The first two hours of NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicle New York’s beginnings — from its earliest days as a Dutch trading post to the 17th century construction of the Erie Canal, which made New York City a vital conduit to the mainland of a growing America.
The Country and the City (1609-1825) 1999 HD | Directed by Ric Burns | Documentary film about history of New York City | History
Previous Film
English Documentary Film- All Alain De Botton Philosophy Films
Watch Documentary Film Now
YT
Documentary Film Info
New York: A Documentary Film is an eight-part, 17½ hour, American documentary film on the history of New York City. It was directed by Ric Burns and originally aired in the U.S. on PBS.
The series was written by Burns and James Sanders and produced by Burns’s company, Steeplechase Films. Several noted New York City historians, including Mike Wallace, Kenneth T. Jackson, David Levering Lewis and Robert Caro participated in the making of the series as consultants, and appeared on camera. It was narrated by David Ogden Stiers.
Other notable figures who appeared in the series include Rudolph Giuliani (then the mayor of New York City during episodes 1-7), former mayor Ed Koch, former New York governor Mario Cuomo, former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, poet Allen Ginsberg, novelists Alfred Kazin and Brendan Gill, director Martin Scorsese, journalist Pete Hamill, former Congresswoman Bella Abzug, historian Niall Ferguson, philosopher Marshall Berman, writer Fran Lebowitz, engineer Leslie E. Robertson, architect Robert A.M. Stern, high wire artist Philippe Petit, real estate developer (and future President) Donald Trump, and author David McCullough.
Episode 1- “The Country and the City (1609–1825)” directed by Ric Burns and released on November 14, 1999
YT
This dramatic and lyrical first episode chronicles the rise of New York from its settlement by the Dutch in the early 17th century through the explosion of commercial growth sparked by the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. Beginning with a consideration of themes to be explored throughout the entire series, the episode goes on to treat five crucial chapters in New York’s fascinating early history: the defining role the Dutch played in establishing the city’s character, the impact of the British empire, New York’s strange sea fateful role in the American Revolution, its brief tenure as the nation’s capital, and the extraordinary burst of entrepreneurial energy that in the early 19th century launched it on its course to becoming the greatest city on earth.
Episode 2- “Order and Disorder (1825–1865)” directed by Ric Burns and released on November 15, 1999
YT
The second episode chronicles the rise of New York from merchant city to industrial metropolis as the commercial revolution triggered by the Erie Canal transforms every aspect of life in the city. As the immigrant population exploded and social problems of every kind emerge on the streets of Manhattan, the outlines of a modern mass metropolis begin to appear—including imaginative visions of the city’s future, from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” to Frederick Law Olmsted’s Central Park. By 1860, every tension in America can be felt on the streets of New York, now the most powerful—and divided—city in the nation. The episode comes to a stunning climax during the Civi War, as the worst civil disturbance in the nation’s history breaks out in New York: the catastrophic Draft Riots of 1863.
Episode 3- “Sunshine and Shadow (1865–1898)” directed by Ric Burns and released on November 16, 1999
YT
The Gilded Age following the Civil War saw the rise of the robber barons and the schism between wealth and poverty widen dramatically. The political life of the city, exemplified by William M. Tweed and Tammany Hall descended into total corruption. As the turn of the century dawned, New York City annexes Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.
Episode 4- “The Power and the People (1898–1918)”directed by Ric Burns and released on November 17, 1999
YT
As the city starts building the skyscrapers that would make its skyline iconic, 10 million immigrants arrive in New York. The immigrants lived in frequently squalid conditions and worked in the city’s most undesirable jobs. In 1911, when 146 female Jewish and Italian immigrants died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city was largely unified in the successful demand for legislation on new factory safety reforms and labor laws.
Episode 5- “Cosmopolis (1918–1931)” directed by Ric Burns and release on November 18, 1999
YT
Following World War I, Manhattan becomes the cultural capital of the world, serving as the home to the brand new industries of radio broadcasting, magazines, advertising and public relations. Major cultural contributions were made by F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and the Harlem Renaissance was the banner under which an explosion of African American culture and creativity lived. As the Great Depression dawned, the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building were completed.
Episode 6- “City of Tomorrow (1929-1945” directed by Ric Burns and released on September 30, 2001
YT
The sixth episode chronicles the dramatic and increasingly fateful events following the crash of 1929—as the greatest depression in American history plunged the city and nation into economic gloom. In little more than ten years, immense new forces were unleashed in New York, as two of the most remarkable New Yorkers of all time came to the fore—Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses—attempting to create in the markets of times a bold new city of the future. Charting the demise of Mayor Jimmy Walker and the ascendancy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; the complex impact of the automobile on the city; and the immense public works projects that permanently altered the landscape.
Episode 7- “The City and the World (1945–2000)” directed by Ric Burns and released on October 1, 2001
YT
In the aftermath of World War II, southern African-Americans moved north and Puerto Rican immigrants poured into the city, a trend which would continue for the next thirty years. Robert Moses waged a campaign of urban renewal, including adding highways to the city, hastening white flight to the suburbs. The destruction of the old Penn Station in 1963 and the protests against Moses’s plans for the Lower Manhattan Expressway led to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, ensuring the survival of New York’s most architecturally important buildings and neighborhoods. Social and financial crises in the 1960s and 1970s took a toll on the city, but New York’s revival since the 1970s has been enduring.
Episode 8- “The Center of the World (1946–2001)” directed by Ric Burns and released on September 8, 2003
Tells the story of the rise and fall of the World Trade Center, and was produced following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Episode 9–10 “The Future of Cities (2000–2025)” directed by Ric Burns and released date: TBD
A dramatic and compelling consideration of the forces that have transformed New York at the start of the 21st century: the most stunning era of growth and change, challenge and opportunity since the events of September 11th, and since the New York series’ last look at the city as a whole.
Next Film
English Documentary Film- Magical Egypt 2001 with John Anthony West
Watch Films for English Listening Practice
HiCafe site has 1000+ movie related contents in 35+ genres for practicing English listening. Visit Improve English Listening Skills page to learn more.
