Final thoughts of Core 390

I am glad that I picked this course because my New York experience was nothing like any other class. I believe this is truly a unique class to be in. For 7 weeks I looked forward coming to the City on a Friday morning and go on a wild adventure with my fellow classmates and professors. Now I will have to figure out what I am going to do on now. I made new friends and visited so many interesting places and learned so much about NYC's history. I ate a variety of delicious food. I have awesome pictures and great memories that I will forever hold in my heart. Riding the subway was a piece of cake for me because I’m from Queens so you have to use somewhat of transportation. I had never visited the Transit Museum also. Standing in an old-fashioned train was so awesome! I visit Flushing Meadow Park every 20th of July, but I had never been in the Queens Museum. I have driven countless times on the Grand Central but never really paid much attention of the Queens Museum. But I was glad I had the chance to go to the Queens Museum and see the Panorama. That Panorama was awesome! Walking the Brooklyn Bridge and making to the other side while you’re sick was interesting. My feet have been a custom to walking for 8 hours, thanks Professor Mike! Spanish Harlem was a first for me, and I plan on going back in the summer. I had never been in the Conservatory Garden. It was beautiful. Lucian Camilo Jose Vergara's was captivating but the weird sex videos in Chelsea were quite...umm how can I say this nicely… it was kind of disturbing. While this course expanded my learning, it was also very much entertaining. It was outstanding, and I am lucky for the wonderful experience. If it wasn’t for this class I most definitely wouldn’t go to any of these places by myself. We have become a close family in our seven week course. From braving the Monsoon rain in Week 3 to all the way to the very end of Week 7 I am going to miss everyone’s personality.

Our Last Hurrah

Our final class takes us to the heart of New York where we go to the Lower Eastside, the Bowery, little Italy, and Chinatown. Our first stop will be the historic Essex Street Market, which has a wide variety of ethnic foods that you can sample.  When I am in the city I am usually by Essex Street its funny that I was here last night and now I am here again for class."Writers of the late 19th Century considered Hester Street, site of the neighborhood's push cart market, the quintessential ghetto street" (BG, 120). Much like Hester Street, Orchard Street also had a large push car market. "The push carts represented one of the few ways for unskilled immigrants to eke out a living" (BG, 120). Mike gave details on Mayor LaGuardia had Essex Street Market built to house the push cart peddlers.  This market has changed throughout the years since it started business in 1940 adapting to the changes of people in the neighborhood.

From the Essex Street Market, we walked around for a little and saw some signs of gentrification. There was the occasional glass building and even a few more art galleries that we took a quick look in that had the usual strange pieces. After walking around Ludlow Street and Hester Street, we made our way to the Tenement Museum! This was one of my favorite parts of the entire class. There was so much to see and so much history to take in. The class was split into two groups and my group went across the street and into an old tenement that is a part of the museum on 97 Orchard Street. This tenement was “founded in 1988 to preserve the heritage of the nation’s immigrants, honoring the millions who lived on the Lower East Side and in other immigrant ghettos” (BG, 122). It is a six story building with a couple of the apartments redone to look like they did in the 19th century when the immigrant families were living there. Walking into the building I was amazed and also nervous that the floor was going to cave in. The rooms were so tiny and I could not imagine living in those apartments with more than one person let alone fifteen other people. The tenements were “built to exploit all available space and maximize the return for the landlord” (BG, 122).

We went into one of the apartments that were redone to look like it did when the immigrants lived there. This apartment belonged to the Moore family in 1869, a family that emigrated from Ireland. The struggle that this family had to endure was unbelievable to listen to and impossible to imagine going through what they did. Bridget and Joseph Moore lived in extremely poor conditions in the tenement on 97 Orchard as well as the other places they lived in. Back then, no one knew that germs made you sick and that if things were clean it would prevent illnesses.  There was no running water, no bathrooms, and no light in the apartment. While Joseph was at work, Bridget had all of the house chores to do and take care of her daughters, one of which was very ill. She had to go down all the flights of stairs and out into the courtyard just to get the water that was right next to where people used the bathroom! Not only was it unsanitary conditions that the Moore’s were living in, but the apartment was the size of some people’s master bedroom. The entire family slept in the same room with their baby Agnes who was very ill and died. Bridget and Joseph ended up having eight children and only four of them made it to adulthood. Four of them died due to illness related to the unsanitary conditions and at age 36, Bridget passed away. Only one of their daughter’s, Jane, carried on the Moore family line, marrying Roger Hanrahan, also a child of Irish immigrants. They moved to Queens and had two sons and three daughters, all of whom became nuns. Their descendants live throughout the country, but some stayed here in New York City. Joseph Moore lived until he was 71, which is unbelievable considering the poor conditions and poor health care in the 19th century.

We then walked down the back of the tenement and saw the courtyard. The courtyard was way too small for all of the people to use that lived there and there were only about five outhouses for the entire building. These conditions were so horrible that it is amazing that anyone survived them. Taking the tour of this building was a great because I learned a lot and was able to actually experience a part of the immigrant history.

We went to Tom and Jerry’s, the number two “hookup spot” in the city (wink wink). The bartender, Ruby told us a tad bit about the type of people that go there and how she has seen gentrification happening in her own bar with wealthier people coming in. We then hippity hopped to the Congee Village Restaurant, which is located at 100 Allen Street on the corner of Delancey Street and around the block from the Tenement Museum. The class was split and sat at two large tables family style. We had a beef dish with some vegetables, chicken, sesame chicken, and some soup that tasted mucousy.

Then our last tour of the lower east side was lead by our tour guide.  Drew took us through the Bowery, one of Manhattan’s oldest streets which “got its name from the Dutch word for farm, bouwerie, when the area was farmland” (BG, 153). We walked through Seward Park, “named after William H. Seward, the governor of New York, US Senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln” and saw the Forward Building across from the park, a building “built for the Jewish Daily Forward, the country’s most influential Yiddish daily newspaper” (BG, 124).  We did some walking through Chinatown and ended up on Doyers Street, a street that has a sharp turn in the middle of it known as the “Bloody Angle” unlike any other street in the city (BG, 112). We ended our tour at the Five points, a five pointed intersection on Baxter and Mosco. We had our last group gathering and from there we parted ways.

LOWER MANHATTAN & CHELSEA

As I made my way on the subway to Penn Station for the second to last time I knew that our adventure to Lower Manhattan and Chelsea would be kind of interesting. Our first location was the Trinity Church at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway. Outside is a huge sculpture that is actual roots from a tree that fell on 9/11 and was preserved which was interesting and intrigued all of us. We went inside the Church and it was gorgeous, but what I first noticed was that there was a wedding going on! A bride and groom were taking their pictures in the church.  The famous Episcopalian parish, Trinity Church, was our first stop. Despite its modesty in size and conception, Trinity Church is probably New York's most famous, and of the wealthiest houses of worship (BG, p.65). We then walked back outside to the cemetery there were some very well known people. “Robert Fulton, whose Clermont proved that steamboat travel was economically viable; Alexander Hamilton; William Bradford, the publisher of the New York Gazette; and Captain James Lawrence, whose nautical tombstone brings to mind his famous remark about not giving up the ship” (BG 66).

We then followed Mike to Zuccitti Park to see the Occupy Wall Street protests which was certainly not a peaceful site. We felt like packed sardines walking by the protesters and the police officers had to keep everyone moving. People were holding up cardboard signs and preaching their beliefs. Before we walked through it we got some information on the protests from Tom Trottier, one of Mike’s friends, who gave us some interesting statistics. An example, “the richest 1% in this country owns more than the bottom 95%.” After his speech we walked through the protest in the park. While walking through I felt like it was the depression era just seeing people sleeping there for a month now. While some of the people there are there for a good reason, a lot of them are not.


After spending some time at the protest, we walked past the New York Stock Exchange and went to the Federal Hall National Memorial where George Washington was sworn in as our first president in 1789. Wall St is a short street, about a third of a mile long, which runs between Broadway and the East River (BG, 64). Wall St gets its name from a wall, erected in 1653 during Peter Stuyvesant’s tenure, which stretched river to river at the northern edge of the settlement, ostensibly to protect the Dutch town from its British neighbors (BG, 64).
I always pass the Federal Hall but actually never been inside, but it was pretty neat to be standing where George Washington stood. Before the Federal Hall National Memorial, there was the British City Hall where John Peter Zenger was tried for libeling the royal governor with his New York Weekly Journal. “Zenger’s acquittal established a precedent for freedom of the press” (BG, 69). There is an exhibit that is dedicated to him in the memorial.

From there we walked by the World Trade Center site it was amazing to see all the progress they have made. We went into St. Paul’s Chapel across from the site which is where the workers from Ground Zero slept. There were several dedications to those who died on 9/11 which was touching to see. After the World Trade Center disaster, the chapel served both as a place of refuge for workers at Ground Zero and a temporary memorial for visitors, who attached messages and memorials to the fence in front of the church (BG, 77).  I tried to hold back my tears being inside the chapel it just made me sad and picturing how it was when 9/11 happened. As I wiped my tears away we then walked along the Hudson River and saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

We stopped at the Irish Hunger Memorial which gives awareness of the famine of 1845-1852. We walked through and up the landscape and experienced a piece of Ireland in New York. Next, we made a quick stop at the Poet’s House, dedicated to writers and readers of poetry. The Poet’s House contains “over 50,000 volumes of poetry it includes books, journals, chapbooks, audio and video tapes, and digital media our collection is among the most comprehensive, open-access collections of poetry.” 

I sat down and read a couple of poems from “The Poem of Idioms”. I thought the poem were pretty interesting.

We walked all the way to Chelsea Market on 16th street which was a very long walk. We ate lunch and looked at the Halloween scenery. After a delicious sandwich, we talked about the High Line, The High Line was actually where trains used to run, and “was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air.” Now, the High Line is a beautiful path for the public to enjoy and see the city from a different view.We later walked through the piers of Chelsea to finally be able to grab something to eat. The original deep-water Chelsea Piers were designed by Warren & Wetmore; the architects of Grand Central Terminal, to accommodate the large transatlantic liners build around the turn of the 20th century (BG, 188). Our professors explained how The Meat Packing District in the 80’s and 90’s had a reputation of having drugs and prostitution and is now gentrified and developed. The meat packing industry remains and still gives the neighborhood its working class edge, it gentrified rapidly during the 1990’s with stylish bars and restaurants, high concept clothing and design stores, and art galleries spilling south from Chelsea (BG, 184).

Chelsea has undergone rapid change in the past decade, its western reaches transformed from an industrial neighborhood once blighted by both street level and elevated railroads to the city’s new Soho, its street enlivened by art galleries, which consists of more than 200 of them, and chic shops (BG, 186). We walked for a little on the High Line to 20th street in Chelsea where we looked at a couple of the art galleries. These art galleries were very strange and even harder to understand than some of the pieces at the MET. There was one that just had a parachute attached to a huge fan that would turn on every four minutes. Another one was filled with weird sex stuff and other had all these weird life size creatures that looked like something out of a nightmare. The only normal and decent gallery was the one with pictures of the city. Seeing the art galleries in Chelsea was definitely an interesting way to end the day.

"West Side Story of Spanish Harlem”

As I make my way on the subway to Penn Station I knew that our adventure to Spanish Harlem will be an interesting one. Mike began his same routine calling attendance and telling us the game plan for the day. Out tour guide Megan explained to everyone that El Museo was a creation of 1960’s educational activism from the community, and its devotion to Latino and Caribbean. El Museo is founded by artist and educator Raphael Montatanez Ortiz and a group of parents, educators, artists, and activists who thought that conventional museums ignored the Latino artists. Located at the edge of Spanish Harlem or ‘El Barrio’, El Museo  was founded in 1969 by community activists, teachers and artists, mainly Puerto Ricans. (BG, 376) We continued out of the museum grounds and walked along 105^th street and viewed the showcase of a spiritual shop. Justo Boteca had relics of religious statues to the community. Manny Vega is an important figure in the spiritual Latin American world and he dedicated his time creating works of art throughout Spanish Harlem.

After the Museo Del Barrio tour we went to have lunch. As everyone went to El Paso I went to a little café called East Harlem Café I ordered a turkey sandwich with a chocolate crumb cake. I felt like I was in a Starbucks it was small and peaceful I enjoyed the people there. We then headed one block down the Museum of the City of New York.  Founded in 1923, the Museum of the City of New York offers exhibitions that explore the city's complex history from its early days as a Dutch colony to its present eminence (BG, 376). The museum’s collection includes photographs of New York City, as well as costumes, decorative objects, furniture, rare books, and manuscripts. On the 2nd floor, a floor dedicated to the World Trade Centers, which displays them being built and photographs taken on September 11, 2001 by Camilo Jose Vergara. After walking around the museum we then had to wait for the short film “Timescapes” to begin. Timescapes is a short film which traces the growth of New York City from a settlement of a few hundred Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans to its present status as one of the world’s great cities. I enjoyed it very much.

The Conservatory Garden was the most beautiful place that I have been to. As we hiked and rock climbed through the park it was tiresome. We walked from 105th street through the Park to Columbus Circle. We then crossed the street in to Central Park.  Central Park opened in 1857. It is a public park located in the center of Manhattan.  Central Park has been a National Historic Landmark since 1963. It was designed by landscape designer and writer Frederick Law Olmstead and the English architect Calvert Vaux. 

Before arriving to Columbus Circle, we stopped at Strawberry Fields. Strawberry field is dedicated to the memory of the late musician John Lennon. It was named after the Beatles song “Strawberry Fields Forever”. We then crossed the street to stop and see the Dakota Hotel where John Lennon lived with his wife Yoko Ono. We all then parted ways from Columbus Circle and headed home. I know by the time I get on the train my feet are going to feel it. 

The Westside

As I made my way on the subway to Penn Station I knew that our adventure to the Westside of Manhattan would be a lot better than last week. I arrived late to Penn Station everyone was already huddled up for the roll call. Mike began his same routine calling attendance and telling us the game plan for the day. We were given the menu for lunch. As Mike told us we were going to walking a lot more to make up for last week. All I could say was “Oh Boy I won’t be able to do this”. HAHA I was so wrong.

As we left Penn Station we head towards Times Square walking up the pedestrian path that the city has created. We stopped at 42nd street and Times Square. Times Square was known for theatre and entertainment in the 1940s and 50s, by late 60s and 70s it became marked by drugs, prostitution, and pornography. Time Square was once known as Longacre Square that was dominated by hors exchanges, carriage factories, stables and blacksmith’s shops. This crippled the area for some time until Mayor Rudolph Giuliani enforced strict regulations in the 90s that cleaned up the Square and welcomed a family-friendly crowd.

We then walked a couple of blocks over to the GE building to go check out Rockefeller Center. Rockefeller Center, a complex of commercial buildings, theatres, plazas, underground concourses, and shops developed principally during the Depression, is the world’s largest privately owned business and entertainment center. The first architecturally coordinated development in New York City, and a milestone in urban planning, it became a National Historic Landmark in 1987 (BG, 243). From Rockefeller Center we then walked to M.O.M.A – the New York Museum of Modern Art. As we weaved through traffic to get to the MOMA we received our tickets and headed up to the 6th floor for a tour of the permanent collection, which has famous New York artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jackson Pollock. The Museum of Modern Art is one of the city’s premier cultural institutions, one of the great repositories not only of modern painting and sculpture, but also of drawing, design, photography, and film (BG, 260).

By the time I was done with all the exhibitions at the MOMA I was starving. We then had to walk yet some more blocks to get to Hell’s Kitchen where we had lunch at Yum Yum Bangkok.  The shrimp soup was okay kind of upset that there was only one shrimp. I had the white rice with sweet and sour chicken which was really good. After lunch we walked back to the 2 or 3 train headed for Harlem. I've never been to the boogie down Bronx so I was really curious to see what it was like.

 I walked out of the station to my surprise I felt like I was back at home in Jamaica, Queens.  Harlem is currently undergoing a gentrification process to restore the area to its beauty. Bounded by the East and Harlem Rivers, the cliffs of Morningside Heights and St. Nicholas Terrace, Harlem is the most famous center of African – American life and culture in the U.S. (BG, 437). The Depression devastated Harlem, revealing the poverty behind the glittering exterior. In the 1970s, as the city fell into fiscal difficulties, Harlem suffered even more. Since the late 1990s, the northward spread of gentrification in Manhattan has reached into Harlem (BG, 438). We walked by the Apollo Theatre. The Apollo Theatre was once for whites only and as the neighborhood changed, so did the Apollo. The theatre fell on hard times during the 1970s and became a movie theatre. In 1991 the state of New York bought it, and the Apollo is now run as a not-for-profit foundation (BG, 440). We continued walking towards Morningside Heights, from there we had to walk up these very long flights of stairs. The song Survivor-Eye of the tiger was playing in my head while running up those stairs. I was the first one to get to the top but it was a killer. Silvia-1 Morningside heights steps-0.

We visited the Grant Memorial. The General Grant National Memorial, familiarly known as Grant’s Tomb, is the imposing resting place of the victorious commander of the Union forces in the Civil War. It contains the remains of the General Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant (BG, 434). We walked by the famed Riverside Church. The Riverside Church occupies a commanding site overlooking the Hudson River (BG, 432). Through Columbia University everyone was in awe on how stunning the campus was. Columbia University, one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most respected of all North American universities (BG, 427). Then by the end of our day we stopped at St. John the Divine Cathedral. It was upsetting that we couldn’t go inside the cathedral we were a few minutes late because it closes at 6pm. Next class is again Eastside part 2…To be continued!!

The Fancy Eastside

As I walked to the subway this morning looking at the sky thinking it was an okay day to go on an adventure around “The Fancy Eastside”. I arrived at our usual hang out spot at Penn station as I waited for more of my classmates to come Mike did his morning ritual of getting everyone excited for this beautiful yet raining day. We hippity hopped out of the train station to go to our first stop which was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art or “Met” for short is the largest, most extensive collection of art than any museum around the world. The Met occupies 1.5 million square feet and their collection includes as many as two million objects. (BG, 326) As we finally arrived to the museum everyone including myself took a second shower in this Monsoon type rain. The art professors explained to us about the artists and their art work. As we walked from room to room I really enjoyed the art pieces and the way they painted on the oil canvasses and the way they made such beautiful art work. We then stopped at a Pollack painting which to me and other people around thought anybody do that it looks so easy but to my surprise a professor of ours said, “well my students and I tried to replicate Pollack’s “Autumn Rhythm”.  I saw some of Andy Warhol‘s images of Jackie Kennedy and Skull. The last time I was at the Met it was a few years ago for my art class and I had to write about certain paintings about Pablo Picasso. I then roamed around the Roman, Egyptian, Greek and African exhibits with Scott and Jessie. It was pretty awesome looking at old items that date back so far from the Greek times. 

Then we went back out to the rain to Grand Central terminal to have lunch and relax a bit. Some of us had pizza at Two Boots. From there we had to get back to the information desk. Grand Central Terminal is one of the world’s greatest railroad stations and enduring symbol of the city and it covers three city blocks from 42^nd to 45^th street between Vanderbilt and Madison avenue (BG, 229). Also a little fact I never knew was Penn Station at one time looked a lot like Grand Central and was about to be torn down but it was saved by Jackie Kennedy.

After lunch we visited the New York Public Library at Bryant Park. As we entered, we saw these lions made out of legos which was pretty cool. The library holds about 30,000 books reference books in the main reading hall (BG, 208).  The New York Library is one of the four major research facilities and worlds famous for its collection and much admired for the architecture of its building. (BG, 207) We then went to the Main Reading Room to rest and write down in my notepad.

From the public library we then trotted down fifth avenue we passed by St. Patrick’sCathedral.  St. Patrick’s is the largest catholic cathedral in the US and the 11th largest in the world. (BG, 254) It is also a famous landmark for New York City and it’s a symbol of success of the Irish population. (BG, 254)  After all the sightseeing of all the stores down 5th avenue we ended up at FAO Schwartz where there are tons of toys. Mike told us to find our favorite toy and take a picture with it. I scrambled around the store to find a stuffed animal to take a picture with. There were gigantic stuffed animals, little princess outfits, a large collection of candy (my favorite part of the store J) and the giant keyboard piano.

Although the weather was horrible and I took a second shower in pouring rain but in the end I truly enjoyed today’s visit on the gorgeous East side. I enjoyed the collections that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had to offer, the Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Next class we are off to the Wild West of Manhattan.

  

        
    

No Sleep til Brooklyn

As I wake in the morning its ridiculously cold out. As I make my way to Penn Station our second class of the course we are going to be exploring Brooklyn. I am excited even though I am sick like a dog. As Mike makes us huddle up and calls out everyone’s names. He tells us that a freshman class is going to tag along with us to Coney Island. We make our way down to 34^th street we spotted Macy’s and other stores. Then we had to hop on the F train and I was an unbelievably long train ride. As we arrived to Coney Island I realized that there were not that many people on the beach but on the boardwalk there were people running, locals chatting by the Nathan’s Famous or shops. Coney Island is an important place for entertainment for New York immigrant population. Coney Island was settled by the Dutch, who named the area as Konijn Eiland because of the vast amount of rabbits found there. (BG, 492)

As I walked the beach with a few classmates all I could think was how it looked like in the 1800s-1900s with all different types of people on the beach. The beach was quiet and amazing I felt like I could stay there all day and not worry about a thing. Then a few of us made our way to Nathan’s Famous and had some hot dogs and french fries. When I think of Nathan’s hot dogs all I think of is when July 4^th comes around and everyone comes to Coney Island to see the hot dog eating contest. One day I would like to experience the rush of excitement of being there and saying, “hey I was there when so and so beat the hot dog record”.

After we left Coney Island we had to hop again on the train and headed towards the New York Transit Museum. At first I thought we were going to ride another train and didn’t realize it was the Transit Museum. I was amazed how there was a two-level subterranean unused Subway station (BG, 468) and how devoted NYC is to keeping the history of the public transportation running. As I walked downstairs to the lower level of the museum my eyes were wide opened with all the different styles of the trains from different decades. I walked around in and out of the trains and just sat in each one and just stared at the advertisements. I would prefer the comfy seats back in the 1900s than the ones we have now.

We then went to the Brooklyn Historical Society it was founded in 1863 as it was formerly named the Long Island Historical Society. (BG,472) As our tour guide told us that the building was recognized as a National Historical Landmark and what I enjoyed most was the library which they had old love letter written by husbands or wives and maps of how some of Brooklyn buildings are still standing.

Towards the end of our day in Brooklyn we had to make our way to the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge goes from Brooklyn to Manhattan and the crosses the East River. As we made it to the half way mark I started to feel like stopping. I don’t know why maybe it was the cold I had or the meds were kicking in finally. All I could think was can this bridge be any farther away from Manhattan? My answer was YES!!! The Williamsburg bridge is shorter in length that’s just my opinion. Fuggedaboutit we leaving Brooklyn to go to the East Side of Manhattan.