Lost Neighborhood — San Juan Hill Documentary to Premiere at Lincoln Center, the Site of Its Demolition

A forgotten part of New York’s West Side will have its name in lights when Stanley Nelson’s documentary film San Juan Hill: Manhattan’s Lost Neighborhood , has its world premiere at the Lincoln Center this Fall.

It’s an appropriate venue because, in the early 1960s, the San Juan Hill district from W58th to W70th Street was razed to make way for the Lincoln Center itself.

At the time, locals marched with banners reading: “Shelter before culture” and “You don’t tear down homes in a housing shortage.” But the protests were ignored by city officials, led by infamous urban planner Robert Moses, and the mainly Black and Latino neighborhood that was famed for its role in West Side Story disappeared under the bulldozers.

In the early 20th century, San Juan Hill was a lively community. Musical phenomena like bebop and the Charleston were created there, its clubs and theaters nurtured creative geniuses like James P Johnson, Josephine Baker and Thelonious Monk, and artist spaces like the Lincoln Square Arcade counted luminaries like Eugene O’Neill, George Bellows and Robert Henri among their inhabitants.

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 Amsterdam Houses, Lincoln Center, Fordham University and additional developments.

It is not the first time that the history of the area has inspired new work. In 2022, the Lincoln Center was also venue for the premiere of a musical piece by Etienne Charles entitled San Juan Hill: A New York Story , with Charles commenting: “Before there were seats here, there were streets here.”

“Most people don’t know about the neighborhood unless they had family in the area when it was at its height. San Juan Hill is the birthplace of Charleston Dance and New York Amsterdam News — the oldest Black newspaper in New York,” the composer told Ebony . “It was also where Zora Neale Hurston lived at points in her career as well.”

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson, San Juan Hill: Manhattan’s Lost Neighborhood traces the neighborhood’s rise and fall through never-before-accessed records and archives, historical footage, expert commentary and interviews with residents and explores the vibrant people, arts and culture whose enduring legacy still resonates today.

Narrated by Ariana DeBose, the film will have its world premiere on Wednesday, October 9 at 6pm at Alice Tully Hall, as part of the 62nd New York Film Festival . After the screening, director Stanley Nelson, producer Rita Coburn and special guests will hold a panel discussion.

Tickets go on sale Tuesday, September 10 at noon, with pre-sale access for Lincoln Center Members beginning on September 5 at noon and FLC Members during NYFF62 pre-sale. Tickets are available on a “choose what you pay” basis, starting at $5.

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