To me, Downtown Brooklyn used to be place where my grandpa worked. The associations I ever had with the area were Court Street, Artichoke Pizza and the Barclays Center. Never did it cross my mind that the area was residential; I didn’t think that people lived there or that it was even considered its own neighborhood. Being more specific, I never thought that the area surrounding the Barclays Center underwent a transformation on a daily basis. I thought that the area only became “active” or populated when there was a sports event or concert happening but to my surprise the change is ongoing.
I was lucky enough to visit the area of our project during four important times of the day. I visited in the morning to take the LIRR to Long Island. I heard the flipping of pages of the newspaper, the train, the kiosks and the muffling of people talking through the microphones behind the glass. I felt so small in the mist of hundreds of people all commuting to work. I didn’t stand out at all. We were all dressed professionally with the ultimate goal to get to one location. My next visit was during the day when it looked and sounded like every other neighborhood in Brooklyn. Honking, drilling, and City Buses. I was kind of displaced because why would a teenager be hanging out by a stadium in the middle of the day. Moving into the later afternoon I finally heard some young voices, laughter, and interesting stories. I saw strollers, and mother’s walking with the dogs when children were on their way home from school. Last but not least, there could be no way to judge an extension of “the city that never sleeps” without seeing the nightlife of the area. On that Saturday night on one side of the Barclays Center, young people were out, I heard laughter, smelled beer and saw the true shine coming from the lights implanted into the stones surrounding the area. On the other side by the courts and large franchise stores, at around 10 PM, when the final stores closed it seems as though the streets just went black; it was silent. I truly believe that the transformation that the area has underwent over the last few years, has most directly influenced its day to day transformation. I had this kind of epiphany, realizing that all the hard work and money that went and continues to go into an area that I don’t normally interact with, affects thousands people on a daily basis. For me, one of the most important parts of the project was that I finally started to appreciate the borough I live in.
In general, people fall into one of the three categories of learners: visual, aural, and kinesthetic. Personally, I consider myself to be a visual learner so I saw this to be the perfect opportunity for me to challenge myself and focus on my aural and auditory skills and concentrate on the types of noises that surrounded me. On a daily basis, I seek silence whether I am studying, focusing or meditating; I am one of those people who turns down the radio to look for an address. After doing this project, I realized what an advantage it is to be able to close my eyes and absorb what is around me by sound and not but sight. Something else I’ve learned about myself is that because my brain is constantly moving so fast, when I see something, I may incorrectly associate it with something without even realizing that I’m doing that. Focusing on just what I heard and then connecting it to what I see is a new way of learning for me. Side note: an important skill to learn with absorbing the sounds around you is to make sure people don’t think you’re being creepy and eavesdropping on their conversations. Another important and interesting part of learning to listen was listening to the stories of people with different backgrounds and hearing their experience with how the neighborhood has changed over the years that they’ve been there. I personally think that true change is not understood through books and writing but rather through the eyes and emotions of those who experienced it first-hand.
Surprisingly, after finishing this project my obsession with Manhattan has decreased a bit. Dare I say that the Barclays Center is becoming the new Madison Square Garden and even more famous stores will start popping up? The technology inside, and its aura are so beautiful and inspiring that it is a true piece of art implanted into the heart of a borough deep filled with history. The balance of big franchises, Mom n’ Pop shops, restaurants, and small businesses is ever so perfect. You can pick up a pair of Adidas sweats and walk down a block and go to a small and intimate yoga class which is a privately owned business.
There’s an automatic assumption that if you live in New York, you hate construction but truthfully, I’ve learned to appreciate the ongoing construction (even though I still despise the traffic) because its goal is to improve the borough that I live in. Although I do tend to stick to the neighborhoods that I know and am familiar with, I have been inspired to walk through a few quiet, residential blocks, drive a few blocks farther taking the side streets and new routes, and most importantly close my eyes and just absorb what is around me. Downtown Brooklyn may not be my neighborhood, but it is part of New York which is my home. The small “holes in the wall” which are businesses, or painted churches are so rich in history that at the end of the day each tell a story about the people that currently live there or about the people that once did live there. After a year in Macaulay seminars, I think I’m starting to finally appreciate the history of New York which sometimes escapes me because I don’t often think about the place that I live in as historical or interesting.
-Rashelle G.
