ARTE.TV – ON DEMAND – DOCUMENTARY SERIES
The very pretty documentary series On the roofs of cities, proposed again this summer by Arte and of which we have reviewed the section dealing with New York (the four others concern Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Paris and Tokyo), is broadcast sporadically on its antenna, and remains available on demand on Arte.tv until September 23.
The invitation of the Franco-German channel to ” take height ” smells good the cliché. But anyone who has been fortunate enough to have experienced it knows what the magic of the Hanging Gardens, the coffee shops in New York, is. rooftop or, quite simply, by the blazing Cinemascope panorama of a sunset seen from the roof of a building in Brooklyn, where the laundry dries, as Woody Allen films it at the beginning ofCrooks but not too many (2000).
The city’s many rooftop buildings are particularly suited to such uses. They are often equipped with water tanks, these cedar wood drinking water cisterns which are one of the emblems of the city and to which this episode is attached for a moment. Seemingly archaic, they are in fact an ecological solution allowing energy savings thanks to the gravity system.
We get to know a breeding of “competition pigeons”, an old tradition imported by Irish and Italian immigrants, with vegetable gardens installed on the 6000 square meters of roofs of the old shipyards in Brooklyn, or with beehives and small vegetable garden at the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria …
Dormitory, cinema and bar
We envy the members of the Trapeze School of New York, located at the top of a former warehouse on the banks of the Hudson, where, in the past, part of the transatlantic liners docked after their passengers had discovered this “Standing city” and “Absolutely right”, as Céline writes in journey to the Edge of the Night (1932).
Visit of an outdoor dormitory, where all electronic and connected tools are prohibited, and the semi-permanent outdoor cinema room, fitted out on the roof of another historic Brooklyn building by the Rooftop Film Festival, launched in 1997. And, of course, you have to stop by a few bistro terraces where you can almost toast with the clouds.
One of the speakers in the documentary evokes these theaters and cafes which, at the turn of the 20th centurye century, were installed on the roofs of Broadway theaters, closed in summer due to the high heat and lack of air conditioning. Thus, on the roof of the Victoria Theater, opened in 1899 at the corner of the VIIe Avenue and 42e Street, we found the Paradise Roof Garden, an outdoor room, with tables and refreshments. This space even included a… Dutch farm with a costumed farmer milking a cow there and serving fresh milk!
On the roofs of cities having been produced in 2015-2016, the series does not mention the Covid-19 pandemic. But, while the frequentation of closed places remains problematic to this day, the conclusion of this episode seems somewhat prophetic: “As the rooftop revolution unfolds, it seems obvious to New Yorkers today that their accessibility and wider use will make the city more liveable. “
On the roofs of cities. New York, by Xavier Lefebvre (Fr., 2016, 43 min). On Arte.tv until September 23.
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