I really liked the link you posted along with your blog post. To be honest, I never thought about sleeping in public placing being different for different classes of people until the reading this week, and your blog post really hit on that. When I see upper class people sleeping in public, it never really bothered me. I just thought think to myself “Wow, they must feel really safe… They aren’t afraid of being robbed?” So the rules against sleeping in public places didn’t fully make sense to me. But from this article, I realized how ignorant my way of thinking was.

Homeless people who don’t have places to sleep, have to sleep in public places. However, upper class people think of the sleeping homeless as being “scary”. Perhaps it’s a combination of fearing that the homeless are violent and the realization that people live that way making people uncomfortable. People associate homelessness and poverty with nothing but crime, and that has led to laws and architecture meant to deter “bums”. It’s stereotyping and extraordinarily unhelpful in solving the issues of poverty and homelessness.

Last year I was in a dance video that was being filmed in Washington Square Park. It was late at night and there was a homeless man that kept jumping into the shot and trying to talk to my friend’s niece. My friend got scared and started to yell and chase after the homeless man and threaten him. That night, a man came over with boxes of pizza and he told us that he came every night to feed the homeless in the park, and that the one near us was a regular and wasn’t going to hurt anyone. He then proceeded to offer us pizza as well. This just goes to show how quick people are to make assumptions.

When people in power make these same accusations, we end up with institutions that are aimed towards attracting only the wealthy and businesses. The High Line is a great example of this, and it does its “job” well. It’s strictly regulated and often feels more like a museum than a park. One time, I believe last year, my parents took me to the High Line since we were in the area. And I actually remember being very bored! It was hot that day, and I felt like I had nothing to do besides slowly follow my parents while they took ten thousand pictures. It’s meant for the artsy, leisurely type.

The one place I somewhat disagree with you is when you ask if a fresh coat of paint even makes a difference. In my opinion, it does. Just repainting and replacing old playground areas with new ones can make the park look cleaner and more welcoming and safer. Parents would be more likely to want to bring their children there. It cleans up the park and turns it into a welcoming community space without changing it into a wealthy tourist magnet or alienating too many of its original visitors. I believe that too drastic of a renovation could change the use and make up of the parks and defeat the purpose of the renovation as a way of supporting an underprivileged community.

 

~ Samantha

In the reading this week, chapter 3 discussed various plans during the Bloomberg administration that ended up falling through. Attempts to hold the Olympic games in New York City and building up the West Side and transportation extensions including a new LIRR terminal all withered and died. The problem is, it’s very hard to get things done in New York nowadays.

Almost all plans for “improvement” invite gentrification, and therefore anger poorer areas. But if improvements were made to wealthy areas, people would disagree with that as well, complaining that poorer areas deserved attention as well. There are issues with costs, since people are always looking for someone else to pay. Additionally, different organizations with conflicting interests have different visions of what they’d like accomplished, and there are always people who’d prefer for nothing to be done at all.

It’s easy to talk about Robert Moses and claim that his methods were cruel. However, his plans were far more likely to be enacted and paid for and accomplished on-time than plans today. Nowadays, too many people and organizations claiming Jane Jacob’s vision aim to prevent government plans, and it’s also harder to find funding for large projects.

I did notice however, that since the chapter from the reading was written, the 7 Line extension has actually been built and is operational. With some issues, including leaks. However, as a separate article points out, it had been delayed many times and ended up around 500 million dollars over budget, and had to scrap a second station that was originally planned as part of the extension. The article mentions that funding became an issue, but the MTA was unwilling to ask for government money from the New Starts funding. If they had done so, there might have been a way to build the second station. Overall, the city seems to be unable to plan as thoroughly as it should. I don’t know if it is out of fear of being seen as tyrannical and uncooperative as Moses, or simply laziness. But this lack of foresight adds to the growing distrust of city planning!

New Yorkers are always skeptical of big plans. They don’t trust the government to act in their best interest, and they don’t expect plans to actually come to fruition. This leads to even less support for different initiatives. For example, as mentioned in a New York Times article, our current mayor recently proposed a streetcar line between Brooklyn and Queens. He argues that the added transportation line would help people in lower-income communities and projects. However, at the same time, it is suggested that the project will pay for itself with increasing property values. To me, this screams asking for gentrification. If property values go up enough that cost won’t be an issue, how will poorer people still be able to live within useful distance of the new line? I see a lot of oversight.

Zoning was discussed in the second half of the reading as a way to facilitate certain kinds of growth without the government getting directly involved. However, zoning itself rather confuses me. I understand the basic original purpose to prevent overgrowth of certain areas and protecting homes or businesses. But the way in which it is used to subtly suggest building plans ends up not making a lot of sense. Builders tend to just find the cheapest way to be allowed to build extra floors. The city ends up with a lot of similarly planned out buildings. The zoning changes again. And the cycle starts all over. There are so many exceptions and different zoning rules that there doesn’t seen to be any kind of pattern at all anymore, and it just ends up influencing property pricing.

There are more than a few people that would like to see big building and transportation projects being again. However, they need to be planned out properly from beginning to end. The person doing the planning needs to make sure the project can actually be afforded, that it can actually get built within a certain time frame, and that it’s actually useful or feasible in an area. Otherwise, nothing substantial will ever get fully completed and the city will appear to have stagnated. Planners might think that people are only being disagreeable or distrustful, but judging by the number of planning oversights that have occurred recently and have been mentioned in the reading, it makes sense that New Yorkers no longer have real expectations for successful projects.

 

Sources:

 

7 Line Extension:

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150918/TRANSPORTATION/150919860/no-7-subway-extension-is-500-million-and-one-stop-short

 

New York Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/nyregion/a-waterfront-route-to-serve-the-poor-not-just-the-wealthy.html?_r=0

 

“ Samantha

I believe that most of us are aware of Time’s Square’s past reputation for being seedy and dangerous, but the reading this week went farther in-depth, and really explained the gradual changes that have taken place and the changing role of the square as the city developed. It changed from a residential area into theaters and other businesses became crime and pornography ridden, and then was slowly and forcibly “renewed”. To be honest, I did not expect there to be much controversy regarding this. But in the second reading, the author argued that interaction between people became limited and that not all of the so-called “shady” industries in Time’s Square had been bad.

I pass by Times Square at least twice a week nowadays. I have late-night dance rehearsals on 38^th street. I suppose in some ways, I could be considered a member of the modern Times Square demographic. I even know a girl who plays the violin sometimes on the streets to get some spending money. Walking around this past Wednesday night, I thought about what it must have been like in the past, according to the reading. I probably would have gotten some serious looks for saying I had to go to Time’s Square because I danced.

However, as much as we would like to see Times Square as a prime example of urban renewal, it’s still not the safest place in my opinion, despite the police presence (and honestly, I don’t even see the police that often). My mother always tells me how she used to be scared to walk though the area, especially at night, and you can see how she still doesn’t quite trust it by the way she clutches her bag extra tightly and constantly looks around her. It’s definitely a contrast to me, plowing through tourists with single-minded determination while rolling my eyes when they insist on walking far too slowly for my liking. I’m definitely more comfortable than she is. But I don’t particularly trust anyone either.

In that way, I disagree with the second reading. I feel that New Yorkers in general tend to avoid interaction with strangers as much as possible. I don’t think that the changes that occurred in Times Square created that. There might be a lot of tourists, but that doesn’t mean I never run into anyone I know. And I would never talk to a stranger regardless of where I am. That kind of interaction is just unsafe, especially considering I’m a rather small person practically begging to be robbed or harassed. There is no way I would ever talk to someone to give him or her advice about what to do with a body.

There are always those costumed people asking for money and other street performers whose intentions I question. Also, the many topless women wandering around always made me rather uncomfortable. I understand that it’s legal to be topless, but in my opinion, there are some things that I don’t want to see, or that parents don’t want their children to see, especially considering the large number of tourist families that pass through. The battle of what is OK and not OK in Times Square is still ongoing. Way back when, the city had trouble removing the sex industry from the square because it was against people’s rights (Stern 1999). So they decided to condemn buildings known for it instead for economic blight. Nowadays, the same issue is happening with the street performers. An article from CNN explains how they are legally allowed to be there. However, many see them as causing trouble or ruining Times Square’s family-friendly atmosphere. Occasionally, costumes characters are arrested, and not being able to see any of their faces adds a level of suspicion on top of it (Louis 2015). The Revlon “Kiss Cam” must now be shut off because the distraction encourages crime. And even half a block from where I have dance rehearsal, there is a rather shady looking place advertising young attractive belly dancers inside.

In my opinion, Times Square hasn’t been “fixed” really. Tourism has increased, and as traffic increases, the area further becomes a target. Not only is it a terrorist target, but one for thieves and people aggressively selling things on the street. Times Square has always had this central location, and no matter how many times the ownership of the buildings change, it will always attract people, both good and bad. Crime rates may have gone down, but it will always be an area of concern. The “cleaner” the square gets, the more attractive it is for foreign tourists. The more tourists, the more attractive the area is for thieves and con people. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that will probably never be able to be stopped. Yes, the crime level is certainly not as bad as 30-40 years ago. But even with increased policing and rebuilding in the area, it still hasn’t reached the level of safety and comfort some would have liked.

 

Bibliography (Sources)

Louis, Errol. Should topless women be banned in Times Square? August 24, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/23/opinions/louis-times-square-naked-women/ (accessed March 2016).

Stern, William J. The Unexpected Lessons of Times Square’s Comeback. 1999. http://www.city-journal.org/html/unexpected-lessons-times-square%E2%80%99s-comeback-12235.html (accessed March 2016).

 

~~~ Samantha

Great post Rebecca! I found your analysis of Robert Moses’ actions very interesting. I think it provided a nice look at a possible reason behind why he has often come to be seen as a racist. I liked how you managed to not necessarily support, but not necessarily condemn his actions either. I feel that every person has multiple sides to them and reasons for their actions, and so I found that your post really spoke to me.

I agree that the New Deal tended to lean more towards supporting whites only. However I think that many politicians in general, especially those that were older, probably saw no need to support equality. Segregation was still part of the status quo, and it probably got pushed to the back burner as an issue while the government was dealing with the economic turmoil of the time. I think that not only FDR, but many others most likely just decided to leave racism for another day. Especially considering that FDR was known to fight to get his way (think about his attempt to modify the supreme court).

When you mentioned that Moses made a “conscious decision not to rock the boat”, I slightly disagreed. I feel that Moses was barely thinking about race at all as even a real issue. I think that his version of “the public” was automatically, to him, white. I don’t think it was him deciding to be lazy necessarily, but instead I believe that he just disregarded the issue entirely. Some of his pools were built in minority neighborhoods. But as you mentioned, he tended to build them around parks and schools. And there were probably fewer large parks and school areas in minority neighborhoods. To Moses, all he probably cared about was convenience and speedy building/lack of necessary location clearing.

I don’t mean to say that Moses wasn’t personally racist, but that he may not have consciously decided to be racist in all of his building decisions. It was more acceptable at the time to give minorities a disadvantage or to forget about them. White lifeguards were probably hired because white people were offered more jobs to begin with, and to be honest, I hate cold water myself, so I’m not sure if that had any real effect on the race of pool clientele. Moses to me seems like the type to go the extra mile if he cared strongly about something. I feel that he didn’t see much to gain for himself from particularly helping minorities. They probably often had less money to help fund his projects and therefore he saw no use in seeking to cater particularly to them. Moses was more interested in his own reputation as a builder than in social issues, and therefore went along with the status quo he was used to.