Press Pass TV and Project RIGHT investigate what it means to value your community and how property value is built and destroyed.Press Pass TV and Project RIGHT investigate what it means to value your community and... more
Workers Defense Project and community supporters gathered outside Cobra Studios in Austin to protest COBALT COMPANIES for the $20,000.00 in unpaid wages owed to eleven workers who worked on their work site at Cobra Studios Apartments.
In the context of economic downturn, where low-wage workers bear the burden of hard times, Workers Defense Project is calling upon Cobalt Companies to take responsibility for the labor abuses on their work site.
In October and November of 2008, Antonio Melo, Antonio Olvera, Fausto Elias, and 8 other workers worked for a subcontractor of Cobalt Companies to perform masonry work on Cobra Studios Apartments in East Austin. The subcontractor never paid the eleven workers for their work and they are still owed nearly $20,000 in back wages.
The Workers Defense Project has tried to resolve the issue directly with Cobalt Companies and their subcontractors. Cobalt Companies negotiated with PDL and agreed to a payment plan where they would pay $15,000 of wages owed now and $5,000 later. The agreement was drafted, the terms were all agreed upon, and then Cobalt Companies backed out.
Workers, advocates and community supporters urged Cobalt Companies to ensure that Austin development occurs in a way that benefits everyone in the community, including the workers who are building our city.
Cobalt Companies is a local residential and commercial building company that has 30 years of experience working on construction projects in Austin. They specialize in high-end homes, town-homes, and commercial properties that range from half-million to multi-million dollar projects, such as the Cobra Studios.
After much effort and long hours on the part of the Workers Defense Project, ultimately Cobalt Co. lived up to their legal responsibility and made sure the workers were paid their due in a check for $18,000!
This is a Z Graphix Production, Directed by Jason Cato and
Produced by Jeffry Zavala.
I think if the city starts promoting the hell out of the new program and the closures, it will get more people downtown, which will push some of the homeless out. It worked for Times Square in NY, and in Leeds in England. Why shouldn't it work here? I think it's better than doing nothing...
I don't think the area will gentrify, but it's a good push from the city to get business and citizenry (and not to mention tourists) out and about to see more of Market and the businesses that dot along it from 10th street on down.I think if the city starts promoting the hell out of the new program and the closures,... more
This short 9min film is a reader's digest of the book by the same name by author Douglas Rushkoff.
Douglas Rushkoff is the author of ten books on media, technology, and society, including Cyberia, Media Virus, Coercion, Nothing Sacred, Get Back in the Box, and the novel Ecstasy Club.
He made the PBS Frontline documentaries Merchants of Cool, The Persuaders, and the upcoming Digital Nation. He is the host of the WFMU radio show The MediaSquat, and he will be teaching the New School University this Fall.
In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from a convenient legal fiction to the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they're no longer even aware of it.
Marc digs up his comedic, religious, and sexual past by rediscovering old stomping grounds - first stop: Luna Lounge, home to one of the original 'Alternative Comedy' scenes....
BreakRoomLive w/ Maron & Seder is LIVE weekdays, 3-4pm from Air America's Break Room.
Catch comedy sketches, interviews, political & cultural discussions, & interact with hosts & guests live: 3pm, M-F @ BreakRoomLive.com!http://breakroomlive.com
Marc digs up his comedic, religious, and sexual past by... more
These are the children of families who live in horrific slum conditions in downtown Los Angeles. Their food is covered in roaches. Their skin is covered in roach and rat bites. Doctors remove roaches from their ears. Their buildings are falling apart and their ladlord ignores their pleas for help.
Watch as these brave families led by SAJE (Strategic Actions for a Just Economy) pay a visit to their landlord in his beautiful beachside community (which is in stark contrast to their disheveled homes) and leave him a "bill" for all of their suffering.
More on SAJE:
Over the past two years, SAJE has been working with tenants in the buildings of notorious slumlord, Frank McHugh. He owns about 170 buildings in Los Angeles, CA.
His practices of taking rent and making shoddy or "mickey mouse" repairs to his buildings have created worlds of pain for decent people who don't have a lot of affordable housing choices in L.A.
Many are forced to live with rats, roaches, bad plumbing, and, in some cases, structural problems; for example one building owned by Frank McHugh literally FELL DOWN.
To learn more visit www.saje.netThese are the children of families who live in horrific slum conditions in downtown... more
A building in Los Angeles collapses leaving it's tenants homeless after it had recently passed building code inspection!
Just another example of slumlord frank McHugh's unethical and unjust business practices!
A few months ago I covered this story of the tenants of McHugh's building who live in deplorable slum conditions as they payed him a visit to demand equal rights:
As an East LA native, I'm torn between the pros and cons on gentrifying East LA. I don't want to see East LA turn into an Echo park.As an East LA native, I'm torn between the pros and cons on gentrifying East LA. I... more
Gentrification - and the cultural and human displacement that comes with it - is the topic of a new play running this month at Public Theater in New York. In TAKING OVER, playwright and actor, Danny Hoch gives voice to many players in a community in transition.Gentrification - and the cultural and human displacement that comes with it - is the... more
On the resort island of Ambergris Caye, just off the coast of Belize, is a community sometimes referred to as the forgotten place. Officially known as San Mateo, this is a community of 1,500 or more living in shacks made from found materials. They live in swampland, sewage, garbage and many without running water or electricity.
In 2004 two American missionaries were vacationing on the island when they noticed an appalling number of school age children wandering the beaches alone. Because the public school was far past capacity and the private schools were beyond most people's means, these children were left to fend for themselves.
Francis and Vernon Wilson decided to work with the Belize government to build a school that would benefit the community of San Mateo. In 2006 its doors opened and enrollment has soared. The school has provided education, food and healthcare to the community.
This emerging success story is being threatened by the very resort development that employs many of those living in San Mateo. Encroaching beyond the mangroves are condos and the threat of displacement. The most immediate threat is to the school which rests as a buffer between development and the community.On the resort island of Ambergris Caye, just off the coast of Belize, is a community... more
Before its economic turnaround in recent years, Harlem was a case study in disinvestment.
Banks were unwilling to make mortgage loans or to open branches, national chain stores could not be lured uptown, city services lagged and the neighborhood became economically isolated from the rest of Manhattan. This has given way in the past decade to a resurgence, as national chains like Starbucks and American Apparel have moved to 125th Street and housing prices have steadily risen.
But the collapse of financial institutions like Washington Mutual Savings Bank, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers has left Harlem facing a double loss: The disappearance of companies that helped propel the resurgence will not only make it immediately more difficult for business people to get loans and mortgages or for developers to build large commercial projects, but will also lead to the loss of millions of dollars in charitable contributions from those same companies. That will affect everything from children’s health and adult literacy to the Apollo Theater’s famed amateur night.
The effect in Harlem of these companies’ failure is an example of the long — and in some cases, unexpected — reach of Wall Street across the city, even in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, and where relatively few people work as stockbrokers or investment bankers.
“People talk about Wall Street greed, but one of the things many people don’t understand is that there are a lot of organizations that have been the recipient of largess from the same Wall Street,” said Geoffrey Canada, president and chief executive of Harlem Children’s Zone, one of the neighborhood’s largest private, nonprofit groups. “Their absence leaves us scrambling to replace what has been a significant amount of support.”
The relationships between Harlem and the companies ranged from the personal — 240 Lehman Brothers employees helped build a six-unit apartment building and tutored children in mathematics each Saturday — to the symbolic: Washington Mutual had its name on the marquee of the Apollo as the primary sponsor of amateur night.
Then there is the strictly financial: Bear Stearns provided critical funds for the $85 million Harlem Center, a retail and office complex on 125th Street that includes, among other businesses, a Washington Mutual branch.
The tight credit market will very likely have other consequences in Harlem as well, observers said, most significantly a slowdown in economic development, which could moderate the neighborhood’s rapid gentrification. Before its economic turnaround in recent years, Harlem was a case study in... more
Shaw Speaks focuses on a neighborhood in Washington DC that has experienced gentrification since 1970s. This documentary takes a close look at Shaw, interviewing new and native residents and compiling together the many changes Shaw has endured. Shaw Speaks focuses on a neighborhood in Washington DC that has experienced... more
This is a remarkable pictorial documentary by the acclaimed Japanese photographer Q. Sakamaki, a reminiscence about his own early days in New York City. Upon arriving in the city in 1986, he moved to the East Village, where he was alternately charmed and horrified by what he saw. Most surprising to him was the huge number of people who were living on the sidewalks.
Before long he was drawn to Tompkins Square Park, which was then the East Village's central gathering spot, where he found a lively mix of people. There were law students, punks, poets and older, lifelong residents who could remember the days of the New Deal.
Twenty years ago this week the neighborhood was also much like a war zone as protesters clashed with police officers seeking to enforce a curfew in the park. “This [work] focuses on Tompkins Square Park as the symbol and stronghold of the anti-gentrification movement, the scene of one of the most important political and avant-garde movements in New York history,” Mr. Sakamaki explains.
The documentary is both an homage and a farewell to a lost place and lost people, displaced by rapid and often greedy gentrification.
Stunning photographs and wonderful video-slideshow of Mr. Sakamaki's pictorial documentary (with music by Nick Drake) are included.This is a remarkable pictorial documentary by the acclaimed Japanese photographer Q.... more
There's the anecdote about Portland having the most strip clubs of any city in the US. Along with these strip clubs there are a lot of women doing sex work in and around the city. How do they feel about it? How do they do it? Who are they? And where do they get the support they need. This short looks at sex work and the social services agencies that have gathered together to provide services and resources for a very present, and yet hidden and dismissed, group of women working in Portland.There's the anecdote about Portland having the most strip clubs of any city in the US.... more
Detroit based Hip-Hop artists Invincible and Finale rhyme about the impacts of gentrification on the Motor City. This piece includes interviews with community activists discussing displacement and predatory planning versus sustainable development in the D.
Both the song and video for "Locusts" by Invincible feat. Finale, (produced by DJ House Shoes) are from Invincible's debut album Shapeshifters available on www.EMERGENCEmusic.net and www.bling47.com).Detroit based Hip-Hop artists Invincible and Finale rhyme about the impacts of... more
San Francisco's darkest secret is back and the issues have escalated. Murder, Drugs, Violence, Police Brutality, Gang Injunctions, Environmental Issues, Redevelopment and Gentrification are the issues that are brought to light in this new documentary film that is coming soon.San Francisco's darkest secret is back and the issues have escalated. Murder, Drugs,... more
This is the footage, that day i got back from New Orleans in Nov. 1 2005.
I Jeffrey Cappell, was very thankful for not losing my house, but most of this is footage, is only two blocks away from my house. Its a sad thing, but the sadder part is that some of these things house still look like this and now its 2008.
This is a short film by Jeffrey Cappell about the horrible true effects of Hurricane Katrina
This is the footage, that day i got back from New Orleans in Nov. 1 2005.
I Jeffrey... more
For years, Polk Gulch was one of the most notorious neighborhoods in San Francisco, home to drug addicts, prostitutes and some of the city's seediest nightlife. But it was also an early mecca for the city's gay community -- years before the Castro District. Over the last decade, neighborhood groups have been trying to cut crime and drug use in the area and attract a new clientèle composed of the young and well-to-do. But in the process, some say, they are erasing the last remnants of the neighborhood's LGBT past.For years, Polk Gulch was one of the most notorious neighborhoods in San Francisco,... more
LES R.I.P is a continuation of my interview with Junior where he speaks more on the effects of gentrification of the Lower East Side. Half music video, it?s also a look back at the way the neighborhood used to be.... graffiti, a secret history of Hip-Hop, the homeless situation, the rich political and cultural gumbo that made the LES unique... www.gforcestudioz.comLES R.I.P is a continuation of my interview with Junior where he speaks more on the... more
Junior: Native New Yorker is another mini-doc about this older brother I know who used to live in Tompkins Square Park during the ?homeless situation? of the late 80?s-early 90?s in NYC. He now works for the Parks Dept. as a manager in Washington Square Park. Nicknamed ?The Mayor Of Tompkins Square Park? and featured in stories on the front page of the NY Times, CBS News and the Village Voice, he?s an urban legend in his own right. Junior: Native New Yorker is another mini-doc about this older brother I know who... more
