from Connie:
This is just to tell you all that I think the DREAMS project turned out brilliantly. When I read the final postings on the site, with all the eloquent and varied stories and all the beautiful images and other bells and whistles, I just felt very proud of you all and very lucky to have had such a great and
talented class. cr
I have known Anita Srivastava for a majority of my life. Being a second generation immigrant, her Indian parents were always a bit strict and always attempted to steer her on the right track. She studied hard and went to Penn State where she decided to become a political science major. She graduated in 2008 Anita but had no clue where she would go from there. Anita had always understood that she was going to become a lawyer which her parents had supported. However, when she graduated she knew law was not her calling. So she took a year off and tried to figure out where her talents laid. “This drove my family mad. Here I am fresh out of college as the recession hits us and my future just kind of hangs in the balance.” She took up martial arts as a hobby and became pretty involved in the sport. Anita took a step back and saw how this interest could help her form a career. She did not realize it then but this is how she began to create her business of mixed martial arts apparel.
“I started out paying a NYU student a few hundred dollars because I couldn’t afford anyone else. I employed him to put out fliers and accompany me to different martial art fights to see if we could sell anything.”
Anita designed her own clothes and began to produce them. She still believes that she is in the beginning stages of her business but Anita has come a long way. Her material is produced only in New York and is hundred percent cotton. Anita has also created a few apps that go along with her fashion-designing theme that will soon be released to the IPhone and Android. Observing only the American culture displayed on many apparel, Anita wishes to add a bit of Indian and other Asian elements to her work. New York City is a diverse place, and Anita wishes to portray this aspect. She has many things in store that Anita wants to be properly executed for the world to see.
When asked if she had any doubts or regrets about the choices she has made, Anita replies, “When you look at any entrepreneur magazine, they all feed you a bunch of lies. They say with passion, you will be where you want to be. Unless you are the child of extremely wealthy parents, this won’t be the case in New York City. And I don’t mean to discourage you because if you have a job that makes you doubt every move you make, that takes a million failures before one actual achievement it may become the greatest joy you have every had.”
Not only is Anita the epitome of a New Yorker following her dream but she is also an example of a second generation kid straying away from her parent’s dreams to pursue her own. There is a line that Anita has designed that is called Angry Man. It was created with this phrase in mind:
It’s to have your back on the ground one second, and your fists pounding down on your opponent the next. It’s losing a bout one round, and coming back the next, fists blazing.
Since many of us are following what is going on between Russia and Ukraine, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how immigrant groups have been responding to this crisis. I found a NYT article about how Ukrainian and Russian immigrants in New York City feel about President Putin’s actions–beyond just the recent protests.
Here is a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/nyregion/action-by-russia-divides-immigrants-in-new-york.html
One would expect opinion to be split based on nationality, with Ukrainians supporting the new Ukrainian government and Russians supporting Putin. However, the issue is not that simple. There are a number of Russians who are angry about Putin’s actions, and plenty of Ukranians–particularly in Odessa and Eastern Ukraine–who want to reunite with Russia.
What are your thoughts? Do you think that the concentration of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants in New York City makes this events in Ukraine feel closer to us, as New Yorkers? Does anyone know of any other examples of how U.S. immigrants respond to current events in their home countries? What does this article say about how immigrants get news and information from their home countries abroad–from relatives, television, radio?
from Connie:
Since his appearance in class was such a hit, and since a couple of you inquired about the courses he teaches elsewhere at CUNY, I wanted to share the terrific syllabus for his sociology course that focuses on NYC. (As you’ll see, since he was kind enough to share it with me when I was planning the curriculum for this course, I cribbed liberally from it.) I really think if you read everything he suggested, not that that wouldn’t take a while, you’d really be an expert on NY.
And please, any thoughts about his appearance in class, don’t hesitate to share. No matter how long a person has been teaching, that person’s always gratified when students are responsive. Bill told me after class that the reason he stayed so long is because he enjoyed the evening so much, and that’s a compliment to all your smart comments and questions.
Mayor DeBlasio is planning to build a new housing project in East New York. Although the neighborhood is not considerably affluent, I thought that the comments made by many of the residents were relevant to our discussions. In particular, the comment “New housing should not overwhelm the neighborhood’s character, one resident, Tommy Smiling, said as he stood outside a bodega on Pitkin Avenue. In swiftly gentrifying parts of Brooklyn like Clinton Hill, where Mr. Smiling’s son lives, “it’s all brownstones, and then you have this skyscraper,” he said. “I’m not into that. Four stories? O.K., that’s not bad.” ” was striking
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/nyregion/brooklynites-welcome-a-plan-for-more-affordable-housing.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0
For my neighborhood research, I chose Marble Hill. The reason I chose this neighborhood is primarily because it is a geographically and politically interesting place in the city. Even though the neighborhood seems to be part of the Bronx it is actually a part of Manhattan. Originally, Marble Hill was separated from the Bronx by the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. However, in 1895, the Harlem River Ship Canal was dug out connecting the Harlem River, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and the Hudson River, the canal went right through Marble Hill and separated it from Manhattan. Marble Hill remained an island until 1914 when Spuyten Duyvil’s original creek-bed was filled in and Marble Hill became physically attached to the Bronx. Now, the only way to get from Marble Hill to Manhattan Island is to either take the 1 train, Metro North, or drive over the Broadway Bridge. Although the geography of Marble Hill changed throughout time, it remained constant politically always being a part of Manhattan, which to me is very interesting. Another reason I chose Marble Hill is because of its appearance in the news a couple years ago. According to the article, which I cannot find now, when a bunch of high school students cut classes and went to a deli, they owner of the deli recognized them and called their parents. At this point, I still thought that Marble Hill was still an island so I thought this was an incredible showmanship of community where everyone knows each other and is friendly. Even though it was not an island at that point, it was impressive, nonetheless.
According to City-Data.com, Marble Hill is a rather small area, having only an area of 0.145 square miles. The population of Marble Hill is approximately 9,500 – 3,900 males and 5,600 females – making its population density approximately 65,000 people square mile, which is more than twice the density in the rest of the Bronx (32,000). As for demographics in Marble Hill, the two major ethnicities are Hispanics then Blacks, which makes sense for an area in between the Bronx and Harlem. The median income is $44,000, with 30% of the population living below the poverty line, compared to only 16% of the New York City population living below the poverty line. The median age for women is 41 years and for men it is 33 years. Out of all the households, 50% are occupied by families; however, only 20% of these families having children. This is drastically low for the rest of New York City where the percentage is around 55%. This is because single mothers support around half of the household families in Marble Hill. Another shocking statistic is that around 40% of the people living in Marble Hill do not even have a high school degree, where in New York City the average is only around 15%. Metro-North was connected to Marble Hill in 1906 and this lead Marble Hill to its urban renewal. In the 1950’s, 6-story apartment houses and complexes were sprouting all over the neighborhood. Over 2,000 houses were built during this time period and this lead to a large migration of Blacks and Hispanics into a primarily Jewish and Irish community.
When I first got to Marble Hill with my partner, William Newman, I have to say I was disappointed. We got off the 1-train at 225th street and decided to walk north until we hit the river (we thought it was still an island). We walked all the way to 230th thinking that Marble Hill was larger than it appeared. Only when we were talking to a waitress in a diner did we realize that we actually already in Riverdale. I have to say that I was severely disappointed in the fact that Marble Hill was no longer an island. I was frustrated that something that has so much potential like Marble Hill, being an island in the middle of the city, just got covered up. I understand that it was for developmental and economic reasons that the original Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in, but I was disheartened for the rest of the day, nonetheless. Once we managed to get back to Marble Hill, which spans only from the Harlem River to 230th street, William and I began to look for people to interview.
Like the demographic shows, everyone I saw near was either Black or Hispanic, especially east of Broadway next to the Marble Hill projects. The projects themselves were like any other projects I’ve seen in the city: tall, brown, and narrow, looking half-desolate, with a large lawn of grass in the middle. However, in my opinion based on what I saw, the people here were mostly older. Keeping in mind everything William Helmreich told us about how to fabricate a story to get people to talk to you, we began to approach an older lady on the sidewalk. We worked the angle that we were students from CCNY looking for an apartment. The first thing she said when she heard that was, “You can’t live here”, shocked me. Of course she was stating the fact that one cannot just purchase an apartment in the complex and you have to wait on a list, but it still not something I was expecting to hear. We began asking questions like “Where is a nice place to live?” and “What is there to do around here?” and got little in return. She mentioned that she goes to the new church that was built across the street and hurried off. We were left with the impression that no one here wants to talk to us, two white college students lying that they want to find a place to rent. So we decided to get serious and drop the act.
The next person we interviewed was in a bodega: an older black man, buying a 24 oz. Heineken. We began by telling him that this was for a school project, but he barely answered our questions and left the store. We turned to the clerk for some answers. We asked him, an Arabic looking individual in his 20’s, what fun he does for fun since he also lived there. He told us that he usually went downtown in his free time. We kept asking to see if he would slip up any interesting spot but he maintained the claim that there was nothing to do in Marble Hill and he just went downtown. We left the bodega with nothing new, only that people in Marble Hill seem to be more reserved than we thought and that there is absolutely nothing to do in Marble Hill.
Discouraged we decided to just walk around before asking any more people. That is when we saw two street vendors sitting next to each other. We decided that if they will not talk to us than no one in the neighborhood would. However, the men, Edward Brown, and what we learned to be his roommate, Tania, were more than pleased to talk to us. The first thing they said confirmed that no one wants to talk to us. He said that the people in Marble Hill stay to themselves and that everyone on the street is just trying to get home as quickly as possible because they want to avoid the trouble on the street. He mentioned that the projects here do contain some gangs but they are not run by any and that they are relatively safer than other projects in the city. An interesting point he brought up is that there is a little to no sense of community because no one wants to live there but it isn’t bad enough that they need to band together. Tania added that every place in the city has its bad people and that Marble Hill also has them but they don’t cause a lot of trouble. Everyone who lives there lives there because they have to and they live alone. He described Marble Hill as a stepping-stone for its occupants. They live there until they can move out; Edward calls these people the lucky ones. He said that a lot of the people used to move Upstate but now they tend to move to the Poconos. This makes sense because of Marble Hill’s low median age, 41 and 33 for women and men, respectively. As soon as they saved up enough money, they got out of there. Edward casually added that no one really wants to live there. He gave another reason as to why there was no sense of community, being that the population of Marble Hill was really dynamic. People moved out and new people took their place, not allowing anyone to know each other for a long period of time. Upon asking him, Edward said that he sees no way for the neighborhood to change or get gentrified because once again he said that no one wants to live there but he also added that there is nothing new happening in the area to allow for gentrification. The only new things are commercial like the new shopping center being built on Broadway. However, there are no new residential buildings being built like there are in East Harlem.
Before we left the neighborhood, we walked to see the west side of Marble Hill and the difference was staggering. There were many apartments there that must have been the ones that were built in the 1950’s. There was also beautiful Victorian styled homes that were completely jaw dropping. However, there was no one there who wanted to talk to us. We tried to talk to a superintendent of a building but he spoke little to no English. We decided to call it a day at that point. On my way home, I felt happy that we got at least one good interview. I decided that it doesn’t matter what questions you ask, it’s the people you ask that matter. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, nothing you say will change his or her mind.
As a student very much interested in the sciences, I came across this idea of the “selfish gene.” It involves the idea of individuals only being altruistic towards people with similar genes. For example, a mother is more likely to sacrifice her life for her child than for a complete stranger. According to the theory, individuals consider themselves first and then their children, followed by other members of their family, their race, and their species. Many people believe that this is the genetic explanation for racism.
What do you think? Do people only help their own and is DNA the reason? Is NYC an anomaly or could this be the reason why neighborhoods are concentrated by specific ethnicities? Does this mean that people are born racist?
The passage below is an excerpt from the book, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
Recently there has been a reaction against racialism and patriotism, and a tendency to substitute the whole human species as the object of our fellow feeling. This humanist broadening of the target of our altruism has an interesting corollary, which again seems to buttress the ‘good of the species’ idea in evolution. The politically liberal, who are normally the most convinced spokesmen of the species ethic, now often have the greatest scorn for those who have gone a little further in widening their altruism, so that it includes other species. If I say that I am more interested in preventing the slaughter of large whales than I am in improving housing conditions for people, I am likely to shock some of my friends.
The feeling that members of one’s own species deserve special moral consideration as compared with members of other species is old and deep. Killing people outside war is the most seriously regarded crime ordinarily committed. The only thing more strongly forbidden by our culture is eating people (even if they are already dead). We enjoy eating members of other species, however. Many of us shrink from judicial execution of even the most horrible human criminals, while we cheerfully countenance the shooting without trial of fairly mild animal pests. Indeed we kill members of other harmless species as a means of recreation and amusement. A human foetus, with no more human feeling than an amoeba, enjoys a reverence and legal protection far in excess of those granted to an adult chimpanzee. Yet the chimp feels and thinks and — according to recent experimental evidence — may even be capable of learning a form of human language. The foetus belongs to our own species, and is instantly accorded special privileges and rights because of it. Whether the ethic of ‘speciesism’, to use Richard Ryder’s term, can be put on a logical footing any more sound than that of ‘racism’, I do not know. What I do know is that it has no proper basis in evolutionary biology.
The muddle in human ethics over the level at which altruism is desirable — family, nation, race, species, or all living tilings — is mirrored by a parallel muddle in biology over the level at which altruism is to be expected according to the theory of evolution. Even the group-selectionist {17} would not be surprised to find members of rival groups being nasty to each other: in this way, like trade unionists or soldiers, they are favouring their own group in the struggle for limited resources. But then it is worth asking how the group-selectionist decides which level is the important one. If selection goes on between groups within a species, and between species, why should it not also go on between larger groupings? Species are grouped together into genera, genera into orders, and orders into classes. Lions and antelopes are both members of the class Mammalia, as are we. Should we then not expect lions to refrain from killing antelopes, ‘for the good of the mammals’? Surely they should hunt birds or reptiles instead, in order to prevent the extinction of the class. But then, what of the need to perpetuate the whole phylum of vertebrates?
It is all very well for me to argue by reductio ad absurdum, and to point to the difficulties of the group-selection theory, but the apparent existence of individual altruism still has to be explained. Ardrey goes so far as to say that group selection is the only possible explanation for behaviour such as ‘stotting’ in Thomson’s gazelles. This vigorous and conspicuous leaping in front of a predator is analogous to bird alarm calls, in that it seems to warn companions of danger while apparently calling the predator’s attention to the stotter himself. We have a responsibility to explain stotting Tommies and all similar phenomena, and this is something I am going to face in later chapters.
Before that I must argue for my belief that the best way to look at evolution is in terms of selection occurring at the lowest level of all. In this belief I am heavily influenced by G. C. Williams’s great book Adaptation and Natural Selection. The central idea I shall make use of was foreshadowed by A. Weismann in pre-gene days at the turn of the century — his doctrine of the ‘continuity of the germ-plasm’. I shall argue that the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity.
I thought I’d share this interesting profile of a burgeoning area of research on cognition and culture in psychology. It raises interesting questions about cultural difference and about what could be called the “American mind.”
Does any of this illuminate the kinds of experiences this class has been dealing with? Do you see any problems with how the research is framed?
Have you seen the images of how the “average American” will look in 2050? I saw the image of the beautiful woman featured in the National Geographic magazine all over the internet, but as I read the title of the article, I was overcome by an uneasy feeling.
As a New Yorker, I particularly appreciate and love diversity. I enjoy walking down the block and encountering people from different backgrounds, ethnicity, and religions. It adds to the culture of New York City and makes it a wonderful city to live in. As a result, I am not too fond of outlandish statements visualizing what the “average American” will look like.
I found this article’s diction to be particularly disturbing. These are some quotes from the article, “National Geographic Concludes What Americans Will Look Like in 2050, and It’s Beautiful”:
“It’s no secret that interracial relationships are trending upward, and in a matter of years we’ll have Tindered, OKCupid-ed and otherwise sexed ourselves into one giant amalgamated mega-race.”
“Wow. These are obviously not Photoshopped projections, but real people, meaning tomorrow’s America lives among us now in every “Blackanese,” “Filatino,” “Chicanese” and “Korgentinian” you meet at the DMV, grocery store or wherever it is you hang out.”
Although the intent of the author and National Geographic might have been to applaud diversity and present “statistics”, I think it adds to the detriment of racializing society. The article was particularly vain and materialistic.
I found another article on this matter, “Mixed of Not, Why Are We Still Taking Pictures of “Race”‘? I was attracted to the provocative title and agreed with Sharon Chang’s views on this issue.
This is a quote by Chang, verbalizing the hidden racism behind the National Geographic’s insensitive project:
“Not surprisingly, the Net erupted in controversy/debate; some standing by and championing the purported beauty of race-mixing as hope for a post-race future; many others pointing out the absurdity of a multiracial=postracial equation, angrily accusing the article of privileging light-skinned mixes thereby centering whiteness and upholding an age-old white dominant race hierarchy.”
What do you think? Do you support the National Geographic’s “The Changing Face of America” Project? Is there racism embedded in it or is it merely a lighthearted, informative presentation?
from Connie:
This is a publication that kind of has our name on it: It’s called “Feet in 2 Worlds,” it’s a project of the Center for NYC Affairs at the New School, and it says its mission is “telling the stories of today’s immigrants.”
Take a look and let us know if you find something particularly interesting!
Found an interesting article in the Times this morning about the recent passing of a very successful smuggler of illegal Chinese immigrants, Chen Chui Ping.
What fascinated me was Chen’s dual reputation: some (the Justice Department) consider her a viscous criminal responsible for the deaths of a number of immigrants (and for the harassment of many more), but others–in particular, the Chinese whom she helped–see her almost like a saint, since she rescued them from poverty and helped them get on their feet after arriving in the USA.
What does everyone think? How can we reconcile the two totally opposite images of Ms. Chen–if we can reconcile them at all?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upshot/why-the-democrats-turnout-problem-is-worst-in-north-carolina.html?rref=upshot
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-myth-of-swing-voters-in-midterm-elections.html
As young people, the country is depending on us in the upcoming midterm elections. In states like North Carolina that are divided into the older people who tend to be more conservative and younger people who tend to be more liberal, young people are less likely to vote in the midterm elections. In the presidential elections the turn out is pretty equal but in midterm elections, older voters turn out at much higher rates than younger ones.
This is not just a problem in North Carolina. In “The Myth of Swing Voters in Midterm Elections”, NYTimes writer Lynn Vavreck discusses the lack of democrat voter turnout in young people during the 2010 elections: “But on turnout, the numbers were not evenly balanced for Democrats and Republicans. Only 65 percent of Obama’s 2008 supporters stuck with the party in 2010 and voted for a Democrat in the House. The remaining 28 percent of Mr. Obama’s voters took the midterm election off. By comparison, only 17 percent of McCain’s voters from 2008 sat out the midterms.” During midterm elections, deomocrats routinely have worse voter turn out than republicans. More democrats come from groups like Latinos and young people, who tend to vote at lower rates in midterm elections. Here’s another article from 2010 about the problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/us/politics/11poll.html.
A lot of people complain about Obama’s innaction during his presidency which I totally agree with, but I also think that so much progress has been impeded by bipartisan conflict in Congress. This midterm election could change that. I think we should all register to vote if we have not already and remind our peers that even if the midterm elections aren’t as flashy as the presidential election, they can make as big of a difference. Do you guys agree?
This video explains a proposal to increase public transportation in up and coming neighborhoods around New York City. I have definitely noticed the lack of public transportation in areas like Dumbo and Red Hook and would appreciate more access.
However, the fact of gentrification cannot be ignored in this conversation. We have talked a lot about it in this class and it makes me wonder whether these neighborhoods would be possibly getting better public transportation if they weren’t marked by economic development. It seems unfair that only neighborhoods “colonized by millenials” with “sky rocketing property values” should get better transportation.
Or is this just the way things work? The city will slowly improve neighborhood by neighborhood, and only as each one becomes gentrified?
I definitely agree that the public transportation should increase in these areas, I just worry that other neighborhoods are not getting the same attention because there is not an ikea within walking distance.
From Connie:
This was an interesting article in today’s NYTimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/books/james-baldwin-born-90-years-ago-is-fading-in-classrooms.html
Thoughts?
This article caught my eye a few weeks ago and is my main inspiration for the next assignment.
Link is here.
According to NY Post, Little Italy is on the brink of extinction. The once lively neighborhood that became home to many Italian immigrants now only covers three blocks of Mulberry Street. It’s original size was 50 square blocks!
So how does everyone feel about this? I was and still am both shock and sad at Little Italy’s current situation. If it disappears, a piece of New York City history will also disappear. Any ideas to how to prevent Little Italy from disappearing? Should the government play a role in preserving Little Italy? If so, how? Is there a specific entity to be blame? If so, where/who should the finger be pointed at?
On a side note, NY Times has asked New Yorkers to send in haikus about the city. They’re worth taking a look at. Link is below.
For those of you who are fans of “40 Maps that Explain the World” and other similar visual cartographic representations, this is a really interesting article/bunch of maps about the difference between immigration and domestic migration in the major cities of the states. It’s pretty interesting to see where many people immigrate to versus where Americans migrate to. New York, no surprise, experiences a “huge net influx of immigrants that offsets the net exodus of American residents” but there are other cities where both are domestic and international migrants are attracted.
Check it out:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2014/04/2-very-different-migrations-driving-growth-us-cities/8873/
I found this NYT article about the segregation of English-speaking students and non-English-speaking students in Hylton High School.
Here’s a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/15immig.html
What do you think? Is it better to separate the students and give the non-English speakers extra, tailored academic support to help them succeed? Or is it better to mix the students, but risk having some non-English-speaking students flounder?
Quote from the article: ““High schools have to make a pragmatic choice when it comes to these kids,” said Peter B. Bedford, a history teacher who supports the program. “Are you going to focus on educating them, or socially integrating them?””
Even if segregation is not institutionalized in a high school, have any of you observed a de facto segregation of immigrant groups in school? Between English-speakers and non-native-English-speakers?
(This is just the beginning of the article–plenty of food for thought in the rest of the piece. Please share your observations/thoughts on other parts of the article too!)
Here’s a NY Times article about the pressure experienced by five-year-olds (or their parents, perhaps) when applying to the city’s most competitive public elementary schools.
Some of the questions raised by this are:m
Do you think where you went to elementary school matters in the long run? Will entering children into competitive programs at an early age benefit them or hurt them?
Since most of the parents who seek top-tier elementary schools for their children are upper income professionals and many of these top elementary schools are located in the city’s most affluent neighborhoods, does this system exclude New York’s poor students from better educational opportunities? Or, alternately, is a merit-based system a better alternative to zoning, which forces students to attend school with peers from mostly the same socioeconomic background?
I read this article in The New York Times about new guidelines for entering burning buildings being implemented by police officers after the unfortunate passing of an officer due to smoke inhalation. To be honest, I never really thought about guidelines being necessary for police officers since the job of entering burning buildings is usually reserved for fire-fighters. However, as the article says, sometimes police officers are the first to arrive at the scene of a fire, and if they act quickly, they can save lives.
What I found most interesting about these guidelines is that they seem to be the same rules we as students were taught to follow from a very young age such as not using elevators, avoiding smoke-filled hallways, and testing a door with the back of one’s hand before entering a room. I realize, however, that things are different when one is entering a building as opposed to exiting one. It’s relatively easy to run down 13 flights of stairs if one’s life depends on it. Running up that same number of flights, dodging clouds of smoke, grabbing those in danger and then running back down is a much more difficult challenge which makes using elevators seem more reasonable.
The new guidelines bring up an interesting question: where should an officer draw the line between their own safety and potentially saving lives. I think that this will be one of the most difficult questions an officer may have to ask themselves when confronted with a smoky hallway or a fire in a building with 13 floors. I’d like to hear all of your opinions on the subject if possible. You can read the article here.
note from Connie:
Muslims in New York City Unite on Push to Add Holidays to School Calendar
This is the sort of story you simply wouldn’t have seen in the Times or probably anywhere else even a decade or so ago.
And a question: How should the city determine which ethnic and religious groups should get holidays? Should the decision be based on the size of population, and if so, does that discriminate against groups less well represented in the city? What do you think?
Our visit to the Grand Concourse was another example of how much history exists around us while we don’t even realize it. The Grand Concourse itself was a beautiful area to visit and was honestly unlike any part of New York I’d been to prior. Sam Goodman’s stories only served to make the area even more beautiful and intriguing. My favorite part of the trip (aside from sitting by the fountain in the awesome hotel) was when Sam explained the difference between wealth and prosperity. I agreed with his two definitions and liked the idea of the people who formerly lived in those apartments being prosperous as opposed to wealthy. I like the idea of prosperity as opposed to wealth because I think that the prosperous are more likely to appreciate what they have because they had to work for it. That is what I aspire to be some day. Not wealthy, but prosperous.
While the difference between wealth and prosperity was my favorite part of the trip, what I took away most from the trip came at the close of the trip when Sam discussed how the government of NY used incentives to move around different groups of people. I understand that there were some good motives for their actions, but it seemed like there wasn’t much regard to the quality of life of those who would be negatively affected. His closing statements brought up the question of whether the government of NY was purposely trying to keep the Bronx poor. So far, I’m not sure of the answer, nor what good doing so could do, but if it is true, it makes me wonder if we couldn’t find better alternatives.
I came across this article about a neighborhood in the north Bronx, officially called Allerton, but has been mistaken for “Laconia” or “Bronxdale” and has not been recognized or included on maps.
As I was reading the article, I wondered if perhaps the city’s delayed acknowledgement of Allerton has anything to do with the lack of acknowledgement of the Bronx in general. I wonder why the Bronx always gets the short end of the stick.
What do you all think? Am I reading too much into this?
Here’s an interesting article on an alternative college application process that Bard College is experimenting with. The article emphasizes that this new process benefits students that would be overlooked by traditional selection criteria. The article didn’t really mention this, but I was wondering if this system could be a viable alternative to affirmative action, which many people seem to oppose. What do you guys think?
Other than the weather, I absolutely loved the Grand Concourse Tour. I especially loved how much information the tour guide, Sam Goodman, knew about the area and that he has lived their all his life. I also loved the set up of the tour because it was set up in a chronological order. Goodman first explained to us the increase in population of the city downtown in the 19th Century which led to a lot of people moving to the area. Then we talked about how the entire area was developed at the same time. A sense of melancholy went through me when I heard this however, because since everything was built at the same time that means everything is going to start to crumble at the same time. Thus turning the beautiful Concourse into nothing more than rubble with the proper steps are not taken to maintain it.
On a brighter note we talked about the amazing patterns and architecture of the buildings — many of which incorporated a lot of Art Deco elements, which was really refreshing since Art Deco is rarely used now a days. Then we went to the park where Mr. Goodman, talked about the fountain. This is what I loved about him, it seemed like he can spend hours talking about anything at all in the community. I believe that the fountain’s journey is one very symbolic of the Bronx itself in that it came from a far place, had a couple of rough patches (during the black out for instance) and came back as good as new. From there we traveled to the mid-20th Century when fixed rent was implemented and there were no vacancies in the Bronx. This forced the suburbs around NYC and in NJ to develop to make room for all the veterans of the war coming home.
Unfortunately, I had to go after that point, but I am sure that Sam Goodman closed off as well as he started.
This is just a quick pic I took to show just how wide the Grand Concourse actually is. However, I was really annoyed how the last stop light doesn’t line up.
Many of us voted in the recent mayoral election. The New York Times gathered data from independent surveyors and posted the results in a web based info-graphic. The results can be broken down by ethnicity (though not very well), borough of residence (which naturally does not include Staten Island), and gender. Some gaps in this info-graphic lead me to believe it is insufficient as a political gauge, but a few of the questions asked were relevant to previous discussions.
