New York powerhouse filmakers Spike Lee and Robert DeNiro have teamed up to create a television series about life in Alphabet City for Showtime.
The series "Alphaville" will be set in the East Village of the 1980s before gentrification changed the ethnic and cultural makeup of the neighborhood. The show will focus on the tensions between the bohemian artists, hip hoppers and Puerto Rican and Black familes who lived in the village.
Lee will reportedly direct the series pilot and John Ridley, screenwriter for the NBC show "Third Watch" and "Barbershop" will write, according to Reuters. De Niro and his producing partner Jane Rosenthal will executive produce along with Lee and Ridley.
Rosenthal and De Niro previously produced the film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Rent", which was also set in Alphabet City. De Niro's 1976 film "Taxi" as well as his 1999 feature "Flawless" used the neighborhood as a setting.
In 1988 neighborhood conflicts resulted in the Tompkins Square Park riot where police clashed with homeless activists and anarchists.
