A Famous Acoustician Designs For Change in Har... %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%

Photos credit WSDG

Acoustician John Storyk has spent the last 50 years working with dreamers and artists to create remarkable music spaces. He’s worked on projects from Jay-Z’s “Roc The Mic” recording studio to Rio De Janeiro’s “Barra Olympic Park.” Now, he’s working on a music space to create dreamers and artists. In April, sources announced that Storyk and his studio, WSDG, would join a group effort to renovate the Harlem School of the Arts. The building, which has stood for more than 40 years, has been will be receiving a major re-vamp throughout.

The Harlem School of the Arts has been inspiring youth and building talent in Harlem for more than 50 years. Just X years before Storyk handed over his first sketch for Jimmy Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios, concert singer Dorothy Maynor founded the HSA in TK Church across the street from the school’s current location. She believed, as the school still believes, that the arts can stimulate growth in children. To that end, it provides music, dance, theater, art, and design classes for children of all ages. A majority of these students are black or latinx, and half are on some kind of financial assistance. HSA hopes that, with the opportunities they provide, their students can grow and succeed in ways previously closed to them.

Storyk, with his wife and founding partner Beth Walters.

While the renovations to the HSA building will be extensive, Storyk and WSDG were brought on to help design the main lobby of the school, which also acts as a performance space for students. Storyk’s job will be helping to design the acoustics of the space to enhance musical or vocal performances. The most remarkable feature will be a large, slanted glass wall facing the street. The glass wall will open up the lobby space and replace a solid brick wall.

Storyk was added to the team at the recommendation of Herb Alpert, who made the renovation possible with a $6 million donation. When they needed to find an acoustician, Alpert said Storyk was the only choice. “It’s an honor to be on this team,” says Storyk, “Every now and then you get a job like this, with a social conscience and cultural coefficient. I’m not suggesting that doing a private studio for Jay-Z is not important. This is more important.”

I was ten years old on September 11th, 2001. It was a big day of firsts for me. It was, for example, the first time that I experienced a feeling of unreality surrounding an unbelievable moment. I was, however, very young and 130 miles away, watching the collapse of the towers on television at a family friend’s house after my Jewish elementary school evacuated in the hour after the first attack.

“In the Shadow of the Towers” focuses on the experiences of students at Stuyvesant High School, a commuter school only a few blocks away from the twin towers. Through interviews, pictures, and videos, they retrace that day from the perspective of children close enough to see the planes hit the twin towers from the windows of their classrooms, and the reflections of those students who have long-since grown up.

The documentary, which is only half-an-hour long, doesn’t expand much past that day. It spends a few minutes in the end on reflection, from the bigotry experienced by some of the students of color–many of whom were the children of immigrants–to the ways they memorialize that day. The film feels almost understated in a post-9/11 world saturated with portrayals, documentaries, and commentaries. That focus aids the narrative. It knows you know the story, so it skips the broad strokes. Instead, it offers intimate recollections and personal disclosures of how that day changed the interviewees, and the ways they saw their world change in its wake.

It is likely not a mistake that many interviewees for “In The Shadow” were the children of immigrants. The film isn’t afraid to contrast the emotional impact of the 9/11 tragedy on these students with the otherizing they experienced after the fact. Two of the men recall a man shouting anti-muslim slurs at a classmate as they fled the destruction. She was wearing a hijab, and the man shouted at her to “go back where she came from.” One of those two men became a rapper, and the documentary ends on one of his songs. The lyrics recount the experience of his middle-eastern family shopping for American flags after 9/11, both out of patriotism and the desire to show that they belong. It’s a sentiment echoed by other interviewees, all of whom make a call for unity and an end to post-9-11 racial paranoia.

The story of “In the Shadow of the Towers” is one of vivid recollection and resiliency. It’s the story of the last, youngest, people to clearly remember the pre-9/11 United States. These teens were as much at the epicenter culturally as they were physically– I’m sure some of their classmates signed up for the subsequent war in Afghanistan. “In the Shadow” is a perfect vehicle to share their experiences. It is an important watch for those able to reflect on such things as the 17th anniversary approaches.

In the Shadow of the Towers: Stuyvesant High on 9/11 will air on HBO tomorrow, Wednesday September 11th, at 9:00 pm Eastern Time. The film will be available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and partners’ streaming platforms.