Author: Tasneem Ahmed

Tasneem’s Reflection

Tasneem Ahmed 0 Comment Uncategorized
         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.

A Significant Moment

Tasneem Ahmed 0 Comment 87th St - 100th St

Because I live in 86th street, and I was not familiar with the stores and restaurants beyond 88th street, I can say that this was my first time exploring the 90s (this number is referring to the streets) of Bay Ridge, and for that reason, I did not have any expectations. As I started walking on fourth avenue, I quickly noticed that the rush of people common to the 80s quickly decreased. The bus stops were much more interspersed and there was not a lot of traffic. It was a Monday afternoon, a time when 86th street is crowded with students and workers coming home, and despite that, the 90s were sadly barren. There were a few restaurants and stores here and there, but besides me, there was a range of one to two other pedestrians per block.
As I continued to walk, I noticed that all of the establishments around me were car dealerships or related to that line of business. From Kia to Hyundai to a large car-wash shop to an auto-repair business, fourth avenue revolved around the automobile industry. Because I have never visited these areas, I was a bit perplexed as to why this would be so as it seemed misplaced amongst the small quaint community. I later concluded that the reason behind this is most likely because there is so much empty space that suits these companies. In fact, I also noticed that in fifth avenue, the stores began to provide large parking areas. Staples, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Kentucky Fried Chicken are a few of the areas that did so.

From Google Maps

The more I walked towards the 100s, the smaller and more local the restaurants became. While the 80s are crowded with large and luxurious Italian restaurants, the 90s have small pizza shops and the corner diners. As for the residences, the apartments began to increase in size. Condominiums and co-op buildings were more prevalent, and this correlates with our background research that shows that the closer one gets to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the more expensive the prices become. The 90s were quieter as well. The sounds of cars beeping and buses screeching rapidly to their stops were gone. In fact, there were a few minutes were there was nothing heard but the sounds of birds chirping and a man cleaning his doorstep. The houses looked nicer as well; they all had beautiful landscaping and there was not much litter on the ground. Perhaps, that explains why there was no lingering smell of garbage.
This area of Bay Ridge did not feel like Bay Ridge at all to me. It was as if I was walking in a community that was not mine; the people looked unfamiliar and the stores were unwelcoming. Perhaps, that was just a bias of mine as I had never explored or even walked through this region of Bay Ridge. However, these observations underscore the fact that Bay Ridge is an area of diversity;  this area was the most luxurious and expensive part of Bay Ridge proving that it is wanted by others despite my own discomfort. This made me realize that some parts of ethnography are inevitably relative as my biases clearly affected my observations. However, despite that, this area of exploration brought me to realize how much I did not know about my own community and my own uneasiness in it, and that moment was very significant for me.

A Freezing Afternoon

Tasneem Ahmed 0 Comment 73rd St - 86th St

      It was a freezing afternoon. I attempted to keep my hands warms by blowing on them but that was an awkward mess as I was holding a heavy camera in my hand. I would later find out that all the footage was shaky and blurry because my concentration was on maintaining my body warmth more than it was on acquiring aesthetic footage. Despite the atrocious weather, the streets were crowded with the usual amount of people. The halal carts were bustling with customers as the smell of shawarma meat intermixed with the smell of the Popeye’s across the street. The smell of food was welcomed by my cold nose, but it was quickly replaced by the lingering scent of left-over garbage from the day before. It seemed as if the snow had slowed things down.

    However, people still jumped over garbage bags and puddles of melted slushy ice to cross the crowded streets to get to their shopping sprees or their journeys home. It was evident who was there for the latest deal in T.J Maxx and who was there to rush home. Both men and women in suits holding suitcases and wearing long coats ran across the warning red hand that foreshadowed the incoming cars that splashed the pedestrians with dirty snow. I stood there watching all of these interactions before deciding to cross the street. Across the street, an elderly woman was struggling with her shopping cart. She attempted to pick it up over the snow; despite the crowd, no one helped her. At the corner I was standing in, there were others standing with me. An elderly man, of Middle Eastern descent, was angrily yelling on the phone in a thick Egyptian Arabic accent. A crowd of Fort Hamilton high school students (all of them looked like they were white), were loudly waiting for the buses. Three of them were holding hot Starbucks drinks from the Starbucks behind them.

     I started walking the opposite direction towards 4th avenue, and the crowd quickly increased as people were exiting the buses and the train station. The crowd consisted of people of all ages, but mostly high school students and working middle-aged people. Wendy’s and McDonald’s were unusually crowded. I assumed it was due to the weather because when I usually pass by these two fast food chains, the high school students are normally outside eating the food they just purchased. The clothing stores were mostly empty, which is unusual, but I excused that as an effect of the dismal weather.

     When I decided that it was time for me to walk the block home, I realized that this “stakeout” was much more disappointing than I expected. The majority of the people were loud and obnoxious high schoolers who I felt were judging me as I was just standing and not doing anything. The other half of the population was people who were rushing to go to their warm homes. It was quite evident that 86th street was the center of chain stores and transportation of Bay Ridge. Being a resident of Bay Ridge, I already knew this but experiencing it for 20 minutes was a bit of a shock to me. The amount of cars, buses, and people does not seem much when I am part of the crowd, but 86th street makes Bay Ridge look more like a city than the “small village” it is. In fact, when I attempted to approach a few people for a quick interview, I was ignored. When I got home and wrote down my field notes, I decided that it was just a bad day because the weather was not welcoming or happy in any way, and I had hopes for the next time.