Lost Rondout : a story of urban removal
(DVD)

In the 1960s, federally funded urban renewal projects destroyed hundreds of working-class urban communities across America. Lost Rondout: A Story of Urban Removal chronicles how one such project impacted the Hudson Valley city of Kingston, New York, demolishing nearly 500 buildings and displacing thousands of people. Interviews with former residents bring the destroyed neighborhood back to life -- its bars, clothing stores, and bakeries -- and dozens of stunning slides by Gene Dauner celebrate block after block of handsome 19th-century brick buildings just prior to their demolition. Urban planners, city officials, and historians discuss how suburbanization and misguided federal policies devastated cities and how Kingston still struggles with urban renewal's troubled legacy -- even as the fragmented neighborhood has made a dramatic comeback.