Watching: Dream Tower

Overview

Dream Tower chronicles Toronto's most notorious social experiment of the sixties. Inspired by cultural critic Paul Goodman, philosophies of alternative education, and the decade's political upheaval, a group of young idealists established Rochdale as a free university and student residence in 1968. Rochdale's founders envisioned an enlightened community of self-educators, and the first 100 or so students, earnestly studying subjects such as Heidegger and anarchism in eight-hour seminars, made the dream seem possible. But they didn't anticipate that some people wouldn't know what to do with freedom, that hippies kicked out of Yorkville would overrun the building, or that drug-dealing motorcycle gangs would camp out in the lobby.