January 11, 2008
"The Wire" just began its final season on HBO. The dramatic series’ gritty, unblinking portrayal of Baltimore has critics calling it the best show on TV. But those are critics. What do the real people of Baltimore think of "The Wire?" Aaron Henkin of WYPR asked some residents of the city’s tough neighborhoods what they thought of the drama.
Listeners Richard Tatum and Tracy Eliott are not too keen on how Hollywood has treated their respective hometowns, Philadelphia and New Orleans. Produced by Ben Conniff.
Weigh in: Does Hollywood get your hometown wrong?
The former coal and textile town in eastern Pennsylvania is the setting for NBC’s hit sitcom "The Office". It’s filmed in California, but the producers think Scranton is the right locale for an office full of incompetents and slackers. Kurt called up Mayor Christopher A. Doherty to find out how the town is dealing with its newfound fame.
With the fading American auto industry and its reputation for high crime, Detroit has become shorthand for urban decay. On two blocks of Heidelberg Street on Detroit’s east side, an artist and community organizer named Tyree Guyton decided to do something about it. He started transforming the street into his own crazy work of art. And his efforts made a big impression on Detroit resident Jenenne Whitfield. Produced by Zak Rosen.
Weigh in: Is there a work of art that has changed your life?
In 1961, an American film crew arrived in Salta, Argentina, to make "Taras Bulba", an old-style Hollywood epic: it's set in 16th century Ukraine and features massive battle scenes on horseback. For some Salteños, the film seemed realer than real life. Federico Windhausen was intrigued by the strange folklore that’s bubbled up around it.
Kurt meets up with David Plowden in a city park overlooking Manhattan’s East River, not far from where the photographer grew up. Plowden describes the stoic grain elevators and ferocious steam locomotives he’s captured over the last 50+ years. Many of them are collected in Plowden's striking book Vanishing Point. "Vanishing" because the people and places in it have disappeared from the American Midwest.
David Plowden explains why he's made an extensive photo study of bridges -- both as an artist and documentarian.
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Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
