What does the future of a city look like — and how does its past shape what’s possible?
On Thursday, September 24 at 6 p.m., join the Downtown Alliance and Pace University for a screening of highlights from Ric Burns and James Sanders’ new two-part documentary series: “New York: The Future of Cities.” With these episodes, Burns and Sanders continue their original award-winning eight-part, 17-1/2-hour series, “New York: A Documentary Film,” which originally aired on PBS between 1999 and 2003.
TICKETS HERE
The screening will be followed by a conversation with Burns, Sanders and Vishaan Chakrabarti, architect and founder of PAU (Practice for Architecture and Urbanism).
Spanning the first two decades of the 21st century, “The Future of Cities” captures a New York in the midst of remarkable transformation, from the aftermath of September 11 to the city’s emergence as a global “superstar city.” Along the way, the film explores the challenges that cities everywhere now face, including infrastructure, immigration, governance, equity, financial crises, climate change and resilience.
At the heart of this story is Lower Manhattan, a neighborhood whose transformation over the past 25 years has helped shape the trajectory of the city itself. From the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and the creation of new public spaces to the growth of a vibrant residential, cultural and commercial district, Lower Manhattan has undergone one of the most significant urban transformations in modern New York.
This special evening will take a closer look at how and why Lower Manhattan was rebuilt, the choices and ideas that shaped its transformation and its place in the broader story of New York’s evolution. Through the lens of “The Future of Cities,” the discussion will explore what the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan reveals about New York’s resilience, creativity and capacity to continually reinvent itself.
Ric Burns, a scholar trustee of the New York Historical, is the founder of Steeplechase Films and an internationally recognized documentary filmmaker co-writer and producer of “The Civil War” and “New York: A Documentary Film.”
Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect and founder and creative director of PAU (Practice for Architecture and Urbanism), where he leads the firm’s portfolio of cultural, institutional and public projects, which include the redesign of New York’s Penn Station, designer of the Domino Sugar Refinery and designing the FAA’s sustainable air traffic control tower prototype. Chakrabarti has over 30 years of urban architecture experience, including president of Moynihan Station Venture at The Related Companies and director of the New York Department of City Planning’s Manhattan office. He has also been dean of University of California, Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design and a professor at Columbia University’s architecture school. Chakrabarti is the author of “A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America” and “The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy.” In 2025, he was awarded the Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Award.
James Sanders, FAIA, is the architect behind the design and research firm James Sanders Studio, as well as an author and filmmaker. With Ric Burns, he wrote and produced “New York: A Documentary Film,” and its companion book, “New York: An Illustrated History.”
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