During the economic boom of the 1920s, thousands of immigrant Jewish factory workers escaped New York's slums and ghettos into the community of their dreams; they built four apartment houses in the Bronx that they would own and run cooperatively. The Bronx was just being developed then, so it felt like they'd moved to the country. And then they were it by the Great Depression.
At Home in Utopia focuses on the United Workers Cooperative Colony the Coops also known to local policemen as Little Moscow because this community of 2,000 people was dominated by Communists. The film bears witness to an epic social experiment across two generations as the residents tried to change the American dream into one that included workers' rights and racial justice, and allowed intermarriage.
“This beautiful film not only recovers a nearly forgotten radical workers’ community and a culture of collective ownership, but it reminds us what is possible when we organize.”
Robin D. G. Kelley author of Freedom Dreams : The Black Radical Imagination
Yok Ziebel, one of our incredible stars, is home from the hospital.
We are so glad he is on the mend.
Three wonderful stars in ‘At Home in Utopia’
have recently passed away. It is with admiration
and sadness that we remember them.
Harriette Nesin Bressack died March 22, 2012 at the age of 88. Growing up in the Coops she thought that everyone in the world was Jewish and a communist. Harriette went to Hunter College and enlisted in the Navy during WWII.
Amy Swerdlow died March 30, 2012 at the age of 89. She was a pioneer in the peace and women's movements.
Bebe Ziebel died April 2, 2011 at the age of 82. This is the first anniversary of her death. She was active throughout her life in causes of social justice.
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