LaGuardia Community College
Urban Studies Videotapes and DVDs
VHS 420 THE BRONX: A CRY FOR HELP color, 1987, 56 min. Filmmaker Brent Owens has filmed the South Bronx, one of America's most infamous urban ghettoes, over a twelve-year period.
VHS 790 CENTRAL CITY color, 1992, 20 min. Characteristics of the center city and central business district, a comparison between Los Angeles and Manchester.
VHS 1341 EMPIRE OF CRIME: A CENTURY OF THE NEW YORK MOB color, 1997, 100 min. A century in the life of the New York Mob, with extensive footage of famous mobsters, and interviews with Mafia figures, mob experts, and federal agents.
VHS 641 THE HEART OF LOISAIDA b/w, 1979, 30 min. Examines the efforts and resources of the Tenant Associations of New York's Lower East Side. These groups, founded by Hispanic residents, rehabilitate apartment buildings abandoned by absentee landlords.
VHS 789 THE HIDDEN CITY [NOVA] color, 1989, 60 min., cc The power, water, sewage, trash and other interrelated networks on which the city is dependent.
VHS 1125 HOLDING GROUND: THE REBIRTH OF DUDLEY STREET color, 1996, 58 min. Through the voices of committed residents, activists and city officials, this documentary shows how a Boston neighborhood was able to initiate and realize its own agenda for change.
VHS 1354 HOOP DREAMS color, 1994, 176 min., cc Follows the high school careers of Arthur Agee and William Gates from inner-city Chicago as they pursue their dream of playing professional basketball.
DVD 47 MANHATTAN b/w, 96 min. Woody Allen's film depicts a middle-aged writer, grappling with failed relationships, who finds the illusion of happiness when he falls in love with a high school senior.
VHS 828 METROPOLITAN AVENUE color, 1985, 60 min. In a Brooklyn neighborhood faced with racial problems and cutbacks in municipal services, a group of traditional homemakers from varied ethnic backgrounds form coalitions to fight for the community's survival.
VHS 200 THE MIRACLE OF INTERVALE AVENUE color, 1983, 65 min. A once thriving Jewish community in the South Bronx somehow continues to survive despite the decay that surrounds it, with Jews, Blacks and Puerto Ricans interacting and helping each other.
VHS 1342 MODERN MARVELS: NEW YORK BRIDGES color, 1999, 50 min., cc The art and engineering, fortunes created and lost, the mystique and allure of these arteries that connect Manhattan.
VHS 1315 NEW YORK UNDERGROUND color, 1997, 60 min., cc The story of the development and construction of the New York City subway system, the largest, most sophisticated electric subway system in the world.
VHS 1401 NUYORICANS: PUERTO RICANS IN NEW YORK color, 2002, 60 min. Celebrates the history, culture and contributions of this unique and vibrant community by touring several neighborhoods, exploring art, music and poetry, as well as their achievements in education, politics, sports and business.
VHS 248 OLMSTED AND CENTRAL PARK color, 1983, 30 min. Frederick Law Olmsted founded the profession of landscape architecture. New York's Central Park was his first design, conceived with Calvert Vaux, which transformed 840 forlorn acres into one of the great urban parks of the world, a carefully constructed "natural" landscape.
VHS 1138 RIVER OF STEEL color, 1993, 27 min. Using archival footage and striking cinematography, River of Steel documents the construction of New York's first subway, the IRT, which changed people's lives and dramatically reshaped the city.
VHS 838 STRAIGHT UP RAPPIN' color, 1991, 29 min. Rap as it is declaimed in the streets of New York, straight up - without music. These amateur rappers feel compelled to express their response to the world they live in.
VHS 791 TOWARD A LIVABLE CITY color, 1991, 27 min. The development of Barcelona, Spain.
VHS 1407 TWILIGHT LOS ANGELES color, 2000, 90 min., cc Anna Deavere Smith's searing one-woman play about the 1991 Rodney King beating, the 1992 verdict, and the ensuing riots reflects the impact of these events on America's conscience.
VHS 792 URBAN ECOLOGY color, 1991, 24 min. The changing urban ecology of Abidjan, capital of Ivory Coast.
DVD 32 THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE color, 180 min. Several decades in the history of an inner city tenement building, and the women who struggle to build a better life for themselves and their families.
Kenneth Schlesinger Library Media Resources Center
LaGuardia Community College