Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of New York
You are the soundtrack
The crowd chimed in quickly. Footage of immigrants prompted an audience member to ask
How many people here are grandchildren of immigrants?
“I’m an immigrant!” another voice from behind me on right called out.
Talking is encouraged at the Lost Landscapes screenings. In fact, it’s essential. Rick Prelinger, an archivist, writer, filmmaker and educator with a twitter handle to match, collected and organized the home video footage and ‘process plates’ (studio b-roll) that made up the live video essay about New York City. His knowledge of the places and events depicted in the silent, grainy film clips, was encyclopedic, yet the crowd was happy to supply additional knowledge and context for the rest of the audience.
That’s West 39th Street, my uncle used to work at that beer garden. None of those stores are there anymore
The show, returning to the Museum of the Moving Image in February, is unique with every viewing. Different crowds of New Yorkers bring different levels of familiarity to the show. I recognized my neighborhood and was able to orient the stranger sitting next to me geographically. Giving directions to strangers is a daily experience for me in New York but this context made me feel like part of a team solving a directional puzzle. The shared experience of participating in the screening brings strangers together to solve common questions and curiosities about the stories behind the places we live and work.
These types of events, where home videos and local historical photography are showcased for an engaged audience, are incredible crowdsourcing opportunities for local news organizations. I can imagine a neighborhood by neighborhood series in larger cities or a citywide showcase in smaller cities where local historians and film/photo buffs collaborate to tell the untold, overlooked or forgotten stories of their towns. A stronger sense of place is valuable for developing community ties.
In my local pizza place, near classic photos of Brooklyn landmarks and a sign promising ‘a pizza you can’t refuse,’ are several photos of the 1960 plane crash that flattened several buildings a block away from where I eat garlicky grandma slices on my way home from school. Newer residents to the neighborhood might notice the newer buildings that were built where the plane crashed, but these photos give hungry pizza eaters and opportunity to wonder and learn about local history.
Local news organizations can tie historical events, surprising photos or local history to current issues. Several sequences in the Lost Landscapes of New York featured sections of the South Bronx, where I’ve been working with the Mott Haven Herald. The quiet canals and frozen dock workers sharing nips of whisky in the ‘Lost Landscapes’ show provide valuable historical record for a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Neighborhood organizers could utilize this record to make a case for preserving sections of the neighborhood to prevent the history from being erased entirely.
Of particular interest to aspiring journalists was a segment on a newspaper delivery driver strike, one of the few pieces projected with sound. This section is also available in the collection more than 6900 films Prelinger has made available through the internet archive
New Yorkers are depicted waiting in line for hours for local newspapers. Mayor LaGuardia reading the comics to the children of New York City over the airwaves of WNYC is not to be missed. When people need information, they will find ways to get it.
Has your newsroom gotten creative with archives? What are some of your favorite uses of history to tell the story of the modern?
