SCM Professors’ Web Series Captures the Third New York City

“Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last–the city of final destination, the city that is a goal.”

E.B. White offered this description of New York City in the book "Here Is New York" in which he writes of three separate New York’s with differing attributes, the first two are of the native-born New Yorker and the commuter, which he relays as paling in comparison to the last city of the person from elsewhere in search of a goal. It is this excerpt that inspired the title of the new web series "Three Trembling Cities" created by Professor Arthur Vincie and Professor Ben Wolf of Montclair State University’s School of Communication and Media.

Many cannot claim to fully understand the experience of the over 42.4 million immigrants the Migration Policy Institute reports living in the U.S. as of 2014, yet Vincie and Wolf sought to capture an authentic glimpse by way of this series. The docufiction web series about the lives and daily struggles of immigrants living in NYC, was inspired by mutual friends of the two professors and crafted to depict realistic and distinct individuals in contrast to common portrayals of immigrants in broad terms.

“After a great deal of research he [Professor Vincie] created characters from all over the world with real personalities, not representations of ‘immigrants’,” said Wolf. “When he wrote characters from Africa, they were not African, they were Senegalese, Eritrean, in other words, specific nationalities not generalizations.”

After the professors set aside previous film projects based in the supernatural and horror, Wolf suggested the true to life concept of immigrants living in the big city. Story lines cover pertinent issues relating to family, dreams, economic security, identity, and citizenship.

"Three Trembling Cities" was written and directed by Vincie, and produced and shot by Wolf with production design by recent 2016 alumni Melissa Mautone. The web series has since screened at the Lovecraft Bar in NYC on Oct. 25 and is now available on various online platforms, including threetremblingcities.com/ where the first season can be viewed.

With the creation of this web series Vincie and Wolfe stand to reveal to audiences, in all sincerity, the greatness E.B. White wrote of in reference to the destination, third New York City.