Spring 2018: The People of New York City

Allison Wu

Response 3 of 5

Five Points: The 19^th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented up Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum by Tyler Anbinder

In Five Points: The 19^th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented up Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum by Tyler Anbinder, Anbinder introduces the area of Five Points in the Lower East Side of New York City. Although Five Points no longer exists, it is a five-point intersection of Orange Street (now Baxter St), Cross St, Anthony St (now Worth St), Mulberry St and Little Water Street. Originally, this land was a nice lake full of greenery, called The Collect, but it transformed into a slum over time. Many immigrants, prostitutes and brothels lived at Five Points. Because of the increased population, tenements, where multiple families lived in small apartments, all in one large building, were built to accommodate. However, it was extremely crowded. There was drinking, fighting and sex both in the homes and on the streets from both genders and from both blacks and whites. This area declined so much that many people petitioned for the Common Council to tear the area down due to how dangerous it was. Anbinder writes, “Citizens who might venture from the easy side to shop on Broadway were disinclined to do so because they feared having to pass through five points, while businesses on pearl street to the south and east of five points suffered similarly” (22). Many people made the effort to avoid Five Points to avoid the vice that constantly goes on there.

Continue reading “Five Points”

City Museum of New York

Post 2 of 5
REWRITE

The tour portrayed New York’s timeline, as well as a focus on four integral parts of New York. The journey began with an analysis of Diversity, Money, Creativity, and Density. Diversity and density, in particular, are very applicable to the theme of our class as a whole. The timeline consisted of descriptions along with visuals portrayed each significant decade/period in New York’s history. Overall, a lot of the information we received could have been easily expressed in class; so the question must be asked: what is the point of going to a museum anyway?

Museums offer visual and physical aids to go along with information studied. The basic idea of a museum reminds me of a famous philosophical issue known as Mary’s room. Mary is a brilliant neuroscientist and knows everything there is to know about color vision. However, she spent her entire life living in a black and white world. One day, Mary escapes her monochrome room and sees color for the first time. Does she learn anything new? The point I am trying to make is that no matter the vastness of our conceptual knowledge of a topic or ability to formulate thought experiments, the real-world physical observation is critical to gain a better understanding. A museum is our gateway from the conception to reality.

The physical reality can then be connected to gain a further understanding of theory. While viewing the items on display, I could easily understand diversity just by the variety of the objects presented. From the Jewish readings, Asian art, European trinkets, and many more, all symbolize the range of cultures since the beginning of New York. Another example would be a model of the Empire State Building, which served as an excellent depiction of density. Once area became an issue, it became clear how expanding to another dimension could maximize the number of people in a given area.

All-in-all Museums connect theory to experiment. Sure, we could’ve directly read the information from a textbook, or watched a video clip about the topics, but nothing beats experiencing the real thing; just like the moment, Mary must have seen color for the first time.

Questions:

Why is creativity so synonymous with city life?

How does money and business relate to density?

The City Museum of New York

Joseph Dwan

Reflection 2 of 5

 

The City Museum was one that I had not heard of nor went to before the Class trip. However upon hearing about it, my interest was immediately piqued as I knew a bit about the city, but there was so much more history to explore. Upon arrival, I was struck by how pretty the exterior looked and upon entering, I couldn’t help but notice the opposites the inside and outside of the museum looked. It seemed old school and classical on the outside but modern and “hip” as the kids say on the inside. The exhibits were very well put together and broke everything down to the basics into easy to understand panel boards to read.

 

The parts of the museum that particularly connects with the class was the diversity and density parts of the exhibits. I really liked the maps that showed how the city’s specific sectors were continuously changing in their ethnic makeups. I know it seemed silly, but as a kid I had always thought that each ethnic group claimed their little piece and stuck with it, I had no idea that they moved around this much. I also liked how much emphasis was placed on the money part. It shows the wealth disparity and how it was distributed around one of the most prosperous cities in America. The museum is something every New Yorker should see and I would recommend any tourists to drop by to see that New York is so much more than an apple and Fuggedaboutit.

 

Questions

Do you have any suggestions to make to the museum to better represent the time periods?

 

Has New York City been accurately represented in the Museum, did it go in depth enough?