Summary

Uptown: Portrait of the South Bronx

Source Archive Films by Getty Images
Title: Uptown: Portrait of the South Bronx
File Number: DN-LB-135 Beta SP
Color: B W
Type: Documentary
Year: 01/01/1965
Subjects: New York City
Description: 19:32:43:30 B W 1965 Sd. Life in South Bronx ghetto. Extensive coverage of poverty, housing, street life, entertainment. It's moody, subjective liberal and impressionistic. Has some great visual material. Opens with black screen, text running along bottom-demographics and miscellaneous statistics about the South Bronx. VS South Bronx housing, especially roof life, games, drying laundry. Flying kite. HA basketball game. L trains. Expressway in distance and bridges. Good subway, interior of train, POVs, tracking shots of apartment housing. People on fire escape. Interviews with residents. History of neighborhood, '15 years ago the neighborhood was Jewish and Irish.' Street scenes, stores, shopping, CU people, cop. Racist Irish man, '..it has deteriorated, very much so, there's a lot of places over in the jungles of Africa than there is around here, due to the influx of undesirables.' (sentence doesn't make sense but it's what he says) Buying newspapers. Shoe shine boys and men work on street. Shop fronts, sign for 'Hair Straightening' in window. Spanish signs, Irish bar. Entertainment posters, music advertised. Christian stores and Jesus paraphernalia, statues, pictures. Outdoor food markets, fruit and vegetable stalls. Pig's head hangs in butcher's window. Voices of street traders, hawking food. Girl in First Communion dress and veil walking along busy street. Family, couples. Lines of laundry hang from windows between buildings. Children's voices. Boy talks about over-crowding in his apartment, girl about rat in apartment. HA of dump right beside where people live. Graffiti on road where kid is playing in water, 'Kike 1964,' and 'Luis as Cuba?' Street life, people inside, looking out of windows, hanging out on stoop. Girls play, wearing womens' shoes, walk along street holding hands. Boys climbing on fire escape, hop scotch, more. Latin man talks about children sleeping at school because they have no place to sleep at night. Women on street, young and old, handing out on fire escape. Woman's voice about responding to insults, she says, 'the same to you and your mother.' Two older white women wearing hats walk along street Black women on step smoking. Young Black men joking around. Boys wrestling on ground. People talking about what they wanted to be, about their dreams. Abandoned and stripped cars on road side. Graffiti on wall about 'Sinners.' Street baseball game. VO and voices of people talking about work, unemployment. Young men walk along ledge of roof. Man selling newspapers. Puerto Rician woman talks about gender roles, training and employment opportunities, lack of work for Puerto Rician men. Resulting tensions for heterosexual couples. Men hang out on corner. Boys play ball on hill. Man talks about masculinity, proving manhood in the ghetto. VO, re gangs. Cops, patrol car driving around. Young man wearing 'Latin Crowns' jacket. Does pull ups on base of fire escape. Boy jumps up and swings on same bar. Woman talks about her children's glue sniffing habit, addiction. Boy on street sniffs from bag, legs buckling, swaying. Spray paint image of naked woman giving blow job- male genitalia (graffiti). 19:49:15:00 B W 1965 Young men hang out on roof, TV aerials. Boy flying kite from roof is thread, metaphor, throughout film. Voice of boy telling garbled story about boy falling from roof because he was flying kite. 19:49:51:00 B W 1965 South Bronx at night. MCU playing guitar, musician has big ring on finger. Flashing neon signs. Young black boys in T-shirts joke about, outside cinema or theater. VO re muggers, rapists. Woman window shopping, mannequins in store front. 19:50:47:00 B W 1965 Mobil theater company parades through streets at night. Production of Garcia Lorca, poster. Soap opera theater, children, adults watching. Applause from audience. 19:52:15:00 B W 1965 Woman talks about poverty and emasculation, what happens at home, why men don't stay home. Cuts to men playing dominos on street. Shop front of bridal store. Wedding cakes, women and men singing. 19:53:56:00 B W 1965 White cross at night, lit up, neon. Siren in distance. Sign, 'Family Finance Loans.' Train passes, POV coming out from underground, passing buildings. 19:54:34:00 B W 1965 Sunday morning, HA couple walk down street, both carry child each. Pavement cracked, trash. People going to church. St Mary's Park ball field 19:55:00:00 B W 1965 Washing car. Children splashing around in water spraying from fire hydrant. Women wearing mantillas. Ghetto ministers talk. Montage of signs for many churches, church fronts, man sign painting. Families at Sunday afternoon ball game, sitting in bleachers. Father speaks about hopes for his child. Plane over. American flag hangs from building. Woman looks out window, strokes bird, hen maybe. People talking about going back home, Puerto Rico. Boy with kite on roof ledge. Cuts to silhouette of buildings, pan across roof tops, at 19:59:14:00 B W 1965 clouds in sky. 19:59:28:00 B W 1965 Old woman climbs stairs of subway station, silhouette. Shopping bag hanging on her arm. Thunder storm on the way, wind blowing. 20:00:31:00 B W 1965 Water towers on tops of roofs in silhouette, heavy clouds in sky. VO, 'The fear is held inside. The rage is held inside. The city sees this place only when a storm breaks. It doesn't see the hope that keeps the kites aloft all day. All night.' White kite fluttering in stormy sky. Credits roll. New York-Borough-Bronx. Poverty-Urban-New York. Ethnicity-Mixed. Immigrants-Latin American-Puerto Rician-Irish. Housing-Ghetto. Street Scenes-New York. Racist-Comment. Anti-Semitic-Graffiti. Graffiti-Anti-Jewish-Sexist-Christian-Pornographic. Melting Pot. Entertainment-Street-Theater-Music-Games. Children-Poor Community-Poor-New York. Smoking-Cigarettes. Addiction-Glue. Problems-Poverty related. Gender-Roles-Masculinity especially. Religion-Christian-Churches. Transportation-Subway-Train-Plane. Economy-Ghetto. Vendors-Street. Commentry-Social. Sentimentality. Spirit-Fighting-Hopeful. Dreams-Hopes-Expectations. Metaphor-Visual Ends 20:01:50:25
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