Independent Lens

Park Avenue: Money, Power & The American Dream

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney ("Taxi to the Dark Side," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") presents his take on the gap between rich and poor Americans in "Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream." Gibney contends that America's richest citizens have "rigged the game in their favor," and created unprecedented inequality in the United States. Nowhere, Gibney asserts, is this more evident than on Park Avenue in New York. 740 Park in Manhattan is currently home to the highest concentration of billionaires in the country. Across the river, less than five miles away, Park Avenue runs through the South Bronx, home to the poorest congressional district in the United States. In this film, Gibney states that while income disparity has always existed in the U.S., it has accelerated sharply over the last 40 years. As of 2010, the 400 richest Americans controlled more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the populace -- 150 million people. In the film, Gibney explains why he believes upward mobility is increasingly out of reach for the poor.