THE ARTS IN NEW YORK CITY Fall 2017 | Baruch College | Macaulay Honors

Madison Square Park is a park that attracts many different types of people every day. From the workers of nearby corporate buildings coming down to eat lunch during their break, the common dog walker, the stay at home mother who brings her children to the Mori Ann Smith Playground, and the Baruch student cutting through the park to get to their 9:05 AM Music History Class, Madison Square Park sees all of these people and much more. Described as a microcosm of The City, the park helps to bring in the same diversity of New York City by its calm and peaceful views.

During my daily morning commute to Baruch, I like to cut through Madison Square Park because it gives me a fresh start to my day. Seeing the City slow down within the fence of the park allows me to slow down as well. In a city that is always in a rush, Madison Square Park is the exact opposite. As stated by Lewis Mumford, Madison Square park becomes, “a theatre of social action” and a space of “significant collective drama.” All around me I can see musicians around the fountain, creating music that brightens the day of many visitors. Examples like these street musicians help to create the theatre image in Madison Square Park. The theatre like aspect of the Park continues when you see the audience began to grow. Many people stop to sit on the Cherry Lawn and bring their kids to enjoy a nice picnic on the Redbug Lawn as the music of the park fills their background conversations. The ability of Madison Square Park to be so versatile is what makes it a microcosm of New York City, because it allows for a multitude of “audience” reactions to the “theatre” music.

Madison Square Park continues its imitation of New York City as a whole by capturing the “significant collective drama.” From the mother yelling at her kids to stop feeding the hungry squirrels, to the homeless man yelling at the hungry squirrel trying to steal his food, Madison Square Park has a various range of drama being displayed every day. The people that pass through the park were all different, some had somewhere to be, some were just trying to capture the perfect photo of the Flatiron Building, all while others were just trying to enjoy the moment. This collective drama of Madison Square Park acts as the microcosm of New York City because these same interactions can be seen in the City on a larger scale.

Overall, we realize that Madison Square Park is the perfect smaller scale version of New York City as a whole because it captures the art, music, and social interactions within its borders. The ability of the park to capture a significant collective drama in the lives of passing New Yorkers is what makes this park a microcosm of the City.

– Abishek Johnson

I love walking to Madison Square Park during my breaks in between classes and listening to a podcast or reading book while eating my lunch. Sometimes though, the “theater of social action” distracts me from my solitary acts. It can be nearly as interesting to people watch or pretend to listen to music while listening intently to a conversation of people sitting on the bench next to me or start talking to a stranger. It’s interesting to think about how the city seems to be so interesting and diverse in people, thoughts and actions by nature, but when I think about it- the people of the city are operating under the guise that strangers are watching them, at least this is how I feel. I am always watching people and am interested in what music the person next to me on the train is listening to or what book they’re reading or what language they’re texting people in on their phone. This in turn makes me hyper aware of what I am doing and how I am presented to others. In sociology this phenomenon is called civil inattention, when someone is trying to communicate something to the people around them, but at the same time they are trying to appear as if they are not. If it is a fact that we all do this, why don’t we just let down our guards and speak to each other?

The day that I went to Madison Square Park for this project there was a lot going on. There were people spotted across the lawn on the north side of the park who all had large portable easels. They were scattered around, apart from each other for the most part but some people were sitting in pairs. Everyone was sketching the trees and the buildings jutting out from behind them. I asked one person what they were there for, he said that they were in a class together but didn’t further elaborate. I thought to myself, would these people have come here alone? Is it because they are part of a group that they feel more comfortable letting their guard down and spending a prolonged period of time at the park? Do they feel like they are a part of a “collective unity” as Lewis Mumoford says?

I couldn’t find a comfortable spot to sit on the lawn so I walked over to the benches and sat down. I overheard a woman speaking loudly to her friend about her identity as a bisexual woman and a recent relationship she had with another woman. I was going to start reading but I decided to listen to their conversation instead. It was really interesting to hear what she was saying because I felt like her ideas about sexuality were a lot different from mine, probably because she was a bit older than me. I pondered Mumford’s idea of the city as something more than just a collection of people, I thought about how similar I was to the people around me, but also so different in very stark ways. I thought about an interaction I had with an older lady a few weeks ago in the park. I was sitting and eating salad when the woman who had been sitting next to me got my attention and complimented me on my tupperware. Before I knew it, we were talking about where we grew up and what we wanted to do with our lives. It was strange to me how I might’ve thought I was more similar to the woman talking about her relationship to her friend at first because we were both white queer women who dressed similarly, but I ended up having more to talk about with the woman who complimented my tupperware. The city is more than just a million and a half people crammed onto an island, we are all performers and we are all audience members at the same time- we become art because we are being watched. We may all be working towards different things, but we all would have something to say to one another if given the chance.

While observing in Madison Square Park, one of the first things I noticed was a type of stage setup in the north end of the park. I’ve sat in the steps of the area a few times in the past, and it always made me imagine having a performance in the park. This was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the article by Mumford, about the city a theater of social action. While I have not seen any performances at the park, there are always people sitting and eating and talking all over the park, even on the steps and fountain. This is a social action, and the conversations that you overhear from the groups congregating can definitely be used as a dramatic piece. I overheard two people, a man in a suit, and a woman in a very nice dress, eating salads and talking about a project they were working on at their job. It didn’t seem very important, just casual “To meet the November deadline we should be meeting next week sometime…” that to anyone else would not seem very important, and yet they spoke with a sense of urgency that I thought would be a good conflict for a performance.

At the park, I saw people of all ages; kids in strollers with their mothers, teenagers, college students on breaks, and adults taking a step away from the office. I also saw a lot of dogs mainly because there are areas of the park where dogs can play. I found it interesting mainly because there was not really any observable mixture between these types of groups. Dog walkers were with their dogs, college students were with their friends, moms were walking with kids walking with other moms walking with their own kids. It made me think about the organization that Mumford talked about, and how the city fosters social and economic groups. While there are many different groups of people, we are able to coexist in one park, and not provoke conflict, even if there is not necessarily any overlap or diffusion.

One of the most existential thoughts that often cross my mind is the idea that every person in the park that I saw and walked passed, had an entire life and world around them that may be very different than my own. I have my own thoughts, and so do all of these people. Everyone there has loved ones and has feelings that I may never know or experience, and yet we are all in the same spot at the same moment, out of all the possible places, and we are sharing very similar experiences and yet could have very different experiences as well, but I will never know that. For this reason, I connect that to Mumford’s reading because there is so much like experience in one park, and even more so in the entire city. Each and every one of us are unique and can spark social change, and the conglomeration of all of us together are able to create the significant collective drama that I believe Mumford is speaking of.

• A man walking six dogs
• Three babysitters with 10 babies in one stroller
• A group of foreign exchange students from China waiting on line for Shake Shack
• A bench with three homeless men talking to each other and smoking
• A women feeding three squirrels letting it touch her hand
• A little boy sailing his toy boat with his remote at the small pond with his dad

I pass by Madison Square Park everyday when I come in and out of the R train. There’s always something going on in that park. Parks are known to revolve around social interactions, as Lewis Mumford states it’s a, “theater of social action.” Among all the people immersed on their phones and laptops, there was a prominent amount of social actions taking place at the park. There was a man, I’m guessing a professional dog walker because he had six dogs all ranging from different sizes on multiple leashes. I also spotted three babysitters with a stroller shaped like a fire-truck and it had ten babies in each seat. They were all trying to keep this one baby, who was crying remarkably loud. Another interaction was a group of students wearing sweatshirts saying they were Chinese students from a foreign exchange program, and they were all waiting in line eagerly to taste the infamous Shake Shack, which drives a lot of tourist traffic into the park. Everyday I see these same three homeless guys with garbage bags on the same exact bench conversing and smoking cigarettes. You can see people not trying to go near them while holding their noses, and keeping their distance. The interaction that I startled me was a women had a bag of crumbs, and she was feeding three squirrels. They were going up her shoulder and touching her hand. People around her were just staring at her, and was as shocked as I was at this woman’s bravery. My favorite social interaction has to be when I saw this little boy and his dad sail his boat on the pond that’s located at the park. He placed the boat on the water, and started steering it with his controller. Both the dad and son were smiling at the boat as it was taking its rounds around the pond.

Taking what Mumford stated about the park being a social theater and a place for collective drama, I agree with his statement. I always pass by the park every time I go to Baruch, but I never stopped to see what’s going on like most people do in the city. Everyone’s fast-paced and on the go, but in a span of ten minutes I got to see so many interactions and drama. The interaction between the father and son sailing a boat was truly beautiful, you can see how much the boy is invested on sailing the boat and how invested the father is with his son’s happiness. The drama between the lady feeding the squirrel while other people are staring at her in disgust or awe. People were pointing and having side conversations on how crazy this lady was feeding city squirrels. We usually have the perspective that the city shouldn’t be interacted with because it’s not clean, but this lady was going against that belief. I understand what Mumford says when he states it brings a, “collective unity.” The park brings people together and allows you to interact with one another, when they’re not invested in their phones or focused on going to one destination. Mumford allowed me to have a different perspective on a place that I visit almost every day. I will definitely stop and take in what’s around me next time I’m in the park.

As William Shakespeare astutely put it, “All the world’s a stage.”

Whether we like it or not, we are all characters in a production designed by something greater than us. Whether it is a higher power or simply the power of our collective  memory and consciousness and the environment, the world and society we are part of are something much greater than each of us individually. Our days are directed by our families, our friends, the people we pass on the street, and the streets themselves, among other things. Taking a second to step out of this play and observe others is one of the best ways to see the orchestration. Lewis Mumford maintained that a city is “a geographic plexus, an economic organization, an institutional process, a theater of social action, and an aesthetic symbol of collective unity.” New York City is quite possibly one of the largest “theaters” of social action, a stage for the incredibly diverse and mostly unpredictable denizens.

Madison Square Park is paradoxically both a bustling center of NYC life and a quiet corner of the universe. Its very layout seems to demand a performance of sorts. The area surrounding the fountain in focal center of most points in the park and is the stage for some kind of act nearly every day. This day, it was a woman making music with what looked like a mobile version of her home studio- a mixing console, huge speakers, and a saxophone. Her ambient music reverberated through the air and everybody in the immediate area seemed to move in perfect sync with it. I chose to sit on a bench a little further away from the center, however. Here, the most perplexing interaction I witnessed was between a homeless man and a police officer. The man was smoking a cigarette on a bench by one of the park’s chess tables. His demeanor did not change at all as he was approached by the officer, indicating that he was familiar with this situation. The police officer then proceeded to inform the man that smoking cigarettes within the park was illegal. The man put the cigarette out, flicked it away, and apologized. The officer responded with

“Now you littered!”

This scene seemed to be an interaction of two archetypes that society has instilled in us- an interaction that most likely never would have occurred between any other two people played out because of a perceived power relationship. Small scenes like this that we participate in every day are just smaller part of the play that is taking place across the span of our entire world. The entirety of our lives are nothing but our own side stories; we are all secondary characters in each other’s motion pictures.

Veronica Funk

Ariel Margolin

BA 8

However unconventional, I will begin by analyzing the second “note” which I took during my visit to the park. The photo to me perfectly ascribes Mumford’s idea of “differentiated paths” to a “common significant drama”. Here in the park we see a benched statue free to the public’s use and two very different people, are sitting upon it, not even recognizing each other’s existence. This is the heart of the matter for a city is a place for all of us to use shared things/places, but for each of us to forge our own paths.

The first “note” to my contention demonstrates the idea of the city being a “theatre of social action” to a tee. Here we see two separate groups sitting across from each other (and visibly the two groups were strangers to each other), but as we can tell from the photograph, both groups are inching towards conversing with each other. This is the “theatre of social change” in a nutshell, for the city allows the close proximity of people to bring socialization. It is in our gene code as people to communicate with each other when we are close to one another, and by this being always in the city, you have the opportunity to speak and learn something new from someone new at almost all times. Knowledge brings about change, and having people speak to one another changes the social striations like waves crashing upon the jetty.

What is a city? According to Lewis Mumford, a city is “a geographic plexus, an economic organization, an institutional process, a theater of social action, and an aesthetic symbol of collective unity.” While all those things may be true, I think a city has a much simpler definition than that. To me, a city is a place where people live. A place where they work. A place where they have fun. A place where they make memories.

A city is home.

When I walked through Madison Square Park last week, I saw this firsthand. I saw couples walking hand in hand. I saw a group of old ladies gossiping. I saw friends grabbing a bite at Shake Shack. I saw complete strangers sharing benches. I saw people living their lives.

It occurred to me, that in a place as large and as hectic as New York City, the little things still mattered. That simply walking through a park or sharing a meal matters. That even though, it’s so busy and something is always going on, New York City is a community.

We may all not know each other. We may not all share the same ideals or beliefs. We may not all have a common culture. But what we do have, the one thing that we all share, is that New York City is our home. It’s where we live, learn, experience, and grow.

New York City isn’t the big bad place that a lot of people imagine it to be. Sure, it’s not a little quaint town where your neighbor is your best friend. Or where the population is about two hundred. But it also isn’t a place just for the wealthy businessman or woman. It isn’t a place for strictly Type A personalities. It’s a place for everyone.

-Alyssa Motilal

Originally, Madison Square Park is one of my all time favorite parks in New York City and I spend many of my class breaks there. When I was told this assignment required me going there, it was like I was continuing a weekly routine. My favorite spot to sit in the park are these small green tables but the floor is sand which contrasts the New York City vibe right away. New York is known for cobble stone streets and pavement not sand. From this point in the park, you can see practically everything. To the left, by the Flat Iron Building, there are usually crowds of tourists taking pictures, each one seems to have a new idea as to how they can uniquely pose by the building. If you sit by the tables there, you are bound to have someone ask you to take a photo for you.

To the right of the park, there is the infamous shake shack which always attracts either tourists or people on their lunch break who are trying to grab a quick bite. Past Shake Shack, there are tons of benches. Usually, around 1-3 pm on a weekday, the park is swarmed with nanny’s going on a walk with their children or people trying to balance out walking six dogs at once.

All of these actions contribute to Lewis Mumford’s theory that New York City is a “theatre of social action” and a space of “significant collective drama.” Everywhere you turn, there are so many different things going on that it really does feel as if you are in a play watching one event followed by a swarm of other events. Yes, New York City is mostly known for the Empire State Building, Central Park, and Chrysler Building but what people tend to forget is the amount of diversity the city has to offer. I did not understand this diversity aspect myself- or rather have not paid much attention to it until I moved into the dorms myself.

New York is all about observation and if you sit at one of the tables or benches Madison Square Park has to offer, your perspective on the city will change. It will no longer be about the agglomeration of people and buildings. Rather you will have a much better understanding of Mumford’s conception of the city as something much more. That “much more” understanding is totally up to each individuals perception. To me, the diversity between people in such a simple place as a park really shows how New York City is home to millions of uniquely different individuals, all trying to find their place in the world.

Karina Karazhbey

• 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