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.

Sprayin’ It Up

By: Juan Olivos

http://newyorkphotoblog.blogspot.com/

Hope this helps,

Dmitry

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

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

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

-Alice

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