New York: A Documentary Film

S01E01 The Country and the City (1609–1825)

November 14, 1999 120 min

The series begins by identifying the key themes that shaped New York's history: commerce and capitalism, diversity and democracy, transformation and creativity. The episode charts the development of the city founded by the Dutch as...

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S01E02 Order and Disorder (1825–1865)

November 15, 1999 120 min

Already established as America's premier port, New York City swelled into the nation's greatest industrial metropolis as a massive wave of German and Irish immigration turned the city into one of the world's most complex...

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S01E03 Sunshine and Shadow (1865–1898)

November 16, 1999 120 min

Now the spotlight shines on the growth, glamour and grief of New York during America's giddy postwar "Gilded Age." Exploring the incomparable wealth of the robber barons and the unabashed corruption of political leaders, such...

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S01E04 The Power and the People (1898–1918)

November 17, 1999 120 min

As New York spilled into the new century, the extraordinary interplay of capitalism, democracy and transformation surged to a climax. During a single generation, over 10 million immigrants arrived in New York. The city itself...

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S01E05 Cosmopolis (1919–1931)

November 18, 1999 120 min

In this short but dazzling period, New York became the focal point of an extraordinary array of human and cultural energies, reaching its highest levels of urban excitement and glamour. In just over a decade,...

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S01E06 City of Tomorrow (1929–1941)

September 30, 2001 120 min

In little more than ten years, immense new forces were unleashed in New York, from the Depression itself to the New Deal, which permanently altered the city and the country. Along the way, two of...

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S01E07 The City and the World (1945–2000)

October 1, 2001 120 min

In exploring the social, economic and physical forces that swept through the city in the post-war period, Episode Seven examines the great African-American migration and Puerto Rican immigration of the '40s, '50s, and '60s; the...

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S01E08 The Center of the World (1946–2003)

September 8, 2003 120 min

Examines the rise and fall of the World Trade Center -- from its conception in the post-World War II economic boom, through its controversial construction in the 1960s and 1970s, to its tragic demise in...

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