Journal 9

From the start I was nervous and worried about going to the city every Friday. I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know if I would like it. But I soon realized it was a waste to worry about that because I soon found out how great the professors were and how great my other classmates were too. I will miss going to Penn at 11:05 and waiting for Mike to tell us to come in, get closer. I haven’t been to the city a lot and soon realized how big New York was. Learning the city was just farm land and learning that Brooklyn was really the first big city and then moved over to the Manhattan Island is pretty cool. I never thought about the city's past, kind of always imagined it was the way it is today.

From this class I learned about Central Park and the reason why it was built to give the people of New York a green area to hang out in. Learned about Robert Moses who I only thought was known for a beach he made, but he's known for the world's fair in Queens, all the road work and parkways, and bridges. Learning about gentrification and how it impacts areas in the city. Basically poor areas that get run down are bought by artist who holds art gallery’s in a area. This leads to people opening up new businesses and new restaurants and also leads to higher class people moving in and cleaning up the area. Before this class I was not sure on taking the subway places and which train to get on. I’m still a little confused in that area but I learned a lot and I feel like I can kind of get my way around with using the subway. I wasn’t that happy with all the New York art I saw until we went to the art gallery’s in the Meat packing area which I felt that I could connect with and I truly enjoyed that. I can't wait to go back with my friends and show them this area and all the cool art gallery’s. I feel completely safer going into the city knowing the area and just feeling the vibes and feeling a part of it. I'm looking forward to bringing my friends and family to the city and showing them what I learned and the great sites we had seen. I will never forget this class and all that I have learned.

Journal 8

Today was our last trip to New York City as a class. It was raining pretty bad so I was hoping that it wouldn’t get canceled, and luckily it didn’t so we pushed through the rain and toured lower East side. Our first stop was at the Essex Street Market which was “built in 1940 to house pushcart peddlers whom Mayor Fiorello La Guardia legislated off the streets, the market offers food for all tastes- Latino, Jewish, and upscale urbanite” (BG p.123). This place had everything from Chocolate to selling meat and they had big grocery stores, clothing and hair cutting places all in this wide open area. This Market was for the largely populated area of immigrants, the largest in the world and they went to the Essex Market because they had a variety of different culture food for good prices.

After we left the Market we made our way to the Tenement Museum where we were a little bit early for our tour of the tenement which they had kept the same to show people how they lived back in the day. So we had time to look around the gift shop and watch a movie about immigration in America. We learned that the “Tenements, built to exploit all available space and maximize the return for the landlord” (BG p.122). But before we went in we got split up into two group because of how small the tenements were they couldn’t fit us all in one room. The one that we went into was built by a German and they know this because it was in a German neighborhood and in this building they had two Irish families. Our tour lady told us that this was a clean area in that time and she should us a picture. It looked very dirty with garbage everywhere and roads filled with dirt. But the tour guide told us they didn't have place to dump garbage like they do now so in worse areas the garbage was ten times higher. This caused health conditions that lead to people being sick and dying. The milk that they gave to their kids was old and filled with chalk to make it look thicker and mostly it was poison. So many babies died in the tenements and the funerals cost money that they didn’t have so they looked for people that could help them pay for it and in return you had to vote for them. Also I found out that the rent for these tenement was 10 dollars a month for a room. These rooms look small with the kitchen right next to the bedroom and only one bed to sleep in. The water was all the way down on the street so when you needed it you had to carry a bucket all the way up the stairs and go to the bathroom outside right next to the water supple.

The tour had ended in the tenement and we went to a Chinese restaurant which was a treat from the professor which was a nice last class meal. After the meal we meet with our other tour guide that took us into Chinatown. Our tour guide told us about 8% of the United States are immigrants and in New York its about 30% made up of immigrants and mostly Caribbean and Chinese people living in New York. Its as high as it was when Ellis Island was in service. Another fact was that Irish and German were heavily populated in New York and as well as the United States. We started to walk through Chinatown which I noticed the streets were narrow and packed with shopping and places to eat. Before this was Chinatown there were Jewish families living here and went to Stuart High School which is where many famous comedians like Ben Stiller's father. The Jewish community took over churches that Catholics gave up when they started moving out and the reason why they took over churches instead of building there own was they didn’t have money. In this area they didn’t have parks because again money was an issue but people got together to try to show the city they need a green space for the kids because they were mostly playing in the streets needed a park. So around 1990 they built the first park in Chinatown called Stuart Park. We visited the Jewish newspaper building where they printed out news in there language. These people were socialist people because they were getting unfair pay and worked hard with no rights. So there newspaper was socialist and on the building was four faces of socialist leaders and one face that was taken down was Karl Marx’s.

Chinatown has been getting bigger and bigger taken over more areas in the Lower Eastside. The reason for this is the heavy amount of immigrants coming in from China. They get here from boats and they look for jobs under the Manhattan Bridge where there are buses that take them to their place that they work. These buses go around the area and to very random places like West Virginia to work. They look for what ever work they can find to pay off there debt to the people who got them here. After learning about that we walked under the bridge to a school that was named after the first Chinese man to have a college degree from America Young Wang. This man after went to China to bring the western school system to China. After that we walked to Five point which was the first largest slum of the city and the reason it was called five point was because there was five roads leading to this area. There use to be a natural lake here and they drained it out to make the first suburbs but the high classed moved out due to flooding and this lead to Irish and African Americans moving in because the houses were cheap. Then we walked through the park that was in the middle of five points to Little Italy where our last stop was going to be at. We learned little Italy is small now due to the Italian moving out but mostly still here for a tourist site. We talked about the church and how we had a great class this year. But even though it was sad leaving my classmates, we all went together across the street to get cannoli's. Then we said our goodbyes and took the train home. What a great place to end our long city journey.

Journal #7

We started our day a little later then 11:05 due to the professors being late and all. But we start to head to the World Trade Center where we got to see the Freedom Tower and the church were the volunteers and the workers rested.  They turned the church into a museum for the fallen firefighters and cops that died during 9/11. The Church had the beds that they slept on and pieces of the building that looked like a cross. I'm very glad that our class got to see the tower but kind of upset we didn't get to see the memorial fountain with all the peoples names that died that day. After we saw this we made our way to the place where the people had protested Wall Street and then right after that we went to Wall St. The reason why they called it Wall St. was because it use to be a wall that separated the two different cultures. This was my first time visiting this area and we got to go into the Federal Hall National Monument where George Washington was sworn in as our first president and inside is the piece of floor that he stood on during it from the old building. The old building was knocked down and the new one was built in its place. Walking down Wall St. was packed with a lot of workers and tourist and all the streets were closed off so people could walk in the street. 

After we were done with Wall St. we stopped in front of the Museum of the American Indian. In the front of the building you can see the four big statues of these god like characters that was very interesting to look at. The museum use to be a custom house where ships unload there shipments. Right next to the museum is Battery Park. "The name of Battery Park recalls a row of cannons that defended the original fort" (BG p.46). In the middle of the park is art work that was made from the steel of the World Trade Center with a fire in front of it. This wasn't much to look at it until I realized it was from the World Trade Center and it had a lot more meaning. 

We walked passed the ferry's that take you to Ellis Island and Liberty Island and got to see the statue of Liberty and of course Ellis Island. We walked up the Hudson River with the great view of New Jersey cross the river. The park that we walked through won't be in maps in the early years of New York because when the first World Trade Center was being built they dug out the holes to put the building in and had to dump it somewhere so they dumped it over in this area and made it into a beautiful park. This park was "3.5 acres of Robert Wagner Jr. Park are named for a lifelong public servant. The gardens were designed by Lynden B. Miller, whose work can also be seen in the Conservatory Gardens in Central Park and Bryant Park" (BG p.59). After walking up the Hudson River we made it to a poetry house where people can read all kinds of poetry. I picked out a poem that I liked called Justifiable Homicide by Jessica Hagedorn. My favorite part of this poem was the first part it said "Television dictates amorphous lies to my unborn children telling me that murderers have mobilized into the suburbs and are wiping out Americans in their grocery stores and living rooms ". 

The professors were nice to let us take the train to the Meat Packing District. We found out that this area was known for S&M and other weird stuff until it started to clean up into a high class neighborhood. After we talked about the area we went to eat in Chelsea Market. This place had food, candy, chocolate, soup, amazing cup cakes, and shopping for clothes. Never been there before and I hope to go back when I have more time to really explore it more. We then head to the walk on the High Line, which use to be elevated train tracks. The train "used to run at street level down Eleventh and, further south, along Tenth Avenue. The streets were clogged with traffic,  the trains were dirty, and the tracks were dangerous" (BG p.188). The way the people knew the train was coming was by a man on a horse that would ride in front of the train to warn people that it was coming. But it really didn't work and many accidents happened. "The High Line, a 13 mile viaduct for freight trains, was constructed in the 1930's to solve these problems. It was built not directly over the avenue but mid block, between buildings or right through them. During the 1950's rail freight gave way to trucking, and the last train, with its consignment of frozen turkeys, journeyed to Gansevoort St in 1980. Because no one wanted to pay the demolition costs, the High Line was left to rust. beginning in the late 1990's, a local advocacy group defeated proposals for demolition" (BG p.188). Now there is 1.6 miles of walkable railway that was boarded over like a boardwalk. When walking on the High Lines you can see the old railroad tracks with the trees and bushes growing around it and can see the sites. We walked all the way down to the art galleries. It was a little cold up there on our walk though. We went into this weird book store which had crazy books of naked people and just weird things. I don't know how I feel about that but it was an experience I can say. After that we stopped in the area with the art galleries which we saw a lot of art but this kind of art was interesting. It was more interesting and different from the ones we were in before because  they popped out at you and made more of a connection with you. The one we went to was Lindsay Lohan Gallery. There were films of her with intense music and pictures of her all around. My other favorite gallery was a burnt wood art pieces. The burnt wood work was built through out the gallery where you can walk through it and walk under it to see all the different angles. It was like a fort they made, it was pretty cool. Then the other piece in this gallery was a wall piece that came out at you and it was all made out of wood which looked like the skyline of a city or of our city which was pretty cool. I didn't think I would have that much fun at the art galleries today, but I did. I might have to stop by there again with my friends and show them off.

Journal 6

Today’s class we went to Harlem and Morningside Heights. We started in East Harlem where we stopped at the Museum of the City of New York. We watched a movie about how Harlem was created and how all our other class connected to this point. Saw a little bit about Brooklyn, Queens and Time Square. In the movie they had older pictures of the Manhattan Island which looked like a forest when the Indians where living on the land and after they were kicked out it was turned into farm land. In the film we learned about why Canal St. got its name because it was originally a canal. The film went into how Harlem got its name and was founded. Dutch farmers founded in “1658 called Niebuhr Harlem, ten miles north of New Amsterdam at tip of Manhattan. Increasingly in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, this beautiful outlying land attracted gentleman farmers and wealthy merchants, who developed the estate and built country mansions” (BG p.437). But at this time the only way to get to Harlem was by boat. The film also told us that East Harlem was a place where immigrants went to live after they got off the boat. Harlem started to hit its boom when the subway was in place to take people to and from work. This made Harlem assessable for people to live there and then Harlem turned from a farm land to a city like its today.

We finished up in the Museum and made our way to Central Park's North entrance which had a cool gate and beyond the gate was a green lawn with a fountain in the middle of it. I like this entrance so far from the ones I have seen and this was my first time on this side of the park which I didn’t expect that it would look like that. It was different and more peaceful. Before we went to lunch we stopped at this witch and spirits place where you can buy medicine and items to keep bad spirits away and the guy told us that he sell hope to people which I found that was pretty cool. We left the park and went to lunch. We made our way into central Harlem were we had a tour. We found out that Bill Clinton worked in this area and he had his own floor in the building. The tour guide told us that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King spent time in Harlem and they named a road after Malcolm X, Malcolm X Blvd. He talked about the Apollo Theater, how it had a tree trunk in the theater and every performer that goes on stage has to rub it or else it doesn’t matter how famous you are you will get booed of staged. We made our way to the park were we came across movie trailers and found out that we were going to be in the TV show Elementary. They put out yellow sheets telling the people that they cant' park on the street on shooting hours and I also found out that they can ask to rent out your house to film in and you would get good money for that. But they could make a big mess and damage things but after they are done they will paint your home. We made it to the park and were about to walk up a big hill to see the last fire tower but we couldn’t because the hill was closed. This park is ran around during the New York City Marathon which I thought was pretty cool.

We finished up by seeing Harriet Tubman statue and walked up a lot of stairs to get ourselves to Morning side Heights to look at Columbia University’s campus. It was a huge different from Harlem and Morningside Heights. Its crazy how you could walk that short of a distance and see a big change. Since there’s a lot of gentrification in Harlem maybe there won't be a huge difference when you take a walk over to Morning side Heights.

Journal 5

Today’s class started to rain on our parade, no literally it rained all day but that didn’t stop us from seeing New York at all. We started walking to Time Square today to learn a little about the area and about its new pedestrian zone. I liked the new pedestrian zone because it gives people a place to relax and look at Times Square with out all the cars. Times Square before the 1904 was known as Longacre Square. “Longacre Square was dominated by horse exchange, carriage factories, stables, and blacksmiths' shops” (BG p.217). Soon this area started to see a big change into more of what it looks today. Crime and sex trade started to increase in this area until around 1980 “new commercial real estate development in the west 40s and 50s” (BG p.218). This new comm real estate lead to the sleazy area to become a tourist attraction. Every time I go to Time Square I can't help myself being a tourist looking up at all the flashing lights and caught up in the New York atmosphere. We also made a stop at the G.E. Building which I never went in before. I wish we could of done a tour of the NBC Studios. Another thing that I saw was the ice skating rink which wasn’t a ice skating rink yet and saw where the Christmas tree stands every year in December. This area I couldn’t believe how it looks completely different from winter and now.

After we left Rockefeller Center we walked to the New York’s Museum of Modern Art. We seen most of the artist of New York and more. But I finally got to see starry night which was hard to really look at it for awhile because all of the people wanting to take a picture of it. Another painting that stood out to me was sex and death. It was really graphic and just so much going on that I couldn’t stop looking at it. My other favorite one was the Spider-man one because I just like him as a superhero so really any painting of him I would like. Then after the art museum we went to Yum Yum 2 in Hells Kitchen for my first time eating Thai food which wasn’t bad. I really didn’t know what Thai food was at first but it was mostly like Chinese food. After we finished up the rain slowed down and we walked to the subway to head over to Brooklyn again. We went to a the City Reliquary Museum which was a community museum that stored all of Williamsburg and I found a old fireman jacket that had a American flag on the back of it and the city skyline on top of it. This piece of history spoke to me because I want to be a New York City firefighter and I'm also a volunteer firefighter in my town. I truly respect the firefighters that died on 9/11 and who risk there life in saving people. Lastly we had to stop at the Sketchbook Museum Project due to the bad weather and I learned it was a library that you can rent out artiest sketchbooks that help them develop there thoughts and ideas to there final piece. There was so many cool little notes and different types of drawings to designs. I could of stayed there all day looking at all the cool sketches.