Filmmaker Puts City Changes In Focus

Elihu Rubin (Lucy Gellman photo)

December 21, 2015 - From Chapel West to Crown Street to the Hill to Wooster Square, New Haven’s construction boom is causing ripples in the city’s sense of place. For some, these moments of transition can be jarring; for others, they offer the perfect opportunity to reflect on the history and symbolism and social impact of New Haven’s physical landscape.

“Being able to document urban change is something that’s very interesting to me,” architectural historian and documentary filmmaker Elihu Rubin said in an interview on WNHH’s “Deep Focus” program. “How do we cope with urban change? How do we interpret it? And who are the agents of development and redevelopment? When do we feel empowered to participate in that, and when do we feel that things are just kind of happening?”

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On Broadway

Elihu Rubin (Thomas Breen photo)

October 9, 2015 - There’s a picture of Robert Moses tucked behind Book Trader Café on Chapel Street. His arms are crossed and he’s smiling, though there’s something a little uneasy about his pose: his tie is slightly off-center, his face half-hidden in shadow. He looks eager to get back to work.

For the observant pedestrian, here hangs a picture of a man who was never elected to public office, but who nonetheless exerted so much power, built and destroyed and reshaped so much of New York City over the course of the 20th century, that cities throughout the country are still wrestling with the influence of his vision: one of swift, merciless, inescapable modernity.

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