As a senior at Yale University in 1968, Nick Doob was invited to participate in the Scholars of the House Program, a senior honors program that required students to create, in lieu of regular classes, “a finished essay or project which must justify by its scope and quality the freedom which has been granted.” Rather than pursue a more traditional written work, Doob chose to make films, an unorthodox approach that had not been pursued before. 42nd St Movie was one of two films Doob made as a Scholar of the House, and was also made for a film class that he took under the instruction of filmmaker Murray Lerner. Doob’s film begins with a shot of the sun setting over the Hudson River in New York City, and goes on to examine the nighttime street life found in the block of 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. As Doob describes it, “That block was fairly notorious at that time, with pornographic bookstores and theaters, peep-shows, and prostitution. It was also a kind of magnet for exotic personalities, and a visually interesting location.” 42nd St Movie won a prize at the Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, and was well reviewed in the New York Times. Doob’s interest in street life would continue with his later documentaries London Songs (1973) and Street Music (1979).