UPTOWN / OUT OF TOWN

Le Petit Versailles presents:UPTOWN / OUT OF TOWNSunday September 30th at 7:00 PMLe Petit Versailles346 East Houston Street @ Avenue C212 529 8815 www.lpvtv.blogspot.competitversailles@earthlink.netFree / Voluntary donation $5 >>> rain or shineSubways: F/V >> Second Avenue - J/M >> Delancey StreetUptown/ Out of TownA program of film, video, and discussion about gentrification and urban development.Linda and Aissia Richardson will present Precious Places, a new DVD compilation of the oral histories of neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Chester , PA. The centerpiece of the compilation is the Uptown Entertainment & Development Corporation’s history of the Uptown Theater. http://www.avenueofthearts.org/venues_uptown_theater.phpThe Richardsons will describe their on-going project to preserve and revive the Uptown, which began as a 1920’s movie palace that later became a cornerstone for soul music and rhythm & blues by launching the careers of such entertainers as Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Temptation, Patti Labelle and many others.Rios O’Leary-Tagiuri will act as a respondent on the subject of the relationship of communities of color, women, queers and other marginalized populations to gentrification and urban development processes.A historical perspective will be given by the 1959 experimental documentary film Skyscraper by Shirley Clarke and Willard Van Dyke.Skyscraper1959/ 20' , Color/B/WShirley Clarke and Willard Van DykeA whimsical documentary on the construction of the Tishmann Building at 666 Fifth Avenue, as seen from the worker's point of view. The dazzling images of 666 Fifth Avenue being built from the ground up are set to a jazzy score of beat-style poems and songs and blended with the voices of actors playing construction workers, in this unique and wonderfully funny document. Magnificently capturing the speed and spirit of New York City, its inhabitants and its structures, Clarke transforms the meaning of industrial documentary and reveals the collaborative process in making of Skyscraper.The program’s continuity will be upheld by recognizing mechanisms of change in global finance and real estate speculation by way of intercultural relationships.The connection between New York and Philadelphia was noted in an August 14th, 2005 New York Times Fashion and Styles feature citing gay migration as a feature of Philadelphia’s gentrification as New York City’s “Next Borough”(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/fashion/sundaystyles/14PHILLY.html?ex=1281672000&en=c2dde94c3019c7d8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)LPV events are made possible by Allied Productions, Inc.,Citizens for NYC, Green Thumb/NYC Dept. of Parks, Materials for the Arts;,NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs, NYC Dept. of Sanitation & NYC Board of EducationFilm & Exhibition support from The New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.Additional support, in part, by public funds from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.