An oral history in one act · A

stage play by Marlin Thomas

Every building holds a story.

The largest public housing

project in North America. Ninety-six buildings. Six city blocks. Some seven thousand lives — and

one night of testimony.

ENTER THE ARCHIVE

WATCH THE FOOTAGE

Scroll · the record begins

An oral history in one act · A stage play by Marlin Thomas

Every building holds a story.

Written By: Marlin Thomas | Directed by: DeMone Seraphin

The largest public housing project in North America. Ninety-six buildings. Six city blocks. Some seven thousand lives — and one night of testimony.

ENTER THE ARCHIVE

WATCH THE FOOTAGE

Scroll · the record begins

The two voices of the play

The landlord speaks. Then the tenants do.

NYCHA · Public NoticeQueensbridge Houses · LIC

Welcome to Queensbridge — the largest public housing project in North America. Ninety-six buildings across six city blocks and more than three thousand units in a park-like setting, replete with playgrounds, a community center, a library, and shopping. A testament to American ingenuity and concern for the welfare of its poorest citizens. With the government as their landlord, the tenants are assured a clean, healthy, well-maintained living space. Its approximately seven thousand residents — from every race, creed, color, ethnic group, and religion — live together in harmony.

Lionel Russell · "Pharaoh" Here is where you go when you have no place to go. So no one can see you. And no one can hear you. When you leave here, you carry with you six blocks and ninety-six buildings. Every brick is on your back. I've seen a lot here. Some good. Some bad. Mostly good. But we shine the bad. At the end of the line, the bad mounts up.

NYCHA · Development Record Long Island City, Queens, NY

96Buildings

6City blocks

3,000+Apartments

~7,000Residents

70minRunning time

What it is

A decades-long resident of the country's largest public housing project describes the trauma of living there, his complicity in it, and his journey to incomplete redemption.

Set in the auditorium of the Jacob A. Riis Settlement House, Queensbridge stages an oral history as it happens — an interviewer, a recorder, and a man called Pharaoh, telling the story of a place built to hold people out of sight. It has no acts and no scenes. It has quanta: bursts of dialogue and action that inform each other. And it has no fourth wall — from the first moment, the audience is part of the work.

About the show → See performances