Screening of A HOME WORTH FIGHTING FOR
March 12 | 6-7:30 PM
TV Studio (HN 436)
RSVP (open to Hunter Community & Public)
Come to Hunter’s Screening and Panel Discussion of A HOME WORTH FIGHTING
FOR: The Push to Stop the Demolition of Public Housing in Chelsea
Public Housing Tenants Organize Against Demolition in the Heart of Manhattan
As the city’s affordable housing crisis remains center stage, New York
City’s vast public housing stock is relatively overlooked and unprotected.
Nowhere is this more pressing than in Chelsea, where a proposal to demolish
public housing in the neighborhood has spurred tenant organizing determined
to defend their community from privatization, gentrification, and
displacement.
Join us for a screening of the new documentary, A Home Worth Fighting For,
followed by a conversation with the filmmaker, urban planner Tom Lunke and
a NYCHA resident leader engaged in the fight against the proposed
demolition of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in the Chelsea
neighborhood of Manhattan. Audience Q&A will follow the panel discussion.
Synopsis:
Through the eyes of longtime residents fighting to save their homes, A Home
Worth Fighting For, exposes a flawed political process that prioritizes
private developers over the preservation of public housing and dismisses
calls for transparency. While pitched as resident-driven, the proposed
demolition clearly aims to clear valuable land in Chelsea to make way for
market rate development on public land. Determined to defend their
community, residents organize to resist a profit-driven plan aimed at
privatizing public housing. (Run time: 40 min.)
Speakers:
Natasha Florentino is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and video
producer whose practice involves deep research, community engagement, and a
sustained commitment to revealing the power dynamics behind displacement.
Natasha’s newest film, A HOME WORTH FIGHTING FOR, follows residents who
oppose the proposed demolition of two public housing developments in New
York City. In 2024-2025 she was an artist in residence at the National
Public Housing Museum in Chicago in their Artist as Instigator program.
Previously Natasha co-directed and filmed the documentary REZONING HARLEM,
which chronicles the fight by Harlem community members against a 2008
rezoning ordinance. Natasha is a graduate from the IMA-MFA program at
Hunter College.
Tom Lunke is a 30+year Chelsea resident and an award-winning urban planner
and community developer with over 40 years of experience building
comprehensive and innovative strategies, alliances, and solutions. From
1999 through 2018, Mr. Lunke created and led urban planning and community
development initiatives for the Harlem Community Development Corporation, a
subsidiary of Empire State Development Corporation. He served as a member
of Manhattan Community Board 4 from 1997 to 2003, leading community efforts
to preserve The High Line and Gansevoort Meatpacking District.
Mr. Lunke holds a master’s degree in urban planning from Columbia
University in New York and an undergraduate degree in urban planning from
the University of Washington in Seattle.
NYCHA Resident Leader (TBD)
Presented by the Urban Policy & Planning Department & the Department of
Film and Media Studies with support from the Sainsbury Initiative.
