- Man aimlessly scrolling social media.
- Men and women quickly exiting train stop, very concentrated to get to destination undisturbed.
- Pigeons fearlessly walking around people, in the endless search for food.
- Homeless person
- Child picking in the sand-like area, while mother and a friend discuss work drama
- Two tourist women stopped and interacted with a squirrel, which sits up on hind legs when someone drops their hand pretending to have food.
- While massive amounts of people enter the train, a hand full of people struggle to walk down the stairs to the train stop.
- Tourists stop abruptly, New Yorkers look annoyed.
Lewis Mumford captures the two most interesting elements of a city with the phrases “theater of social action” and “significant collective drama.” During the moment that I observed at Madison Square Park, the theater of social action was directed by the massive groups of people. Those that ran out of the train and walked to their destination incredibly focused and undisturbed by their surroundings exemplified a social action that is accepted as a norm. This is an element of our city; this is an action that we do as a society, socially. Another social action of the microcosm I observed was the massive amount of people that were uninterested of their surroundings. It has become a social norm to be engulfed by your phone or laptop in all social environments. People find comfort in disappearing into the virtual world of the internet. This is a social action because it is done by massive amounts of people and it is something that has become a social norm.
The significant collective drama was what made observing the Madison Square Park microcosm very interesting and uplifting. The collective drama can be seen when the theater of social action comes head to head with miscellaneous actions and a collective problem or interaction can be observed. For example, the tourist that stopped to engage with the squirrel created two outcomes. Those taking a shortcut through the park towards their destination were irritated by the audacity of this woman who has stopped in their path to look at something on the floor. And there were others, who noticed what the woman was interacting with, and they smiled and mentioned it to someone around them. In the same way, observing the mom and her friend was interesting because there is a social norm that everything is dirty and no one should touch anything. There is also a social norm about watching and protecting your children from the scary things that happen in a borough of 1.6 million people. In this collective drama, there wasn’t a massive outcome, but the observation posed two outlooks: is it better to protect your child from the germs and to focus on this instead to talking to a friend, or is it best to let your child play with dirt (that is found in nature) while you discuss what Joe said to Ann last Tuesday? The irony that inhabits this situation is a mini-collective drama that illustrates the theater of social action in a battle with miscellaneous actions.
In conclusion, Madison Square Park holds a mini representation of New York City as a “theater of social action” filled with “collective significant drama,” as each social norm is what makes up our city and each collective drama shares secrets of how we deal with the miscellaneous.
Ellen Stoyanov
Your writing is conversational and un-boring in the best senses of the words. I enjoyed reading your on-point descriptions of the day-to-day in NY. I do however think that a park is a place so comfortable to all, that we don’t have to consciously think about it when there; the beauty of a park is that all are free to do (or not do) as they wish, and if some wish to sit and soak in the social-media, thats fine by me.
Ellen,
I loved your initial observations for two main reasons: the descriptiveness and focus on detail and how you captured and perceived the park very differently then I experienced. Additionally, I love how you pointed out an unfortunate “social norm” of people not appreciating their surroundings and being took caught up with their technology. This is a sad reality that most people tend to do when at a park or in a city.
Great work,
Andrew Langer
I love how your Notes included “Tourists stop abruptly, New Yorkers look annoyed” because that is literally me at all tourists. I feel that is how you can tell who is an NYer and who is not. I too saw a small NYC inside Madison Square.