East Side West Side
Genre	Drama
Created by	David Susskind
Written by	Edward Adler Robert Alan Aurthur George Bellak Robert J. Crean Edward DeBlasio Millard Lampell M.L. Paterson Arnold Perl Robert van Scoyk Allen E. Sloane Irve Tunick
Directed by	John Berry Marc Daniels Herschel Daugherty Tom Gries Alex March Daniel Petrie Allen Reisner Ralph Senensky Jack Smight Ron Winston
Starring	George C. Scott Elizabeth Wilson Cicely Tyson Linden Chiles
Theme music composer	Kenyon Hopkins
Composer	Kenyon Hopkins
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	26
Production
Executive producers	David Susskind Arnold Perl Daniel Melnick
Producers	Don Kranze Larry Arrick
Cinematography	John S. Priestley
Editor	Sidney Meyers
Running time	45–48 minutes
Production companies	Talent Associates United Artists Television
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	September 23, 1963 (1963-09-23) – April 27, 1964 (1964-04-27)

East Side/West Side is an Americandrama series starringGeorge C. Scott,Elizabeth Wilson,Cicely Tyson, and, later on,Linden Chiles. The series aired for one season (1963–1964), and was shown Monday nights onCBS.

Set in New York City, the show explored issues of urban life, some of them grim. Though it won critical praise, it also generated some controversy.TV Guide ranked it #6 on their 2013 list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon".^[1]

The series centers on Neil Brock (Scott), a New York Citysocial worker who works for the private agency Community Welfare Service, with his secretary, Jane Foster, (Tyson). (Diana Sands played this character in the pilot, which was broadcast as the 17th episode of the show. Sands played a different role in episode 7, for which she received anEmmy nomination.) Tyson was the first African-American actor to star in a regular role in a television drama.^[2] Brock's superior at the agency is Frieda "Hecky" Hechlinger (Wilson).

Episodes ofEast Side/West Side addressed topics relevant to theinner city, with many controversial issues explored. A typical example came in the first two episodes, when Brock investigated aprostitute and her child ("The Sinner"), followed by a story involvingstatutory rape (“Age of Consent”).

Brock often felt stymied, and angered, by the inadequacy of the resources he had to work with, and the vast number of people with problems he wasn't able to solve. In an effort to treat the root causes of social ills on a wider scale, Brock resigned from his job ("Take Sides with the Sun") to work for progressive (but pragmatic)New York state congressman Charles W. Hanson (Linden Chiles), who had been seen in a couple of earlier episodes. Now instead of being a social worker, Brock was essentially a congressional consultant with a roving brief—he could investigate specific cases of societal injustice, or take on the system as a whole, depending on the situation.

Added to the cast at this juncture were Hanson's staffers Mike Miller (John McMartin) and Bowen Munro (Henderson Forsythe). The characters played by Elizabeth Wilson and Cicely Tyson quickly disappeared, coming back for just one further appearance.Barbara Feldon was given a one-shot trial episode as Brock's girlfriend Joanna, andJessica Walter was similarly tried out for one episode as Hanson's secretary Peggy Dowling, but both characters were thereafter dropped with no onscreen explanation.

East Side/West Side received eight Emmy nominations and much critical praise, but only mediocre ratings and little support from the CBS brass, who saw it as a show whose perceived prestige didn't translate into commercial success. Despite the high quality of both the writing and acting, the show's tendency to address sensitive topics meant that many potential advertisers avoided sponsorship of the show. Also, a number of television stations affiliated with CBS across the country chose not to air the program for their local viewers—sometimes because of the views expressed by the show, but also, particularly in the US south, because Tyson's character was treated as an equal to the show's white characters, which raised the ire of Southernsegregationalists. It was reported that CBS programming chiefJames Aubrey clashed with Scott over the direction ofEast Side/West Side, also a factor in its cancellation.^[3]

The December 23, 1963 episode, "Creeps Live Here," was originally scheduled to be broadcast on November 25, but was postponed as CBS concluded their four-day live coverage of theJohn F. Kennedy assassination.

East Side/West Side ran on Monday evenings at 10 PM, oppositeABC'smedical drama aboutpsychiatry,Breaking Point andNBC'sSing Along with Mitch starringMitch Miller. The show's executive producer,David Susskind, began a letter-writing campaign to government officials, newspaper editors, and other prominent individuals to gain support for renewal of the series. However, the effort failed when the show was cancelled on January 28 (although it was allowed to finish out the season, airing its final episode on April 27).

• George C. Scott as Neil Brock
• Cicely Tyson as Jane Foster (Episodes 1–22, 24)
  • Diana Sands plays Jane Foster in episode 17, which was actually filmed as the pilot
• Elizabeth Wilson as Frieda Hechlinger (Episodes 1–22, 24)
• Linden Chiles as Congressman Charles Hanson (Episodes 19–26)
• John McMartin as Mike Miller (Episodes 22–26)
• Henderson Forsythe as Bowen Munro (Episodes 22–26)

East Side/West Side started as a vehicle for George C. Scott, who had recently gained prominence after acclaimed theatrical performances and a series of important films. On January 3, 1962, CBS and United Artists announced that they were beginning preparations for an hour-long drama starring Scott, to be launched during the 1963-1964 season.^[3]

Scott did not like the idea of the show being prepared for him and threatened to abrogate his agreement with CBS. The president of CBS,James Aubrey, introduced Scott to an independent producerDavid Susskind, who turned to his friendRobert Alan Aurthur, a talented television playwright, for a screenplay conception. Aurthur offered an unproduced script,My Three Angels, centered around a trio of inner-city social workers, and rewrote the script to fit Scott. Aurthur renamed the projectEast Side/West Side, a reference to the two halves of upper Manhattan as bisected by Central Park. The main protagonist was Neil Brock, to be played by Scott — a tough, impatient, temperamental case worker. With the approval of Aubrey and his newest television star, David Susskind began production on Aurthur’s pilot script, a story about a teen gang killer and his path through the legal system, now called "It’s War, Man".^[3]

The central location of the series was the Community Welfare Service (CWS), a private agency that served as home base for three social workers dedicated to solving the daily problems, major and minor, of the residents of an impoverished Manhattan neighborhood. According to George C. Scott, the setting was chosen deliberately to get his character out of the office and maximize the audience’s exposure to the real streets of New York.^[3]

In November 1962, Susskind attended a meeting of the New York City Social Work Recruiting Committee and announced his plans to create a television series focusing on the social work profession. He and his staff were provided with appropriate literature from the Committee, which they used to discuss story ideas and scripts. In January 1963, Bertram Beck, Executive Director of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), informed his organization of Susskind's interest in producing a show about social workers and requested that his subordinates send story ideas to the producer. Beck served as consultant and technical adviser for the series, reading the scripts, making editorial comments and changes, and handling much of the mail from social workers who wrote to NASW about the series.^[4]

"It's War, Man" resembled an episode of the contemporary courtroom procedural seriesThe Defenders and gave little indication of the shocking, socially conscious show thatEast Side/West Side would become.^[3]

During the 1950s, theEisenhower Administration accepted thedoctrine that "economic growth would itself, by diffusing prosperity, reduce inequalities and resolve social problems. Theprogressive tax structure, expanded welfare services, mass public education, and theG.I. Bill all served the twin aims of economic growth and income redistribution".^[5] However, by the mid 50s, some disputed whether economic growth alone was distributing such benefits as expected.^[5]

In 1962,Michael Harrington, inThe Other America, exposed the misery and deprivation of a "new" poor. This group, consisting of the sick, disabled, elderly, minorities of color, and members of female-headed families, had not, Harrington argued, benefited from post-World War prosperity. In January 1963,Dwight Macdonald provided an exhaustive summary of previous studies on poverty in an important article entitled "Our Invisible Poor" inThe New Yorker magazine. He asserted that mass poverty persisted, and that it was one of two grave social problems, the other being the structural relationship of poverty to race. He concluded that the federal government was the only force that could reduce poverty and make the lives of the poor more bearable. Between 1961 and 1964, federal grants were provided to public and private community agencies to combat the problems of the "new poor" through the improvement of educational facilities, youth programs, and other programs to improve the physical and social well-being of the poor.^[4]

John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign increased the public's consciousness about poverty. Once elected, he established thePresident's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime, which sponsored employment programs, manpower training, remedial education, anti-discrimination campaigns, and neighborhood development centers in several cities.The Area Redevelopment Act, passed in 1961, provided Federal dollars to improve public facilities, and to provide technical assistance and retraining in certain regions of the country, particularly Appalachia. In 1962, Congress also enacted theManpower Development and Training Act. The reform efforts of the late 1950s and early 1960s culminated in thewar on poverty, initiated by the administration ofLyndon B. Johnson.

An episode of "East Side/West Side" on an African American couple inHarlem wasblacked out by CBS affiliates inShreveport, Louisiana, andAtlanta, Georgia, primarily for racial reasons.^[6]

In 1964, the series received eightEmmy Award nominations, including one win forOutstanding Directorial Achievement awarded toTom Gries for the controversial November 4, 1963 episode entitled, "Who Do You Kill?". The episode, which also received a writing nomination and acting nominations for supporting actorsJames Earl Jones andDiana Sands, explored the aftermath of a child's death from a rat bite in aHarlem slum.^[3]

A selection of Kenyon Hopkins' music for the series was released on theColumbia label in 1963.

Sony rereleased the album on CD in 2015, and it is now also available on streaming platforms.

• East Side West Side atIMDb
• East Side West Side atepguides.com

• 1963 American television series debuts
• 1964 American television series endings
• 1960s American drama television series
• Black-and-white American television shows
• American English-language television shows
• Television series by United Artists Television
• Television shows filmed in New York (state)
• Television shows set in New York City
• CBS television dramas

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