Seminar 2 Encyclopedia

Neighborhoods of New York

Professor: Joseph Berger
ITF: Madison Priest
Campus: Hunter College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/neighborhoodsofnyc/

Neighborhoods of New York is the result of research project undertaken by first year Macaulay Honors students at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) under the supervision of Professor Joseph Berger and Madison Priest. This website showcases student groups' profiles of New York City neighborhoods. Students integrated images, video and sound, created timelines, and left room for "surprises and serendipities."

Their New York

Professor: Mike Benediktsson
ITF: Christina Nadler & Madison Priest
Campus: Hunter College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/theirnewyork/

This website is the result of a unique research project undertaken by first year Macaulay Honors students at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) under the supervision of Mike Owen Benediktsson, Madison Priest and Christina Nadler. The interviews, images, and research collected here were collected entirely by students, as part of their coursework for the People of New York City seminar, or Seminar II, an interdisciplinary class on the past and present of the city’s neighborhoods, with a focus on migration and immigration.

Storefront Survivors

Professor: Mike Benediktsson
ITF: Christina Nadler
Campus: Hunter College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/storefrontsurvivors

This website is the result of a unique research project undertaken by first year Macaulay Honors students at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) under the supervision of Mike Owen Benediktsson, Marnie Brady, Caroline Loomis, Christina Nadler, and Tommy Wu. The interviews, images, and research collected here were collected entirely by students, as part of their coursework for the People of New York City seminar, or Seminar II, an interdisciplinary class on the past and present of the city’s neighborhoods, with a focus on migration and immigration. In the last few years, elected officials and the media have begun to acknowledge the plight of small, independent businesses in the city. Blogs like Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York have called attention to the loss of valuable landmark institutions due to unregulated commercial rent markets and municipal rezoning. Local elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, have put forth competing legislative measures that would seek to relieve some of the economic pressure faced by small business owners in the city. Attention to the precarious position of small business is growing. But is it enough? Explore our website to find profiles of small business owners across the city who are conducting their own individual struggles against the crosscurrents of economic, social, and policy change in the city.

Here to Stay NYC

Professor: Lina Newton
ITF: Tommy Wu
Campus: Hunter College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/heretostaynyc/

This is a public-facing site for the class (in addition to a class site for administration). I'm using the Kerouac theme here and I have mixed feelings about it. Aesthetically, I think it looks great but there are also some bugs and limitations (if students don't want to use CSS). Overall, I would recommend it because the student groups took ownership of the site and spent a lot time perfecting their profile pages. They seemed to be proud of what they have produced. I think this would be a good example for future students.

Exceptional NYC

Professor: Lina Newton
ITF: Christina Nadler
Campus: Hunter College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/exceptionalnyc/

This is a site created by Prof Lina Newton’s Seminar 2 course–the Peopling of New York City.

Students worked in groups throughout the semester to undertake research on 5 immigrant groups–Chinese, Haitian, Dominican, Russian and Mexican. In these posts you can find the key findings of the research, statistical profiles, and researched narratives on the history of the immigrant group’s migration & settlement.

Enjoy exploring the projects on the exceptional histories of NYC residents!

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.

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.

Seminar 2: The Peopling of New York Spring 2013

Professor: Margaret Chin
ITF: Pamela Burger
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/chinatownsdocumentaries/

This site for the public-facing project for Margaret Chin’s Seminar 2. At the request of the professor and students, the course site, used for weekly blog posts, assignments, and course information, was kept separate. This site features four brief documentaries that explore different aspects of the two Chinatowns of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Initially, the assignment asked students to document the different responses to Hurricane Sandy, but many groups had trouble finding enough information. In the end, the Manhattan groups profiled Chinatown, whereas the Brooklyn groups focused more on responses in Coney Island and Bensonhurst to Sandy. Each group was in charge of their video’s dedicated webpage, and the entire class collaborated on designing the home page.

What Happened When the Lights Went Out?

Professor: Philip Kasintz
ITF: Anton Borst
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/downtownhurricanesandy/

This site, designed and built by a team of students, showcases the documentary projects Professor Philip Kasinitz’s seminar developed in small groups over the course of the semester. Each group was asked to investigate how the social history and social networks of a particulal lower Manhattan neighborhood shaped its inhabitants’ experience of and response to the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. It was a focused research question on a very relevant topic that gave students a lot of room to express their own point of view. Professor Kasinitz blocked off a considerable amount of time so that students could approach the project in stages throughout the spring: we led discussions and workshops on conducting interviews, planning through storyboarding and outlines, developing (and sticking to) a thesis, and, finally, how best to present the documentaries to the public. However, I think we both agreed that even more time could have been devoted to the project. In particular, I thought it would have helped if students had been asked to conduct more interviews and gather more material so they had a surplus of footage to choose from in telling more pointed stories. Bottom-line: to do even a 3-5 minute quality video takes A LOT of work and draws (or should draw) on many of the same skills as writing a research paper: namely planning, writing, gathering material, and developing a thesis or coherent point of view. As far as the site itself, I think the map navigation on the homepage is striking, attractive, and simple. I encouraged students to think about the first impression they wanted to make with the site, to think about how to ensure that visitors would quickly be able to understand what the site was about, who created it, and why it’s interesting–and I think they succeeded in that.

Making it in New York

Professor: Jackie Brown
ITF: Fiona Lee
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/collectiveproject/

This website presents students’ findings and reflections on what they learned in addressing the question, What does it take to “make it” in New York? Popular media, as captured in the music of Frank Sinatra (“If I can make it here, then I can make it anywhere…”) and of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys (“New York/concrete jungle where dreams are made up/there’s nothing you can’t do/Now you’re in New York”), New York City is pictured as a city of endless opportunity for those who have what it takes. Working in groups, students explored the question from a range of perspectives: people who are or who have experienced homelessness; adult English language learners; workers handing out free newspapers at subway stations; subway commuters encountering solicitors; and Hunter College students on the topic of diversity.

Students opted to use Prezi to showcase their findings, a tool that worked especially well when they presented their research and website to their peers in person. For readers encountering the site on their own, the text accompanying the Prezi slideshows, as well as on the page explaining the overall theme of the project, is a helpful guide that ties together the wide range of perspectives presented. The header image, a modification of an image of the well known piece of graffiti art created by a student in the class, also captures the themes of struggle, defiance and fortitude reflected in the stories the class encountered in completing the project.

Seminar II: The Peopling of New York

Professor: Mike Benediktsson
ITF: Jesse Goldstein
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/benediktsson2013

Our public facing work consisted of short video documentaries produced by small teams of students. Our website has a page in which all of these videos are embedded, though this site was not a focal point of our work. All of the videos are on vimeo and students are encouraged to link to them, add them to their personal eportfolios, etc.

Street | Lights: Micro-Documentary

Professor: Margaret Chin
ITF: Karen Gregory
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/chinstreetlights2013/

Peopling of New York | Spring 2013
Prof Margaret M. Chin Thursday

Two themes developed as our class tried to capture the latest developments in the oldest and the newest New York City
Chinese neighborhoods, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. It was clear in lower Manhattan that Sandy had lasting
effects on neighborhood institutions and the Chinese community. The collection of documentaries shows how stores, individual workers, and community organizations pulled together after the storm, “After the Lights Went Out”.

On the other hand, in Brooklyn, near Avenue U, the effects of Sandy weren’t as great. Instead, the students found that there were “Two Sides of the Street” along Avenue U, and these documentaries show how the Russian and Chinese immigrants coexisted right next to each other, peacefully and still apart.

Professor: Margaret Chin
ITF: Jesse Goldstein
Campus: Hunter
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/mchin2012/

This site highlights four different neighborhoods with large Asian populations in New York City. Each neighborhood is evaluated according to five different dimensions, and the resulting information has been woven into an integrated design conceptualized and implemented by students (with a little ITF support). It is intended to provide a general introduction to these neighborhoods, their similarities and differences.

Trailblazing Through Greenwich Village

Professor: Bernadette McCauley
ITF: Fiona Lee
Campus: Hunter

This website was created by Macaulay Honors students at Hunter College as part of their first-year seminar, The Peopling of New York, taught by Professor Bernadette McCauley. As part of their neighborhood study of Greenwich Village, each student conducted an individual investigation on a topic of their choice and produced a documented research paper which presented their findings. For the website project, the class chose to present their research papers as news articles, organized in three different sections: People; Culture; and Politics & Controversies.

Peopling New York City and Its Neighborhoods

This is the course site of a Macaulay Honors College / Hunter College CUNY seminar that explores perspectives on urban ethnography with an emphasis on New York City – including specifically: the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint Williamsburg, the Morningside Heights Harlem neighborhood and Greenwich Village on the topic of lgbtq space. We also pay attention to the emergence of different kinds of social movements in comparative urban contexts in Europe, Africa and elsewhere. Questions of citizenship, ethnicity, race and poverty will be discussed within an analysis of increasing inequality precipitated by the ongoing global transformation of work and the restructuring of contemporary cities. The course was taught by Dr. Ida Susser.

Urban Ethnography

Professor: Ida Susser
ITF: Fiona Lee
Campus: Hunter
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/susser11/

Professor Ida Susser’s class looked at three varied area and five neighborhoods in New York: Chinatown, the Greenpoint/Williamsburg area, and Harlem/Morningside Heights. Students completed entries on specific issues in each area, such as Columbia’s involvement in the community and street vendors in Chinatown. The class conducted interviews, went on walking tours, and provide video, maps, bibliographic resources, and demographic information.

New York's Four Asiatowns

Professor: Margaret Chin
ITF: Mike Porter
Campus: Hunter
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/chin11/

Margaret Chin’s class compared and contrasted the communities in New York’s four Asiatowns: Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; Flushing, Queens; Manhattan’s Chinatown; and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. They examined politics, issues of gentrification, and institutions in each neighborhood, including schools, libraries, community centers, medical facilities, and cultural centers. They include photos, interviews, and maps. ITF Mike Porter supported this seminar.

East Harlem

Professor: Deborah Gardner
ITF: Karen Gregory
Campus: Hunter
URL: http://www.wix.com/mhc15000/east-harlem

Working with ITF Karen Gregory, Deborah Gardner’s class decided made a site about East Harlem, focused on seven specific cultural institutes in the neighborhood: El Museo del Barrio, Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, Thomas Jefferson Park, El Paso Taqueria, the Aguilar Library, St. Cecilia Church, and the Graffiti Hall of Fame. The site includes videos of the area, interviews, maps, and photo galleries.

Jews and Mexicans - Here and There

Professor: Judith Friedlander
ITF: Jessica Hammerman
Campus: Hunter
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/friedlander11/

For Judith Friedlander’s seminar, students made a site that compared and contrasted the immigrant experience of two groups: Jews and Mexican. They not only examined the differences in culture, but also changes over time, focusing on the Jewish experience of 19th century New York, and Mexicans’ experiences in contemporary New York. The class worked with ITF Jessica Hammerman, and they have sections on demography, work, religion, gender, families, policy, housing, culture, and politics.

Immigrant Eyes

Professor: Philip Kasinitz
ITF: Jesse Goldstein
Campus: Hunter
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/kasinitz11

Overview
In Prof Philip Kasinitz’s class at Hunter, ITF Jesse Goldstein worked with the class to make a multi-neighborhood site that presented the work of groups who completed specific investigative tasks about the areas they studied: Chelsea, Chinatown, Williamsburg, the East Village, the Upper East Side, and Jackson Heights. Each group was tasked with examining and presenting the census data for the neighborhood, comparing statistics with their own observations of the area, finding out how residents think of their neighborhood, and creating a multimedia virtual walking tour. Students also completed individual final projects about immigrant experiences in the neighborhoods.

Exploring Greenwich Village: Researching what makes the Village a village

Professor: Bernadette McCauley
ITF: Anton Borst
Campus: Hunter
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/exploringgreenwichvillagespring2011/

Overview:
Working with ITF Anton Borst, Bernadette McCauley and her class at Hunter made an intensive study of Greenwich Village. The site includes an index of term papers that students completed, as well as entries on landmarks, the arts, community and social issues, and history of the area.

Thoughts on the project from ITF Anton Borst:

The approach to this website was simple, organic, and student-directed. Towards the end of the semester, students were tasked with creating a website that collectively presented the individual research papers they had by that point completed. Other than that directive, students were free to discuss and decide as a group how to organize the site, what kind of content would be included, and for what aspects of the site each student would be responsible. These discussions were moderated and guided by the ITF and took place in class.

The process, especially in the initial stages, was messy and complicated: there were moments of awkward silence and confused frustration as the class began to wrap its head around cooperatively creating—as a group of 20 people—something as elaborate, interactive, and multi-faceted as a website. But as students assumed editorial, design, and managerial leadership roles and the project became increasingly concrete, the process quickly gained momentum. The class took ownership, working intently in small groups: the editors checked on revisions, the project managers called for progress reports, the map designers consulted with the site designers. The class buzzed like a newsroom; I remember thinking to myself that even if the website turned out to be a total mess it would not matter, that the energy, the coordination, the leadership, and the creativity inspired by the process itself was an achievement of its own.

In fact, the resulting website, Exploring Greenwich Village, is not a mess at all, but a sleekly and simply designed site that effectively brings together a wide range of research topics relating to Greenwich Village. Professor McCauley’s focus on cultural, community, and architectural institutions past and present provided its thematic core. The site was created with an audience in mind: it presents the highlights of students’ papers and sources for further information, incorporates images as well as text, and is easily navigable in multiple ways: by general theme (categories), keyword (tags), an alphabetical list of student papers, and by a map. The latter, appearing in the middle of the introductory text for the site, displays icons over locations related to each student project and links to the relevant website page. The site’s navigation thus balances the more formal research components of the course with the more accessible experiential components, namely the walking tours Professor McCauley led through the Village, which inspired many of the individual paper topics. The map also emphasizes a governing theme of the course and of the site: the actual places—and the stories behind them—that have made Greenwich Village what it is, an idea clearly explained on the homepage.