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Jasper Wood's short film "Streetcar" is a poetic documentary of life in a big American city centered on the experience of riding its streetcars. The film is 15 minutes long and was shot in Cleveland, Ohio, largely in and around West 25th Street, Public Square, and the Central Market area (East 4th Street and Bolivar Road) during the summer of 1953, just before the ending of streetcar service in the city of Cleveland. Jasper Wood was assisted in the production of the film by Harry Schulke, Nick Hlobeczy, Tony Denison, Vlad Maleckar and Ed Feil. Jasper's son Denis (then nine years old) made the final title in the film, which depicts a man running after a streetcar. The film was shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1955 or 1956.
Jasper Wood (January 2, 1921-June 7, 2002) was a self-taught writer and photographer and a lifelong free speech activist. He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and moved to Cleveland around 1936 with his family. He attended Cleveland Heights High School and Cleveland College, Western Reserve University's downtown extension school. In 1946 Wood purchased his first camera. By 1947 his work was being exhibited in the Cleveland Museum of Art's annual May Show, where he continued to exhibit his work and to win awards into the 1950s. His work was shown in galleries in Cleveland, New York, and San Francisco. Edward Steichen selected one of Wood's images to be included in The Family of Man, a photographic exhibit that debuted in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Wood's photographic subjects included Mexico, the city of Cleveland, Ohio (particularly the Scovill Avenue area during the period 1946-1954) and the Ohio countryside and Ohio Amish Country. With few exceptions, he had ceased taking photographs by 1960.
A large selection of Jasper Wood's photographs of Cleveland is available through the Cleveland Public Library's digital image collection, available through www.cpl.org.
This description was prepared in February 2010 by Michael Ruffing, librarian in the History & Geography Department of the Cleveland Public Library. Information was supplied by Christopher Wood, son of Jasper Wood, who was a librarian in the History & Geography Department as of 2010. To contact the History & Geography Department, email history@cpl.org, call 216-623-2864, or write to Cleveland Public Library, 325 Superior Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114.
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