It’s a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, and it’s quite easy to spot joggers and visitors in Central Park, or other parks. Ice cream trucks lure children with their annoyingly familiar song blasting through the speakers, and one would easily be glad and appreciative of this vast, green, public space. But wait. What exactly does public …
The conclusion of Kevin Loughran’s article “Parks for Profit: The High Line, Growth Machines, and the Uneven Development of Urban Public Spaces” states that no one can truly characterize the High Line as one type of park; it is neither entirely public nor entirely private. I agree with these ideas entirely. The park’s relationship to …
Kevin Loughran introduces his article by arguing that “contemporary parks and public spaces are best analyzed on a continuum of privilege” (Loughran 49). He concludes it by saying “the High Line illustrates how issues of privilege, economic growth, and consumption are bound up in the neoliberalization of public spaces” (Loughran 64). While it is important …
One really cool resource I found while researching this topic was an online tour of how Michael Bloomberg “reshaped” New York City while he was mayor. The tour consisted of a series of three-dimensional maps and “before” and “after” photos. For visual learners (like me), this kind of format and resource is perfect. 🙂 I …
From the three pieces I read on the Bloomberg plan, they were looking to get rid of the Moses v. Jacobs issue and instead find the sweet spot of both. Amanda Burden stood out to me as an integral person to achieving the perfect combination of a master builder and community activist. However, despite the …
In this post, the success of the Bloomberg administration will be measured in terms of how people of color and the working class have (not) benefited from his policies and projects. It will use some of the points discussed in New York Times article, “12 Years of Mayor Bloomberg” to assess this. One of the …
The 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea concluded a little over a month ago, and to be honest, I was pretty sad it was ending. During previous years, I was never into watching the games, but I was surprisingly more invested in them this year. During the eighteen days of competition, I had done …
I didn’t even know Mayor Bloomberg’s first name. To me, it was simply Mayor, that was his title, but more importantly, that’s what I saw him as. I also said it with pride. A lot of politicians say they will enact change, but like doubting Thomas, if I don’t see it, I don’t believe it …
For all its history, today, Times Square is disregarded as a site only visited by tourists as Vesey writes, “somehow, over time, being a “real” New Yorker” cam to mean ignoring Times Square.” (Vesey 2016) Vesey, in her article entitled Urban Legend: Why Times Square (Still) Matters argues for the importance of Times Square despite …
The Times Square of 1992, looked very different from the Times Square of 1995, in the sense that in 1995, there was a lot of construction being done to benefit the developers of these new buildings, but this was done under the guise of benefiting the community. Of course, in order to build these new …
