Show Me a Hero

Show Me a Hero is a 2015 American miniseries based on the 1999 nonfiction book of the same name by former New York Times writer Lisa Belkin about Yonkers mayor (1987–89) Nick Wasicsko. Like the book, the miniseries details a white middle-class neighborhood's resistance to a federally mandated scattered-site public housing development in Yonkers, New York, and how the tension of the situation affected the city as a whole. The miniseries was written by David Simon and journalist William F. Zorzi, with whom Simon worked at The Baltimore Sun and on the HBO series The Wire. It was directed by Paul Haggis. Six episodes were ordered by HBO; the miniseries premiered on August 16, 2015. Background The story is set between 1987 and 1994 in Yonkers, New York, a city north of New York City in Westchester County, and focuses on efforts to desegregate public housing. Federal judge Leonard B. Sand ruled against Yonkers and issued a desegregation order, mandating that public housing for 200 units – possibly scattered-site public housing ("SSPH"), which became the example of new public housing – be built in the middle-class, mostly white, east side of Yonkers. By 1988, the city had already spent $11 million in legal fees fighting against the order, including a failed effort to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case and resulting politics resulted in national focus on issues of race, class, and housing. Mayor Nick Wasicsko ran on the platform opposing the judge's order, but before taking office, in the face of the issue being supported by a federal appeals court, became an advocate for desegregation in Yonkers. Wasicsko and the city councillors who supported him worked out a plan to meet the court order, using the SSPH system to build the 200 homes at eight different sites of only 25 homes each, spread across a city with more than 10,000 homes. Despite this, four councillorsa majorityrefused to vote to uphold the law, consistently opposing any limited desegregation. For refusing to follow the court order, the city of Yonkers was crippled by heavy, possibly bankrupting fines – estimated to be close to $1 million a day from a compounded charge that started at $100 a day. Basic services stopped and parks and libraries were shuttered, with 630 city workers facing mandatory lay-offs in order to maintain enough budget for police and fire services.