Stephen Elliott
IDC 4001H

To paraphrase someone much smarter than me, history without context is just a story. It’s easy to crawl through the alcoves and alleyways of New York without giving a moment’s breath to the past you step on. Each cobble, each brick has centuries of stories to tell, and yet we hardly think to ask. Thus it is exceedingly difficult to conceptualize where we fit into the streets of New York, and how each person that walked the same routes as we do padded the path for us without ever knowing it. The fact of the matter is, New York City did not become what it was through luck and good fortune. It was built from the ground up by hard working entrepreneurs, innovators, politicians, and just about everyone between. The complex interactions between various industries, interest groups, and ethnicities made the mold of a city that has since been filled by people from all walks of life, people like us.

Fittingly, the Museum of the City of New York sought to condense its vibrant history into a 22 minute film, carrying its viewers through the the most basic representations of what New York once was–before the subways, the cars, the neon lights. It highlighted the different milestones reached by the city, ranging from its settlement as a dutch colony to the erection of the skyline.  Naturally, the history is so vivid that it would take hours, if not days to give a proper overview, and so for 22 minutes the film did its best to keep our attention. However, what it did cover was reductive and shallow, and for what it lacked in depth it made up for in sentiment. The film revered the industriousness of New York, but put aside bitter battles of race, class, and status. It tried to summarize the changing dynamics of New York and its people as a result of a couple of big milestones, neglecting decades of events that changed how the city worked.

In favor of keeping things light, the film pushed aside the grit and dirt that truly made New York, focusing on the positive perspectives of history. It glossed over the issues of rampant poverty, disease, and racism, while speaking highly of the success of the rich and privileged. It avoided contentious issues like policing and crime to make the progression of the city’s history seem like an arrow fired from the first Dutch ship to dock in New York harbor.

For that, the film seemed stale and hollow, like it was trying too hard to touch our hearts instead of educate us. Yet, at the same time the sentiments that it did extol felt like they were being lectured towards the audience, not shared freely in reflection.

As such, the film was simply too much for me to take seriously, though it certainly was interesting to be reminded where my city came from.