Neighborhoods of New York

Professor Joseph Berger’s 2019 Seminar Two presents: NEIGHBORHOODS OF NEW YORK

This website showcases our profiles of New York City’s neighborhoods. Here you’ll find our interviews with the inhabitants of Greenwich Village, an interactive history of Kew Gardens, the menus and mob bosses of Little Italy, and Chinatown from A to Z, with its sights and tastes, its history and immigration stories. This site is its own little city: we encourage you to stroll through it at your leisure.

Neighborhoods of New York is the result of research project undertaken by first year Macaulay Honors students at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) under the supervision of Professor Joseph Berger and Madison Priest. Everything here was researched, written and edited entirely by students, as part of their coursework for the People of New York City seminar, or Seminar II, an interdisciplinary class on the past and present of the city’s neighborhoods, with a focus on migration and immigration. Learn more about Macaulay at Hunter College and People of New York City here.

Teaching Staff / Site Editors

Professor Joseph Berger was a New York Times reporter, columnist, and editor for over 30 years, writing about education, religion, and the colorful kaleidoscope that is New York City. For the previous 14 years he had been a reporter for the New York Post and Newsday. He contributes periodic articles for The Times and teaches two urban affairs courses at the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College. He is the author of four books, and is currently writing a biography of Elie Wiesel that will be published by Yale University Press in 2020.

Madison Priest is an Instructional Technology Fellow at Hunter’s Macaulay Honors College. She will receive her PhD in English from the Graduate Center in May, and is currently working on a book about despicable women in early twentieth-century American women’s writing. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.

Student Contributors

Adrienne Sheitman is a freshman in the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter College. She is majoring in Psychology. She is originally from North Carolina and now attends school in New York City. She is especially passionate about her love for animals!

Alexandra Schreiber is a student at Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College. She is a freshman, studying psychology and a possible minor in Hebrew language. Alexandra is from New Rochelle, and loves going on adventures around Manhattan, cooking, shopping and being outside. She spent a year learning in Israel on a gap year, and is fluent in Hebrew.

Allegra Acevedo is a freshman in the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter. She grew up in Yonkers, NY and attended high school at The Ursuline School in New Rochelle. She is hoping to attend law school after college and enjoys spending time with family and her dog, Francesca.

Arvind Dev is a Macaulay at Hunter freshman. He is majoring in bioinformatics and minoring in journalism. Before taking up residence in Staten Island, he lived in California for eight years. Some of his hobbies include writing, Bhangra dancing, and crying over his favorite TV shows.

Audrey Sargente is a first year student in the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter College. She is on the Pre-Law track and is double majoring in Human Biology and Political Science with a Minor in Public Policy. Originally, she comes from Staten Island, New York, where she was born into a German, Italian, and Irish family.

Daniella Rodriguez is a first year student in the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter College. She is majoring in Human Biology and hopes to work with special needs and disabled children. Born and raised in Brooklyn to Haitian and Dominican parents, Daniella enjoys to eat. She is also a fan of musical theater and enjoys acting in the Macaulay Theater Club.

Danielle Duchan is a freshman at Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College pursuing a nursing degree. She is originally from Brooklyn, where she can be found on weekends obsessing over her chocolate lab, Yogi. During the week, she can be found freaking out over orgo, watching awful 90s television, running along the FDR Drive, and going on long walks in search of ice cream.

Ephraim Picker is a freshman at Macaulay Honors at Hunter College. He is in a family of 7 with two cats. He is a Studio Arts major.

Erica Rodriguez is a first year Macaulay Honors College student at Hunter College.  She plans on becoming a nursing major starting in the fall semester of 2019. She was born in Florida to a Dominicanmother and a Puerto Rican father, and now lives in Yonkers, New York. When she is not busy with school work, she enjoys reading and spending time with her friends and family.

Jack Cruse is a student attending Macaulay Honors College at Hunter. He is pursuing degrees in computer science and chinese. While he doesn’t have a set career path at the moment, he hopes to acquire a variety of skills that are enjoyable and applicable to the real world.

Jeremy Barrios is a freshman at Macaulay Hunter. Originally from Long Island, he was birthed during a cold winter storm. This would result in the nickname Storm Born, coincidentally the same name given to  Daenerys from Game of Thrones. Like Daenerys, Jeremy was gifted three eggs at a young age, except instead of containing dragons, they contained three marshmallow peeps, and it was not a wedding gift, but instead Easter.

Kathleen Ray is a freshman student at Hunter College and is hoping to major in Social Work or Psychology.  She was born in Manhattan but grew up on the east end of Long Island. She is passionate about human rights and animal rights, and volunteers with a mobile Fair Trade organization on Long Island.

Maggie Brennan is an aspiring Psychology Major and Music Minor at Hunter’s Macaulay Honors College.  She grew up in Staten Island and still resides there when she’s not dorming in the city.

Marcus Ng is a freshmen at Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College majoring in computer science. He was born in New York City and has a shiba inu. He enjoys creating mobile apps in his free time.

Maya Mekawy is on the pre-health track. She is a student at Macaulay Honors College. She currently lives in Queens and her major is sociology. In her free time, Maya likes to visit new coffee shops.

Olenka Ballena is a first year student in the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter College. She’s on a Pre-Law track with an undecided major, with an inclination towards public policy. Growing up in Woodhaven, Queens, she likes to explore new and exciting parts of New York City in her free time.

Shakil Rafi is a first year computer science major at the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College. He likes learning systems level programming as well as random pieces of useless math. For employability reasons, he also practices web and mobile development.

Shaul Picker is a freshman at Macaulay Honors at Hunter College and an expert on transportation, and specifically on transit in New York. He is an Urban Studies major and hopes to become a transportation planner. He was featured in The New York Times and on NY1 for his editing and creation of Wikipedia articles about transportation.

Tahseen Chowdhury is a first-year student at the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College. He is a Political Science Major and an Economics Minor. He’s a lifelong Queens resident and a community advocate specializing in education.

Xing Tao Shi is a computer science major at Hunter College. He grew up in Chinatown, Manhattan but a couple years ago moved to Rego Park, Queens. Some things that he does in his free time include watching TV series (recently Game of Thrones) and playing video games.