SAN JUAN HILL: MANHATTAN’S LOST NEIGHBORHOOD

In the early 20th century, before the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the New York neighborhood San Juan Hill was a center of cultural innovation. Musical phenomena like bebop and the Charleston blossomed there, and its clubs and theaters nurtured creative geniuses like James P. Johnson, Josephine Baker, “Ram” Ramirez, and Thelonious Monk. Home to a largely working-class community, San Juan Hill was redlined in the 1930s and targeted by “urban renewal” in the 1940s and 1950s, when thousands of residents were displaced to make way for new housing complexes, Fordham University, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Through never-before-accessed records and archives, historical footage, commentary, and interviews with residents, this new documentary by Emmy Award® winner Stanley Nelson traces the neighborhood’s rise and fall and celebrates the people, arts, and culture whose enduring legacy still resonates today. Join HIFF for this special screening followed by an extended post-screening conversation with HIFF Vision In Film Honoree director Stanley Nelson.