There is a trace of violence in every landscape, however invisible it is, however deep down it was buried. A meditative journey across Manhattan, this film weaves together present-day cityscapes of New York and its often-overlooked histories. As contemporary footage of the city unfolds alongside voices recounting life and landscapes in the early days of Manhattan, the film questions how the city transforms over time, how memories are forgotten, how histories are erased, and what we can and cannot see.



This film project is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

New York is under construction all the time. Construction fences are a ubiquitous sight in the city. In 2013, the New York City Council passed a law mandating that all construction fences be painted hunter green to standardize the look and that viewing panels be provided on them. I started taking pictures of construction fence viewing panels with an iPhone several years ago. What is behind the fencing? What can we see through these panels?

Slideshowing photos of viewing panels, along with field recordings from construction sites and testimonies from New York City Planning Commission public hearings, Sidewalk Superintendent is a reflection on cityscapes, gentrification, housing and affordability crisis, memories, and the act of photographing.

A rock. Buildings. Trees. Nothing happens. But something is always moving. People walk by. Time passes by. Seasons change. The Earth’s tectonic plates are in constant but imperceivable motion, which slowly move apart or crash together.

When landmasses collided about 450 million years ago, the collision created a single continent known as Pangea. Movement, heat, and pressure over millions of years transformed shale into schist. New York City is built on this tough, old rock called Manhattan schist, which holds skyscrapers.

While most of Manhattan schist lies under the ground, the ancient rock sometimes interrupts the urban fabric. Outcrops of the rock appear throughout Manhattan, especially on the northern part of the island.

Observing a massive Manhattan schist outcrop on a quiet residential block, this film examines the dichotomy between nature and human life, the past and present, human time and cosmic time, and stillness and motion.

The 1949 Housing Act, often seen as the beginning of urban renewal, reshaped the landscapes of many American cities. One of the nation’s largest urban renewal projects was the Lincoln Square Title I Project in New York City led by the powerful public official Robert Moses, which created Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts along with Fordham University’s Manhattan Campus and middle- to high-income housing. The area selected for the project was a working-class, predominantly Black neighborhood with a large population of Puerto Ricans. While it was a tight-knit community with a vibrant culture, Moses declared the area a “blighted slum.” More than 7000 families and 800 businesses were forced to relocate, and the community was dispersed. Lincoln Center, which emerged as a product of urban renewal, has helped to make New York City the world capital of art and culture ever since.

This film reflects on the history of the Lincoln Center site by “listening” to the voices of residents who opposed the Lincoln Square Title I project, which are narrated in subtitles. These are quotes from the public hearing before the City Planning Commission, held on September 11, 1957 at City Hall in Manhattan.

Hands are part of our body, but they might be too close to think. As the pandemic forced us to change our way of living and think about ourselves, it seems we have become paying more attention to our hands and the act of touching. This poetic, personal film meditates on hands, human senses, physicality, and bodiliness.