My Grandpa Sidney always fascinated me. I loved taking pictures of him and his odd home décor. But the inspiration for this project came when I read an article in the New York Times about how the residents of my Grandpa’s Lower East Side cooperative, East River Houses, had voted to shift from a limited equity cooperative to a market rate cooperative. I was sitting on the couch in my Brooklyn apartment on a sunny, Sunday morning and I was drinking tea. When I read the article it was as if all sorts of subjects of interest had crystallized into this one story. It was a moment of extreme, caffeinated clarity. I would make a film about my grandpa's changing neighborhood. My intention was to tell a personal story, that of my grandfather and his apartment, that would connect to larger historical, political, spacial, and cultural stories of the Lower East Side.
The story of Grandpa's apartment relates to the unprecedented Jewish Migration to the Lower East Side from the 1880s to the 1920s, garment worker unions, the idealism of the social housing movement, and the post-World War II modernist, urban renewal projects that dramatically altered the New York cityscape. Considering this background, I found the market rate conversion of East River Houses both ironic and tragic, particularly in the midst of New York City's present-day crisis in affordable housing. Grandpa’s cooperative seemed to be experiencing a collective loss of memory of their non-profit origins just as Grandpa was losing his own memories to Alzheimer’s disease. Grandpa’s apartment was situated in a time and place full of rich, documentary material, compelling me to make this film.
Grandpa Sidney Lohman passed away in 2005. We miss him.
Written, directed, videotaped, edited and produced by Melissa Photini Lohman
Additional Camera work:
Dave Arons
Shara Frederick
Sound Mixer:
Jenny Packard
Voice over coach:
Columbia McCaleb
Real Time Song:
Caroline Shirley
Musical Score:
Thymme Jones
Jenny Graf Sheppard
Maps:
Phil Lohman
Sidney and Sarah Lohman
East River Housing Corporation
Phil Lohman
Patricia Wild
Deirdre Boyle
Edith and Edwin Friedman
Nettie Shrog
East River Men’s Club
Josh Freeman
Bruce Kayton
Joyce Mendolsohn
Lee Shapiro
Caitlin Cahill
Maceo Bishop
Randi Cecchine
Josh Easdon
Columbia McCaleb
Ted Pauly
And the most thanks of all to Dave. You are my home.
Dedicated to our grandparents
honey bee productions 2003