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I like the sheer madness of your proposal.
Interviews in five boroughs! Nay, in New York City AND in New York State! Comparing the insiders with outsiders!
Traveling and talking with people on the street – just when we are closing everything again.
Soundtrack for each borough – just as an i n t r o d u c t i o n – and
accompanied by slideshow of every borough,
and each borough illuminated as “heart” of NYC.
😉It’s totally impossible.
O.K., do it.
Cristian, Chaz – so you want to have a dinner and a nice conversation visiting Manhattan? Good, do it. (I would suggest that you’d better avoid any eating places near Times Sq. There is a couple of exceptions, but most of the restaurants in the area are pretty awful, like typical “tourist traps” in heavily trafficked, touristy areas.)
It’s unclear whether your interest is primarily in the “transportation hub” (Grand Central Terminal), somewhat vague greenary “at the very north”, (there is no active ‘entertainment’ on Broadway at this point, due to the covid plague), or restaurants…
In any case, what you propose here sounds like a potentially pleasant visit in midtown Manhattan (although even this might be difficult now, due to the tightened restrictions), but it’s not yet an intelligent creative project. Back to the drawing board.
Great. Specific, imaginative, your own.
I accept your proposal as presented because I have a feeling that you know what you are doing. It sounds interesting and if you do it well, you might come up with a really special song.
(But if you want, think about adding one more “layer” to the project – the visual one. What images would you incorporate to such a New York bustling sound track? But I repeat, you can stay with the project as you defined it.)
Leondra, Kristen, Alexander:
Machine format? How does it fit with the rhythm of the heart? The only association that comes to my mind is an emergency: putting someone dying on the machine support…
How does the exausting race “through the past to the present” make the heart of New York? It sounds to me more like a nightmare or like something leading “gamers” straight to heart attack!So, let’s try to follow up your trail:
• Heart – well, it usually stands for feelings, expression of emotions, caring (perhaps), beauty (perhaps)…
• It’s the people – you say. Yes, I think it’s the right direction. Probably it’s more constructive to think of “individuals” in this context of “heart,” than of huge, anonymous masses… The millions marching through the ages…
• So, individuals… – yes, something most likely to do with cultue…
Artists? any contemporary poet who comes to your mind? any singer? a dancer? Or perhaps an amazing sportsman who makes the hearts of New Yorkers beat faster?
Whom would you see as “typical New York” artists/ cultural figures – embodying New York attitudes, expressing New York contradictions, representing especially well some “New York qualities”? (You could start with checking our contemporary poets and photographers highlighted in the class booklet. Or think about singers you appreciate…)Another possible trail – following your “interactive” interest: perhaps a series of mini-interviews with your colleagues – just a question and an answer: What do you think, what makes the heart of New York? (Or make up a touching-funny question…)
And then you could create an inspired (funny? surprising?) video-collage of these vingettes?Jane, Javier, Katherine, Eric – o.k., sounds like a team.
Proposal – there is not one yet.
Your proposal is too ambitious: You want to cover history & the present day. You want to show the richness of two neighborhoods, covering them from “many different angles” & presenting their special ”art, architecture, music”… On top of it, you want to convince us that these two very different – quite unique in their history and demographic profile – neighborhoods represent New York. You want to do it all in two weeks, and – of course – to do it well. Really?!!
As it promises too much, it’s an invitation to disaster of risky juxtapositions, without regard to the historical context. Of necessity, whatever comparison you’d present would have to be based on vague generalizations. And you’d compare/contrast Harlem Renaissance – a complicated cultural movement firmly embedded in the realities of the 1930s – with what? Was there an Orthodox community in Borough Park in the 1930s? Did it also experience an amazing cultural turmoil at that time? Or you want to compare Harlem then with Borough Park now? Or you want to contrast the centrifugal & changing character of Harlem of the last couple of decades with the tendency towards self-segregation characteristic of the Orthodox community?
O.K. so, #1: Relax.
This is NOT a research project. You don’t have to conduct research to the “past and present of…”
You may start with “Impressionistic portrait of…”#2. Think what’s the most attractive for you in this fantasy proposal. What prompted you in this direction? I mean what is it that you‘d like to show us, to let us “taste” together with you. And what is it that you realistically can do that indeed might allow us special appreciation of some aspects – one or two specific things – of these contrasting neighborhoods.
#3. Think what access you have (and not have) – e. g. to a specific synagogue or church, or to any special resources etc. How could you combine your individual special gifts/ knowledge to build an interesting collective product.
