviewee
- Alfred Kazin … Interviewee
- David McCullough … Interviewee
- Ray Suarez … Interviewee
- Pete Hamill … Interviewee
- Mike Wallace … Interviewee
- Marshall Berman … Interviewee
- Robert A.M. Stern … Interviewee
- Craig Steven Wilder … Interviewee
- Ada Louise Huxtable … Interviewee
- Allen Ginsberg … Interviewee
- Carol Willis … Interviewee
- Frances Goldin … Interviewee
- Cheryl Greenburg … Interviewee
- Luc Sante … Interviewee
- John Steele Gordon … Interviewee
- Ed Koch … Interviewee
- Joshua Freeman … Interviewee
- Anna Quindlen … Interviewee
- Fran Lebowitz … Interviewee
- Donald J. Trump … Interviewee
- Brendan Gill … Interviewee
- Spalding Gray … Interviewee
- Calvin O. Butts III … Interviewee
- Frank Pellegrino … Interviewee
- Philip Bosco … Voice
- Keith David … Voice
- Paul Giamatti … Voice
- Josh Hamilton … Voice
- George Plimpton … Voice
- Susan Sarandon … Voice
- Callie Thorne … Voice
- Eli Wallach … Voice
- Jane Jacobs
- Fiorello La Guardia
- Le Corbusier
- John Lindsay
- Robert Moses
- William O'Dwyer