Women Writing Women’s Lives is joining with The Gotham Center for the History of New York City, The Center for the Study of Women and Society, and The Center for the Humanities to honor the life and career of  our past member, Suzanne Wasserman. Suzanne was the long-time executive director of The Gotham Center as well as being a productive documentary filmmaker. For this reason we chose to screen DECADE OF FIRE, a powerful documentary conceived, produced and directed by women and set in a troubling time in the history of New York City. In the 1970s the South Bronx was on fire. Abandoned by the city government, nearly half a million people were displaced as their close-knit, multi-ethnic neighborhood burned to the ground.  Black and Puerto Rican residents were blamed for the devastation.  DECADE OF FIRE. The film is a visual biography of a neighborhood as well as a vivid memoir, told through the narrator, Bronx-born Vivian Vázquez Irizarry as she pursues the truth.

Wednesday, November 20, 5:30 PM to 8PM

Martin J Segal Theater

CUNY Graduate Center

 

Note: The documentary began as a curriculum studies project. Prof Jill Norgren (Political Science, emerita) has shared those notes:

letter for seminar session on decade of fire