The Occupations of New York

The collage project is one of the opportunities we have in this class to really describe our point of view on a specific aspect of New York. I chose to focus my project on the different occupations of the city. It has always amazed me, what weird things people will do in general and the weirder things people do for a career. In New York, we have such a large variety of backgrounds and resumes that I wanted to capture how they all come under one roof.

While some of these jobs may be common in other cities, New York is one of the rare places where they are all centralized. It is that aspect of the boroughs that keep them so interesting. Nothing seems boring because there is always something new to discover.

One day I was in Times Square and I met a man with a sign that read “NEED MONEY FOR WEED. HEY, WHY LIE?” First I thought he was seriously asking for money with that sign and was confused to whether it was a genius publicity stunt that will help this man get money and attention or whether this person was just incredibly straightforward. After telling some friends about it I learned that many of them heard about “the man with the weed sign.” I decided to look him up and discovered that the person I saw holding the sign is a member of a charitable organization. The charity uses the sign to gain publicity and donate to the less fortunate.

It captured my attention. When we were assigned to create a collage, I knew I wanted to capture some of New York’s eccentric jobs. However, I also wanted to balance that off with some of the daily jobs we all seem to interact with on a regular basis but rarely recognize for it’s importance and uniqueness. It helps emphasize my point of how we hold so many jobs in the same city.

Throughout my collage, I’ve gathered the naked cowboy, beekeepers in the middle of manhattan, subway crews, and so many more. I even managed to include a New York Knick. Which other city will offer these icons?

One of the purposes of focusing on occupations is that many people realize that New York is diverse, and they realize it is diverse in various aspects. Yet, no one pays attention to the different jobs in the city. I was hoping my project could help put a focus on that and help others appreciate it when they next come across any such people.