Past Event: Right to the City: Screening of Metropolitan Avenue

Please note that this program is now sold out.  There will be a wait list starting at 5:45 pm this evening. Any additional seats will be released at 6:35 pm in the order the names were received. You must be physically present when your name is called or your place will be forfeited. We do not guarantee that any seats will become available.

Seating for ticket holders is first come, first served.

We kick off Season 2 of Smile, It's Your Close Up with Metropolitan Avenue (Christine Noschese, 1985, 58 min), a 16 mm film that documents a compelling group of Polish, Italian, and African-American women in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn in the 1970s who come together to protest the closure of public services in their neighborhoods -- including a police precinct, a firehouse, a daycare center, a senior center, and bus service -- and to fight the city's use of eminent domain. One of the first documentaries ever to air on public television (on POV), Metropolitan Avenue captures a lost community of diverse, working-class women activists fighting to keep their neighborhood's future in their own hands; read a review of the film here.  

The screening will be followed by a conversation with:
Miriam Greenberg and Penny Lewis, Co-Editors of The City Is the Factory: New Solidarities and Spatial Strategies in an Urban Age (Cornell University Press, 2017)
Dianne Jackson and Marie Leanza, Neighborhood activists featured in the film
Christine Noschese, Director of Metropolitan Avenue
Marc N. Weiss, Executive Producer and Creator of POV
Jessica Green (moderator), Cinema Director at the Maysles Documentary Center

Includes Museum admission and free beer courtesy of Sixpoint Brewery. 

Smile, It’s Your Close Up, our nonfiction film series co-programmed with Jessica Green and Edo Choi of the Maysles Documentary Center, zooms in on key moments, individuals, and communities to pose the question: “What makes New York New York?” Each program includes an introduction or conversation with filmmakers or other notable guests. Check back here for the full Season 2 lineup coming soon!