Seminar 2 Encyclopedia

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.

Dr Cho's The Peopling of New York

Professor: Grace Cho
ITF: Kamili Posey
Campus: Staten Island
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/mitchell2012/

This website is a catalogue of Professor Cho’s Seminar 2 students’ food and culture expedition in four New York City neighborhoods: Jackson Heights, Queens; Tompkinsville, Staten Island; Brighton Beach, Brooklyn; and Lower East Side, Manhattan. The students conducted ethnographic research on each neighborhood with an eye towards its respective history, demographic makeup, immigrant traditions, and food cultures. They did this while also balancing—and in some cases, incorporating—their own firsthand experiences as observers and/or participants.

Dr. Scott's The Peopling of New York

Professor: Ellen Scott
ITF: Soniya Munshi
Campus: Queens
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/peoplingnycwebsiteproject/

Dr. Ellen Scott’s course at Queens Colleges used media (films, radio shows, and television shows) to elucidate various (im)migrant experiences in New York City and to grant volume to voices from the margins. The theme of this course centered on how different ethnic and racial groups have formed and fashioned their identities around this unique metropolis. The class created a website that contains a series of selected or created media fragments: a frame, single-shot scene, image or sound that represents an important aspect or characteristic of ethnic New York. Accompanying these pieces of media are short, creative reflection about why this fragment was chosen and why it is significant to New York’s ethnic imaginary.

Immigrants "R" Us

Professor: Phil Napoli
ITF: Jenny Kijowski
Campus: Brooklyn
URL: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/seminars/napoli10

Our projects for this semester are based on immigrant experiences in New York and our own identities as descendants of immigrants. The immigration process is addressed at JFK airport and compared to immigrant experiences in Ellis Island. Then, the local communities of Flatbush and Williamsburg are explored. Finally an overview of Arab Americans in NYC covers their adjustment to life in the region. With insightful interviews, nostalgic pictures, and helpful statistics, a broader picture of immigrant life is established.

Religious Peoples of Flushing, New York

Professor: Omri Elisha
ITF: Tsai-Shiou Hsieh
Campus: Queens
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/qcpony11/

Professor Omri Elisha’s class completed an in-depth study of the various religious communities that can be found in Flushing. Groups worked on investigating Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh communities, noting houses of worship, histories of the faiths, and the people who are part of each center in Flushing.

The Food Communities of New York

Professor: Cindy Lobel
ITF: Sam Han
Campus: Lehman
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/lobel11neighborhoods/

Cindy Lobel’s class at Lehman made a food-focused site with the help of ITF Sam Han. Using the idea that food is central to community identity, the class gives a history and demographic overview of several neighborhoods before delving into the culinary offerings of each area. They covered the neighborhoods of Belmont, Bushwick, Woodside, Harlem, and Jackson Heights.

Thoughts on the project from ITF Sam Han:

The central focus of this class was the peoples and peopling of New York City through the lens of food.  At the heart of it was the idea of community – from the nuclear family to the entire city – and the role food plays in building, sustaining, symbolizing, and governing communities in New York. We do so by studying five neighborhoods across NYC–Belmont, Bushwick, Jackson Heights, Woodside, and Harlem. Through a variety of sources, including films, culinary journalism and historical and sociological scholarship, and numerous walking/tasting tours, led by Professor Cindy Lobel, a former tour guide herself, the class sought to gauge the diverse and rich culinary histories of the waves of peoples in New York City. 

Divided into five groups, the students explored the demographic and culinary shifts of the five neighborhoods across New York City. This was achieved by not only researching the institutional histories of these neighborhoods but also doing a “Food Stops,” which consisted of visits to local businesses that exist today. For this particular website project, the students made use of a variety of technologies, most frequently the Vado cameras provided by Macaulay, used to document their experiences in group-based explorations of certain neighborhoods in NYC, as well as mapping software such as Social Explorer and Google Maps, to visually represent the routes they took to explore their neighborhoods. 

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.

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.

The Peopling of East Harlem

Professor: Peter Vellon
ITF: Maggie Dickinson
Campus: Queens
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/vellon/

Professor Vellon’s class at Queens College worked with ITF Maggie Dickinson to complete a site focused on the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. They created a photo gallery on the front page, detailed demographic trends, made maps, videos, and timelines to show important institutions and events, and kept a class blog.

Thoughts on the project from ITF Maggie Dickinson

The central theme of this class was the economic, political and demographic transitions that have taken place in East Harlem over the past hundred years. Students were introduced to the history of East Harlem through historical, biographical and sociological texts. But the subject matter really came alive when they got to explore the neighborhood through walking tours of the area. One of the things we emphasized was documenting what they saw as they walked around the neighborhood through photography and video, most of which was shot on Vado cameras provided by Macualay.

What started out as an unorganized mass of photographs and video clips became, over the course of the semester, the basis for maps locating important institutions in the neighborhood, short videos and images that introduce the viewer to the neighborhood’s everyday sights and sounds, and evidence of the changing economic, cultural and political landscapes in the area. Students were generous with one another, sharing their images by uploading them to the website library and allowing all the students in the class to draw on these images to build their particular sections.

This student-generated content was paired up with other kinds of research data that students felt lent itself to the visual medium of a website, including demographic maps made with Social Explorer and documentary and archival photos used for building interactive timelines using Dipity. The site came together by balancing the autonomy of the working groups, who were each responsible for producing the content of one section based on the work they were doing for their research papers, and coming together as a group to create an aesthetic framework that lent cohesion to the website as a whole. The front page, with its gallery of images used throughout the website, showcases the people, politics, culture and institutions that make up the East Harlem community.

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.

The Peopling of New York: There's An App For That!

Professor: Catherine Lavender
ITF: Scott Henkle
Campus: Staten Island
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/lavenderspring2011finalproject/

Overview:
At CSI, Prof Catherine Lavender’s class divided into groups to study different ethnic communities in NYC. Working with ITF Scott Henkle, each group completed a site, and they were all collected on a main class site. Groups studied Egyptian, Polish, Ukrainian, Caribbean, Korean, Sri Lankan, Dominican, and Mexican communities. Groups took different approaches to their material, but most focused on the experiences of immigrant groups in Staten Island and included maps, interviews, and visits to restaurants.

The Peopling of New York: Astoria, Flushing, Coney Island, and Washington Heights

Professor: Joseph Berger
ITF: Chris Caruso
Campus: City College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/berger2011/

Overview:
Working with ITF Chris Caruso, Prof Berger’s class at City completed a detailed site with information about four major neighborhoods in NYC: Astoria, Flushing, Coney Island, and Washington Heights. The groups provide comprehensive information about each neighborhood, including histories, demographics, landmarks, entertainment, and food options. The class also included reflections on personal experiences doing the project.

West Harlem

Professor: Grazyna Drabik
ITF: Dana Milstein
Campus: City College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/drabik11/

Overview:
Prof Grazyna Drabik of City College and ITF Dana Milstein created a site that explores the neighborhood of West Harlem. The site takes a detailed look at a small area, covering numerous aspects of the neighborhood, from history to geography to cultural institutions.

Peopling of New York City: East Broadway, Chinatown

Professor: Ken Guest
ITF: Lynn Horridge
Campus: Baruch
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/guestspring11/

Overview:
Working with ITF Lynn Horridge, Professor Ken Guest’s class at Baruch made a site about Chinatown, focused on the East Broadway area of Manhattan. The class took a geographical approach, studying the landmarks and services offered in the area. They drew on walking tours and interviews to complete their sites.

Celebrating Immigration: The Dynamics of Holidays and Festivals in NYC

Professor: David Rosenberg
ITF: Jill Belli
Campus: Baruch
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/rosenbergspring2011/

Overview:
Prof David Rosenberg of Baruch and ITF Jill Belli completed a site that is organized around holidays and festivities as they are traditionally celebrated, and how they have been adapted by different immigrant groups in New York City. The site covers the backgrounds, legal implications, and changes to holidays over time.

One City, Many Nations

Professor: Els de Graauw
ITF: Emily Sherwood
Campus: Baruch
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/degraauw11/

Overview:
Professor Els de Graauw of Baruch and ITF Emily Sherwood produced a site with the theme One City, Many Nations. Their site contains information about Dominicans, Chinese, Mexicans, Haitians, Russians, and uses maps, interviews, statistical analysis as well as personal reflections from students about their work and their own family histories. Emily also made use of custom CSS capabilities to tailor the capabilities of the site’s theme.