New York Film Festival 2024

[Chris Knipp]

"Amsterdam and West 63rd Street, 1956" (Courtesy of New York City Parks Photo Archive)

SOURCE

A NYFF 62 Special Event Announced

San Juan Hill: Manhattan's Lost Neighborhood
Stanley Nelson, 2024, 60m

This 62nd New York Film Festival Special Event will feature a conversation with director Stanley Nelson, producer Rita Coburn, and special guests following the screening. The film is narrated by Ariana DeBose, edited by Sebastián Díaz, produced by Rita Coburn, and produced and directed by Stanley Nelson. It is made possible by support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

In the first half of the 20th century, the area now called Lincoln Square was known by another name: San Juan Hill. Musical phenomena like bebop and the Charleston were created there; its clubs and theaters nurtured creative geniuses like James P. Johnson, Josephine Baker, and Thelonious Monk; and artist spaces like the Lincoln Square Arcade counted luminaries like Eugene O’Neill, George Bellows, and Robert Henri among their inhabitants. Home to a largely working-class community, San Juan Hill was redlined in the 1930s and targeted by “urban renewal” in the 1940s and 1950s, when thousands of residents were displaced to make way for Amsterdam Houses, Lincoln Center, Fordham University, and additional developments. West Side Story also refers to this neighborhood as it was before being razed.

The film will be shown Wed., Oct. 9, 2024 at 6:00pm at Alice Tully Hall.Tickets will be sold for this event on a Choose What You Pay basis, starting at $5, Sept. 5 and Sept. 10. For more details see the Film at Lincoln Center website HERE.

The opening of David Geffen Hall two years ago also featured a tribute to San Juan Hill - a live performance. For a discussion of this film with Stanley Nelson at an earlier screening go HERE. SEE ALSO HERE.