The Arts in New York City

As a native of the comfortable suburbs of Bergen County New Jersey, it is understandable to think that I would be somewhat cynical about the pride New Yorker’s have for their city. This opinion was not so close-minded, considering the fact that I have traveled to a fair few famous cities in different parts of the world thusly providing a frame of reference to be able to come to this conclusion. The United States and it’s urban centers are less than 230ish years old. How can that compare to cities like Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, Paris, etc. that have been inhabited for centuries. How could a city so young be placed in the same category as pre-biblical landmarks? How many wonders of the world reside in New York?

After moving to New York this thesis came to the forefront of my mind. Questions like, “Should I consider myself a New Yorker? Is it worth it? and What’s so special about it?,” floated around my mind. I had my ideas but i needed corroboration. After all, what is a theory without proof? To investigate this, I began to research New York’s history and most exceptional achievements. As I found myself inundated in feats of substantial magnitude, I became increasingly impressed and a shift in my beliefs transpired.

While it is true that New York City is only an infant compared to cities like Damascus, which can be traced back millennia before the birth of Christ, the amount of popular, innovative, unique, beautiful, and influential creations that have been birthed in this city over such a short amount of time is nonpareil. In the words of E.B. White, “New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader and the merchant.” The keys are variety, and volume over a short time. This is what truly stunned me into venerating the title of “New Yorker” and hoping that I could be worthy enough to bear it.

An important reason for New York’s prolificness is simply because everyone is here. The population of the New York urban area as of 2007 was 20,420,000. It is the 2nd most populated urban area in the world after Tokyo. The next most populated urban area in the United States is L.A., which can only boast 15,350,000 people. That is a 33% difference. The exponential phenomenon of population growth has allowed New York to be great. When people are drawn to New York for any reason, they create resources, opportunities, and bring with them connections and these newly formed niches then lure additional people. This ever expanding wealth of human resources is a huge part of the reason that the most beautiful art, the most groundbreaking discoveries, and the biggest parties occur in NYC. The only side effects are the biggest traffic jams, longest lines, and busiest crowds. If a thousand monkeys and a typewriter could eventually produce Shakespeare, then 20 million people with 200 years should do better.

New York can boast numerous influential landmarks that set the highest standards in their particular fields. A small road called Wall Street, that only runs a couple blocks from Broadway to the East River houses the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ Composite, the American Stock Exchange, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and a larger gold vault than the one in Fort Knox.

Even though as of late New York sports team may not be having too much success, the city still is home some of the best known, and historically winningest teams around. The Mets, the Yankees, the Knicks, the Islanders, the Rangers, the Giants, and the Jets all have the privilege of rocking an “NY” on their jerseys. These teams have collectively won 28 World Series’, 8 Stanley Cups, 3 Super Bowls, and 2 NBA Championships.

Around the Times Square Area of New York there are about 39 theaters that seat at least 500 people. There are also dozens of “off-Broadway” theaters that have the allure of familiarity that only small productions can have. Along with London’s “West End,” this area is the English language’s most professional theaters. There is also the Public Theater, which holds free performances in three different venues throughout the year using well-known actors and well-known works.

New York isn’t only known for MoMA and the Met when it comes to museums. There are more than 30 museums. The most notable and interesting of them are El Museo Del Barrio, the Museum for African Art, the Museum of American Financial History, the Museum of Chinese in the Americas, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Museum of the City of New York, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Museum of Television and Radio, the American Folk Art Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. Other cultural institutions that receive worldwide notice are Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, The New York City Ballet, and Brooklyn Academy of Music. The concentration of cultural landmarks is such that it would take a person months to even attempt to absorb a majority of it. New York City houses art by greats like Cezanne, Van Gogh, Seurat, Jasper Johns, Pollock, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Dali, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Dürer, Degas, and so many more.

One could view this regional resume of sorts as one that is no better than that of cities like Tokyo, London, Paris, etc. and simultaneously not accept the consideration of New York’s youth as an augmenting qualification. However, the most unique part of New York’s culture is its subway art. There is subway art created by not only world renowned artists, but also people like Zoo York signature graffiti taggers, independent musicians who chose the music over the money, and inspired architects that have designed public monuments. There are other public works like graffiti on the Berlin Wall, murals on government buildings Mexico City, guerilla art all over Russia, and many more. The New York Subway System ousts them all simply in its numbers. The Metro Transit Authority has officially commissioned works by 210 visual artists and 100 musical groups. There are many more works that are not officially recognized, but are still viewed as mainstays of the underground. Train stations are home to a myriad of different schools, movements, and styles of art from all over the world that help brighten a commute to school or work. On those mornings where you are stuffed in, body to body, on a train that refuses to move because of “train traffic,” break dancers, soul singers, jazz bands, mariachi players, folk rock solo artists, and maybe even pole dancers can, at the absolute least, distract you from the feeling that you’re riding a multi-cultural slave ship.

So after looking into the situation, I have changed my point of view to one of open acceptance of New York’s unique eminence as a global community. I’m lucky to be able to live here and that there nowhere else I’d rather be. Everything is here. While I admit that my research’s effectiveness was augmented by living in the location I studied, I feel that the rest of the website will do a convincing job of depicting New York. On this site, other residents of the New York area have collaborated to explore different elements of New York culture through specific questions. To answer these questions, various mediums were employed in a sort of survey of different genres of artistic expression. Hopefully my realizations will be proven valid by their examples and doubters will be convinced of New York’s preponderance.

Graffiti is one of the most common forms of artwork seen by New York City pedestrians and passersby. Every day many individuals walk by these many times massive pieces of art and gawk at them in wonder. However, many people in this city are adamantly against graffiti, labeling it as vandalism that is clearly illegal. Some might argue that it is not hard to agree with these unsettled individuals. Many times a person can find tag names spray-painted or etched onto the windows of subway trains, making the commute for travelers a whole lot uglier. These same tag names can also be found on the front of small stores or bodegas, or even on desks in schools.
These forms of graffiti are blatantly not forms of artwork on any level, and can simply be considered vandalism. They do not try and portray any sort of message that is in any way beneficial. In fact, most of the time these tag names are gang related, identifying either a gang member or gang turf. They represent many of the negative aspects of graffiti that most people refer to when they complain about it. Some of these “taggers” even scratch their tags on glass, or engrave it on fresh cement. These people go through extreme measures just to have their tag recorded, yet fail to realize the damage that they make, the property that they destroy and the consequences that await them.
However, graffiti is much more than simple tag names on the door of a business or side of a building. Graffiti can be huge murals that portray a story or have a much deeper meaning than what appears on the surface. For example, many murals were made after September 11th, 2001 to commemorate the deaths of all the people in the world trade center attack. Groups of artists get permission to make murals under bridges, in tunnels, or on old building walls. They make many murals in memory of others, whether it be celebrities, family or friends. The messages that many of these artists try to convey are often very positive. Their goals are not like the vandals’ goals. They aren’t trying to destroy property. They are trying to get a message across in the form of art.
There are many anti-graffiti groups across the city, including “The Task Force”. These groups paint over walls that were once the home of what they believe to be a vandal form of art. However, many of these groups are painting over the murals as well. They paint over a big portion of the graffiti, and there are often strays of spray paint around the wall. It is a destruction of art. I think that these groups should encourage stricter laws against tagging, and other forms of vandalism that some consider art. However, the pieces of work with positive messages should be respected, because this form of art is part of New York City’s culture.

Sprayin’ It Up

By: Juan Olivos

I recently was looking at one of the blogs that Irene showed us and I saw some interesting pictures of graffiti. The site is

http://newyorkphotoblog.blogspot.com/

Hope this helps,

Dmitry

When dealing with competition, two scenarios arise. One is that when there is a lot of competition in a certain area, a store is forced to keep the prices low, in order to attract the most customers. The second is the opposite; sometimes there is not a lot of competition in a certain area. This gives a store the power to raise the prices, since it is able to afford the increase. Thus “inevitably, in the inner city or in rural areas where there isn’t much competition among stores, grocery prices are much higher.”

Operating costs are a second cause for the disparity of prices that customers see. A store’s operating costs are defined as the day to day expenses that a business incurs, for example, sales and administration. The administration includes “jobs in food retailing [which] are often a stepping stone to higher paid jobs in other sectors, making turnover in supermarkets high. This in turn, can lower operating efficiency and increase training costs”

Buying power is the third and last cause of this difference. Buying power is defined as money or other forms of assets that is available for a store to spend to get goods and services. Stores that have less buying power are not able to “negotiate directly [with] manufacturers, as major retailers like Wal-Mart and Safeway do.” This in turns causes the stores to have higher product costs. If the products that a store buys cost more, then this cost gets passed on to the customer in the form of higher prices. “Small grocers have considerably less buying power in the wholesale market” compared to other, bigger, stores. This fact also leads to a “lack of availability of healthful food […] and [a] lack of variety”

Until now, I have been discussing the causes of disparity, but now this effect itself becomes a cause of the choice of foods that a consumer has. The consumer is not able to control the choice of foods that are available in a supermarket. Large corporations are responsible for this. Since large corporations exist to make money, they have to sell foods that are profitable, and “healthy” foods are not always profitable. The power of large corporations is so immense that they are able to even have the government as a buyer of their products, consumer goods, such as food. Government programs supporting consumer goods exist but all these markets are dominated by large corporations. This greatly complicates the choice that a person has to make of what to eat or not to eat.

Competition between stores, a store’s operating costs, and its buying power are all causes that bring about the effect, the disparity of prices for foods. This disparity of prices for foods is a social issue that needs to be addressed. This is because this issue is something that affects society. But there is little that a single person can do. On the other hand, as a society we have the power to enforce change. The Federal government has the power to pass laws to limit the influence of large corporations as they use their higher buying power to make profits, while the other, smaller stores, are forced to have higher prices. Small stores need financial help from the Federal government in order to be able to lower their operating costs, which would lower the price of foods. To control competition between stores, the Federal government can pass laws decreasing the ability of large corporations which come into areas and create competition between other stores with the purpose of driving these stores out of business. Then these large corporations create monopolies in those areas. Once all three of these causes are addressed the choice of foods that a consumer has is also affected. It is hard to tell if this effect is positive or negative, but one thing is certain, that change is occurring. Adam Smith, a political economist and philosopher, would disagree and put forth the argument of laissez faire, which is a policy where the least government intervention in private business is the best government. The solution is to find a middle ground, where the large corporations would be able to find a way to make profits while hurting other stores less. Some people may call this idea utopian, but if you think about it, a lot of the radical ideas that existed in history and which we find commonplace today, were utopian at one point in time. -Dmitry

The food that we eat comes from an array of different places, for example supermarkets. The supermarkets are located in various socioeconomic neighborhoods. Within these stores it can be seen that there is a disparity of prices for foods. This project is all about New York City culture and whatnot, and I feel that another aspect of the culture is the causes of this disparity of prices. In an earlier post I mentioned an article where a Whole Foods moved into an area where there is a Farmer’s or Green market. I can expand from that as I explore a few reasons for this disparity of prices. Three main causes of this disparity are competition between stores; the store’s operating costs; and their buying power. An effect of this disparity is the choice of foods that a consumer has. I might drop the last part, but we all experience the three causes. Commercialization causes competition to occur since now stores have to find a way to reduce their costs, attract customers, and in general fight to stay in business. The operating costs for a supermarket includes the store location. There are different property values throughout New York City and that has a major impact on food availability.

I have research for a lot of the statements in the paragraph above, but some of those statements come from observations that can easily be proven, such as the part about property values.

Dmitry

I found two articles, one of them talks about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) how these provide new yorkers with fresh, locally grown products that you have to be a member to join. Although it is expensive they have programs in place to ease the burden for those who are not able to afford the hefty price tag. It costs about 200-400 bucks a year to join. This article was from the spring of 2005

The second article is about Whole foods supermarket versus the Farmers market on union square. There is a discussion about these two and how even though the greenmarket, the farmers market, is popular, it can only accommodate a limited number of people. There are benefits from having the supermarket, since it has a bigger selection, but it’s freshness can not be guaranteed like that in the farmers market. Since these two are next to each other, its like competition and as a result there is a part of the article that asks “Is giving one’s money to Whole Foods taking it away from the Greenmarket, hence local farmers?” “Arguably, the whole foods [supermarket] shopper gives up the freshness of local produce in exchange for a wider range of products, including more choice of organic foods.” This was also published in Spring 2005. -Dmitry

For the above I plan on making a slide show probably through powerpoint with pertinent information and pictures while my voice is going to be heard explaining some things related to the information above.

-Dmitry

Hey guys, I just realized that only people logged into the blog can see the Anarchy Player! Is there an admin setting that allows the videos to be public?

-Alice

So I have a draft of the introduction but I’m pretty sure it needs to specifically delve into what each group is doing to a greater degree. I did it on another site originally and I want to finish editing the text on that site before I transfer it over to this one. This is the URL.

http://newyorkidentity.blogspot.com/

 So basically every group should take a look at it and make whatever comments they can on this post, and begin reshaping it.

I’m also well aware of the fact that there are some grammatical errors so you don’t necessarily need to waste time on pointing those out because it’s only a rough draft. Go ahead if you want though.

This was recorded on the by a friend a few months ago on the A train heading to Brooklyn. I thought it was fantastic and just wanted to share it with everyone. This I think is also a good representation of music and dance in NYC

TitleNeysa Malone was raised in Montreal and has since moved and lived in many different cities. She grew up in a humble background and has worked hard to get her name out. Neysa sound is a mix of Madonna in the eighties and the tone of a young Michael Jackson. Her style is a combination of fifties and eighties melodies over deep hip hop beats. She is currently recording her CD. Neysa has only been singing in the subways for about a year now to earn a little extra money while also trying to get exposure. Neysa is funky and down to earth and believes that art in New York City is about being unique but also determined.