Albany

More than 50 years on, the anger rises in their voices and belies a deep distrust over the official version of why 3,500 families, predominantly Italian immigrants, watched their houses, shops, restaurants, churches and way of life destroyed to make way for the South Mall.

The accepted narrative was that the urban core was a slum and it was erased in the name of urban renewal and social progress.

More than 1,500 homes and apartment buildings, 350 businesses, four churches and 29 taverns were seized and torn down by the state under the law of eminent domain. Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller's Modernist white marble monolith rose from a 98-acre hole that had been cut in the heart of the capital city.

An estimated 9,000 people were evicted in the city's Little Italy, as well as enclaves of Jews, Germans, Irish, Armenians and French Canadians in a 40-block South End melting pot bounded by Lincoln Park and State, Eagle and Swan streets.

"He castrated an era," said an Italian-American old-timer who pointed the finger of blame squarely at Rockefeller and his so-called "edifice complex."

Now, in "The Neighborhood That Disappeared," a group of documentary filmmakers is asking tough questions, confronting inconvenient truths and reclaiming lost stories of the families displaced by construction of the $2 billion project, the costliest and largest government complex of its kind anywhere in the world at the time.

Five decades later, working with a shoestring budget and scrambling for funding through an online Kickstarter campaign, a tough-nosed creative team led by Mary Paley — producer, co-director and co-writer — is wrapping the filming. Editing is set to begin in the coming weeks, with a plan of airing their film on public TV later this year.

"The people were ruthlessly uprooted. They were expunged," said Paley, a Philip Livingston School English teacher. She got the project started four years ago after she pored over the extensive photographic archive left by her father, Bob Paley, a longtime photographer for the former Knickerbocker News. He died in 1974 at 49. He had closely documented the people and neighborhoods displaced by the South Mall, which was finished in 1978 after 13 years of construction.

"He loved the people in those neighborhoods, and his photos were my doorway into the project," Paley said.

She brought aboard Pat Bulgaro, 73, as co-director and historical consultant. He was raised on Philip Street and his family lived above Bulgaro's, the family's Italian restaurant. He was the third generation in the South End. An uncle was evicted to make way for the South Mall and his grandfather's tailor shop on Madison Avenue was torn down.

"I have a lot of wonderful memories of that area. It wasn't a slum. It was the city's ethnic melting pot," said Bulgaro, who wrote his history master's thesis at Siena College on Italian immigration in Albany between 1880 and 1920. He later worked as budget director under Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

Bulgaro taught history at Siena, where one of his students was Jack McEneny, the Albany historian and former assemblyman.

McEneny was among dozens of people interviewed for the documentary, including myself. I wrote a biography of Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd, who cut a deal with Rockefeller for the South Mall's financing.

Bulgaro, who serves as the off-camera interviewer, asked McEneny if the South Mall was ultimately a success for the city. "Yes, as long as you have no memory," McEneny said.

Four churches were torn down for the South Mall. St. Anthony's on Grand Street, the focal point of the Italian community, survived the wrecking ball, but it closed in 1973 and parishioners were scattered.

Many of the interviews were recorded at the American Italian Heritage Museum on upper Central Avenue in Albany, which has preserved much of the history of Italian immigrants in the city. "Those people and that neighborhood had value," Paley said. "We lost a great deal by pushing them out of their homes. It's a story that hasn't been told, and it needs to be."

Paley and Bulgaro tracked down members of 13 families who were uprooted and documented the houses they lost with archival photographs.

The creative team includes co-director and videographer John Romeo, Mackenzie Valentine, director of photography, and Bernie Mulleda, music supervisor.

On Friday, they interviewed Tony Opalka, the city historian. His grandparents, parents and two uncles lived in the neighborhood. He brought historic photographs, his mother's eighth-grade diploma from St. Anthony School and his parents' 1947 marriage certificate from St. Anthony Church. Opalka also brought a 1962 planning report that contradicted the state's 1961 study of the neighborhood.

More Information Preview the film To view a trailer of the documentary, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4pWdSIftxU or go to the group's Facebook page at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4pWdSIftxU Contact Paul Grondahl at 518-454-5623 or email pgrondahl@timesunion.com See More Collapse

"It makes you cry over what we lost from a historic preservation standpoint," Opalka said. The 1962 report called the area "potentially the most valuable high-density part of the city." It concluded that it had the potential to become an upscale, revitalized neighborhood in the style of Georgetown.

"The city lost its heart and soul," Opalka said.

pgrondahl@timesunion.com • 518-454-5623 • @PaulGrondahl