Park Avenue - Money, Power and the American Dream

Dir. Alex Gibney

A 'Why Poverty?' Screening

How much inequality is too much? 740 Park Avenue, New York City, is home to some of the wealthiest Americans, 'the 1% of the 1%'. Across the Harlem River, 10 minutes to the north, is the other Park Avenue in South Bronx, where more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. In the last 30 years, inequality has rocketed in the US – the American Dream only applies to those with money, and in the palatial apartments of 740 Park Ave, the wealthy are visited by presidents and senators, who are promised millions of campaign dollars in exchange for lower taxes. Through the story of the two Park Avenues, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) puts forward an eloquent argument that the extreme wealth of a few has been used to impose their ideas on the rest of America.

As part of Why Poverty? A ground breaking, cross-media event, online and on TV, using films to get people talking about poverty.