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Hello and welcome to the Scene 2 Seen podcast. I am Valerie Complex, and today we’re talking about the HBO documentary The Stroll with its directors Kristen Lovell (in her directorial debut), and Zackary Drucker, and one of the film’s subjects Carey Smith about the making of the film, how “The Stroll” became a tight knit community, and the repercussions of changes that exist in the Meatpacking District today. Here is a bit more info regarding today’s guest!
When Lovell moved to New York City in the 1990s and began to transition and was fired from her job. With so few options to earn money to survive, Kristen, like many transgender women of color during this era, began sex work in an area known as “The Stroll” in the Meatpacking District of lower Manhattan. There is where trans women congregated and forged a deep camaraderie to protect each other from harassment and violence.
Reuniting her sisters to tell this essential New York story from their first-hand experiences, Kristen’s intimate narration and interviews bring an astonishing array of archival material of bygone New York from the 1970s through the early 2000s to life. As much as The Stroll is a film about transgender life, it is also a startling account of gentrification, as New York City Mayor Giuliani enacted “quality of life” initiatives that ramped up policing in the city and pushed the sex workers out of the neighborhood.
In her time since then, Lovell has been an advocate in the trans community for over 20 years. As an actress, she appeared in Random Acts of Flyness, and co-produced the award-winning Flavio Alves feature The Garden Left Behind.
Also sitting in the director’s chair is Drucker, an Emmy nominated producer for the docuseries This Is Me, and was a producer on the Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning Amazon show Transparent. The Lady and The Dale, her directorial debut for television, premiered on HBO in early 2021. As an independent artist, filmmaker and cultural producer she has performed and exhibited her work internationally in museums, galleries and film festivals including the Whitney Biennial 2014, MoMA PS1, Hammer Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, MCA San Diego, and SF MoMA, among others.
Carey Smith, one of the film’s subjects, was on “The Stroll” from 1996 to 2009. After spending six years in prison, she pursued certification as a home health aid but was denied because of her lengthy rap sheet. She now works as the front desk manager at Vocal New York, a statewide grassroots membership organization that serves low-income people directly impacted by HIV/AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration, and homelessness.
The Stroll premiered at Sundance 2023 and became available via streaming on HBO and MAX on June 21. Be sure to watch this harrowing documentary to learn more about a piece of New York City history.
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