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Highbridge: Past, Present and Future .. In The Making
THE last time Camille Taylor caught a whiff of fame was more than 60 years ago on the stage of the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Back then, Ms. Taylor was a spunky young woman who had moved to New York from Charlotte, N.C., and edged her way onto the black vaudeville circuit. Her stage name was Big Hat Millie, a nod to the wide-brimmed hats she favored.
But after her comedy career sputtered, Ms. Taylor settled into a quiet life in Highbridge in the West Bronx, a neighborhood where she has long been beloved as a foster parent, tutor, baby sitter and mother figure to generations of local children.
“All these people were hollering and cursing at the kids, but not me,” said Ms. Taylor, now 93 with shiny silver hair. “I always had patience. When I go out on the street, they yell: ‘Hi, Nana! Hi, Grandma! Hi, Mother Taylor!’ ”
Recently, however, this neighborhood fixture has gotten a taste of her old stage life. Ms. Taylor is one of 30 current and former Highbridge residents who have been interviewed for a new documentary, “Highbridge: Past, Present and Future.”
The film about this gritty, seldom-celebrated neighborhood, perched on a hill beside Yankee Stadium, is the brainchild of Jose Gonzalez, a 33-year-old video editor who has lived in the area for eight years. He started work on the documentary soon after the fire last March that killed 10 West African immigrants, nine of them children. The fire occurred just three blocks from Mr. Gonzalez’s apartment; his two sons had attended school with some of the children who died.
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