Lost Rondout: A Story of Urban Removal

Saturday, April 22, 2017, 7 - 8:30pm

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The Rondout National Bank. Photos by Gene Dauner

The Rondout National Bank. Photos by Gene Dauner

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Kaplan Bags

Kaplan Bags

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Rondout Savings Bank

Rondout Savings Bank

A free, public screening of Lost Rondout: A Story of Urban Removal, a documentary that chronicles how a federally funded 1960s urban renewal project devastated the "Rondout," a waterfront district of Kingston, New York. A microcosm of the urban disruption that occurred all over America, nearly 500 buildings were destroyed and thousands of people were displaced, many of them African Americans who had difficulty finding new housing.

As a young man delivering flowers for his father's floral business, Gene Dauner took nearly 1,000 slides of the area just prior and during the destruction, vividly capturing the vanished streetscape of historic 19th century buildings, then defined as "blight." Utilizing Dauner's slides as well as images by other photographers, archival footage and family photographs, producers and directors Stephen Blauweiss and Lynn Woods re-create the lost city in this 69-minute documentary.

Stephen Blauweiss and Lynn Woods will answer questions following the screening. Barry Lewis will introduce the film.

Located in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, at 41 Cooper Square (on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets)

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.