Lucy Snyder
Gabrielle Brown
Research Question: How do changes in the environment, economy and society over time affect the geographic distribution of different groups (ethnic, age, religious) of people in a neighborhood?
The first thing we saw upon landing on Roosevelt Island was a variety of sparkling new condominiums and not many people. As we spent more time exploring the island, we started to notice a pattern in the location of complexes, abandoned buildings, chain businesses and community spaces. The half of the island that is south of the tram is divided into three distinct parts: a hospital area, South Point Park containing many decrepit buildings and abandoned structures and stray cats, and Four Freedoms Park, a memorial to FDR. These are a combination of the remains of rich history and the tourist / non-resident attractions. The north part of the island is all residential, with the new apartment complexes of Northtown (including Westview, Island House, Rivercross and Eastwood) on the coast of the island and the “old-timers” residing in buildings more inland along Main Street, the only main road between West Road and East Road. At the north tip of the island is the Octagon, an asylum-turned-apartment building, neatly enclosing the oldies into the center of the island.
After interviewing a handful of different residents, we started to notice conflicting opinions. People of different ages called Roosevelt Island their home, having grown up there and vowed to stay for many years to come while others readily admitted that they would not be staying very long. Some believed that the Public Safety Department interfered with the freedom of children and families on the island while others stated their pride of PSD and the safety of the island. We started to place differing opinions to different places on the island and we began to understand the root of these disagreements: the distribution of people on the island.
Randall’s Island is a much smaller island off Manhattan with almost 10 times fewer residents than Roosevelt Island. However, we want to discuss Randall’s island because New York City advocates for it to be a public space, funding community spaces and programs that encourage non-residents to use the space. This interestingly compares to the lack of city involvement in Roosevelt Island, though there is a natural (yet small) flow of non-residents onto the island. The diversity of the two island differs as well.
Sunnyside, Queens is an up and coming polyglot neighborhood. People are moving there to live in a quiet region that escapes the clamor and craziness of New York City but can easily travel (via subway, LIE) to where city life is happening. This is a large appeal of Roosevelt Island as well; technically being a part of the city but not being disturbed by its demanding lifestyle. Sunnyside Gardens, built in 1924 as a planned community, compares to Northtown, as it is a collection of homes for one, two and three families. However, this gentrification occurred much earlier and so it is not the same as Roosevelt Island. We would look into the ethnic distribution of the families that live in Sunnyside Gardens as opposed to the rest of the neighborhood. Also, some scenes from Spiderman were filmed in Sunnyside and the ex-smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island was featured in Spiderman.
One of the primary sources we expect to use in our research paper is Roosevelt Island’s newspaper, The Wire. It provides local news and its website has a detailed timeline of the history of Roosevelt Island, dating back to 1637. There is a blog called the “Roosevelt Islander” which is updated daily with local news in the form of text, videos and images. The Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) is an organization that defends the interests of islanders to maintain and improve the quality of the society. WYNC Radio created a short multimedia video called “Living in Pain on Roosevelt Island” which documents the Island’s Main Street. A similarly-styled video was created on the Octagon. New York Magazine has valuable articles on real estate in New York City and first-hand experiences with residents of many neighborhoods. Geographical maps will also prove to be very useful as well as infographic maps.
Rough Outline:
