My proposal for the final class project is on a category I like to call “New York City Secrets.” This idea attempts to incorporate our family histories, our neighborhood visits, and the overall experience of immigrants in New York City. It is clear that everybody has their favorite NYC spot to visit. Whether it is a restaurant, a park, a museum, or a concert hall, immigrants and NYC natives alike find comfort in all kinds of places. It would be our responsibility as a class to find out those New York City “secrets.” We all know of Starbucks and Dollar Pizza, we know about Time Square and the Museum of Natural History, but it would be our job as a class, to uncover the best secrets that the city has to offer.
This project would entail that we divide ourselves as a class into small groups and find out where New York City immigrants like to go. We have already discovered where our families come from, where other immigrants come from, and what the general feel of their neighborhoods are. The project would be based solely on food, cultural, and recreational spots so that we would be able to complete our understanding of the immigrant experience in America today.
We would accomplish this goal by visiting neighborhoods which can include but are not limited to- our hometowns, the area of our college, neighborhoods that we enjoy, or neighborhoods from the project we have just completed. Another interesting idea would be to interview Baruch students about where they are from and what their “New York City Secret” may be, and then going to check it out for ourselves. We could incorporate our family histories by visiting places that our great grandparents went to when they came to America, or places that our immigrant parents enjoy. We are now familiar with the neighborhoods we visited for our neighborhood projects, so we can revisit them, this time with new questions concerning recreation and the neighborhood hotspots. We can also build on research we have already done; for instance the restaurant that Cate and Michelle visited or the grocery store that Jessamyn, Sara, and I went to. We could find out other popular places in the neighborhood for immigrants and what kind of NYC natives travel to these places for leisure.
Our multimedia website could be very useful for anybody to use after class. This would serve as a tool for us and our peers when we want to try somewhere new for lunch, or when we are looking for an adventure on a Saturday afternoon. This would also provide a new perspective for tourists. Maybe visitors who have already seen Time Square and had a cup of coffee in Starbucks are ready for a new experience in the city. Our website could have places, descriptions, directions, demographics, and our own personal reviews for other people who are looking for the secrets of the city themselves. If we want to incorporate more of a demographics survey, one option may be to ask store owners what their usual customer base is and delve into research by making charts about the demographics of the area. We can also see if immigrants travel outside of their prominent area to go to certain places.
This project is an excellent way to keep people interested in the experience as a New Yorker. As college students, we are always looking for new places to visit. Many of our classmates have lived in the boroughs for a large portion of their lives and probably have secret places of their own. We would all be able to participate and give something new in this project. It will be extremely interesting to see the nature of the population that comes in and out of our favorite New York City Secrets.
