Emmett Adler remembers the day that Governor Andrew Cuomo almost ruined his documentary. The 31-year-old filmmaker had spent the better part of three years working on a feature-length chronicle of the L train shutdown. But on January 3rd 2019 — the day after he began pitching a teaser for the project — Cuomo gathered the city's reporters to announce, actually, the shutdown wasn't happening.
"I was in shock," Adler told Gothamist. "We definitely did some soul searching afterward. It was like: do we still have a film?"
Many New Yorkers were in shock, too, including countless residents and business owners who'd shifted their lives around the long-planned repairs. Members of the MTA board demanded an independent review of the project — something the governor promised, then abandoned. The resulting power struggle has been blamed, in part, for the departure of NYC Transit President Andy Byford.
For Adler, it was a "watershed moment" in understanding just how much power the governor exercises over the transit agency.
Ultimately, he and producer Ian Mayer broadened the film's scope, extending its focus from "the L train to the New York City subway crisis to national transit infrastructure epidemic." The film, titled End Of the Line, will also touch on climate change and disinvestment in public transit funding.
The trailer (above) offers a stress-inducing recap of the lead-up and sudden rejection to the project, complete with soaring drone shots and a horrifying trip inside Cuomo's mouth. They're hoping for an early 2021 release, and are currently trying to raise $25,000 on Kickstarter to make that a reality.
Meanwhile, the revised construction inside the L train tunnel is expected to be completed by April, three months ahead of schedule. Despite some initial kinks, the nights and weekend approach to completing the work has proved less of a headache than many feared. So does that mean Cuomo was right all along?
"It’s definitely more complicated than that," said Adler. "It remains to be seen if this is a band aid or a long term fix."
"Of course, if this ends up just as good [as the alternative] I recognize that he saved the day. But at the same time, this was a highly dysfunctional process. I think that’s what we’re interested in here."
