For 30 years, Downtown Community Television Center has been providing access to the news and free video instruction.
Like so many other bohemians living in New York City in the early '70s, Keiko Tsuno and Jon Alpert wanted to change the world. Keiko was working part-time as a waitress, but longed to be an artist. Jon was driving a yellow cab around a city buzzing with post-war, revolutionary ideas. But it wasn't until Keiko's mother sent a ½in. color Portapak system from Japan that the couple finally had their instrument for world change.
“Along with just about everybody else in those days, we were pretty terrible in terms of [video] skill, but way over the top in terms of enthusiasm,” Alpert recalls. “We tried to work two or three days a week at our part-time jobs and spend the rest of the time working on video. We would work three or four days around the clock without sleeping or eating. We were going to help change the world with media.”
They began their crusade by documenting life in their Chinatown neighborhood and presenting their video work on the street corner. One of their early programs, simply entitled “PS 23 Needs a Chinese Principal,” resulted in change at the school and suddenly Keiko and Jon had an audience.
Before long, the couple formed the Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV) and began expanding their reach. In 1978, they went to Vietnam to make Vietnam: Picking Up the Pieces for PBS. After creative differences with PBS, DCTV began a decade-long collaborative relationship with NBC that frequently allowed Jon and Keiko to be the only independent TV crew at the scene of one international hotspot after another. Throughout the '80s, DCTV's cameras went wherever there was war or a need for honest reporting or sympathetic hearts, including the Philippines, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, and Iraq.
Despite the globetrotting, DCTV remained focused on its community. In the early days, it was the only place that offered free video production services in the city. To this day, free basic video instruction remains one of DCTV's priorities. And in 1976, DCTV began a free video production curriculum for at-risk high school students. In the last few years, nearly 30 students have graduated from the curriculum, only two of which didn't go on to college — they joined the military instead.
Alpert says DCTV's dual-focus on honest reporting and free video training go hand in hand. “The two have really nourished each other,” he says, “because what we're really about at DCTV is access; access to tools and access to the news.”
DCTV can also be defined by its use of cutting-edge technology and storytelling techniques. Jon once used a baby carriage to create one of the first mobile ENG packages. He was also instrumental in developing the verité style of documentary shooting. It came out of necessity: Keiko was pregnant and unable to hold the video camera, so Jon asked questions from behind the camera. The result was DCTV's first national Emmy award, for Third Avenue: Only the Strong Survive.
Today, Jon and Keiko run DCTV out of a renovated fire station on Canal Street not far from where they first began telling stories with video in the early '70s. On Aug. 24, they will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. DCTV is still vital, as well. The company recently completed a series of documentaries for HBO, and is still providing video instruction at little or no cost through its ongoing schedule of workshops and classes.
“The fact that we're still here as an organization, we're viable, and we're training the next generation of video professionals, that all feels pretty good,” Alpert says. “When we look back, we didn't change the world like we thought we might have. But even though we didn't succeed that way, we have succeeded in lots of little ways over the years.”
