Seminar 2 Encyclopedia

Cornucopia of Cultures: Welcome to New York City

Professor: Jessica Siegel
ITF: Maggie Galvan
Campus: Brooklyn College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/siegel2014/

In this course, students investigated certain neighborhoods and ethnic groups with a journalistic eye. Over the course of the semester, they wrote about their own immigration narratives and completed walking tours, interviews, and worker profiles that drew from their chosen neighborhoods and ethnic groups.

The following groups and neighborhoods were the objects of focus in this class:
Pakistanis/Bangladeshis in Kensington, Brooklyn
Jamaicans/Caribbeans in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Russians in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
Mexicans in Corona, Queens
Ecuadorians in Jackson Heights, Queens
Chinese in Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Haitians in Flatbush, Brooklyn

Religious Life on Staten Island and New York City

Professor: Melissa Borja
ITF: Kamili Posey
Campus: College of Staten Island
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/borja2014/

This spring, the students of Prof. Borja’s Macaulay Honors College seminar studied “The Peopling of New York City,” with a special focus on Staten Island. By conducting original research with archival sources and multilingual oral history interviews, we endeavored to document the rich diversity of religious practices and institutions on Staten Island, the most understudied borough of New York City. Ultimately, our research and our website were motivated by a public-minded commitment to Staten Island. Our goals were to deepen understanding of Staten Island’s changing population, to share stories of religious life on the ground, and to create a public archive in the service of preserving the collective history—and diverse histories—of our community.

The Peopling of Staten Island

Professor: Catherine Lavender
ITF: Kamili Posey
Campus: College of Staten Island
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/lavender2014/

During Seminar 2, Macaulay Scholars investigate the role of immigration and migration in shaping New York City’s identity — past, present, and future. This website documents immigration of various communities to Staten Island. The information discussed includes demographic patterns, history of the community, literature about the communities, and community resources and institutions. This website was created by students in Professor Lavender’s Seminar Two class in Spring 2014 at the College of Staten Island. Students taking this course come from a variety of majors and fields of study including: chemistry, biology, psychology, history, pre-law, political science, engineering, math, physics, education, and the liberal arts.

NYC’s D Train

Professor: Nancy Aries
ITF: Owen Toews
Campus: Baruch College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/aries2014finalproject/

In Spring 2014, professor Nancy Aries’ CUNY Baruch/Macaulay Honors seminar studied the diverse neighborhoods linked by New York City’s D Train. The class broke into small teams, each researching one of seven neighborhoods. The primary purpose of the site is to bring together the seven neighborhood studies, with links to individual sites for each neighborhood (students decided to use the same theme for each of their sites, which gave them the united aesthetic they wanted, but limited some groups in what they could do). The secondary purpose of the site is to host a map displaying the seven stops along the D train. The map includes bubbles displaying photos and basic information for each stop, giving a nice overview of the entire project. However, the way the Google map embed displays makes it a bit difficult to see all this information at once. Students chose the ever-popular sliding doors theme to create a colorful, engaging snapshot of human life on the D train.

Seminar 2: The Peopling of NYC | Prof. Ken Guest

Professor: Ken Guest
ITF: Gwen Shaw
Campus: Baruch College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/guest14/

This site was meant to supplement the students work throughout the course, acting as an archive of their experience conducting research and field work on East Broadway in New York City under the supervision of Dr. Ken Guest. For their projects, the students conducted their own fieldwork, formulated questions for further research, and engaged the community with site visits and interviews. This site acts as an archive of their experiences in class and a resting place for their final projects. Although ultimately designed for their final projects, I am especially proud of the students reflections on creating both hand-drawn and digitized maps– they offer astute insights and cost-benefit analysis of each mode of representation.

New York Dreams

Professor: Constance Rosenblum
ITF: John Boy
Campus: City College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/nydreams/

An immersive storytelling site. The stories presented on this site tell of New Yorkers who chased their dreams — sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. These people traveled very different paths, but they have one thing in common: All of them sought to make a place for themselves in a big, complicated, challenging but often profoundly rewarding metropolis.

Yemen Across the Atlantic: Exploring NYC Immigration Through the Lens of Yemen Cafe

Professor: Moustafa Bayoumi
ITF: Lydia Pelot-Hobbs
Campus: Brooklyn College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/bayoumi2014/

The purpose of this site was to examine the case of immigration in Brooklyn through the specific example of Yemen Cafe located in Cobble Hill. This site approaches Yemen Cafe from a range of angles: the people (both owners, staff, and customers), the plot of the restaurant, the neighborhood, culture, and food.

While the story of Yemeni immigration to New York is the central immigration story of the site, through examining the site through these various lenses brings into conversation the history of other immigrant communities that have existed in the neighborhood over time, and utilized the building that Yemen Cafe is housed in.

Students drew upon a wide range of media for the various sections of the website.This makes the site not the most consistent in terms of format, but displays how different types of media help tell different types of stories.

The Peopling of New York City

Professor: Ramona Hernandez
ITF: Aaron Kendall
Campus: City College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/hernandez2014/

This Seminar 2 website compares various aspects of two unique neighborhoods in New York City, Flushing and Washington Heights/Harlem. Several topics are discussed, including transportation, food, music and health.

Although the site was envisioned as a comparison between two neighborhoods, since groups were free to choose any topic from either neighborhood, instead of both neighborhoods, the result is more of a summary of various cultural aspects of each neighborhood.

The website is organized in a clear manner, with introdctory text and the option of choosing which neighborhood and topic the user would like to explore further. The use of media is somewhat limited, with a lot of very small images, and is lacking in video/audio that might help the user get a better idea of the feel of the neighborhoods.

Overall, the students did a fine job of researching their topics and presenting the information in a clear and concise manner.

Surviving Sandy: An eye on the storm

Professor: Prabal De
ITF: Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land
Campus: City College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/de2014final/

This site might be of particular interest to Professors who are interested in taking a different approach to the idea of “peopling” New York. The original idea for this class was to produce a documentary about the movement around New York City caused by Hurricane Sandy, and City College’s relationship to the crisis.
At some point it was decided that a documentary project wouldn’t work out, so students re-packaged the work they had done into a website, which can be viewed as its own project, and is also linked to from the course site which features other work the students did throughout the semester: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/de2014/.
The Surviving Sandy site features interviews students did with each other about their experiences of the storm, interviews with a couple of Professors, news footage, original photographs, and original student photos of Sandy devastation. It showcases an attempt to use Aesop story engine.

Food and Immigration in NYC

Professor: Kim Libman
ITF: Maggie Dickinson
Campus: Queens College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/libman2014/

Our Peopling of New York Seminar looked at the issue of immigration in New York City through the lens of food and foodways. Each group focused on a particular neighborhood, researching the local history and culture by collecting both qualitative and quantitive data. We also produced menus featuring typical, culturally appropriate foods for each neighborhood based on our research. Each neighborhood group produced their own website, showcased on our collective class site. Take a look at our neighborhood websites to learn more!

Peopling of New York

Professor: Michael Batson
ITF: Stephen Boatright
Campus: College of Staten Island
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/batson14/

During the Spring 2014 semester, the students in Professor Michael Batson’s course researched the diverse ethnicities that call Staten Island home. They visited cultural institutions, studied census data, and used online mapping applications to graphically portray the location of ethnic enclaves. The students also looked at different public schools across the borough sought to see how well the schools reflected its demographic diversity.

Sounds and Scenes of New York City

Professor: Chris Bonastia
ITF: Ben Miller
Campus: Lehman College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/musicalnyc

A central landing site connects four subsites dedicated to musical “scenes” within NYC: Jazz, Latin, Disco, and Hip-Hop. All of these subsites share the same theme (Bushwick) and navigation, with pages for History, Music, Places, People, and Credits; the Genres tab and an image-mapped map allows for travel between them.

To create the site, students divided into five groups: one for each of the musical scenes, and one to work directly with the ITF on site-building skills like plugins, menus, iframes, and CSS. Members of the site-building team then acted as liaisons to the content groups; each group chose their own internal division of labor to produce or procure text, images (including maps), and sounds.

The Peopling of Astoria, NY

Professor: Sofya Aptekar
ITF: Fiona Lee
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/sa14

This website showcases the work of Macaulay Honors students at Hunter College in Seminar 2: The Peopling of New York in spring 2014. Focusing on the neighborhood of Astoria in western Queens, students investigated the role of immigration and migration in shaping the New York City’s identity— past, present, and future. Students maintained a Class Blog, discussing issues such as immigration, diversity, public space, gentrification, segregation through analyses of current events. As a supplement to their final research papers, they also created short documentaries that showcased a selection of their findings about the neighborhood.

Neighborhood Projects

Professor: Angie Beeman
ITF: Amanda Licastro
Campus: Baruch College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/beemanneighborhoods/

This site is the final project for Dr. Angie Beeman’s Seminar 2 course on the “People of NYC.” This site was created completely by the students in this course and the content was generated by their research.

The Peopling of New York

Professor: Eric Alterman
ITF: Jennifer Corby
Campus: Brooklyn College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/alterman2014/

In this seminar, students worked independently or in small groups to make 2 presentations: one on an NYC neighborhood, and one biography of an NYC landmark.

Peopling of New York Documentaries 2014

Professor: Fatima Shama
ITF: Anton Borst
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/peoplingofnydocumentaries14/

This site was developed by several students in Professor Shama’s seminar to showcase the six documentaries students developed in small groups over the course of the semester. The videos explore the experiences of immigrants in NYC through the lens of their vital–yet often invisible–roles in the city’s economies.