Watch again the following two films:

New York, A Documentary:

Episode 06 City of Tomorrow, PBS https://youtu.be/QnqDyugA1_k

Episode 07 “The City and the World 1945-2000” 

For each film, answer the following questions:

Episode 06:

Why does the narrator say that the 1939 World’s Fair is a “repudiation” of everything the city of New York stood for. 

How does the World’s Fair tell a story about old cities and how cities should change?

What does the World’s Fair portray as the ideal future for American life?

Mayor LaGuardia saw the New Deal funding as a chance to make New York City a laboratory of civic reconstruction. As shown in the second half of the film, what would this reconstruction include? What kind of changes to the city? 

What are the pros and cons of having one man, Robert Moses, control the transformation of New York City?

What kind of changes did the automobile instigate in the city and the surrounding countryside?

What lesson can we learn from Robert Moses as a powerful city official making so many important decisions?

Who benefited from the changes to NYC’s construction of roads and bridges?

How is Harlem a critical illustration of the challenges facing New York City in the early to mid 20th century?

How did redlining facilitate segregation?

What is the difference between a ghetto and a slum? 

What is the policy of “separate and less equal?”

What forces drove the formation of slums in New York City?

What does the historian Craig Wilder mean when he says we “fetished the urban form over the people?”

What is a fundamental problem of building new roads to solve traffic congestion?

Episode 07:

NYC emerged as the world most powerful city after WWII but, in hindsight, the seeds of its future decline were already planted.  Explain with examples.

How did Mayor LaGuardia’s end of office and death mark the end of an era in NYC?

How did the construction of the United Nations (UN) building usher in a “new” New York, one that was presaged in the 1939 World’s Fair?

In the 1950s, NYC experienced great migrations of African Americans and Puerto Ricans.  What changes were the city undergoing that stymied their dreams of a better life?

How did the concept of public space change during the frenzy of construction under Robert Moses?

How was Robert Moses able to become so powerful?

By the 1960s, it became apparent that the federal Urban Renewal program (also known as Title I and Title II), whose purpose was slum clearance and public projects, was destroying communities, mostly working class, and the city itself.  What specific elements of these programs contributed to the destruction of communities? What are the lasting impacts of Urban Renewal in New York City?

How did the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 contribute to the decline of New York City that became apparent by the 1960s and 70s? 

What were the immediate and long-term effects of the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway? 

What factors supported the victory of Jane Jacobs and the fight against Robert Moses planned Highway through Greenwich Village and the Lower Manhattan?  What did the Greenwich Village group have that the East Tremont group did not. 

What emerged from Jane Jacobs’ defeat of Robert Moses and what lasting impact did the victory have on NYC?

Looking back from the post-war years to the 1970s, what factors contributed to New York City’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s? 

What do you think a city should be to its people?