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Set to music by Duke Ellington, D.A. Pennebaker's 1958 classic short is a delightful journey through a day in the life of New York via a subway ride on the Third Avenue El. It starts slowly -- an orange glow spreads across the night sky behind skyscrapers as people in silhouette wait at a train station -- then picks up its pace to the sound of whistles blowing and horns wailing. The city is presented from many fantastic points of view: through the windows of the speeding train, looking upward at tall buildings or the supporting beams of a bridge, and out of the front window of the train as if through the eyes of the engineer. Edits get quicker as the train gains speed, until the city literally whizzes past. The music builds and the images become kaleidoscopic. Suddenly, there's a red stoplight ahead -- Grand Central Station.
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