Category Archives: Uncategorized

East Harlem Impressions and Followup

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Dear Students:

I walked with the Central group (116th to 106th Streets). Our group saw a number of the large public housing projects on their super-block sites, the barely surviving La Marqueta under the Park Avenue viaduct, and a good number of open spaces. The latter included the community gardens saved by the Bette Midler organization as well as those managed by the NYC Department of Parks, poorly maintained playing fields, lots of parking, and a truck ‘maintenance’ facility that we did not think it prudent to photograph. Something we noticed in particular were the number of closed-up row houses and tenements (their windows filled with concrete blocks), evidence that property owners are holding them as future development sites for more lucrative returns than they would get by continuing to rent them out.

I took a quick look at the photos that have been posted by the North Group. They look good and I enjoyed seeing the chickens. A few of the buildings, such as the library and some of the churches, may need to be re-photographed as you really can’t get a sense of the whole. I look forward to seeing all the groups’ photos accompanied by captions so we can review them with Ms Gregory at the next class.

You also need to post your individual impressions/highlights of the field trip on the blog by next Tuesday. A short paragraph along the lines of Ms Gregory’s comments or mine will do.

If you going up to East Harlem again anytime between now and next Wednesday, you might want to take a look at the exhibit at CENTRO (Center for Puerto Rican Studies), located at its East Harlem Gallery, Silberman School of Social Work, 2180 Third Ave., 119th Street. The exhibit is open to the public weekdays from 1 to 6 p.m. For more information see http://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/about/events/labor-comes-close

Best
Professor Gardner

East Harlem Tour– Some Links for You

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Hi all:

Hope you enjoyed your walking tours today. I was with the 125th group and we saw a number of interesting things– things mentioned on the Walking Tour Map that Professor Gardner handed out. If you haven’t looked at that map, be sure to go back and read through the information there. We learned that Emma Goldman‘s office was on 125th street, that a historic Turkish bath house is now for rent, and that Eugene McCabe is not the Irish playwright, but rather the founder of North General Hospital. We also saw the beautiful ode to Picasso by De La Vega.

Also, this blog seems to have a number of interesting posts about recent developments in East Harlem, particularly renovated buildings and rental costs (sometimes even offers a peak inside those buildings): http://harlembespoke.blogspot.com/

And, this map entitled Place Matters is quite interesting now that you have seen the neighborhood: http://placematters.net/ESRImap/index.html 

Be sure to start uploading your photos– instructions are posted on the blog already. If you have any trouble, email me.

Best,
Karen

 

Remember to Register for Tech Fair!

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There are two Tech Fairs for freshmen students at Macaulay Honors College: one in the fall, and one in the spring.  We offer several sessions; you choose one time slot that fits your schedule best. These events focus on hands-on learning about your Mac laptops and what you can accomplish with them.  Workshops are led by Macaulay ITFs, and give students from all seven Macaulay campuses a chance to get to know one another.

http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/techfair/registration/

Posting Your Photos!

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Hi all:

You should all be able to post your photographs now. Please log in to the course blog and play around with creating a photo gallery. The course blog is here:

http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/eastharlemblog/

You will see that I changed its appearance a little. I think this makes it easier to see all the pages and navigate the site.

In order to post, you will need to log into the blog through eportfolio. Then go into the site’s “dashboard”. Once there, look to the lower left, at the bottom of the sidebar, where you will see Gallery.

Click GALLERY.

Click ADD GALLERY/IMAGES

Click ADD NEW GALLERY (at the top of the page.)

Title your Gallery. I am assuming each walking group will create their own Gallery, meaning we will have three galleries based on which section of East Harlem you are walking. Perhaps assign one person from each group to create the Gallery and use the titles: “East Harlem, North”; “East Harlem, Central”; “East Harlem, South”

Once the Gallery is created, you can then upload images to it using the Upload Images tab.

It will prompt you to select images, do so, and then wait. Be patient. It will take a while.

This tab will also prompt you to CHOOSE A GALLERY. Make sure you post your photos to the right Gallery.

Then, click UPLOAD IMAGES.

Once all the images are uploaded, you must then MANAGE the Gallery and caption your images. You can do this by clicking MANAGE GALLERY, which will take you to a page of Gallery titles. Click your appropriate title and you will then see all the images that have been uploaded. You will see a space to title your images, as well as write a description. Here is where your notes are essential.

In the title, make sure you have listed the photo’s location. In the description, please add a caption that tell us what we’re looking at, if necessary. It’s possible that you won’t need to caption each photo, but please add as much information as you have collected.

Then, click SAVE CHANGES.

Your photos have now been uploaded and captioned.

There is one last step, which we will take care of once all the photos are there and that is to embed the gallery into the correct blog page, but one thing (or a million little steps) at a time.

Header Photo Story

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Hi all:

While searching for an image for your blog’s header, I came across this story in the New York Times about “The Spirit of East Harlem,” a four-story landmark at the corner of East 104th Street and Lexington Avenue, which has been in the neighborhood since 1978. Keep an eye out for this during your walking tour and make sure to take your own photographs of this historic artwork.

The article also mentions a book that might be helpful for your future research entitled On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City.

Demetra P

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My name is Demetra Panagiotopoulos. My parents are both Greek immigrants. I grew up in Astoria—an area that is no longer as solidly Greek as it used to be—eating my mom’s Greek food, attending (until high school) a Greek private school, speaking Greek at home, surrounded by Greek people in a Greek community doing Greek things—like celebrating Greek holidays and playing basketball and whatnot—and listening to the Greek music that my dad brought home from his former job with Greek Music and Video.

I’ve only been to Greece four times in my memory. I love my family there, as well as the food, language, and natural beauty of the place. That being said, though, I still prefer to live in America. New York. Maybe not Manhattan, but . . . well . . . Queens.