Art & the City

The neighborhood in the West 60s in Manhattan, now known as Lincoln Square, used to be called San Juan Hill.

It is centered around the mighty Lincoln Center Peforming Arts Center, a huge complex of theaters for opera, ballet, music, plays, and movies, and more, an amazing cultural touchstone in NYC. 

I know a lot about Lincoln Center because, for years, my life centered around it. But I didn't know much about its history which, at the time, was relatively new. 

In the mid-1960s, the working class and culturally and ethnically diverse neighborhood of San Juan Hill was effectively destroyed in order to build Lincoln Center. But many younger New Yorkers don't know anything about it -- until now. A new documentary tells this story and asks the question, "is art worth the price of ruining a neighborhood?"

Ironically San Juan hill became world famous just a few years before its end in the 1960 classic West Side Story. The famous opening prologue was filmed in San Juan Hill, on the very streets that would soon be transformed to make way for Lincoln Center -- the ultimate clash of art and the city.