I began my tour of East Harlem by taking the D train to Morningside Park, getting off at 125^th street. I had previously decided as Morningside Park as my first destination because it is East Harlem’s largest park and a historical landmark, having been designed by the same designers as Central Park. The park itself resembled Central Park, but with more open spaces and fewer trees and hills. The weather was bitterly cold, but quite sunny. I was surprised by the number of people who had braved the cold to spend time outdoors. Particularly lots of families with children, particularly lots of single women with children. Whether these were mothers or nanny’s, it was hard to tell, but as it was noon on a Friday, it is likely many people were at work. The park-goers were fairly diverse, along with women and children, many of whom were black or Latino, there were several groups of students (Columbia presumably) taking a stroll or chatting on the grass. Again, why they would do this is 15 degree weather is unfathomable to me.

After a while outside, I decided to leave the park and grab food. I exited the park and walked around, simultaneously trying to take in my surroundings and find an appetizing place to eat. Just outside of the park, I ran into a very large, gothic style church. I couldn’t find signage to indicate the denomination (I looked it up when I got home, the Holy Rosary Church, Catholic.) As for the food, the area was overwhelmingly Latin American and Mexican, though with a few other cuisines (primarily Asian) mixed in. Not only were the cuisines a strange mix, but the restaurants themselves were also an odd mix of upscale/hip and more rundown bodega style. The gentrification occurring in the area is impossible to miss. I also took note that while the park was busy on the Friday afternoon, the streets were considerably more empty. Those who were on the street were older black women, Latino men and women, often young. The Columbia students did not wander from the park apparently. I passed many corner stores and barber shops. Based on the culinary choices and the signage of the buildings, the area appeared to be overwhelmingly Hispanic, although the area was clearly diversifying.

I passed a restaurant called East Harlem Café and decided to duck in. The café was clearly a newer business, catering to a hip, young crowd with overpriced coffees and kale things. Perhaps a poor illustration of the neighborhood’s historical flavor, it is a harbinger of the gentrification already in process. The fact that the owners were so bold as to name it East Harlem Café demonstrates how these new residents and establishments have begun to make the neighborhood their own, bit by bit. It was very strange to sit in a trendy café, surrounded by rather affluent hipsters and the latest in indie music, watching generally poorer residents pass by, with Latin music blasting from many passing cars.

Getting off the 4 train at Utica Avenue was like a new adventure waiting to happen. At the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue were the crossroads of two very diverse and interesting communities. Walking along Eastern Parkway was a very beautiful residential neighborhood, but walking along Utica Avenue was mainly a commercial area with building and stores that looked like they have been part of the community for many decades. Both these areas of Crown Heights seemed very established and it would be an interesting walk to see how the two neighborhoods differed.

It was a Sunday afternoon, the day after a mild snowstorm. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out and it was warm enough to wear only a light coat. My first impression from exiting the train was a sense of relief. I’m going to be honest, from the stories I had heard and the news I had seen, I was a little anxious about coming to visit Crown Heights. But when I walked out and looked around, the neighborhood seemed similar to the area around Brooklyn College. I first began my exploration by walking down Eastern Parkway. The street was very wide and large homes lined the avenue. The homes seemed modern, and were very grand; with beautiful entrances, three floors, and neatly painted decks, balconies, and meticulous front yards. Even the snow was perfectly plowed! It looked like a scene out a movie, where everything was just perfect. I took a seat on one of the benches that lined the street, and waited. Since it was a nice day, people were out and about. A good deal of homeowners were still shoveling snow out of their driveways and walkways. I did see some mothers steering strollers down the sidewalk with their children. Everyone was in a good mood because it was so lovely out, so I believe I chose a nice day to visit. The population that was mainly prevalent was Jewish. I even saw a synagogue which means that the Jewish people have been living there for a long time. Overall in that part of Crown Heights, the general atmosphere was of calmness and I felt a sense of pride at having such a nice residential neighborhood.

The next part of Crown Heights that I went to was Utica Avenue. When you get to the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue, the scene completely changes. All of a sudden, all of the grand houses are gone, and are replaced with small businesses based out of older brick buildings. There were literally hundreds of stores lining the street, from a laundromat to a 99¢ store to a small deli on the corner to a wonderful little corner store named ‘Al Heights Crown’. It seemed to me that stores were on the first floor of three story brick buildings, and the other two floors were used for housing. The buildings seemed old; the color of the brick was faded, and the entire building was covered in a uniform layer of dust, grime, and dirt. The population of the neighborhood was mainly African American and Caribbean. It was hard to tell which population was more prevalent since I didn’t really communicate with anyone. Also, I did notice some graffiti on an older building that looked like an old abandoned auto shop. I walked around for about 25 minutes and kept seeing the same pattern over and over again: African Americans/Caribbeans walking around, going about their daily shopping needs. The atmosphere in that part of Crown Heights was very casual and busy, because everyone was running errands.

my adventure in sunset park began on the corner of 51st street and 5th avenue, directly across from a wall-covering graffiti mural with enough effort put into it that it may have been painted legally, as it would’ve been difficult to create such a massive piece of art without being noticed. Large-scale graffiti of a similar style turned out to be a surprisingly common theme in the area, where collections of elaborate tags could be seen everywhere, making more of an effort to celebrate the surrounding Hispanic culture than to cultivate any kind of gang behaviour.

In fact, Hispanic culture was a very common theme all over fifth avenue. The majority of people walking around the area appeared to be Hispanic, and many of the stores lining the avenue were clearly owned by or targeted at Hispanic demographics. Finding these Hispanic stores grew far easier as I walked down the avenue to smaller numbered streets. While the area closer to 51st street was dominated primarily by higher-end cell-phone stores (I noted two T-mobile stores within two blocks of one another), the area closer to 43rd street was populated by mostly mom-and-pop grocery and clothing stores.

Surprisingly, along with this drastic increase in Hispanic stores came an equally drastic decrease in people. 51st street was crowded with tons of people (especially for a Sunday, which I usually associate as being a quiet day) bustling and moving about, it grew very difficult to find anybody in the 43rd street area.

After exploring the vibrant community around fifth avenue, I ventured over to the titular Sunset Park, where I encountered quite a few interesting sights. Most immediately was the sight of children with their families sledding down a snow covered hill at the front end of the park. It was clearly a family experience, and everybody seemed to have a fun time taking advantage of the weather.

Climbing up to the top of the hill, I encountered the second interesting sight. There was a wonderful, spanning view of all the buildings (some decaying, some newly renovated) below me, but what struck me was a church steeple shooting out of the skyline commandingly. Many Hispanic communities are very religious (not to paint in too broad of a stroke). This unmissable landmark is a fantastic symbol of just how seriously the Sunset Park takes its religious practices.

The sight that struck me most was on the way out of Sunset Park, however. I had only seen the Hispanic population up to that point, and had been searching desperately for a sign of the neighborhood’s greater diversity. As it would turn out, this came to me in the form of a literal sign. A standard “No Smoking” sign was posted on a fence at the outside of the park, translated in English, Spanish, and Chinese characters (likely either Mandarin or Cantonese). All three lines of text were equally sized, and none stood out as being more important than the other (translated signs will often offer their translations in smaller, seemingly less important, text). Although I only saw a small chunk of Sunset Park’s demographic in my most recent visit, the neighborhood is certainly populated by a highly diverse group of people who are all respected by one another.

I’ve been to Red Hook quite a few times, however I’ve only been to the side that housed Ikea and Fair Way. I expected more commercial shops and markets, however I was surprised to see how barren the area was.

I paid a visit to Red Hook on February 23 around 2:03 pm by car. It is difficult to take public transportation to Red Hook, since the nearest train station is closer to Cobble Hill, Borough Hall. The only way to get to Red Hook is by transferring from Borough Hall to the B61, however the bus will only take you to as far as IKEA and Fairway. The lack of transportation makes it troublesome and strenuous to get to the remote district, specifically the residential areas, especially for residents that lack cars.

Red Hook is heavily congested in industrialized and manufacturing buildings. The district is made up of mostly storage warehouses that take up an entire block, old and abandoned commercial properties, along with undeveloped lots. These underdeveloped lots are used to store rows and rows of cars, school buses, and tour buses. I noted the absence of public bus stops around the heavily industrialized areas. And I noticed how there were mostly eighteen-wheeler trucks around the industrial areas that had worn down warehouses. Besides that, there was also a docking port for cruise ships and cargo ships.

As for the residential areas in Red Hook, most of the homes were glued besides one another like linked-houses. However, I did not observe any brownstone homes. There was a park, and a public pool nearby with school buses parked outside. When I went around 2:03 pm, there was barely any foot traffic. This could be due to the snow that was still lying around and the extremely cutting winds; the temperature was around 16 degrees Fahrenheit. I saw a few residents baring the bitter wind, however the few people that were out were mostly the blue-collared working class people or the truck drivers. While going around the residential areas, there are some new developing homes. I was surprised to see the construction of a fancy building around Columbia and Bay Street, but even more surprised to find it was a school for grades K-12. Although the sign read opening Fall 2014 and accepting applications, the construction was still incomplete and in progress.

Fair Way was at the end of Van Brunt Street, which is the only main street where business in the form of commercial boutiques is. The only main produce store in Red Hook is Fair Way; this would imply Red Hook being a food dessert before Fair Way opened. In fact, the only active parts of Red Hook were around Van Brunt Street, Fair Way, and Ikea.

Even though Red Hook is barren, there are still some creative and resourceful residents. Some of the empty lots are used as gardening centers, like nearby Fair Way is the Chelsea Gardens and the street art on the walls of worn down buildings bring life to the community.

I took the 3 train to commute to Crown Heights. I got off on Crown Heights/Utica Avenue and as I began to find the exit to the street, it became much easier to simply follow the crowd. From that first moment I could sense the kind of neighborhood I’d be in. EXTREMELY BUSY/HECTIC. I arrived there on Monday February 23 around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I imagined it would be the time for kids to get out of school, time for either parents to pick up their kids or yellow school buses to inundate the streets and create traffic while stopping. And that is how it all turned out to be.

What a neighborhood, diverse in every sense—the different cultures living in it, the types of stores right next to each other, the kinds of advertisements you find attached to every other tree, the varying levels of noise in different places (not too far from each other), the different kinds of schools found in almost every block…

My first stop was right in the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue for two reasons. Number one, my train station was nearby and it definitely seemed like an interesting spot to observe for a few minutes. So instead of staying in a single place—because the cold did not allow me to—I walked back and forth between the same few blocks. As I walked up and down Utica Avenue you could see the typical old corner stores that you can tell have been around for centuries. I was surprised at one block in particular; there was a fish market, a Caribbean restaurant and a clothing store right next to each other. Now that I think about it, it’s not so absurd to find those kinds of block in NYC. But I guess what I found interesting about it were the people inside each one of them. Although the workers from the fish market were Asian, there were a lot of clients of the colored race inside. For the Caribbean restaurant, there was a clear mix of cultures ranging from Hispanic, to Asian, to African Americans. The clothing store, however, was somewhat empty; it had intimate clothing for women.

As I began to head east on the Eastern Parkway for a couple of blocks, two men startled me. One of them seemed to be in a rush and in charge of a store nearby. It seemed like something had happened as if it had been a robbery, but I never heard the details about it.

Two blocks to the East I looked on the map and saw that I was actually walking away from my assigned neighborhood, so I decided to start walking in the opposite direction. During this walk I made my second “stop” to do some observations.

As I was walking passed and away from the hectic Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway intersection, I was able to feel the quiet residential area also along the Eastern Parkway. I found a number of education-related facilities. One of them was an early child development center, then a block down I found a Jewish school, and in the next block you’d the public school kids getting out of the building. Definitely a conglomeration of mainly an Orthodox Jewish and, just as dense, an African American and Caribbean population with people of all ages walking around the streets of Crown Heights!

Disembarking at Ikea, the frigid February air hit me like a winter freight train. Being right on the water, Red Hook was colder than my residential Borough Park, a more inland part of Brooklyn. It was Saturday, so Ikea was bustling with a mélange of visitors, spanning all ages and races. Looking around, Ikea seemed to be one of the biggest attractions in an otherwise barren and, simply put, dreary neighborhood. The air smelled of brine and exhaust from the many buses and shuttles coming and going. I decided to begin walking towards Fairway, another hotspot of activity that I knew of in the area.

The very presence of a Fairway leads one to believe that the neighborhood is on the up and up; Fairway is expensive, suggesting residents that can afford to purchase organic products. This is interesting because the neighborhood itself doesn’t seem too ritzy; much of the infrastructure is dilapidated and rather unattractive, consisting largely of brick buildings and abandoned lots. And yet, it would appear to be going through the process of gentrification.

When I got there it was indeed busy, with a full parking lot and countless residents hurrying either to the warmth of the store or the heat of the car. Right by Fairway there is a little riverside promenade with a view of both the Statue of Liberty and the Freedom Tower. Because it was so cold, not many people ventured by, although a few brave souls did meander through. I saw mostly young, hip-looking white people during my time on the promenade. This seems to reinforce my initial inkling that the neighborhood is gentrifying. After a frigid fifteen minutes by the river, I strolled over to a main street where I could observe more of Red Hook’s community and culture.

Van Brunt Street seemed like a contradiction. This seemingly run-down neighborhood contained a multitude of upscale establishments: bars, cafes, bakeries, restaurants, and more. This contrasted profoundly with the graffiti and the littered lots. I couldn’t help but wonder: what’s going on in this neighborhood? How could it be simultaneously wealthy and run-down? I hope future research will shed some light on this strange situation.

On Van Brunt, I came across a bakery and cafe called “Baked.” I stopped in for a cup of coffee, not only to get out of the cold, but also to observe locals in a comfortable setting. I was immediately greeted by the aroma of cupcakes, cookies, and coffee, and the sounds of pleasant chitter chatter. I ordered a red velvet cupcake and a cup of coffee, and sat down for an hour. It seemed to be a popular place because tons of people were there, laughing and talking while savoring the (admittedly delicious) baked goods. It reminded me of the show “Cheers-“ the baristas knew some of the patrons’ names; it was a genuinely friendly and warm environment. Although still, most of the people there were young and white. There was even a Steve Buscemi look alike!

My day in Red Hook was simultaneously informative and puzzling. I left with even more questions than I came with. What is driving gentrification here? How is it affecting residents, both old and new? What is housing like, especially in light of a recent influx of richer residents? Even now as I reflect, more and more questions become apparent. Hopefully our research on Red Hook will help tease out some of these issues, to better help Red Hook navigate both these phenomena and its future.

Before visiting the Sunset Park community I drove by, a few days prior, around 3rd avenue. My initial reaction was frightening I did not see many people and the area didn’t seem safe. Therefore, I wasn’t too enthusiastic when it came to actually visiting and exploring the area.

When exiting the R train on 53rd street and 4th avenue, the area gave me the same impression. I saw older Spanish people and small older shops such as the dollar stores and delis. I wondered around for a bit orienting myself before proceeding up to 5th avenue. On my way, I noticed an old-fashioned blue taxi car parked on the street and some skillfully spray painted street art. Street art seemed to be fairly common there since I saw some on the precious day, near a schoolyard and once again later on. I also noticed a police camera which furthered my conception that the neighborhood isn’t very safe.

Once I reached 5th avenue and 51st street, I was pleasantly surprised however. The area was highly populated and commercial businesses lined the streets. I was reminded of bay ridge. The population was mainly Spanish and I felt a strong sense of community. There were a few bouquets of flowers that seemed to be for sale, yet there was nobody there selling them. It was just natural that nobody took them. Furthermore, there was catchy Spanish music playing loudly and nobody seemed to complain or find it unusual. The shops were both general such as phone stores, and older community accustomed ones along with some newly build ones. In addition, I noticed some community based drawing on the store windows, such as special tributes that were drawn in the same style probably by the same artist.

Next, I proceeded to sunset park itself. There, children were enjoying their time sledding in the icy snow. Everyone seemed friendly and were interacting with each other. Looking around, I was flabbergasted by the view . Since the park was on an incline I was able to see the city buildings along with a church that stuck out the most. Next, I noticed a dog poop disposal which to me seemed modern. Lastly, I noticed, before exiting the park that the sign describing the park had Chinese and Polish translations. This seemed to reflect the population that lives there even though, I did not encounter or expect polish people to reside there.

Lastly I ventured down to 50th street and 6th avenue. There the shops became less Spanish and more Chinese. I also did not see any graffiti there. It was less populated again yet there we’re still some community places such as the small barber shop.

Overall the housing was both renovated and older. There were vacant houses among the older ones along with some occasionally newer ones. There were many ways that people made use of the community. There was a Chinese laundromat, public school, library(which was closed because it was a Sunday), public park and many shopping and dinning areas.