Get Your Community Psyched: SCREEN our doc! HOST a panel! CHANGE your city’s streets!
Just a few photos above from our many screenings of “Close Encounters of the 34th Avenue Kind” doc around the USA (and world!). By end of October we’ll have screened in Long BeachCA, Katmandu, QueensNY, Iowa City, MontclairNJ, Manhattan and Mexico City with more coming and a few others (like Buffalo, Raleigh, Helsinki, Buffalo, etc) in discussion!
And we want your city too!
It’s simple: find a movie theater, college lecture center, library or even a local bar and if it is FREE and open to the public - done deal. The film is an hour long so we recommend hosting a panel directly after to talk about the film but also how you can apply some of the themes and street magic to your city (and where!)
Want a peek?
And here is one of the crowds fav sequences in the film.
A synopsis of the film: During the Covid pandemic, NYC created an Open Street on 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights and Corona, Queens — which was one of the city’s pandemic epicenter, where 1000s died. The street quickly became a lifeline to residents desperate to exercise or socialize in a socially responsible way. Then as the pandemic faded, residents realized that their open street had become an essential amenity in a neighborhood with a paltry amount of park space per-capita.
Quickly, neighborhood activists rallied and got then-Mayor Bill de Blasio to commit to a full buildout of the open street into its current configuration: Paseo Park, which, as its name suggests, is a 1.3-mile long promenade for cycling, strolling and just connecting with neighbors.
So how do you contact Streetfilms? You can email me, Clarence, the director of the film using either clarence@openplans.org or thru submitting via the www.streetfillms.org website. Believe me…I will return that email as fast as possible. WE WANT YOU TO SHOW THIS! Watch the trailer: you will see some of the accolades from renowned urbanist VIPs from all over the world.
Once you have a place to show it, we will send you everything you need.
A private link to download a file to screen
Stills, logos, visuals from “Close Encounters of the 34th Avenue Kind”
The synopsis of the film & my biography (also at the end of this article)
Whether some of the people in the film can attend to speak and/or be on the panel
A few mini posters we have recently created. See the newest one directly below!
Or you can just make your own advertisements/flyers/social media using our stills. Like this one below. We’ll be screening on Thursday, October 15th at Montclair State University at 6:30 pm. If you live in or near enough to Montclair, NJ here is the link to reserve your FREE tickets.
Our wonderful host has organized an incredibly diverse, experienced and exciting panel to follow the NJ screening. Here is what the discussion looked like at one point in Long Beach, CA where we had about 150 people turn out for the screening at 10am on a Wednesday!
Finally, I will attach yet ANOTHER (a 4th) usable segment from our neighborhood streets epic that people enjoy. It talks much about the research of Bay Area educator Donald Appleyard whose findings really explain in the straight forward terms and diagrams that the safer the streets are outside your home the more community and neighborhood there is. That is the way 34th Avenue now works. All of these clips can be used to promote or media relations to hook folks to turn out!
And finally my bio - below - as I promised once again. And the email again to contact us here is clarence@streetfilms.org.
Clarence Eckerson Jr. has been documenting innovative transportation practices for over a quarter century and has produced over 1,200 Streetfilms. He's been referred to as “the hardest working man in transportation show biz” and “the OG urbanist You-tuber” for his dedication to making difficult, wonky concepts more accessible and entertaining.
He has traveled all over the globe in search of the newest best-practices to enlighten the public, journalists, and elected officials to produce free films for all to learn from. With no formal video training or education in urban planning, Eckerson attributes much of his accumulated knowledge to never holding a driver’s license. He shoots 99% of his footage by bike, foot, train, or bus, which gives his filmmaking a unique, see-it-as-it-happens feel.
He gained valuable experience as the creator of NYC’s public-access show “bikeTV" in 2000 which advocated for better biking in NYC, often teaming with Transportation Alternatives to document initiatives for car-free parks & protected bike lanes. In 2022, Eckerson received a World Bicycle Day award from the United Nations in recognition of how his films have made the world a better place for bicyclists and pedestrians, and helped make safer streets for all. In 2026, Eckerson marked over 21 years of producing Streetfilms for Open Plans.
