As a resident of Bay Ridge, exploring my hometown as an ethnographer was a bittersweet experience. Bay Ridge is the town I grew up in, and disregarding my sentiment in order to talk about it in a researcher’s point of view was both an eye-opening and exhausting experience. Despite living in Bay Ridge for nineteen years, I never attended school inside Bay Ridge, and for that reason, the only experience I previously had with exploring my hometown was my daily trip from the door of my house to the subway station. When I found out that we would be choosing to research a community for our project, I was very excited to learn more about “the Ridge.” This project was not just me writing down my observations about a random city; this was a journey for me to discover why Bay Ridge was the community my parents decided to raise me in.
Ethnography is a science that allows us to describe and understand people and their culture. At first, I did not understand the reason in doing so as this was unfamiliar to me. However, I soon discovered that taking the time to write down everything that is seen, heard, tasted, smelled, and experienced gives the writer the power to read into the smallest of actions and formulate ideas based on that. On my first trip to my site, I was a bit anxious as I did not know if standing in the corner of 86th street and 5th avenue would provide me with enough information to formulate any descriptions or ideas about Bay Ridge. Surprisingly, I was overwhelmed by the simplicity of the details that I did not previously notice. When I rush back home daily after school or I occasionally take a trip to T.J Maxx for the newest deals, there is never a moment of observation. My goal in walking home or buying clothes does not allow me to participate in the extent of the Bay Ridge experience. This project gave me the chance to notice the usually overlooked and to use this information to make theories and theses about the population around me.
When actually writing my raw field notes, there was so much for me to write. From the food smells to the bird chirps to the stained windows, I felt as if I became aware of everything. In fact, in my first observation trip, it was very arduous for me to divert all of my concentration to one sense at a time. What was even more difficult was taking these scribbles of raw data and transforming them into legible and meaningful ideas. However, what I quickly realized was that there is much more to Bay Ridge than its extensive history as clearly evident by the pictures provided and its plethora of businesses (Old Bayridge Pictures). While Bay Ridge certainly lacks in its African American population, there is no denying that it is not overwhelmingly populated by one race. From Greek to Arabic to Chinese to Thai to Italian to Spanish, these are only a few of the countless ethnicities Bay Ridge proudly displays on the names of its restaurants and businesses.
At first, it seems as if this is problematic to the idea of Bay Ridge being a small town in a large city that many residents refer to it as (Kripke 1). However, it is not; Bay Ridge is a multicultural town, and it is a place where outsiders come to learn about numerous cultures at the same time, especially through the food. When we interviewed Rachel and Candy at the pier, they both repeatedly stated how they appreciated Bay Ridge for its diversity and welcomeness. Their opinions of Bay Ridge being a melting pot of cultures was unnoticed by me until after this project.
At first our group wanted to divide Bay Ridge into three distinct sections: commercial, residential and food. However, I quickly realized that Bay Ridge is much more harmonious in the way that it is gridded. Although there are places with less restaurants than others, we did not want to display Bay Ridge as a town with separations. Rather, we wanted to represent Bay Ridge as it truly is: small community that encourages different cultures to interact with each other. However, despite the merge of different cultures, there are areas where the concentration of expensive residences is higher than other areas. As you approach the Verrazano Bridge, the prices of the residencies increase. Even when I was not on a site purposely observing everything around me, I did notice that there was a spectrum of ethnicities in Bay Ridge. As the prices of the houses increase, the numbers of minorities decrease. Although this is merely an observation, it is quite interesting that Bay Ridge is both a cultural melting pot and a representation of the economic differences between races.
This project has allowed me to explore my hometown in a way I never expected to. From learning about its extensive history to its current sizable amount of diversity, Bay Ridge may be slightly boring in its ordinariness, but it is still a charming and welcoming community.
