LES Heritage Film Series | The Lo-Down : News from the Lower East Side

L.E.S. Heritage Film Series to Present Unpublished Rebecca Lepkoff Photos

The Seward Park Branch Library has announced the first program of its 2013/2014 Lower East Side Heritage Film Series, Rebecca Lepkoff: In photographs and conversation, on Tuesday, October 15th.

Seward Park Library Celebrates the 80s on Film

Jim Jarmusch's Permanent Vacation plays at the Seward Park Library tonight.

Tonight, the Seward Park Library begins the second phase of its 2012 Lower East Side Heritage Film Series with a special focus: the eighties. The branch has been screening films shot on the Lower East Side every month since October, and will now present little-known gems from that gritty decade.

Jim Jarmusch’s first feature film, Permanent Vacation, plays tonight in the basement of the library building, located at 192 East Broadway off Jefferson Street. The movie tracks the wanderings of a 16-year-old through familiar streets, and the characters he encounters (including his schizophrenic mother and a junkie jazz enthusiast) are compelling amalgams of LES lore. The free screening begins at 6:30 p.m. and runs 75 minutes.

LES Heritage Film Series Concludes Tomorrow Evening

One of our favorite events is having its second year finale tomorrow night. Here’s Sean Ferguson of the Seward Park Library with the details:

We are about to conclude the second season of our Lower East Side Heritage Film Series and for the closer we are ALL TALK. Along with our now traditional send off (we can call it traditional after the second repetition, right?), the film that started this whole (series), The Seward Park Branch and the Neighborhood It Serves (see embedded video above) will be projected in all its 16mm glory. I will be orating the original 1959 script, written by former NYPL employee Donald Fowle, fresh off the heels of a recent performance for the Urban Memory Project — this reading will be the best yet.

LES Heritage Film Series: Charles Mingus’ 90th Birthday

Photo via Tom Marcello on Flickr.

Next week’s screening at the Lower East Side Heritage Film Series looks like a doozy. In honor of what would have been legendary jazz musician Charles Mingus’ 90th birthday, they will present Mingus (1968, 59 min., 16mm). The documentary, directed by Thomas Reichman, is a 1966 interview with Mingus during the time of his eviction from his apartment at 5 Great Jones Street.

Scorsese and the City Come to the Heritage Film Series

Scorsese interviewing his parents at their home on Elizabeth Street, in the film "Italianamerican."

This month’s installment of the always fascinating LES Heritage Film Series will include film legend Martin Scorsese interviewing his parents in Italianamerican (1974, 26 min., 16mm). Scorsese visits with them in their home on Elizabeth Street while they are preparing dinner. His parents (who are both apparently very good story-tellers) open up about their experience as Italian-American immigrants, and reminiscence about the Scorsese family in Sicily.

Also screening: City of Contrasts (1931, 28 min., 16mm) by Irving Browning. The film features images from New York City during the Depression, “exploring roof-top luxury as well as street-level reality.”

LES Heritage Film Series: “Punking Out” and “Wino”

Revisit punk rock birthplace CBGB’s and hear members of the Ramones and the Dead Boys talk about their music and the NYC scene in 1979’s “Punking Out,” part of the next installment of the Lower East Side Heritage Film Series at the Seward Park Library.

In the second film of the evening, “Wino,” New York art film pioneer Jack Smith turns his camera on the denizens of the Bowery, circa 1977. Curator Sean Ferguson will be playing some of his own compositions, live, as a score for the silent film.

The Dec. 6 event is free and begins at 6:30 p.m.

Read more about the film series on Facebook.

“Hester Street” Kicks Off LES Film Series

The Seward Park Library’s LES Heritage Film Series returns for a second season Tuesday night. Series curator Sean Ferguson digs up some real gems from the New York Public Library’s vast film archive. The screening room (the library’s basement) is not glamorous (if you’re old enough you might even have a flashback or two to elementary school). But the films are often fascinating.

Tomorrow, the series features “Hester Street,” the highly regarded 1975 portrayal of immigrant life on the Lower East Side near the turn of the 20th century.

Film Series: The Biggest Jewish City in the World

This month’s LES Heritage Film Series will feature the 1976 film, The Biggest Jewish City in the World. The film was directed by David Gill and was produced as a part of the TV series, “Destination: America.” It will be shown on 16mm film and looks to have some amazing images of the Lower East Side, including footage and interviews from 1900-1976. The film begins with footage of the LES at the turn of the century, and progresses from “sweatshops and labor strikes, to early American-Jewish institutions like the Daily Forward newspaper and Yeshiva University, to prosperous descendants of Jewish immigrants living on Long Island.” Featuring commentary by Irving Howe and Sam Levenson. 58 minutes.

FREE // 6:30p // 192 East Broadway (at Jefferson St.) – downstairs.

LES Heritage Film Series Focus: Men on The Bowery

This month’s edition of the fascinating LES Heritage Film Series at the Seward Park Library will focus on three films about the Bowery (including the famous time capsule, On the Bowery, that screened at Film Forum a few months ago). On the first Tuesday of each month (this is the 6th installment) curator Sean Ferguson screens documentary and feature films that were shot on location in lower Manhattan on both 16mm and DVD formats.

Seward Park Library to Present L.E.S. Heritage Film Series

Still of Robert De Niro in The Godfather: Part II via IMDb

The Seward Park Library is offering a new film series called the LES Heritage Film Series. They will be screening historical documentary and feature films that were shot on location in lower Manhattan, on the first Tuesday of every month.