Interviewed by David Huyssen

Today on the blog, David Huyssen speaks with Arne Peisker, a director with the German/American production company, Story House Productions, about his new docudrama film, One Day in New York, 1882.

The film is part of a series, and in the final stages of production for one of Germany’s major national broadcasters, ZDF.

You are directing One Day in New York, 1882 for ZDF, one of the main national German television stations. How did the idea for this program come about?

It is now the third season of this series, which deals with everyday history. We are always on the lookout for exciting epochs and cities. We want to take the viewer on a journey through time and convey history differently than usual. From the perspective of normal people and not of the rich and powerful.

New York is of course a city that stimulates the audience's imagination!

What other epochs or cities has the series depicted so far?

We have covered much of European history, beginning with the story of a firefighter in ancient Rome. There have been episodes on a surgeon in Frankfurt in 1454, a midwife in Cologne in 1628 during the Thirty Years' War, a maid in 1907, and a city commissioner in Berlin in the 1920s.

We mainly produce for the German market, so most of our stories take place in Germany. We’ve learned, however, that other countries also interest viewers (my personal favorite was our story of a wig maker in Paris in 1774). With our New York episode, we are leaving Europe for the first time, although our protagonist remains German.

Did producing a project on New York present any new or particular challenges relative to the previous seasons or episodes?

Of course, filming a story about a foreign location is generally more difficult than producing something about Germany. It all starts with the research, and a flight to New York is much more expensive than a car or train ride to Frankfurt!

Because we shoot fictionalized reenactments, location searches were a challenge. Finding New York-style architecture in Europe is not that easy. We are lucky in that we are a German-American company and do have an office in Washington D.C., which gave us some more options. Otherwise, it’s doubtful we would have been able implement the story.

Then there is the language issue. This affects not only the work of production but the product itself. Some terms contemporary to the times we are depicting are certainly not part of the standard English vocabulary that most Germans learn in school.

And then, of course, there’s the Corona pandemic…

Let’s get back to the show! The story revolves around a young German immigrant, Georg, who is studying to be a lawyer in 1882. This would have been a fairly unusual professional pursuit at that time for German immigrants to New York, a disproportionate number of whom went into industrial work of one kind or another. What made you (or the writers) see it as a useful or evocative storyline?

The story is certainly unusual, but we like to break with the expectations of the audience. There are countless television series and movies about the New York, but hardly any of our viewers know what it looked like 140 years ago.

In order to give them a fuller picture, we wanted the central character to experience something and meet people from different backgrounds. This is the only way to show the city and the epoch in its entirety. A factory worker, for example, only works in his factory all day and gets around little, moving primarily between workplace and residence. A lawyer is likelier to have more checkered encounters in a single day.

We were also surprised that the access to the legal profession was possible in America without a university degree. In Germany, our character could never have afforded to study law or aspire to a legal career, so it is just his personal American dream.

It is also part of his dream that his wife from Germany, Maria, will come join him in the United States. Reuniting families was and remains, of course, a much more common immigrant ambition. What sort of “everyday history” experiences do Georg’s attempts to collect Maria at Castle Garden illustrate?

Aerial view illustration of the tip of Manhattan in New York City, featuring Castle Garden in Battery Park and docks on the rivers. Brooklyn Bridge under construction is shown in exaggerated scale. Wikimedia Commons.

Castle Garden was the starting point for a new life for millions of immigrants. Many Germans have heard of Ellis Island, but Castle Garden? I had never heard of it myself. That's part of why we wanted to include it in the story.

We also wanted to show how and where dangers lurked in everyday life. Many immigrants couldn't speak English. How do you find yourself right in a huge and strange city? Some tried to take advantage of this vulnerability. Castle Garden is also a nice example of how the immigration policy of that time was still relatively uncontrolled compared to today, and only beginning to become more restrictive.

The story is fictional, but there is a great deal of underlying historical research that went into this production. The program uses voice-over narration and expert interviews to convey this research and explain historical context. Can you tell us a bit about the research process?

The research is of course the basis for everything. Above all, for television, you have to look at how things connect with the viewer's everyday life or things that might really surprise them. Before that, you have to read a lot of literature and talk to historians. This is sometimes all very tedious, especially when it comes to very detailed questions. For example, how much does a pound of coffee cost, how do you brush your teeth, or how expensive was an apartment in New York in 1882?

Without the work of historians who know the sources and stories, our job would be impossible.

German band in New York. Wikimedia Commons.

What did you learn from the research or interviews (aside from the relative ease of access to the legal profession in the 19th century!) that surprised you the most?

What surprised us the most was how densely populated New York was, and how bad the hygienic conditions were. The enormous social differences often leave you speechless because they collide in such a limited space. The subject of child labor was also a surprise and I would not have expected it to be on this scale.

The city’s profile struck me as well. The fact that the Italian community, for example, had little significant presence in the city at that time was certainly unexpected.

The most surprising thing was of course the cityscape. A completely different city than we know it today.

What do you think interests the average German television viewer in 2021 about New York in the late 19th century?

For many Germans, New York is a place of longing. Everyone has an idea of it, even if they have never been there.

But American films about New York have left their mark on everyone. Mafia films in particular shape the image of New York for many Germans: films like The Godfather or Goodfellas could certainly be mentioned there. These films show an often dark and crime-dominated New York.

Since there was no Italian mafia as such in New York in the 19th century, and Germans were part of the underworld that did exist, this of course makes it very interesting and unexpected for a German audience.

The history of New York in the 19th century is also a bit our own, because the German community there was so big. Learning how much Germans have helped shape the city will be very exciting for many, especially because it is hardly known in Germany.

Do you believe the picture of the city in One Day in New York, 1882 will challenge other preconceptions about New York in this period that your viewers may have? Confirm them? Perhaps a bit of both?

I think the audience will be very surprised to see a completely different New York than today, without skyscrapers, yellow cabs, and the Statue of Liberty. Many do not even know that Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany, existed! Or that at that time in New York you could simply speak German in many places. I think that will surprise a lot of viewers.

Immigration remains an arena of considerable political strife, both in the United States and in Germany. Have you had the contemporary immigration politics of either country in mind during the production process?

It is our aim to encourage viewers to think about migration in the present day. Migration is a big issue in Germany and many have a negative attitude. The reasons for the migration of Germans in the 19th century are often the same as they are today for the immigrants who come to Germany. They are seeking political and religious freedom, and the hope for a better life. I hope the audience will recognize the parallel and see that many Germans in history have chosen a similar path.

It is also very interesting that today many Germans complain about migrants. They complain that today’s migrants to Germany do not adapt culturally, remain among themselves, and speak their mother tongue. The history of New York shows that the German immigrants to the United States often behaved exactly the same as contemporary immigrants to Germany.

If the audience recognizes these similarities, I will be happy.

Arne Peisker is the director One Day in New York, 1882 with Story House Productions.

David Huyssen is Senior Lecturer in Modern American History at the University of York, UK, and a contributing editor for Gotham.

One Day in New York, 1882: Interview with Filmmaker Arne Peisker