73rd St – 86th St – People Of The Ridge

A Freezing Afternoon

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.

Shopping Strip of the Ridge

Sound of cars on 86th street.

Tasneem and I visited 86^th street, between 4^th and 5^th avenues. It had been snowing a lot the week we visited, so the sides of the streets were piled high with old snow, and slush had formed on the streets. The snow was dirty since it had been piling for a while. The atmosphere was dreary because of the heavy layer of clouds and the freezing temperature. We grabbed her camera and headed over to the corner of 86^th street and 4^th avenue, which is the center of the area. I recorded the sound of the street after realizing that the cars were noisier than usual because of the slush in the street. Not many people were outside, and even the traffic was much lighter than usual. We observed people on the street for a while, shivering in the cold.

The wind and the cold air were so intense that we could not stay for a long time. We observed a lot, though, in the time we spent there. Even with the inconvenience of the weather, there were two halal food carts on two different corners, and a few people even bought food from them, waiting in the cold for it to be prepared. It was a lot quieter than I was used to for this street, which is why the sounds of the cars was amplified.

There were a lot fewer people on this street than usual because of the weather. 86^th street is lined with many different types of shops: clothing stores, gift shops, shoe stores, and even restaurants. It’s also the site where commuters who want to take a bus to Staten Island must go. Several other bus stops and the R train station are also at this street. For these reasons, 86^th street is usually bustling with activity from shoppers and commuters.

For our project, we tried to see the difference between different sections in Bay Ridge. One important thing I noticed when I later strolled around the area on my own is that the amount of stores and activity drops dramatically in the streets in the late 80s. Activity also decreases when you go to 3^rd avenue. The epicenter of activity is the corner we stood on. On the day we visited, however, only a handful of people could be seen walking about.

86^th street represents an important characteristic of Bay Ridge, which is that it is self-reliant. A resident of this neighborhood would not need to leave often because Bay Ridge has many types of stores. There is a wide variety of restaurants. In 86^th street alone, there are Vietnamese, Mexican, Japanese, Arabic, and fast food restaurants. There are also plenty of bodegas and supermarkets for personal food shopping. 86^th street is a shopping center, so there are many clothing shops there. Even within Bay Ridge, transportation is easy to access. There are buses on third, fourth, and fifth avenues, and a train on fourth avenue. As mentioned before, 86^th street has buses that go to Staten Island. This street is a great example of why a person would not have to leave the neighborhood.

86^th street is an important part of Bay Ridge. It’s one of the busiest parts of the neighborhood, and has been around as a shopping area for quite some time. Even though time goes by and more chain stores such as Chipotle or Banana Republic are added to this street, 86^th street never loses its charm and continues being a big part of Bay Ridge.