In Chapter 5, and again in Chapter 8, an issue of privacy on public streets is raised. Upon first reading this, I was confused. Of course there is no privacy on the streets. They are deemed “public” for a reason. I don’t think that the cameras have a very big effect on whether or not people feel they’re in private on the streets. We all know that no one sitting on the other end of a camera is very attentive to what we are doing. Hence, people still break the law in the street, be it robbing someone, or drinking in public. I don’t think we can ever define a place as being private unless we are completely alone and no one else has access to said space.
I think that Chapter 5 must have been exceptionally difficult to write. When the topic of “public space” comes up, I’m sure an image of the street where you grew up comes to mind. Therefore, I’m sure that there is little that can be agreed on in terms of characteristics of public space, because it’s difficult to establish a generalization for it. For example, on page 169, Helmreich mentions that busses in Brooklyn or the Bronx are populated by “the poor, the black, with an occasional Asian and an even rarer elderly white person who was apparently left behind in the various eras or white flight.” This may hold true in certain areas of Brooklyn or the Bronx, but only because said poor, black, and Hispanic people live in those areas. Personally, from living in and taking the bus in both the Bronx and Brooklyn, the demographic of a bus relies primarily on the demographic of the area in which it is traveling through. If a bus travels through an area of upper middle class black people, you will find upper middle class black people on the bus. Similarly, if it’s driving through a predominantly white neighborhood, you will find white people on the bus. Like I said, it’s difficult to generalize all of the public space in NYC, but I think that a disclaimer would have been helpful with this chapter.
With regards to Chapter 7, I felt that Helmreich created too much of a gap between the cultures in NYC. Of course, they are different, but I don’t think that there is such a big divide when it comes to interacting between cultures. In the end, we are all humans. For example, Helmreich mentions that interactions run more smoothly “when groups have more in common” (303). However, I think it’s possible to find similarities among almost every culture, simply because we can find similarities among our fellow humans. Every immigrant can talk about himself coming to America and trying to make it in a new country. Second generation Americans can bond over their parents wanting them to do well, or songs or food from their respective cultures. All of us can be united as New Yorkers if we keep open minds. There is no mystical cultural barrier that must be broken. Our outlooks must simply been broadened.
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