Post 2 of 5: Museum of the City of New York
By: Salvatore Fevola
Diversity, Money, Creativity, and Density: The threads consolidating New York.
The tour began with 4 words, seemingly pillars, that effectively generalize New York and were examined throughout the exhibits. The first theme that showed up was Money, as it was the main reason for New York being colonized. Beaver pelts were a hot aristocrat item, and it was interesting that the tour began before America. This allowed the tour to be unique in adding details that people may have forgotten or don’t think about. Next is Diversity and Density coming hand in hand as New York became a hub of immigration causing cultures to mix and clash, while forcing the use of every possible piece of land. The approach to these felt a little more lackluster as there wasn’t as much detail put into the interactions that were caused by Diversity and Density. Sure, money was the reason people moved to New York, but there wasn’t much discussion on how different cultures reacted toward one another. Then there is Creativity, which came in the form of movements, the figuring out of problems never seen before, and genuine artistic growth. This includes the progressive era attempting to improve the lives of everyone, trying to manage an extremely dense populous, and things such as the Harlem renaissance.
The format of the tour was great, as it cut out different pieces of time to describe the changes occurring in New York. Starting before America and ending at Sandy, each period had its own theme. My only qualm is that the tour ended too fast. I would have loved some more in depth details about the relationships between demographics as time passed. We study this in class, but it would have been interesting to see how a museum approaches the situation. Also we passed over a really interesting time period called the “Gilded Age” which had to do with the making of billionaires and the terrible conditions a huge number of New Yorkers were living in. This would have created a better set up for the progressive era as it was a large reason for it to come along. Overall, the tour was enjoyable but the trip there was tedious.
Questions:
- Have other cities went through similar changes to New York, and if so, have they ended up the same cultural hubs?
- Do other cities follow the 4 pillars that New York is comprised of? (Diversity, Money, Creativity, and Density)
- Should the tour keep its general approach of explanation or should more individualistic anecdotes be added to explain the changing interactions with the changing time periods?
