Category: Reflections

The final web project was an interesting experience from beginning to end. Astoria is a neighborhood which I live relatively near, but have never really been to other than orthodontist visits. It is perhaps a quite famous part of Queens, different from where I grew up in but still undisputedly Queens. New Yorkers have a tendency of getting to their destination as soon as possible without paying much attention to surroundings. We often walk with our heads down and headphones on, and it is considered the greatest offense to look around, take pictures and be mistaken for a tourist. This project forces me to pay attention to my surrounding and discover things that I don’t pay attention to on a daily basis.
I always knew that Astoria was primarily a Greek neighborhood. What I didn’t know was that it was also a very close-knit neighborhood giving off a family-like feel. From this trip, what really stood out to me is that Astoria is really a community. It might not seem that way because New Yorker are not particularly known for close personal relationships with their neighbors, but the abundant family stores we observed convinced me otherwise. While walking on Ditmars, we also saw several old men sitting outside a coffee shop smoking and conversing with one another. In my neighborhood, Forest Hills, I don’t see a lot of this happening.

I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into for this project. I’ve never been to Astoria and wasn’t familiar with the neighborhood at all coming into this project. However, I feel I actually learned a lot from the visits to Astoria, researching about Astoria, and completing the project as a whole by analyzing our observations to shape much deeper conclusions.

I really knew nothing about Astoria before doing this project. I only knew that the neighborhood was in Queens, and I always assumed that it was actually a long commute to get there from Bensonhurst, but it actually isn’t (it takes 1 hour 30 minutes). I thought it was interesting how Astoria is defined by a variety of different streets (Steinway, Ditmars Blvd, Astoria Blvd, etc.), which is really different than any other neighborhoods I’ve been to.

My group chose Astoria because Melissa wanted us to try the falafel there (which is amazing). This wasn’t my first time having falafel, but it was definitely the best falafel I ever had. I’ve had falafel from areas in Brooklyn – some from halal carts, and others from restaurants in the Barclays/Nevins Street area. In Duzan, the restaurant we went to in Astoria, I had the crunchiest falafel ever!

Visiting Astoria also opened my eyes to the different cultures that are represented in each neighborhood. Astoria, in particular, is known to be largely Greek, but residents consist of many other races as well. During our visits, we often passed people who were speaking in other languages, including Russian, Spanish, and Arabic. The food options were representative of all the cultures that exist in the neighborhood as well, as the restaurants ranged from Italian, to Mexican, Thai, and of course Greek/Mediterranean. When I visit a new neighborhood, it’s usually to try out a new restaurant or food, and I wouldn’t pay attention to the demographics of the neighborhood. I wouldn’t say I’m completely oblivious to the races and cultures in a neighborhood, but it’s just not something that comes to me firsthand. Oddly, Astoria reminded me a lot of Bensonhurst, just in terms of all the cultures represented in the neighborhood. In Bensonhurst, there are different food options as well, and I’d often pass by people of many different races.

Continuing on with actually paying attention to demographics, this project also forced me to be more aware of my surroundings. When I’m outside, I’d rarely use my five senses (aside from sight to actually see where I’m going and taste when I’m eating). Even then, my sense of sight wouldn’t be that great, as I’m often on my phone. During my visits to Astoria, I only used my phone to take notes, which helped me observe more of the neighborhood and notice patterns when walking around different parts of the neighborhood. For instance, I noticed how many of the shops had “Astoria” in their names, which I attributed to a sense of community in the neighborhood. I also utilized my other senses more often than I would – smell was one of the more difficult senses to incorporate, so I often tried to detect more smells in the area (although the smells ended up mostly being smells of meats being grilled on halal carts and car exhaust). For sound, we heard a lot of languages other than English being spoken by passerby, which highly represented the culture of Astoria.

It was also interesting to see how all the senses came together. I originally thought smell, sound, and touch would be difficult to convey for the project, but it was much clearer after our meeting with Alexis and looking at the resources we had. Alexis suggested we collect sound bites for sound (duh!), and when Alice and I went back for the second trip, we recorded sound bites for contrasting parts of Astoria – the loudness (from passing trains) and serenity (from Astoria Park, which I consider a parallel to the quiet area with residential homes). For smell, we decided to just write out our observations, but relate them to deeper-rooted problems, such as air pollution. The number one reason a child under 14 in Astoria goes to the hospital is asthma, which is due to the pollution effects of the power plants in the area. During our visits, smoke and smells of car exhaust were common. These health concerns are also seen in the fact that the air quality in Astoria (83.3) is much lower than that of the United States (93.9), with 100 being the best.

Lastly, for touch, we ended up thinking outside the box and looked at the resources we had. We noticed that we had a lot of photos from the places we visited, but felt that to represent sight in Astoria, it would largely be represented by the diversity (seen in the different countries’ flags on the walls of P.S. 17) and the murals (as Astoria is largely known for its street art). We were left with our photos of Athens Square Park, Astoria Park, and residential homes. To consolidate all of these photos, we decided to use structures (the statues in Athens Square Park, the Hell Gate Bridge, and residential homes). This dwells from the fact that all of these structures were constructed by hand, which we connected to “touching,” essentially. It was interesting that touch ended up relating back to the sense of sight, which now makes me think that all of our senses relate back to sight in some way, as you see food before you eat it, see something before you touch something, see what you smelled, and seeing and hearing are often associated together. Of course, this is assuming you aren’t blind or deaf.

Overall, this project helped me gain more knowledge about a new neighborhood, become more aware of my senses and surroundings, and appreciate diversity and cultures more. Astoria isn’t just “Greektown” now or some neighborhood in Queens, but it’s known for its diversity, falafel, and lovely street art. I’d definitely like to visit the neighborhood again to explore further than the parts we visited (we only explored the 30th Avenue and Ditmars Boulevard areas) to see how Astoria varies block by block. And I really want some more falafel!

This project forced me to be more aware of my surroundings. I am easily distractable by the constant sensory input of the urban environment; this project required filtering through all the stimuli around me to discern individual events. This was quite painstaking for me as my notes were a jumble of various observations. The outside research mostly corroborated whatever I observed and provided context.

Throughout the project I had an awareness that I was clearly not the first person to study or visit the neighborhood. I wanted to take advantage of prior observations and media about Astoria to contextualize my findings. On an anecdotal level I noticed a lot of street art but I wasn’t sure whether there is a tradition of street art in the area. This video demonstrated that Astoria does in fact have a long history of street art. The epicenter of this tradition is Welling Court, a small side street. Artists from all over the world flock to this otherwise nondescript street to paint murals, turning a local tradition into a global one.

My personal identity as a very loosely affiliated Jew did not really factor into my research much. Many people believe that there is a fundamental tension between Jewish and Arab communities in New York but I did not feel any sense of hostility in the Middle Eastern areas of Astoria. I acknowledge that this may have been different if I were wearing religious garb, but I did notice several ultra-Orthodox Jews who did not seem to feel uncomfortable in the area. I do strongly believe in pluralism and diversity, so perhaps my idealism may have caused me to overlook any ethnic tensions.

This project was not totally novel to me since I took an urban anthropology class last semester. I compared Flushing and Cobble Hill in a research paper. I collected demographic statistics and then statistics on the types of restaurants in the area sorted by cuisine and compared them. I learned that affluent white people enjoy Asian food but not Asian people; the percentage of Asian people in majority-white Cobble Hill is a third of the percentage of Asian restaurants. This methodology of using quantitative facts to uncover demographic truths is already familiar to me.

Taste was a natural choice for me when my group was delegating the senses because I feel taste is a way of traveling on a micro level. There is nothing I love more than travel. Food is universal and the most approachable, undaunting way of experiencing another culture. Food is literally digestible history.

After our research in Astoria, I began to reflect on what makes an area robust and well-rounded. I have always felt that my home neighborhood, Marine Park, lacks something despite its community feel and tree-lined friendliness. My excursions in Astoria clarified this feeling to me. For one, it is only easily accessible by bus or car and not by train. Secondly, its food selection is very sparse. There are only pizza stores, diners and Irish pubs as opposed to the vast cultural selection of Astoria. It does not have a dedicated local produce market (the produce market I shop at is not directly in the area). I believe that a neighborhood must have these amenities in order to be well-rounded and inclusive.

Gentrification is another major issue that must be looked at when studying New York. Statistically, I was unable to make any major conclusions about gentrification in Astoria. This illuminates one of the primary problems with statistics. Although they may be seen as ironclad proofs of societal trends, they are unnuanced and lack complexity. Astoria has always been a primarily white area, according to the definition of whiteness which includes “ethnic whites” like Italians, Greeks and Jews. Because of the census’s broad classification of even Middle Eastern and North African people as white, it was difficult to determine the exact demographics of the area. However, the percentage of whites has basically remained constant within the past decade; this is in contrast to other neighborhoods that had a sharp uptick in white residents after gentrification occurred. Many local news sources insist that Astoria is gentrifying, but because (typically white) gentrifiers would be included in the same percentage as ethnic white “indigenous” residents it is difficult to determine if this is a statistically significant trend.

During my research, I came to realize how many people take the cultural wealth of our city for granted. As a child my mom would take me on weekly trips to local institutions like Met and MOMA in the summer. I did not appreciate these trips at the time but now I realize my life has been enhanced by growing up in such close proximity to these world-class museums. I also realized the cultural wealth of NYC isn’t represented solely by its formal cultural institutions such as museums. Our greatest assets are our people and the monuments they have created to their culture on a small scale. In Astoria, I discovered a small-scale “museum” in the form of Athens Square Park. Mayors of several Greek cities had donated statues to be placed in the park in honor of the Greek culture of the area. This is reminiscent of a park I’ve been to in my mom’s home neighborhood in southern Brooklyn, Sheepshead Bay. It is a Holocaust park, which sounds like an absurd juxtaposition. However, the six rocks representing the six million Jews that died are actually quite a powerful monument. The vibrant Russian Jewish community of the surrounding area is also a testament to perseverance against racism and genocide. Sometimes, the small-scale, lesser-known grassroots monuments and museums to preserve a culture or history are more powerful and evocative than world-renowned landmarks.

Overall, I learned about the value of sitting and observing rather than rushing through a neighborhood without observing my surroundings. This is often forgotten in our hustle-bustle culture. I also learned about how ethnic enclaves are important in the preservation of culture and the creation of a community.