Saving the City Bi-weekly Update!

Happy Holidays! Looking forward to 2023, we plan to release our first two 60 minute episodes in the Fall. And if fundraising efforts in the works come through, we will start production on the next three programs (housing, parks and families in the heart of the city) as well.

Thank you to everyone who has been following our progress through these updates and a special thanks to all of our contributors.

While we focus on the future of cities and and are concerned about their downtowns today, urban centers were clearly on the ascent a century ago when downtown was seen as the place to be – for work, for shopping and for entertainment. The 1920 census marked the first time the US was defined as over 50% urban with Canada reaching the same number soon afterward.

The building boom and skyscraper mania of the Roaring 20s is another facet of remaking cities we cover in our opening episode as many of today's city defining skylines were formed.

Notable examples of 1920s skyscrapers shaping city skylines outside of New York and Chicago include:

52-story Terminal Tower in Cleveland (shown below)

26-story Industrial Trust Tower in Providence (aka the Superman Building)

34-story Baltimore Trust Company Building in Baltimore

49-story Carew Tower complex in Cincinnati

47-story Penobscot Building in Detroit

30-story Russ Building in San Francisco

City Hall towers in Buffalo, Atlanta and Los Angeles

All of our newsletters can now be found here.

After watching Saving the City, you will never look at cities in the same way again. And we hope you will be inspired to act and encourage others to act to make a difference in your local communities.

A quick way to get started is sharing this newsletter with friends and family.

Check out our work and let us know what you think, suggest stories and introduce us to people we should know about.

Thanks to generous funding from the William Penn, Packard, Hewlett, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Foundations, Heinz Endowments, an Urban Land Institute leadership group and individuals led by George Miller and Chris Larsen, we have raised over $888,000 to date. A more complete list of contributors is here.

Help us raise the $600,000 needed to complete our first two episodes as we're almost one-third of the way there.

All funds go through the International Documentary Association, a 501c(3) non-profit.

DONATE

Thank you to Toby Rosenblatt from San Francisco who recently provided production support.

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline."

Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead

Meet Jon Teaford, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University who speciializes in American urban history.

Why converting vacant offices into much-needed housing is so difficult

Can cities recover their mojo in a post-Pandemic environment where the definition of downtown is changing?

What's driving Center City Philadelphia's pedestrian counts even when people aren't showing up to the office?

www.savingthecity.org

3844 Clay Street
San Francisco, CA 94118, United States