Skid Rows

IF YOU LIKE THIS FILM, CHECK OUT MY MOST RECENT DOCUMENTARY ... https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Hands-Michael-Dominic/dp/B0B3RK51YD


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Sunshine Hotel - 25th Anniversary Restoration.

A JOURNEY INTO THE LAST “FLOPHOUSE” ON THE BOWERY.

As seen on Sundance Channel. Just decades ago, flophouses in New York housed nearly 25,000 men living on the margins of society. Today few remain. Filmmaker Michael Dominic takes his camera behind the doors of the Sunshine Hotel, one of the few remaining affordable refuges for the destitute and out of luck, a world that has seemingly stood still for more than eight decades. Here the hotel residents live in tiny four-by-six-foot cubicles crowned by a ceiling of chicken wire. Focusing on several of the Sunshine’s denizens – including a drag queen saving all his money for plastic surgery and a hotel manager who doubles as its resident philosopher – Dominic presents a non-judgmental snapshot of a diverse group of characters as memorable as the characters at Harry Hope’s bar in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh.”


Screenings & Awards

Sundanhce Channel 2002-2004

Durango Film Festival (2001): BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Banff Centre for the Arts (2001)
Santa Monica International Film Festival (2001)
Valleyfest (2001)
Tambay Film Festival (2001)
Cucalorus Film Festival (2001): OPENING NIGHT FEATURE
Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema (2001)
CineVue Film Festival (2001): BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
IndiUrban Film Festival (2001)
Silver Street Film Festival (2001): BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Rhode Island International Film Festival (2001)
50th Melbourne International Film Festival (2001)
Athens International Film Festival (2001)
Long Island Film Expo (2001)
Highgate Film Festival (2001)
Atlantic Film Festival (2001)
IFP Film Market (2001)
International 1001 Turkish Documentary Film Festival (2001)
IDA Doctober (2001)
Lincoln Center: Independents Night (2001)
Lake Havasu Film Festival (2002)
911 Media Arts Center (2002)
La Mesa, California (2014)

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Caged. Invisible. Shamed. Trapped. These words mark the tenants, clerks and even the owners of Chicago's last remaining Singe Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels. These small spaces are home for many at the bottom of Chicago's housing ladder. Cloaked in darkness and secrecy, these hotels are often maligned as drug dens and havens for prostitution but the people who live, work and own these hotels have never fully shared their stories.

Caged Men is a feature-length documentary which examines the disquieting stories of near-homeless Americans living on the margins and their invisibility in a largely indifferent and, at times, hostile community. It attempts to lend a voice to SRO residents, clerks, owners and to the hotels themselves.

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In this sobering street documentary, we enter the heart of Skid Row homeless life—an unforgiving landscape now regarded as a ghost zone America. Just blocks from downtown Los Angeles, this city of tents represents a deeper emergency: one shaped by urban decay Skid Row, poverty, and the daily homeless fight to survive.

The film exposes how homeless hell USA has taken root in California’s most vulnerable district. Through haunting visuals and voices from the ground, we document the consequences of los angeles collapse—where support systems are stretched thin and entire streets become invisible to policy and aid. The reality of poverty in Skid Row reflects a broader social collapse USA, unfolding in real time.

As crime in Skid Row escalates and tents spread across sidewalks, the area has become a symbol of America’s homeless epidemic. Once confined to a few city blocks, the Skid Row homeless population now represents a warning sign for the nation. This street documentary captures the human cost of decades of neglect and the collapse of affordable housing across the state.

Each scene within the ghost zone America shows a community in crisis—yet still resisting. The homeless fight to survive despite harsh conditions, uncertainty, and exposure to rising violence. What was once an urban anomaly has now become a central chapter in the story of California in decline and the unravelling of dark side America.

The documentary investigates how urban decay Skid Row feeds into the larger homeless crisis 2025, where overcrowded shelters, addiction, and structural failures merge. We follow those on the margins as they navigate the los angeles collapse, with no guarantee of safety or stability. In the shadows of skyscrapers, the Skid Row homeless endure—alone, yet visible.

Through powerful interviews, aerial footage, and on-the-ground reporting, we frame homeless hell USA not as a spectacle, but as a reflection of unresolved truths. From the expanding city of tents to the growing toll of poverty in Skid Row, the story of America’s homeless epidemic is one that cannot be ignored.

This is not just about Los Angeles. The patterns seen in crime in Skid Row and the signs of social collapse USA mirror challenges emerging across the country. In exploring the ghost zone America, we ask: what does justice look like when cities forget their most vulnerable?

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#homeless #homelesscrisis #homelessness #losangeles #california

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'On the Streets' is a 12-part video series about homelessness in Los Angeles. Journalist and filmmaker Lisa Biagiotti tackles this complex issue by putting faces to the statistics.

She starts by following The L.A.Times' homeless data map, and sets out to have conversations with people who do not have homes. Since October, Biagiotti has been learning about their varied experiences and connecting their stories to larger issues. Along the way, she gains input and insights from Angelenos.

The series concept is to build a dynamic documentary scene-by-scene with our audience. Thank you for participating and helping us tell this story.

ON THE STREETS
http://www.latimes.com/onthestreets

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🚨 SKID ROW LA: Where Crime Hits 9,000 Per 100k and 5 People Die DAILY

Downtown Los Angeles' 50-block nightmare—9,000 crimes per 100,000 residents (Detroit: 2,000, Chicago: 3,000). 💀 78,000 people living in tents where life expectancy is 48 years. This is America's humanitarian crisis hiding in plain sight. 😱Welcome to LA's forgotten war zone—15 minutes from billion-dollar towers. #SkidRow #LosAngeles

🔴 Life expectancy: 48 years (national average: 78)
🔴 300 fentanyl overdoses ANNUALLY
🔴 1 in 4 women sexually assaulted yearlyWe're exposing the REAL Skid

Row—where 50 blocks between 3rd & 7th Street hold 4X Manhattan's population density but everyone lives in cardboard boxes.

🎯 Where medieval diseases like typhus and hepatitis A are BACK. Where $1 BILLION spent yearly but homelessness increased 300% in a decade.How did America's richest city create this hell?

💣 The 1975 LAPD "Containment Policy" deliberately concentrated homeless people in one zone. Reagan closed psychiatric hospitals dumping 30,000 onto streets. Developers destroyed 15,000 affordable SRO hotels for luxury lofts. This wasn't an accident—it was DESIGNED.78,000 people wake at 5 AM to pack their entire lives into shopping carts before street sweepers arrive. 1 toilet per 250 people. 3 mobile clinics for 78,000 residents. Shelters with 3,000 beds for 78,000 people. Beverly Hills is 20 minutes away—$50 million mansions vs $0 tents.

🔥Skid Row: Where LA spends $1 billion yearly to make homelessness WORSE. This is structural violence at its finest.

#lacrime #SkidRowLA #LosAngelesHomeless #DowntownLA #LAHomelessness #CaliforniaCrisis #SkidRowDocumentary #LosAngelesPoverty

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Return to Skid Row walks along the pavement of bygone downtown Minneapolis, preserved in rare footage, memory and 21st Century reflection. A unique 16mm film brings back to life Minneapolis’ Gateway district in its’ twilight years. Guided by the first-person account from the 'King of Skid Row’, the film is an unnerving and illuminating gaze on midcentury poverty, people, place, and the past.

01:05 Skid Row's history in Minneapolis
03:33 1955-1961 John Bacich "King of Skid Row" documented life on skid row
07:20 Skid Row late 1950's film narrated by John Bacich describing people, life on street
16:38 Mpls. police were a constant presence on Skid Row
19:17 John Bacich's documentation of crime and police activity on Skid Row
22:55 Skid Row bars that served gay and bi-sexual men and women
26:45 John Bacich's documentation of life on Skid row continues
29:22 Late 1950's, Federal Government policy to withdraw funding for Native American services promoted relocation to cities
32:00 John Bacich's documentation of Native American people on Skid Row
34:25 Issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women from Skid Row and other marginal urban spaces
36:56 John Bacich's documentation - stories of people on Skid Row
42:48 City proposed ambitious redevelopment of Skid Row, removal of Gateway area buildings
44:36 Jerome Liebeling, UMN, meets John Bacich, stitched together movies to create film
45:36 Some Skid Row/Gateway older buildings are still there
46:46 John Bacich's documentation of people under 3rd Ave bridge near river,
50:04 Demolition of buildings, the end of Skid Row
51:35 Twin Cities Pride parade route starts from old Skid Row area
52:40 Homeless and drug abuse problem continues
55:10 John Bacich's documentation, loss of Gateway, Skid Row era
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#minneapolis #minnesotahistory #documentary

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Charles Bukowski narrates. Soundtrack includes John Coltrane, Tom Waits, Doc Watson, and Miles Davis. About 45 minutes.

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The FULL documentary is now available: https://youtu.be/G0m2FaC8GUs

These are the deleted scenes from my film Sunshine Hotel. They are salvaged from an older cut and the quality varies.

If you would like to see the entire film it is on Amazon Prime Video here...
https://smile.amazon.com/Sunshine-Hotel-Nathan-Smith/dp/B008J0DQJ0

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