Sky Room Talk Hosted by Robert Spiegelman
A FATEFUL CROSSROADS: WHERE WEST SIDE STORY MEETS FORDHAM
Thursday, May 10 at 7:30 pm | Members $11 | Public $16
Dr. Robert Spiegelman presents the enthralling story – with vivid slides and movie clips, of how four west side stories converge into a gripping tour-de-force: from the diverse, mostly-minority neighborhood before Lincoln Center; through the reign of Robert Moses; to the rise of Lincoln Center in the footprint of a razed community; and in the continuing aftermath of our personal stories.
Professor Spiegelman starts with the making of West Side Story (by Bernstein, Sondheim and Robbins and Robert Wise) and its being shot in the ruins of San Juan Hill (Jets vs. Sharks); highlights who’s remembered and who’s forgotten in the area, then and now; remembers indie cinema giant Dan Talbot (the anti-Moses) and the recent closing of his/our revered Lincoln Plaza Cinemas; what today’s Dutch in Old Amsterdam just did with a controversial statue to a national hero (actual Moses-like villain) and how it would help us here in “New” Amsterdam to recover a missing Moses statue, that could restore the erased memory of that former minority – and white ethnic! – neighborhood; and how its iconic theme song, "There's a Place for Us/Somewhere" becomes an inclusive challenge the dominant legacies of Moses and the Hyper-Gentrification of the Lincoln Square projects that have ruled the roost. As Steven Spielberg has announced his remake to come, bring your own “west side Stories” for our extended Q&A!
