The Peopling of New York: Manhattan
Many ethnicities make up Manhattan. Just by walking through the city streets, you encounter so many different faces. The many ethnicities in Manhattan truly make it a place of endless opportunities. You can find every type of dish in restaurants and hear a variety of languages throughout Manhattan. A good subject for our class project would be to study the ethnicities that make up the major neighborhoods of Manhattan. We could explore neighborhoods, such as the Upper/lower East Side, Upper/lower West Side, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Harlem, and Washington Heights to study which ethnicity is focused where. This project will incorporate photographs, maps, charts, and audio. To provide evidence, we will interview people and keep a record of each of their ethnicities at the specific neighborhood. The data can be represented using charts or graphs to show how each neighborhood differs. To make this project more interesting we can also show how the ethnicities have shaped the neighborhood. For example, we can study the food served in restaurants, languages on signs, and clothing in stores. This will be portrayed through pictures. In order to learn more about the people and why they settled where they did, we can video or audio record them. As a result, this project will cover three categories: ethnicities based on neighborhoods, why people settled where they did, and how they impacted the neighborhood.
The layout of the website will be organized based on neighborhoods. Each neighborhood of Manhattan will get its own tab divided into three sections. The first section will have a chart or graph showing the most dominant ethnicities in that neighborhood. One way we can do this is by asking 50 people at random for their ethnicities. We can also use other online sources, such as statistics to further support our data. The second section will have recordings or interviews to explain why people chose that neighborhood in Manhattan. This will help explain why neighborhoods are predominantly a certain ethnicity. The third and final section will focus on pictures of restaurants and stores to portray the impact ethnicity has on a neighborhood. We can experience other cultures by eating at restaurants and trying new dishes.
This project idea is similar to the neighborhood visits except that it focuses on all the ethnicities in a borough rather than one ethnicity in a neighborhood. This project will help us learn more about the city our college is located in. I think basing this project in Manhattan is a good idea considering each one of us commutes to get to school.
