Hanna

While out walking through Kips Bay, we encountered a man on the sidewalk who apparently wasn’t all there. He was attempting to fix his coat. Allison walked to his right, slightly in front of me and avoided his swinging jacket easily. I suppose he wasn’t expecting me to come up on his other side as we passed him because I got whapped in the face by his coat. I didn’t think it was much of a big deal until Jallissa’s boyfriend, who was with us, started arguing with the man. After that I completely forgot about the incident until Noelia mentioned writing this piece to me.

All in all, Kips Bay seemed like a nice clean place- we only saw one homeless man, and Allison’s anecdotes about collegiate misbehavior feel somewhat farfetched, until you overhear the guy walking his dog in front of you talk about the study habits of his peers. I suppose there is something going on under the surface, but there usually is, and I’m usually unaware of it. The fact that we were outsiders to the area probably didn’t help much.

Noelia

Leaving the subway station, I wasn’t too sure what to expect on this group trip. As Allison lead us throughout the neighborhood, I noticed a few things: 1) diversity that surpasses that of Queens College and 2) a number of homeless and mentally ill people. What I didn’t notice, but which was later revealed to us, is that a number of illicit activities actually take place at the East River waterfront. During my interview with Ms. Chasity M., a librarian from the Epiphany Library, she reveled to me that there was a large criminal and homeless presence in the neighborhood because of a shelter located a few blocks over. Chasity then informed me that were even “public menaces” that the police knew by name, and that on more than one occasion, they have gotten their door literally kicked in. And then there was the man swinging his jacket around, which I first thought was an attempt to be funny, but later realized after he started provoking Tavien (Jalissa’s boyfriend) that he wasn’t entirely sane. I also noticed a number of homeless people outside a MacDonald’s, the train station and on street corners. One of which was obviously high and another who was shouting at himself. After all of this, I began to wonder if the block was as safe as it first had appeared to me. Then in Allison’s interview of Hunter student, Chris, he reveled that a lot of students go to the East River waterfront “to get fucked up” and that there “might even be corpses” drifting in the River. I, however, didn’t witness any of this. In our trips there, the waterfront was full of joggers, bicyclers, tanners, dog-walkers, etc. There were no teenagers under any sort of influences. While Chris openly spoke of activities down by the waterfront, Corey admitted that there “wasn’t much going on in the neighborhood.”

Although I was only a tourist to this area, it seems apparent that there are things that some don’t notice, even within our own group. Reading Hanna’s take on the neighborhood, I realized that she didn’t actually notice the numerous homeless people that I did. However, I recognize that I might’ve noticed the things I did because I went to the neighborhood with the intention of observing details. Had I not been sent there for a project, I’m not entirely sure that I would have taken notice of many things.

Given what Chasity told me about the criminal and homeless presence in the neighborhood, I wonder if the other residents take note of this too. We see that Corey obviously doesn’t see much, yet Chris does. So how much is actually seen by residents of a neighborhood? Are there things that they haven’t seen, yet know goes on? And why do some notice the “unofficial activities” while others don’t? Is it a result of class, race, education, or maybe it has to do with age? Given that we only interviewed a handful of people, it isn’t enough to then represent their answers to a whole neighborhood (is there even a magic number???). But if we got a chance to somehow make a “Part II” of this project, I would like to ask people why they think certain people see more than others, what kinds of people usually see more, and how being in New York City, and in this specific block, affects any of this visibility of the “underground.”

Kips Bay looks appears to be a very clean, diverse, hip, happy place….yet underneath the clean streets and the overly fit joggers, exist problems that aren’t easily seen at first glance.

Allison

If you look hard enough, every block in New York City has an “underworld.” In the lower part of Kips Bay, I find that there is not much of an “underworld”, so much as a wide open public space where a bunch of college kids go out and smoke some marijuana by the East River waterfront. Of course there are a couple of “crazy” people in the area, one of which we ran into on one of our trips. The man was flailing around and hit Hanna in the face with his jacket, but this man, as out of the ordinary as his actions were, is far from crazy in my eyes. Quite frankly, I’ve seen people do more insane things, and in higher concentrations, in other areas of New York City. The lower part of Kips Bay does not have many homeless people within it; in fact, the only homeless people I have seen in this area have been by the 23rd Street 6 Subway Station, and even there I was surprised to see a homeless person. Besides that, the most amount of “crime” I’d witnessed in this area resulted from some college kids smoking marijuana by the East River. The East River is also the only part of this area that I haven’t seen a considerable amount of policing. I attribute this to the fact that the 23rd to 25th Streets area by the East River is difficult to travel by car, as a result of the road being a one-way street. This means that, even if the police were to catch someone doing something wrong by the East River, they would not be able to easily turn around to arrest a fleeing criminal. Also, even though many college kids use this area to smoke marijuana, it is predominately a biker/runner trail so nothing more than the minor “crime” of marijuana possession and consumption probably goes on there anyway. Beyond that, I find that cops generally will not go out of their way to arrest or ticket someone, but rather will just act when they see something unlawful or something unlawful is reported. Overall the underworld in the lower Kips Bay area is extremely small from, what little I have witnessed.

Jalissa 

On route to the Flat Kip area, the group and I had a very strange experience. Noelia and myself, along with my boyfriend were walking around eight feet behind Hanna and Allison. While walking towards the street, a homeless man swung his jacket around furiously, hitting Hanna in the face. I couldn’t see much, but it looked like Hanna just walked away, and I don’t believe that the man said anything to her. When the rest of us finally caught up to Hanna and Allison, my boyfriend told the man that he should watch what he is doing because he hit our friend in the face. Apparently the man did not take very kindly to this, and immediately started cursing at my boyfriend. Thankfully, the streetlight changed and we all just walked away, but it was a very scary situation for me. It was clear that the man had some sort of mental illness. He was clearly disheveled and most people just don’t swing their jacket around in the middle of the street.

I would say that this incident painted a negative picture of the city for me, but it really was something that I wasn’t entirely not expecting. I have always seen the city as unpredictable, and often unforgiving as well. I put the incident in the back of my mind, at least until we began interviewing Chasity from the public library. She mentioned that there were homeless shelters near by and there is a community of people who are mentally ill or have other problems. Interestingly, Chasity also said that this area wasn’t the safest, which did surprise me at first. From the outside, Flat Kip looks generally safe, not like some of the other areas of the city. If I had to describe it, I would say it is a upper middle class neighborhood with a large student population.

From the outside, Flat Kip does not seem like an area where there would be a homeless shelter, or have issues of mental illness or predators in the neighborhood. But then again, what area in the city does? Behind all the beautiful architecture, and commercial stores, there is a group of people who have been marginalized and live on the fringes of the city, often holding out cups for spare change. The man that I encountered was not the only homeless man I saw that day by far. I remember seeing homeless men outside of a Starbucks, and two men together outside of the McDonalds near Happy Dogs. But the man we encountered was the only one who was disruptive and seemed to be genuinely aggressive. But perhaps his frustrations with us were somewhat justified. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live that kind of life, or even try to, but there must be constant struggles daily more than any of us can really comprehend. Reflecting on the incident, I’m sure that the man had some kind of frustrations with himself, the area, and his situation which ultimately spilled over onto us.