Alessandra Rao
IDC4001H
Tuesday 11:10
MTBH
The Museum of the City of New York featured a 23 minute screening of a brief history of New York City. Three large screens in a dark room told the story of how the island of “Manhatta” was sold for only 24 coins, and handed over to the Dutch and European settlers who, blocks at a time, constructed the New York City we know today.
The documentary was in multimedia format, featuring historic photos, voiceovers and flash graphics to illustrate and map out the progressive construction of the city. What I found especially fascinating was how each area in Manhattan was named. You could hear the “aha’s” in the room as the narrator explained the meaning of each major road in lower Manhattan: “Canal” street was named for an actual canal that was built in the 1800’s to drain out the contamination in the Hudson river. Wall Street was named after an actual defensive wall that was erected by Dutch Settlers at the tip of Manhattan; at the end of the 18th century, it then began to take form as the center for the stock exchange. After watching the film, bits and pieces of assumptions I made about New York City had started to string together to make sense. I appreciated how the film incorporated the use of graphics to map out how New York City changed across time. It highlighted important iconic moments that truly made New York the unique city that it is today. For example, mayor LaGuardia had revolutionized the city space by creating a grid system past Wall Street, pointing out the famous avenues: fifth avenue was beautifully described as a necklace of high class boutiques and residences, revolving around the fashion industry. Madison Avenue had always been famous for its involvement in the advertising industry. Not to mention, the wealthy class had clustered around the upper east side, and the poor gathered around the lower east side, cramping inside tight tenement spaces.
A major theme in the film was interconnectivity; New York City is a nexus of connections, within itself and externally through the world. The film was successful at portraying the importance of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the most iconic landmarks of New York City. I appreciated the beautiful historic photos of the bridge at different stages of its building, at different points in time. It proved to be a giant symbol of progress and movement for the early settlers of New York City, proving that a body of water was no limit, even with the lack of technology available during the time. The film highlighted the subway as a revolutionary tool to get from point A to point B, “for just a nickel.” These were the early days of commuting, the days where it was groundbreaking to travel from the vast beaches of Coney Island, all the way up to the sylvan areas north of the city with just a single train ride.
To complement the “New York City experience,” the museum offered visitors a unique graffiti exhibit. One of the more stunning pieces was an image of a train car covered in graffiti, circa the 1970s, before they were remade with spray-paint-proof metal. It was layered with what seemed to be hundreds of tags; even the windows were drenched with spray paint. Around the exhibit, visitors can get an up close look at the actual graffiti, directly on the wall it was painted on. It was an interesting clash – an urban jungle style juxtaposed with a traditional museum setting, each piece treated as an artifact of mankind. The exhibit forces the viewer to look at the graffiti as an art form instead of disregarding it as trash, or as a transgression of the law. I have probably seen many of the featured tags around NYC, but I have probably subconsciously ignored it because of how widespread graffiti is. I was thrilled to see Keith Haring’s work in the show, although it was one of his lesser known works. He was truly one of the first pioneers in treating graffiti as an art form, as more of a way to communicate messages to society with the use of symbols and a distinct, thick, simplistic marker style of spray-painting. I came across a rather large “canvas” that included an artistic rendering of Donald Duck holding up a garbage can, and above him, the words “and if art is a crime, let God forgive all.” The words resonated in my head: it held the powerful meaning that artists should be free of punishment. This exhibit allowed me to really examine the exotic culture behind the graffiti that is too often taken for granted.
I enjoyed watching the film and walking through the graffiti exhibit because both allowed me to have those “aha” moments. In other words, they allowed me to view this big, dynamic city from a cultural and historical viewpoint, filling in some gaps and questions that were previously unanswered. Classrooms and education systems never present NYC in this way, mainly because it is too unconventional to teach students in this way. I am glad I got to see this up-close perspective.
