Watch AT HOME IN UTOPIA Tonight on Independent Lens

A home of your own: that’s the American dream. But what happens when the dreamers are immigrants, factory workers and Communists? Director Michal Goldman traces the history of “The Coops,” a cooperative apartment complex built in the Bronx by Jewish garment workers. The film tracks the rise and fall of the community from the 1920s into the 1950s, bearing witness to lives lived across barriers of race, convention and sometimes even common sense.

“[Michal Goldman] has recaptured a daring social experiment, limning its idealism on race relations and social justice and its ultimately fatal embrace of Communist doctrine,” The New York Times.

Check out the trailer below:

AT HOME IN UTOPIA airs tonight at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings)