Everyone is Watching by Megan Bradbury

Author:Megan Bradbury [Bradbury, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509809776
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

31

A reporter watches a promotional film from 1949 that shows the high towers of Stuyvesant Town, an eighty-acre high-rise development in the Lower East Side that was built at the suggestion of Robert Moses. The film shows dozens of housing blocks built in landscaped gardens. Families are sitting on the grass with their children. Couples are strolling slowly along the pathways. Old people are sitting on benches and feeding the birds.

The narration describes the miracle born to this area, once the site of slums and depravity – abandoned gas works and run-down tenements – people now have somewhere clean to live, modern apartments with grass, children’s play areas, and a perimeter fence.

The voice-over says,

What was once a run-down, dying section of the great city of New York has been recreated and today this section is a beautiful park-like community. Yesterday there was hardly a patch of green to be found anywhere in this district. Today there are many acres of lawns and shady trees and miles of winding walks close to everybody’s apartment. Yesterday, children had to play on the sidewalks or fire escapes or in the dangerous streets but today there are safe play facilities for boys and girls of all ages.

The film doesn’t mention those who lived in the Gas House District who have been evicted from their homes or the fact that the people living in the development now are all middle class, married and white.

The reporter reads back his notes for what Moses said about this.

It is well within the rights of the board to accept who they want into the estate. To let just anybody in would lower the value of the property and be detrimental to their annual yield.

Also:

What do I believe? I believe in limited objectives and in getting things done. If you want a text, let me quote George Bernard Shaw from the dedication of Man and Superman. ‘This’, says Shaw, ‘is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being the force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.’ Those were the words of a courageous man and I can add nothing to them.

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