Tag Archives: Walking Tour

Walking Tours

Roosevelt Island

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We went on a short walking tour of Roosevelt Island (Emphasis on “short”), the small piece of land wedged in between Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Queens. After getting off the subway, we proceeded to walk down the Main Street, and we noticed we had many questions. As New Yorkers born and raised, we had thought you couldn’t get to the Island by car, but then why were there many vehicles on the Island? And why were there two hospitals located on each end of the Island?

As we continued our walk, we noticed that only two small historical landmarks, an uninhabited colonial style house, and a late 19th century Church. The Island was otherwise populated by relatively modern buildings, such as different styled apartments and small little shops. The Main St itself did not have many shops, only places such as a Starbucks, Gristedes, Public Library, and few others. The Island did, though, have a few schools, including an International Nursery Center for infants and toddlers. All the playgrounds, which there were many, were clean and seemed relatively new. We finally saw an answer to our first question, which was a large parking lot that bridged a connection by car to the Island and Queens.  New buildings and public areas, such as a large park, are in the process of being constructed, showing how there is an expected growth in the Island’s small population.

On our way back, we stopped on the famous Tramway, which cost us the same as a one way subway ride. Only few minutes, it felt completely new and different than riding on the crowded, dirty subways. We made a video of us riding the Tramway, but it needs editing so we will not include it in this post.

We plan on visiting the Island again to inquire more about the hospitals, including the past Insane Asylum. We also plan on interviewing residents to hear their different perspectives on the racial diversity on the Island. Roosevelt Island is New York City’s most racially and economically diverse neighborhood, which was it’s original goal when being planned. We are proud to have chosen such a unique neighborhood and look forward to unearthing the lives between residents.

Old & New Trams

 

Transportation

(The bottom right puts emphasis on the bridge used by cars connected the Island to Queens)

Colonial Style House

 

 

 

These are a sampling of the many photos we took.

Nicole-Amanda Merchan and Nicolette Belitsis

Walking Tours

Chinatown, Manhattan

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Our group visited Chinatown on March 24, 2014. The main focus of our research is on gentrification so we wanted to make note of any luxury developments in the neighborhood. We noticed that many modern developments were located side-by-side with dilapidated tenements houses and family-owned shops.
We visited Pell Street first and saw many old tenement buildings but there were also a number of modern businesses, such as T-Mobile and Boba Life NYC. There were also a number of fine-dining restaurants, one of which was located right across from an old loan organization.
We then walked further down south towards Madison Street and encountered many large apartment complexes that seemed to have been built recently. A few blocks down, we noticed an entire row of apartments that we later found out were government-funded housing (NYCHA). As we left Pearl Street and walked towards Oliver Street, we noticed that the streets were getting dirtier and there were more people milling around. At Pearl Street, the sidewalks and roads were devoid of people and cars. It was also around Oliver Street that we began to see a lot of tenement buildings.
Other streets that we visited included East Broadway, Market, and Henry Street. Gentrification definitely hit these areas but it wasn’t uniform. There were modern, glass apartments right across from run-down tenement buildings and Parisian wedding dress stores next to a supermarket that sold fish and dried herbs.
Here is a brief interview that we conducted:
By: Emily Yeung, Christine Zhou, Shixu Zheng, Nick Djamalidinov, and Stella Kong
Walking Tours

Morningside Heights, Manhattan

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We visited Morningside Heights on March 24, 2014. Our first stop was Columbia University. Columbia has a dominant presence in the neighborhood because a large portion of the area is owned by the school. Other schools such as Barnard and the Manhattan School of Music have established themselves in the area as well. Most of the neighborhood with the exception of the schools were empty when we visited at 3PM in the afternoon.  The businesses concentrated around Columbia, while the parks concentrated around the residential area. Afterword, we visited Riverside Park, where we talked to a local babysitter. She was kind enough to let us record her while we asked her questions concerning the area. She said Morningside Heights didn’t resemble a college town and there were plenty of places for adults to go that didn’t have any college kids. She also claimed the area is nice and clean.

Columbia
Columbia University
Riverside Park
Riverside Park

We visited the General Grant National Memorial, but it was eerily empty in the middle of the day. We noticed the area had many churches from various religions. The buildings in the area varied greatly. Each building had distinct architecture that separated it from the buildings next to it. The neighborhood residents seemed to be mostly middle class. We look forward to our next visit to Morningside Heights, especially their restaurants and other popular locations.

Aishwarya Bhatia

Ariel Yuan

Alan Chen

Xiaoji Zou