When I first arrived at East Harlem, I found it very interesting to see many things I had read about before from class readings, the housing, the ethnic groups, and certain institutions. Once my group had arrived at our starting point, we decided to split up into two groups, and divide the East Harlem, South into two sections so would pay more focus to our surroundings. As my partner, Daniel Choi, and I were walking around the South part of East Harlem, my eyes were immediately drawn to all the types of housing. In fact, Daniel and I were so intrigued that we entered a public housing building. There were building rules and postings written in three different languages: English, Spanish, and Chinese; This spoke to the diversity of East Harlem.
As we continued our tour, something that definitely surprised us was the amount of different churches around the neighborhood. At times we even saw multiple churches on one block. In addition to this, at times buildings seemed out of place on some blocks, and were often next to either a renovated building, or a brand new one. I expected to see people out in the street as well, but at times in seemed like certain blocks were abandoned, especially with all the worn down buildings that surrounded the area at times. Signs of gentrification became apparent when my partner and I encountered various “luxury rental” signs and retail space openings near brand new housing. It amazed me to see how simply going up or down a couple of blocks, one could notice a significant disparity between housing and buildings that existed.
The part of this tour that impacted me the most was when Daniel and I encountered an abandoned school, and got the opportunity to speak with residents of the area. When we first saw the building, we were unsure of what it was. The building was immense compared to all the other buildings that surrounded it. As we were taking pictures and notes of the building, a man approached us and he began telling us about the building we were looking at it. The building had been abandoned for years, and garbage had been accumulating throughout this time. Furthermore, there was construction right next to the abandoned school, but the man had informed us that the construction had been there for years as well. People had made complaints to city officials, but nothing had ever been done. It was infuriating and saddening to hear all this. The metal of the construction had rusted, and there was even cat food scattered because cats began using the larger pipes as shelter. Moments later, a woman had passed by and joined in on the conversation. She clarified that the school had been abandoned for 10 years! As Daniel had previously stated, we do need better representatives, because this was all appalling. The woman and man had told us that there was an infestation of enormous rats because of all the garbage that surrounded the school and the construction site. After our informants left, we continued our tour and were nearing the lower part of East Harlem, South. The more we walked down however, the more construction we encountered. Some of the other sites appeared old as well. We even encountered a large crane near housing, which reminded me of a video we had seen in class. If I were a resident near that crane, I too would be fearful.
Overall, the experience was very eye-opening, seeing East Harlem first-hand, and getting the opportunity to talk with a couple of locals. There is a significant amount of information that I acquired that will prove to be useful for the research project: the evident signs of gentrification, the different types of housing, the residents being neglected by city officials, the horrible condition of certain areas, the different branches of faith, and more to come as I further my research.
