New York: A Documentary Film
Encyclopedia
New York: A Documentary Film is an eight-part, 17½ hour, American
documentary film
on the history of New York City
. It was directed by Ric Burns
and originally aired in the U.S. on PBS
. The film was a co-production of Thirteen
New York and WGBH
Boston.
The series was written by Burns and James Sanders
and produced by Burns's company, Steeplechase Films
. Several noted New York City historians, including Mike Wallace
, Kenneth T. Jackson
, David Levering Lewis
and Robert Caro
participated in the making of the series as consultants, and appeared on camera. It was narrated by David Ogden Stiers
. Other notable figures who appeared in the series include Rudolph Giuliani (then the mayor of New York City), former mayor Ed Koch
, former New York
governor Mario Cuomo
, former U.S. Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
, poet Allen Ginsberg
, novelists Alfred Kazin
and Brendan Gill
, director Martin Scorsese
, journalist Pete Hamill
, former Congresswoman Bella Abzug
, historian Niall Ferguson
, philosopher Marshall Berman
, writer Fran Lebowitz
, and billionaire Donald Trump
.
, was produced after the September 11 attacks in 2001, airing in September 2003.
, the city becomes the site for several key battles. This episode also covers the building of the Erie Canal
.
shape the city with their design for Central Park
but social unrest still ran high for the working classes, coming to a climax with the draft riots of 1863.
following the Civil War
saw the rise of the robber barons
and the schism between wealth and poverty widen dramatically. The political life of the city, exemplified by William M. Tweed and Tammany Hall
descended into total corruption. As the turn of the century dawned, New York City annexes Brooklyn
, Queens
and Staten Island
.
and worked in the city's most undesirable jobs. In 1911, when 146 female Jewish and Italian immigrants died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
, the city was largely unified in the successful demand for legislation on new factory safety reforms and labor laws.
, Manhattan
becomes the cultural capital of the world, serving as the home to the brand new industries of radio broadcasting, magazines
, advertising
and public relations
. Major cultural contributions were made by F. Scott Fitzgerald
, George Gershwin
, Duke Ellington
and Louis Armstrong
, and the Harlem Renaissance
was the banner under which an explosion of African American
culture and creativity lived. As the Great Depression
dawned, the Chrysler Building
and Empire State Building
were completed.
was forced to resign in disgrace, giving way to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, one of the most influential mayors in New York City history. Mayor La Guardia, along with Robert Moses
revitalized the city with the help of federal funds from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal
.
, southern African-Americans moved north and Puerto Rican
immigrants pour into the city, a trend which would continue for the next thirty years. Robert Moses waged a campaign of urban renewal
, including adding highways
to the city, but white flight
to the suburbs continued. The destruction of the old Penn Station
in 1963 and the protests against Moses's plans for the Lower Manhattan Expressway
lead to the landmarks preservation act, ensuring the survival of New York's most architecturally important buildings. Social and financial crisis in the 1960s and 1970s took a toll on the city, but he city's revival since the 1970s has been enduring.
, and was produced following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
and began writing the script for New York. Lisa Ades, James Sanders, and Steve Rivo assisted with the initial research. Thirteen
joined the project soon after to complete fundraising. The cost of the series through Episode Five was $9.8 million, with more than 20 people involved with the series at its peak. The crew worked out of two offices near 72nd Street and Broadway, in New York City.
New sequences and imagery for New York were shot on 16mm film. The first half of the series was edited traditionally, but Burns reluctantly agreed to edit the second half digitally, on Avid
workstations. In retrospect, Burns viewed the computer as an essential tool for managing the huge amount of archival material included in the film.
Originally, Burns planned for a 10-hour series. However, this plan was abandoned, and the first 10 hours (five two-hour episodes) told the story of New York City only up to 1931. The film up to this point was released in 1999, with plans to produce a sixth episode covering the remaining years. However, this plan, too, was abandoned in favor of two additional episodes, Episode Six (running 120 minutes) and Episode Seven (running 140 minutes). Both were released in September 2001, just weeks after the September 11th attacks.
Following the events of September 11, Burns and his crew were inspired to produce a final, eighth episode of the film, focusing on the World Trade Center and its role in New York City's history.
commended the film for its rich visuals, consistent theme, and compelling descriptions of class and racial tensions, especially in the second half of the series. James also criticized the film, however, writing, "Stunning though New York often is, its indulgent length and pace tests the patience of even its most serious-minded viewers." James also reviewed the two new episodes released in late September 2001. She found them stronger than the previous five, with more focus and brevity. She also commented on the timeliness of their release following the September 11th attacks, finding the stories of the city's recovery from past disasters reassuring and full of accidental, yet profound meanings. A September 2003 review of the final episode in the series, by Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times, found it full of "intelligent insights and incomparable images," but ultimately, "too much, too late," like the World Trade Center itself.
The original seven-part series was nominated for two Emmy Award
s in 2000, for "Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Programming - Cinematography" and "Outstanding Non-Fiction Series." In addition, Episode Five: Cosmopolis (1919–1931) won an Emmy for "Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Programming - Picture Editing." Also in 2001, the five-part series won a Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award (Silver Baton) for excellence in broadcast journalism. In 2004, the newly completed Episode Eight: The Center of the World (1946–2003) was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy in the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Music and Sound" category.
The reaction to the film by academic historians was mixed. David C. Hammack of Case Western University praised the film's compelling imagery, discussion of race relations, commentary by noted writers and historians, and overall coherence. However, he lamented as "remarkably unhistorical" the film's portrayal of the city's values and challenges as largely unchanging throughout its history. Hammack also criticized the film for "distorting the historical record" on several specific topics.
Popular audiences also displayed high interest for the film, with the first five parts alone attracting more than 20 million viewers.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
on the history of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It was directed by Ric Burns
Ric Burns
Ric Burns is an American documentary filmmaker and writer. He has written, directed and produced historical documentaries for nearly 20 years, beginning with his collaboration on the celebrated PBS series The Civil War , which he produced with his older brother Ken Burns and wrote with Geoffrey C...
and originally aired in the U.S. on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
. The film was a co-production of Thirteen
WNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
New York and WGBH
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...
Boston.
The series was written by Burns and James Sanders
James Sanders (architect)
- Biography :Sanders is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and attended the MIT School of Architecture. Since 1985 he has been principal of James Sanders + Associates, an architecture and design firm located in New...
and produced by Burns's company, Steeplechase Films
Steeplechase Films
Steeplechase Films is a documentary production company founded in 1989 by filmmaker Ric Burns. They produce films focusing on events and people in American history, mainly for the PBS series American Experience...
. Several noted New York City historians, including Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace (historian)
Mike Wallace is an American historian, Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, where he has taught since 1971, and the director of the Gotham Center for New York City History....
, Kenneth T. Jackson
Kenneth T. Jackson
Kenneth Terry Jackson is a professor of history and social sciences at Columbia University. A frequent television guest, he is best known as an urban historian and a preeminent authority on New York City, where he lives on the Upper West Side....
, David Levering Lewis
David Levering Lewis
David Levering Lewis is the Julius Silver University Professor and Professor of History at New York University. He is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, for part one and part two of his biography of W. E. B. Du Bois...
and Robert Caro
Robert Caro
Robert Allan Caro is an American journalist and author known for his celebrated biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson...
participated in the making of the series as consultants, and appeared on camera. It was narrated by David Ogden Stiers
David Ogden Stiers
David Ogden Stiers is an American actor, director, vocal actor, and musician, noted for his roles in Disney movies, as well as his performances in the television series M*A*S*H as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III and the science fiction drama The Dead Zone as Reverend Gene Purdy...
. Other notable figures who appeared in the series include Rudolph Giuliani (then the mayor of New York City), former mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
, former New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
governor Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo served as the 52nd Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994, and is the father of Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York.-Early life:...
, former U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan was an American politician and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the United States Senate for New York in 1976, and was re-elected three times . He declined to run for re-election in 2000...
, poet Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, novelists Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin was an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America....
and Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill wrote for The New Yorker for more than 60 years. He also contributed film criticism for Film Comment and wrote a popular book about his time at the New Yorker magazine.-Biography:...
, director Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, journalist Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill is an American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator. Widely traveled and having written on a broad range of topics, he is perhaps best known for his career as a New York City journalist, as "the author of columns that sought to capture the particular flavors of New York...
, former Congresswoman Bella Abzug
Bella Abzug
Bella Savitsky Abzug was an American lawyer, Congresswoman, social activist and a leader of the Women's Movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus...
, historian Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson is a British historian. His specialty is financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.....
, philosopher Marshall Berman
Marshall Berman
Marshall Berman is an American philosopher and Marxist Humanist writer. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, teaching Political Philosophy and Urbanism.-Biography:An alumnus of...
, writer Fran Lebowitz
Fran Lebowitz
-Life:Born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Lebowitz is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker...
, and billionaire Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
.
Episodes
The first five episodes aired in September 1999. Episodes Six and Seven aired in September 2001. A final episode, which chronicled the rise and fall of the World Trade CenterWorld Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
, was produced after the September 11 attacks in 2001, airing in September 2003.
Episode One: The Country and the City (1609–1825)
The first episode of the series begins with the founding of New Amsterdam, a Dutch trading post. The city starts to take shape as New Amsterdam becomes British New York. By the Revolutionary WarAmerican Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, the city becomes the site for several key battles. This episode also covers the building of the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
.
Episode Two: Order and Disorder (1825–1865)
Episode Two finds the city as the largest port in the country. Waves of Irish and German immigrants flood into the city between 1825 and 1865 only to find that New York is not so welcoming to immigrants. Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert VauxCalvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
shape the city with their design for Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
but social unrest still ran high for the working classes, coming to a climax with the draft riots of 1863.
Episode Three: Sunshine and Shadow (1865–1898)
The Gilded AgeGilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded...
following the Civil War
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
saw the rise of the robber barons
Robber baron (industrialist)
Robber baron is a pejorative term used for a powerful 19th century American businessman. By the 1890s the term was used to attack any businessman who used questionable practices to become wealthy...
and the schism between wealth and poverty widen dramatically. The political life of the city, exemplified by William M. Tweed and Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
descended into total corruption. As the turn of the century dawned, New York City annexes Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
and Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
.
Episode Four: The Power and the People (1898–1918)
As the city starts building the skyscrapers that would make its skyline iconic, 10 million immigrants arrive in New York. The immigrants lived in frequently squalid conditionsPoverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and worked in the city's most undesirable jobs. In 1911, when 146 female Jewish and Italian immigrants died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history...
, the city was largely unified in the successful demand for legislation on new factory safety reforms and labor laws.
Episode Five: Cosmopolis (1919–1931)
Following World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
becomes the cultural capital of the world, serving as the home to the brand new industries of radio broadcasting, magazines
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
, advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
and public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
. Major cultural contributions were made by F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
and Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, and the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
was the banner under which an explosion of African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
culture and creativity lived. As the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
dawned, the Chrysler Building
Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Standing at , it was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State...
and Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
were completed.
Episode Six: City of Tomorrow (1929–1941)
As the Great Depression took hold of the City, Mayor Jimmy WalkerJimmy Walker
James John Walker, often known as Jimmy Walker and colloquially as Beau James , was the mayor of New York City from 1926 to 1932...
was forced to resign in disgrace, giving way to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, one of the most influential mayors in New York City history. Mayor La Guardia, along with Robert Moses
Robert Moses
Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...
revitalized the city with the help of federal funds from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
.
Episode Seven: The City and the World (1945–2000)
In the aftermath of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, southern African-Americans moved north and Puerto Rican
Puerto Rican people
A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...
immigrants pour into the city, a trend which would continue for the next thirty years. Robert Moses waged a campaign of urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
, including adding highways
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...
to the city, but white flight
White flight
White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...
to the suburbs continued. The destruction of the old Penn Station
Pennsylvania Station (New York City)
Pennsylvania Station—commonly known as Penn Station—is the major intercity train station and a major commuter rail hub in New York City. It is one of the busiest rail stations in the world, and a hub for inbound and outbound railroad traffic in New York City. The New York City Subway system also...
in 1963 and the protests against Moses's plans for the Lower Manhattan Expressway
Lower Manhattan Expressway
The Lower Manhattan Expressway was a controversial plan for an expressway through lower Manhattan originally conceived by Robert Moses in 1941, but delayed until the early 1960s...
lead to the landmarks preservation act, ensuring the survival of New York's most architecturally important buildings. Social and financial crisis in the 1960s and 1970s took a toll on the city, but he city's revival since the 1970s has been enduring.
Episode Eight: The Center of the World (1946–2003)
Tells the story of the rise and fall of the World Trade CenterWorld Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
, and was produced following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Production and release
In 1993, Ric Burns, having completed The Way West two years earlier, won a grant from the NEHNational Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
and began writing the script for New York. Lisa Ades, James Sanders, and Steve Rivo assisted with the initial research. Thirteen
WNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
joined the project soon after to complete fundraising. The cost of the series through Episode Five was $9.8 million, with more than 20 people involved with the series at its peak. The crew worked out of two offices near 72nd Street and Broadway, in New York City.
New sequences and imagery for New York were shot on 16mm film. The first half of the series was edited traditionally, but Burns reluctantly agreed to edit the second half digitally, on Avid
AVID
AVID stands for:* Advancement Via Individual Determination, a college-readiness system designed to increase the number of students who enroll in four-year colleges in the U.S....
workstations. In retrospect, Burns viewed the computer as an essential tool for managing the huge amount of archival material included in the film.
Originally, Burns planned for a 10-hour series. However, this plan was abandoned, and the first 10 hours (five two-hour episodes) told the story of New York City only up to 1931. The film up to this point was released in 1999, with plans to produce a sixth episode covering the remaining years. However, this plan, too, was abandoned in favor of two additional episodes, Episode Six (running 120 minutes) and Episode Seven (running 140 minutes). Both were released in September 2001, just weeks after the September 11th attacks.
Following the events of September 11, Burns and his crew were inspired to produce a final, eighth episode of the film, focusing on the World Trade Center and its role in New York City's history.
Reception
The film was generally well-received by critics. In a 1999 review of the first five parts, Caryn James of The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
commended the film for its rich visuals, consistent theme, and compelling descriptions of class and racial tensions, especially in the second half of the series. James also criticized the film, however, writing, "Stunning though New York often is, its indulgent length and pace tests the patience of even its most serious-minded viewers." James also reviewed the two new episodes released in late September 2001. She found them stronger than the previous five, with more focus and brevity. She also commented on the timeliness of their release following the September 11th attacks, finding the stories of the city's recovery from past disasters reassuring and full of accidental, yet profound meanings. A September 2003 review of the final episode in the series, by Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times, found it full of "intelligent insights and incomparable images," but ultimately, "too much, too late," like the World Trade Center itself.
The original seven-part series was nominated for two Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
s in 2000, for "Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Programming - Cinematography" and "Outstanding Non-Fiction Series." In addition, Episode Five: Cosmopolis (1919–1931) won an Emmy for "Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Programming - Picture Editing." Also in 2001, the five-part series won a Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award (Silver Baton) for excellence in broadcast journalism. In 2004, the newly completed Episode Eight: The Center of the World (1946–2003) was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy in the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Music and Sound" category.
The reaction to the film by academic historians was mixed. David C. Hammack of Case Western University praised the film's compelling imagery, discussion of race relations, commentary by noted writers and historians, and overall coherence. However, he lamented as "remarkably unhistorical" the film's portrayal of the city's values and challenges as largely unchanging throughout its history. Hammack also criticized the film for "distorting the historical record" on several specific topics.
Popular audiences also displayed high interest for the film, with the first five parts alone attracting more than 20 million viewers.