The Gateway Arch: A Reflection of America

When its construction launched in 1963, St. Louis's famed Gateway Arch had already spent decades in the rudimentary conception and discussion phases. A definitive symbol not simply of Americana, but of American westward expansion and Manifest Destiny, the arch embodies a "gateway to the west" - standing, as it does, at the very head of the Lewis & Clark trail - and thus, when it finally came to be, represented a culmination of almost 200 years of American history. As narrated by Academy Award-winning thespian Kevin Kline, the hour-long documentary The Gateway Arch: A Reflection of America tells the full story of the arch's initiation as a project, its development by Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, and the events that led up to its completion and designation as a national historic landmark in 1965. The program draws from exhaustive research to incorporate long-obscure construction footage from the early '60s, dozens of interviews, archival illustrations and blueprints, and much, much more.