Television- New York: A Documentary Film

By Ric Burns

New York City. Hundreds of poets and composers have sung its praises. Thousands of authors have written books, plays, and movies about it. Many have tried, but few have succeeded in capturing it in one swell foop.

Ric Burns’ “New York: A Documentary Film” on Amazon Prime comes pretty damned close.

This eight-episode series, filmed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and originally broadcast on PBS, covers NYC in “chapters:” the first, for example, concentrating on the city’s New Amsterdam days (early 1600s), its role in the American Revolution, and finally the development of the Erie Canal, which helped opened up the country beyond the East Coast. Burns takes the facts you may remember vaguely from grade school and presents them with an eloquence not easily forgotten.

No stone is left unturned in NY:ADF and every stone is lovingly polished: from Civil War draft riots, to the rise of skyscrapers, to the arrival of immigrants and labor unions, up until the reign of Fiorello LaGuardia and the airport named after him.

Speaking of celebrities, part of the fun of watching NY:ADF in 2021 is seeing former New York VIPs being interviewed on camera and looking hale and hearty. These include Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Mario Cuomo, Pete Hamill, Brendan Gill, Ada Louise Huxtable…and Rudy Giuliani! Even developer and worst-president-in-history Donald Trump comes across as coherent, discussing the laying of foundations atop Manhattan bedrock. Who knew?

The final episode of NY:ADF covers the World Trade Center (aka twin towers), first conceived by Nelson and David Rockefeller back in the 1950s, and reviled by the public and architecture critics as dinosaurs once they were completed in the early 1970s. Then of course there is 9/11. The footage Burns and his team present of that terrible day is the saddest, most graphic I’ve ever seen. I suggest viewing that final episode as far from bedtime as possible.

One more word of advice—NY:ADF is a heavy lift. Most episodes are over two hours long. So listen to a New Yorker, take your time, and try not to binge it. We know all too well the after-effects of downing too many Papaya King hot dogs in one visit.