Time Travel to the Upper West Side Circa 1968 via Fascinating Documentary Streaming on Vimeo

Posted on January 1, 2022 at 9:18 am by West Sider “Summer in the City” still (Photos courtesy of Michael Blackwood Productions) By Joy Bergmann What’s changed and what hasn’t?  A new year always prompts reflection. But this time around, I’m looking in a different rearview mirror, stretching back 53 years instead of 365 days: “Summer in the City,” a slice-of-life documentary shot in 1968 on the Upper West Side.  Here’s the trailer at Vimeo-on-Demand, where the film rents for $2.99: Made for German television by directors Christian Blackwood and Robert Leacock, “Summer in the City” offers an outsider-insider’s perspective on the neighborhood.  Christian and his producer brother Michael Blackwood were born in Berlin before moving to the UWS in 1949, says Ben Blackwood, Michael’s son and current CEO of Michael Blackwood Productions. [Their original surname, Schwarzwald, appears in the credits.] Uwe Johnson, a distinguished German writer who lived on the UWS for several years while working as a textbook editor, wrote the narration once the film was edited.  Before viewing, a bit of historical context.  Housing was, as always, a pivotal concern. By 1968, tenements in the San Juan Hill neighborhood had been razed as part of Robert Moses’s…
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