From The Peopling of New York City
Macaulay Honors College Seminar 2 is intended to “investigate the role of immigration and migration in shaping New York City's identity - past, present, and future.”
In my section of this class I elected to ask students to take on the challenge of understanding the primary focus of the discipline history: change over time.
I first asked the students to divide themselves up into groups and select either neighborhoods or communities on which they would focus their work. The class universally decided to interpret the word “community” in a geographic sense, and therefore began to work on the four neighborhoods you see represented here on this web site.
I then required them to try to pinpoint a moment in time, an event or a social process that functioned as a turning point or critical moment in their neighborhood’s history.
In each case, the things students identified were crucial to redefining the nature of the area under study and its population. In the case of Manhattan’s Upper East Side the creation of Central Park played a important role in developing the area as an enclave for wealthy Manhattanites. Working in the 19th century, the group focused Bay Ridge identified the change in name of the neighborhood from "Yellow Hook" to "Bay Ridge," which took place in the 1850s as a moment when the area shed its association with yellow fever and became a more desirable location for the development of private homes as Brooklyn expanded. The group studying Coney Island found that the decline in attendance at the amusement parks of Coney and the near-simultaneous construction of public housing projects in the immediate vicinity was a major turning point in the neighborhood’s history. Their work reflects this finding. For the students who elected to work on the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst, the 1980s and most especially the murder of Yusef Hawkins seems to have altered the character of the neighborhood.
A word or two more about my pedagogical approach to this course. The class is intended to teach both research methods and how to interpret the urban environment. I therefore asked students to practice oral history interviewing and develop and include interview-based materials in their web sites. Additionally, a speaker from the United States Bureau of the Census visited our class early on in the semester to introduce them to the enormously rich resources available through that agency. I also arranged to have a class visit the archives at the Brooklyn Historical Society in an effort to introduce them to archival work, which lies at the heart of much historical investigation. Finally, as part of our class readings I asked them to take on literature, standard historical works and investigative journalism all as different avenues for understanding the enormous changes in the people and identity of New York City.
I will be the first to confess that because I respect the students so much I demanded an enormous amount from them -- -- probably too much. Furthermore, I was sick for one week in the middle of the term and that cost us as a group tremendously. So, two of the books that I had hoped to read together with the class had to be dropped from the syllabus. Further, a short research-based paper on the Hispanic communities of Brooklyn had to be significantly modified in order to allow the students to focus on web development. I tried to listen to the students when they told me they were being overworked, and I hope that helped without compromising the intellectual integrity of what I wanted to achieve.
Technology can be a mystery, and while I confess to being fascinated by computers and what they can do, I will not pretend to know ¼ of what would be needed if I were to have to teach this course alone. Therefore I can’t say enough about the enormous assistance John Sorrentino has provided me and the entire class this semester. On a personal level this has been an awful semester for John -- about the worst you could imagine. Nevertheless his dedication and continuing commitment to the pedagogical objectives of the course have been absolutely invaluable. It is not too much to say that without John this web-based project simply would not exist.
And finally I want to say publicly how proud I am of the students in my section of the Macaulay Honors College Seminar 2, “The Peopling of New York City.” It is a rare privilege for a faculty member to have the opportunity to work with such bright, dedicated, funny, committed young people. I have treasured this semester with them, and I want them and everyone else who reads this page to know that.
Phil Napoli
May 6, 2008
PS: Fun-o-wiki, always.
:) always!
