The critics are really hating on Spike Lee’s new self-financed film, Red Hook Summer, after it screened recently at Sundance Film Festival. But residents of the Red Hook Houses, the largest publicly-subsidized housing project in the city, say they are happy with the movie.
The film portrays a happy life in the houses, and residents told The New York Daily News that their community is going through a renaissance. “Felony crimes in the Red Hook Houses — 3,000 apartments including the childhood flat of Knicks star Carmelo Anthony — have dropped 40% since 2005, city officials said,” according to the Daily News.
“Just because we live in this community doesn’t mean we are gangsters. We are hardworking people trying to raise our kids right,” grandmother Louisa Miranda, 53, told the News.