This Red Door

 

—–>    Wednesday, August 14th, 2013 @ 8:00pm

 

“L-town fucked me up real nice”

 

with Pooneh Maghazehe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

163 Kenwood Drive North

Levittown, PA 19055

 

L-town fucked me up real nice.

 

I learned tricks to fist fight, to enroll in Sunday School at St. Mike’s Church, to be a convincing  “Latina”, to get tattooed in a shed, and basically shit my pants trying to figure out why I was who I was where I was.

 

—

 

43 Deepgreen Lane

Levittown, PA 19055

 

“Looking back, I have to say I lived a double life-segregation in South when I was young and then integration in the North- almost like a lived two distinct lives.  Levittown was like a wound that healed and left a scar, with some goodness and some sadness..” – Daisy Myers

 

In August 1957, William and Daisy Myers, with their four children, were the first African American family to move to the Dog Hollow section of Levittown, Pennsylvania only to become the targets of a race riot that would receive international publicity.  Centered specifically on the re-tracing of the Myers incident, this exploration will draw parallels between the visionaries behind the design of Levittown, the survival of its ideology between generations, and my personal recollections of being raised in this town thirty-three years after its inception.  It is a preliminary investigation on the ways in which attitudes on class, race and modernity dictated the design, construction and subsequent collective identity of America’s first middle class suburb – Levittown, Pennsylvania.

 

The reconfiguration of current works and furnishings at This Red Door will recall the layout of the Myers home, the first of six model Levittown homes.  The design of the “Levittowner” home at TRD will match in color way, picture window, dining and curtain partition.

 

August 14, the date of  “L-town fucked me up real nice” at This Red Door, marks the 56 year anniversary of this critical, yet widely overlooked, crisis in the history of racial de-segregation in the United States.

 

 

Video(s) from event:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos from event: