Misleading Innocence (Tracing What a Bridge Can Do)

Overview

This film, produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, explores the controversial story of the planning and politics of a series of overpasses on the parkways of Long Island, commissioned in the 1920s and 1930s by the influential American public administrator Robert Moses. The story suggests that these bridges were designed to prevent the passage of buses, thereby only allowing people who could afford to own a car to access Long Island’s leisure spaces. The film investigates the story and the ongoing academic debate that it spurred through interviews with four scholars who in the 1980s and 1990s discussed interpretations of the design. The questions that the film raises engage with issues of secrecy and control, the morals of power and the effects of technology.