AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, THE: NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM: SUNSHINE AND SHADOW: 1865-1898 {EPISODE THREE} (TV)

Summary

One in this documentary series. Part three in a seven-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. Utilizing archival photographs, film footage, editorial caricatures, and interviews with scholars and writers offering insight into the people, ideas, and dreams that shaped the metropolis, this episode seeks to explain the gilded age, a period in New York City history that transformed the city's economy from provincial to industrial. At the center of the episode is an exploration of the city's accumulating wealth, contrasted against the city's rapidly growing poor. Throughout, the viewer is offered narrated quotations by the city's most famous writer, Walt Whitman, and diary keeper George Templeton Strong. The film begins with a discussion of Central Park and one of its designers, Frederick Law Olmsted. Playwright Tony Kushner and writers Peter Quinn and Caleb Carr express their thoughts about the park as a metaphor for the city itself. Next, historians Kenneth T. Jackson, David McCullough, and Daniel Czitrom explain that the city began to face problems such as housing, sewage, and disease control as it was transformed into an industrial mecca. Architect Robert A.M. Stern, writer Brendan Gill, and historian Mike Wallace use the example of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt to demonstrate the unscrupulous business practices of the early years of the gilded age. The film next turns to the Brooklyn Bridge, exploring its designer John Augustus Roebling and his son Washington Roebling, who took over construction when his father died. Writer Phillip Lopate introduces Boss William M. Tweed, Tammany Hall, and the history of New York City's largest and most influential political machine. The film emphasizes Tammany's appeal to poor immigrants, whom the system worked to help, while delving into the widespread graft that skimmed millions of dollars off public-works projects. Writer Pete Hamill discusses the real estate racket the machine developed, and the film highlights Thomas Nast and his caricatured editorials that played a part in convicting Tweed. Next, writer Robert A. Caro introduces a young Al Smith, who eventually became governor of New York after rising through the Tammany machine, and describes his origins in the poor Lower East Side. Historian John Kuo Wei Tchen discusses the ethnic mixing that took place along the porous borders of poor neighborhoods. Next, Ruth J. Abram, founder of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, explains that private charities could not handle the needs of the poor during the depression of 1873. These lean years, the film notes, made way for financier John Pierpont Morgan to enact rules and manage competition on the stock exchange, helping him give birth to the modern economy. Writer Alfred Kazin returns to the subject of the Brooklyn Bridge and its official opening, fourteen years after construction first began. The film next explains the origins of the song "East Side, West Side" by Charles Lawler and James Blake. It also delves into an exploration of the writer and photographer Jacob Riis, who captured images of slums and tenement dwellers; his book, "How the Other Half Lives," awakened the city to the appalling conditions of the poor. Wallace explains the evolution of social-justice theory, which compelled the city to provide basic services such as public health and decent housing for its citizens. Along with the new emphasis on basic human comforts came an emphasis on building cultural institutions such as museums and libraries. The episode ends with an examination of the consolidation that annexed Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens together in 1898 to form the second largest city in the world.

Cataloging of this program was made possible by The New York Community Trust - Haas Foundation Fund.

Details

• NETWORK: PBS
• DATE: November 16, 1999 Tuesday 9:00 PM
• RUNNING TIME: 1:50:20
• COLOR/B&W: Color
• CATALOG ID: T:58913
• GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
• SUBJECT HEADING: New York (N.Y.) - History - 1865-1898; New York City; She Made It Collection (Judy Crichton)
• SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1988-
• COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

• Margaret Drain … Executive Producer
• Judy Crichton … Executive Producer
• Ric Burns … Executive Producer, Director, Writer
• Kerry Herman … Coordinating Producer
• Kate Roth Knull … Supervising Producer
• Lisa Ades … Producer, Co-Director
• Ray Segal … Associate Producer
• Steve Rivo … Associate Producer
• Meghan Horvath … Researcher
• Anya Sirota … Researcher
• James Sanders … Writer
• Brian Keane … Music by
• David Ogden Stiers … Narrator
• Philip Bosco … Cast, Voice
• Paul Giamatti … Cast, Voice
• James Hazeldine … Cast, Voice
• Frederic Kimball … Cast, Voice
• Robert Sean Leonard … Cast, Voice
• David Margulies … Cast, Voice
• George Plimpton … Cast, Voice
• Frances Sternhagen … Cast, Voice
• Eli Wallach … Cast, Voice
• Ruth J. Abram
• James Blake
• Robert A. Caro
• Caleb Carr
• Daniel Czitrom
• Brendan Gill
• Pete Hamill
• Kenneth T. Jackson
• Alfred Kazin
• Kuo Wei Tchen, John
• Tony Kushner
• Charles Lawler
• Phillip Lopate
• David McCullough
• John Pierpont Morgan
• Thomas Nast
• Frederick Law Olmsted
• Peter Quinn
• Jacob Riis
• John Augustus Roebling
• Washington Augustus Roebling
• Al Smith
• Robert A.M. Stern
• George Templeton Strong
• Tweed, William Marcy "Boss"
• Cornelius Vanderbilt
• Mike Wallace
• Walt Whitman