Show Me a Hero


Show Me a Hero is a 2015 American miniseries based on the 1999 nonfiction book of the same name by former New York Times writer Lisa Belkin about Yonkers mayor Nick Wasicsko. Like the book, the miniseries details a white middle-class neighborhood's resistance to a federally mandated scattered-site public housing development in Yonkers, New York, and how the tension of the situation affected the city as a whole.
The miniseries was written by David Simon and journalist William F. Zorzi, with whom Simon worked at The Baltimore Sun and on the HBO series The Wire. It was directed by Paul Haggis. Six episodes were ordered by HBO; the miniseries premiered on August 16, 2015.
The name of both the show and the book that it is based upon comes from an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: ""

Background

The story is set between 1987 and 1994 in Yonkers, New York, a city north of New York City in Westchester County, and focuses on efforts to desegregate public housing. Federal judge Leonard B. Sand ruled against Yonkers and issued a desegregation order, mandating that public housing for 200 units—possibly scattered-site public housing, which became the example of new public housing—be built on the middle-class, mostly white, east side of Yonkers. By 1988, the city had already spent $11 million in legal fees fighting against the order, including a failed effort to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case and resulting politics resulted in national focus on issues of race, class, and housing. Mayor Nick Wasicsko ran on the platform opposing the judge's order, but before taking office, in the face of the issue being supported by a federal appeals court, became an advocate for desegregation in Yonkers. Wasicsko and the city councillors who supported him worked out a plan to meet the court order, using the SSPH system to build the 200 homes at eight different sites of only 25 homes each, spread across a city with more than 10,000 homes.
Despite this, four councillorsa majorityrefused to vote to uphold the law, consistently opposing any limited desegregation. For refusing to follow the court order, the city of Yonkers was crippled by heavy, possibly bankrupting fines—estimated to be close to $1 million a day from a compounded charge that started at $100 a day. Basic services stopped, and parks and libraries were shuttered, with 630 city workers facing mandatory layoffs in order to maintain enough money for police and fire services. There were ongoing protests, including Wasicsko and others receiving death threats, such as envelopes containing bullets, at least once with a note that “You won’t see the next one.” Wasicsko was forced to comply. The suit was finally settled in May 2007.
In addition to the Yonkers City Council members and other local politicians, two groups took opposing sides on the issue: Save Yonkers Federation, led by Jack O'Toole, who were anti-desegregation and voted to defy the federal order, and the Citizens and Neighbors Organized to Protect Yonkers, who supported the court order, wanting to end the crippling fines. New York Secretary of State Gail Shaffer was appointed by then governor Mario Cuomo as the chair of the Yonkers Emergency Financial Control Board, which was in charge of the city's finances in 1988 as the fines reduced all city services and the city became bankrupt. The Housing Education Relocation Enterprise was a community-based organization that supported the tenants moving into the scattered-site public housing.
Yonkers hired city planner Oscar Newman, originator of the defensible space theory, to work with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development on the housing plan. Newman's theories emphasized the value of small groups of townhouses with yards, rather than multi-story apartment blocks, to provide a sense of ownership for the low-income residents, while being immersed in the activities and culture of middle-class neighborhoods. The challenges of the existing projects were shown through the lives of a number of families living there.

Cast

  • Oscar Isaac as Nick Wasicsko, former police officer, then Yonkers City Council member running for election to be mayor of Yonkers, eventually the youngest big-city mayor in the nation
  • Carla Quevedo as Nay Noe Wasicsko, City Hall staffer, Mayor Wasicsko's wife
  • Peter Riegert as architect and city planner Oscar Newman, originator of the defensible space theory
  • Jim Belushi as Angelo R. Martinelli, a six-term Mayor of Yonkers who is Wasicsko's opponent in the election to be mayor of Yonkers
  • Alfred Molina as Henry J. "Hank" Spallone, Yonkers City Council member who was passionately anti-housing, who became mayor of Yonkers based on his refusal to follow the desegregation order
  • Winona Ryder as Vinni Restiano, Yonkers City Council president who advocated for integration
  • Bob Balaban as Judge Leonard B. Sand, who ordered desegregation
  • Jim Bracchitta as Nicholas Longo, Yonkers City Council member who was outspoken in his criticism of the federal ruling
  • Allan Steele as Edward Fagan, Yonkers City Council member who was outspoken in his criticism of the federal ruling
  • Terry Kinney as Peter Smith, the Yonkers Housing Authority director
  • Jon Bernthal as Michael H. Sussman, civil rights attorney and former federal prosecutor; represents the local NAACP chapter
  • Michael Stahl-David as James Surdoval, Wasicsko's political consultant
  • Catherine Keener as Mary Dorman, an East Yonkers homeowner who was part of the Save Yonkers Federation
  • Bruce Altman as Buddy Dorman, Mary's husband
  • Ilfenesh Hadera as Carmen "Alma" Febles, a single mother from the Dominican Republic
  • LaTanya Richardson Jackson as Norma O'Neal, a home health aid living in the projects, who is struggling with losing her sight
  • McKinley Belcher III as Dwayne Meeks, Norma O'Neal's son and a minivan manufacturer
  • Natalie Paul as Doreen Henderson, a young woman born in public housing but raised in the suburbs, who is drawn back to the housing projects where her life spirals out of control just as the crack epidemic intensifies
  • Dominique Fishback as Billie Rowan, a troubled teenager who lives in the projects and gets involved with a local petty criminal
  • Melanie Nicholls-King as Janet Rowan, Billie Rowan's mother
  • Clarke Peters as Robert Mayhawk, neighborhood consultant who runs the Housing Education Relocation Enterprise, to assist with the integration of scattered-site public housing
  • Jenna Stern as Gail Shaffer, Secretary of State of New York, chairs the Yonkers Emergency Financial Control Board

    Production

Development

Simon said that Gail Mutrux, a producer Simon knew from working with her on Homicide, had sent him a copy of Belkin's book. In 2001, Simon sent Zorzi, who at that time was assistant city editor at The Baltimore Sun, a copy of the book, which he was taking to HBO as a potential project. In 2002, Zorzi quit his job at The Sun and began working on this miniseries, on what became a long-term project.
The story was in development for over a decade, with co-writer Zorzi working on the passion project during that time, even as he and Simon were working on The Wire. HBO had an option on the book, but it spent years in script re-writes with Zorzi as Simon and Zorzi were both busy working on other projects.
Simon says that Mayor Nick Wasicsko's story is what drives the narrative, and that if the character's arc wasn't right, the series would fail. Simon calls Isaac the key to making it work. Wasicsko's wife, Nay Wasicsko-McLaughlin, who worked at City Hall during the time of the conflict, was a consultant on the show. Wasicsko-McLaughlin met with Isaac, which Isaac said was vital to the story.
Simon refers to Yonkers as one of the first locations of the birth and growth of scattered site housing and the integration of architect and city planner Oscar Newman's work on defensible space theory and his 1972 work "Creating Defensible Space," and that this story went on to impact methods of public housing programs on a national scale. Yonkers was the very public staging ground.
Director Paul Haggis states that when he heard about Simon's project, he told his agents to agree his participation, even without him reading the script. Once he had read it, he asked to direct not one or two episodes, as requested, but the entire series. This was the first time that Haggis, who typically both writes and directs his pieces, didn't write the material himself. He said he did this because it was so important to him to work with Simon.

Filming

The miniseries began shooting on October 1, 2014, and wrapped shooting on location January 25, 2015. Show Me a Hero made use of primary locations in Yonkers, New York, including the William A. Schlobohm Houses public housing projects, which was the subject of a July 2012 FBI investigation of drugs and firearm trafficking by a gang called the Strip Boyz. The Schlobohm Houses were one of the examples of a 1980 federal case – initially started in 1979 by the Carter Justice Department – then brought as a friend of the court case by a local NAACP chapter who sued the city of Yonkers with claims of segregation by the city, where the poorest residents were forced into living in the western part of town. The claim was that out of a city of almost 200,000 people with an area of approximately 21 square miles, that almost all non-white residents lived in 7,000 units of low income housing within the space of 1 square mile, in public housing that was located on the west side of Saw Mill River Parkway. The high concentration was the result of years of concentrated 40+ year old racial covenants prohibiting non-whites from living east of the Parkway.
Another Yonkers location was The Grinton I. Will branch of the Yonkers Public Library, where scenes of town gatherings were shot. The Cottage Place Gardens was used to substitute for the garden-style Mulford Gardens public housing project, as it has since been torn down. Some scenes were also shot at the Yonkers City Hall, within the Yonkers City Council Chambers where those actual events took place. Additionally, Haggis said that Mary Dorman's house was the actual location. Additional Yonkers locations used were The Department of Buildings at 87 Nepperhan Avenue and Oakland Cemetery. Scenes portraying the Dominican Republic were shot in Puerto Rico.
Working with the show's art department, graffiti artist Chris Capuozzo, with assistance of his photographer wife Denise Ranallo Capuozzo, who documented the graffiti in Yonkers during the time of the show, created temporary reproductions of period graffiti at the Schlobohm Houses and on Palisade Avenue.