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Video: Documentary Captures Pre-Gentrified 1980s Williamsburg
By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 4, 2016
Modified Apr 4, 2016
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 4, 2016
Modified Apr 4, 2016
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Thirty years ago, a half-block line for rainbow bagels was unimaginable on Williamsburg's Southside. Now even the most oblivious gentrifier with a $350 locally-made dreamcatcher hanging above their bed is (or should be) aware that massive change has torn into the neighborhood, particularly over the last decade. While now you can find minute-to-minute updates of (a very different) Williamsburg on Instagram, visual documentation becomes more rare the further back in time you go—this makes Diego Echeverria's Los Sures even more unique.
The documentary was created in 1984 and gives a glimpse of the neighborhood's Southside during that time through locals filmed on 16mm. At the time it was largely a Dominican and Puerto Rican community, and the area was known as Los Sures. In the film you will hear residents discuss wanting to get out of the neighborhood, which is now coveted by many—"For the kids, they would have to choose either they want to live in this neighborhood, or they wanna get out. And if they're gonna live in the neighborhood, what are they gonna do to make it better?"
Echeverria—who marks the late-1980s as the time when changes began—explained that desire to flee to Vice in 2014, "There was a high level of unemployment. Economic survival was difficult. The services were lacking. Schools were going through a tremendous crisis. Young people were dropping out at a high rate. There was also no housing renewal or support."
Years in the making, the film is getting its first-ever theatrical release at the fantastic Metrograph theater on April 15th, for a week-long run.
Tagged
Diego Echeverria
documentary
los sures
southside
williamsburg
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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