Dallas Videofest 2009 - Open House

31 min.

'Open House' documents the brutal nature of the development spree that has occurred in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. While the housing bubble was deflating across the country, an urban renewal project was underway on a scale not seen since Robert Moses' 'slum' clearance of the 1960's. Williamsburg was re-zoned from light manufacturing/ residential to the loosening of codes that allowed for forty-story towers on the waterfront. As a result, no other neighborhood in New York City has been more visibly transformed by new residential construction than Williamsburg, where countless glass-and-steel structures have gone up on blocks long defined by factories and modest row houses. With images of a neighborhood being literally torn apart by developers capitalizing on a frenzied housing market, and property owners desperate to cash in before the market collapsed, 'Open House' chronicles the re-branding of Williamsburg from working class/warehouse/artist into 'cutting edge' cosmopolitan.

Information from the festival's website