Events & News

People Preserving Place: A Film Festival

April 30, 2017

Screenings in New York City throughout the month of April

People Preserving Place is a film festival presented by the New York Preservation Archive Project in celebration of NYC Landmarks50+ Alliance‘s “Preservation Month” in April 2017. Bringing together documentaries, pop culture films, and iconic television shows that chronicle New York City under the common theme of preservation, these screenings explore how the movement has been characterized and celebrated on the screen. Click on the screening title below for more information and to RSVP. 

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Preservation She Wrote
April 5, 2017 at 6:30 p.m.
B Bar & Grill
40 East 4th Street
New York, NY 10003

Embezzled pensions! Murder by crossbow! Legacy businesses! Jessica Fletcher takes on a quintessential New York City murder mystery involving the preservation world in the episode,The Dying Game, of the popular television series, Murder, She Wrote. The closing of the family-owned Larkin’s Department Store in New York City leads Jessica Fletcher to attempt to broker a deal that will sell the historic building to the Museum of Contemporary Culture (she’s on the board of course!). However the deal falls apart when someone is found dead on the premises and soon Jessica finds herself trying to solve a double murder with no shortage of suspects, all while attempting to preserve the business for its cultural value and the careers of long-time employees. 

As in previous installments of Preservation She Wrote, Archive Project Board Member Susan De Vries was on hand for commentary and trivia (with prizes)! 

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Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
April 15, 2017 at 3:00 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Avenue
Queens, NY 11106

SPECIAL SCREENING BEFORE THEATRICAL RELEASE! Jane Jacobs, author of the highly influential The Death and Life of Great American Cities, helped change the way we look at urban living with her grassroots vision of city planning that was diametrically opposed to that of New York City’s power broker Robert Moses. Citizen Jane, a riveting new documentary directed by Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor) and co-produced by High Line co-founder Robert Hammond, focuses on Jacobs’s thrilling struggles with Moses in the 1960s, where the stakes were whether the city’s historic neighborhoods of Greenwich Village, Soho, and Little Italy would stay intact or be split apart by expressways and urban-renewal housing projects. Citizen Jane offers a playbook, courtesy of Jane Jacobs, for organizing communities and speaking the truth to entrenched and seemingly insurmountable powers. Selected by Vogue as one of spring’s “most exciting movies.” 

Screening will be followed by a discussion with Matt Tyrnauer, director of Citizen Jane.  

Co-presented by the Museum of the Moving Image and Carnegie Hill Neighbors

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I Remember Harlem (SOLD OUT)
April 23, 2017 at 1:00 p.m.
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029

Although arguably no other New York City neighborhood has generated as many conflicting representations as Harlem, one singular documentary stands out: I Remember Harlem, directed and produced by legendary filmmaker William Miles. This epic film lovingly renders the diverse, 350-year history of Harlem as both a living, breathing neighborhood and as the cultural hub of African-American life in New York City.

Screening will include a conversation with Richard Adams, Director of Photography, I Remember Harlem; Juanita Howard, Producer, I Remember Harlem; and Michael Henry Adams, Harlem historian. Archive Project Board Member and Harlem historian John T. Reddick will introduce the film. 

Co-presented by the Museum of the City of New York and the Maysles Documentary Center

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The Future of Preservation: Learning from James Marston Fitch
April 26, 2017 at 6:30 p.m.
Higgins Hall Auditorium at Pratt Institute
61 St. James Place
Brooklyn, NY 11238

The documentary James Marston Fitch: Pioneer in Preservation Education examines the inspirational work of the founder of Columbia University’s Historic Preservation Program, the first in the nation, and looks at several iconic New York City locales such as SoHo, Ellis Island, Grand Central Terminal, and South Street Seaport, that demonstrate Fitch’s enduring ideals. Created in 1996 by Christine Ferinde and Jon Calame, two graduates of Columbia’s program, this film affectionately portrays a pioneer in the movement to preserve America’s architectural heritage.

Jon Calame, one of the film’s creators, will provide an introduction. And following the film there will be a panel discussion on the evolution of preservation education and the future of the field featuring leading experts including:

Felicia Mayro, Trustee of the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation, alumna of Columbia University’s Historic Preservation Program, and Director of the Neighborhood Preservation Center

Nadya K. Nenadich
, Ph.D., Academic Coordinator for the Historic Preservation Program at Pratt Institute and recipient of the 2016 James Marston Fitch Mid-Career Fellowship

Frank Emile Sanchis, who studied under James Marston Fitch, is currently Director of U.S. Programs at the World Monuments Fund

Anthony C. Wood, Founder and Chair of the New York Preservation Archive Project and intermittently a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation

Co-presented by the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation, Pratt Institute, and Preservation Alumni

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

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*batteries not included
April 29, 2017 at 1:00 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Avenue
Queens, NY 11106

The final screening in the “People Preserving Place” film festival, for preservationists of all ages, is a 1987 sci-fi comedy from executive producer Steven Spielberg that celebrates how historic preservation has made its way into mainstream public consciousness. The film, starring Oscar-, Tony-, and Emmy-Award-winning actress Jessica Tandy, follows the owners and inhabitants of an apartment building and café in the then-run-down East Village. The building comes under threat by a nearby development (intimidation, bribes, and arson, oh my!) and is saved only with the mysterious help of small living space ships.

Co-presented by the Museum of the Moving Image.

Location:
Screenings in New York City throughout the month of April