There Goes the Neighborhood

Gentrification and displacement are affecting all big cities throughout the world, but none more egregiously than my hometown of New York City. As a Native New Yorker, I am disturbed to see my beloved hometown become a haven for the wealthy when it was once a city that valued culture and community over money. Before Covid happened, the sky seemed to be the limit for corporate greed and that is when I started making this film. I chose specifically to focus on two lower-class neighborhoods that are in peril- Queens and the Lower East Side. In documenting these neighborhoods under threat, I met local activists whose lives centered around maintaining the ethos of their community. This made the film not just about a city, but about people- the everyday working person who uses every free ounce of time and energy they have to fight back against their own displacement. Thus began a three-year David vs. Goliath story which concludes during the time of Covid in which New York City is now experiencing a new chapter- a chapter that is still be written today.