For Downtown Drive-In, the Edison parking lot in Lower Manhattan was transformed into the neighborhood’s first drive-in theater. The project consisted of a marathon screening of twenty-five films by independent filmmakers. The selection of films, from the 1920s to the present, all took as their subject matter New York City, and reflected a broad sampling of both approaches to filmmaking and attitudes toward the city. Cultivating a neighborhood atmosphere in the otherwise alienating environment, the free outdoor festival turned the shuttered Wall Street area into a vibrant cultural nighttime destination.

The event was organized by Anita O’Neill and Molly Mullin of Creative Time with Lisa Phillips and Steven Schlough of the Downtown Branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Photograph by Helaine Messer

Multiple Artists

Downtown Drive-In

Manhattan

1978