Articles about New York - Essay Example

New York Topic One of the key points in Tim Cresswell’s article “Defining Places” (2004) is the idea that the term ‘place’ doesn’t simply refer to a specific location but is instead used to refer to a variety of ideas and concepts that are tied up in our conception of place. The author illustrates how space (a specific location) is different from place (as an idea of a particular place with a specific character and socio-political concept) as he focuses in on New York’s Lower East Side, specifically into Tompkins Square Park and the various conceptions that have developed in association with this space. Illustrating how this area has a special meaning to people through various connections, the author outlines several key elements to the definition of place – location (geographical space), locale (the material setting) and a sense of place (the emotional attachment people have to a place), and place as a socially produced space. Thus, place emerges as a primary means by which we order our understanding of the world. Topic 2 The tremendous find of the African Burial Ground in New York revealed a great deal of previously unknown information regarding the African slaves in the New World. It spurred a great deal of interest in what other sites around New York, previously only seen through the interpretations of Europeans, might reveal about slave life (Cantrell & Wall, 2001). Evidence of African life at the Lott House in Brooklyn is outlined in “Remembering Africa Under the Eaves” (2001) Of particular interest is the find of traditional African religious symbols, indicating African inhabitants (slaves), within rooms described as only 4 feet high and incredibly cramped, dark and stuffy. Evidence presented in “Slavery and Servitude at the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House” (2005) indicates freedom for slaves came in the form of guaranteed food, lodging, clothing and basic education as items that had not been provided previously. Other locations are examined in terms of evidence of place indicating slaves quarters to have been little more than “containers for human chattel” (Slave Housing in New York’s Countryside”, 2005). Topic 3 Charles Dickens painted a particularly bleak image of the Five Points area in his American Notes (1842), beginning his description by pointing out that before considering entering the area even in imaginary space, it is a good idea to bring along some police protection. The houses are crumbling and the people who live here are characterized as pigs rather than humans. This is, as George Foster points out in his article “The Five Points After Midnight” (1850), the common perception of the Five Points region as he advises “Those … whose purposes are honest, had better walk a mile round the spot, on their way home, than cross through” (214). However, as is outlined in Yamin’s article (1997), archaeological evidence suggests that while the perception in the mid-1800s was of a completely hellish slum, the site had once enjoyed prosperity and even wealth, the neighborhood only having turned to tenement housing within a few years prior to Dickens’ visit and Foster’s article. Topic 4 The place called Central Park in New York is a place that seems to provide everyone with the same sort of peaceful, country identification originally intended by its designer. As it is discussed in “The Plan for the Park” (1865), Charles Olmsted, the original designer of the park, envisioned it as a small slice of the rural country to which average individuals from every strata of society might go to enjoy in the center of the city – for many their only opportunity of doing so. His concept was to leave as much of the natural setting in place as possible, creating a picturesque space in which natural objects and foliage would obstruct the view of the city, which would eliminate the escapist aims of the park, without tending to ‘box in’ visitors to the park. That he achieved this vision is echoed in Helen Conant’s glowing description of the park to date in her article published in 1879, some years after construction of the park had begun. Topic 5 The space of the tenement house has very distinctive characteristics as they are described by Andrew Dolkart (2006). The descriptions used for these buildings are oddly similar to the descriptions used for the slave quarters found in some of the more ancient houses of New York. Although an improvement from the slave quarters, tenement apartments are described as very small (only about 300 square feet of actual living space), very dark, quite airless (with only the front room containing windows that opened to the outside) and with simple and crude water systems. The degree to which these cramped, lightless, airless and barely sanitary tenements became quickly overcrowded and increasingly cramped is the concern of Jacob Riis’ article “The Blight of the Double Decker” (1902). His argument holds that by crowding so many people into these barely livable conditions, we are circumventing our own stated goals for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because nothing can feel free here and there is no hope for pursuit of anything. Topic 6 Clifton Hood documents the progression of New York’s subway system from a place of entertainment, excitement and novelty to a place of everyday mundane activity as it went from being the newest toy underneath the New York streets to being simply another means of conveyance with its own inherent necessary evils and boredoms. Even very technical description of the subway layout takes time to acknowledge the artistry and detail that went into the subway’s construction (The Route of the Road, 1904). However, even New Yorkers jaded by daily use of the subway managed to recognize in it a place of unusual proportions as it burrowed through the dark from one place to another, seeming to disappear into a void that seemed a place out of time only to reappear in a predestined and completely different place back in the real world. This concept was reinforced by the danger factor introduced with the subway lines. The overcrowding that marked the opening days of the subway were to be recurrent problems in the weeks and years to come. This was not only present as individuals suffered fatal accidents in association with the cars, but also as potential riders experienced extreme crushing and bruising, harassment and violence as a result of the crush (Hood). Topic 7 William Taylor examines the development of the skyline view perspective of the city as a conception of place in his article “New York and the Origin of the Skyline” (1992). This perspective of the city placed emphasis upon a ground’s eye view of the city skyline as it would appear on the horizon, silhouetted to emphasize the geometric and vertical elements of modernism and industrialism. As the view of New York shifted from the bird’s eye view of drawings to the ground-view of the ‘skyline’ as it became identified with the introduction of the camera, the concept of New York as a place became more concretely characterized. “In Europe it is always a cathedral, a castle, or some other public or government structure that looms over the city, not a newspaper office or insurance building. To any European arriving by ship, the dramatic view from the Hudson River symbolizes the society that is about to be visited” (Taylor, 1992: 167). In the competing structures and the commercial geometrics of the skyline, the character of New York was instantly associated with conceptions of a place of commerce, capitalism, modernism and industry. Topic 8 Although there is a general perception that New York is all about the construction of new high-rises, tenement homes and other crowded and cramped feats of mankind, there have been several individuals who have worked to bring beauty and nature into the city. One of these people was Robert Moses, the commissioner of parks in the 1930s. One of the things Moses did was to construct a string of public swimming pools throughout the city that were open to the sunshine and air (Gutman, 2007). This gave even the very poor people of the city an opportunity to enjoy some aspect of the country and the more leisurely affluent lifestyle. While he is hailed for bringing these types of amenities to the inner city, he is also loudly and justifiably blamed for the destruction of these same areas due to his notion of progress (Crosstown Expressways, 2007). The dual nature of Moses’ impact on the city is conveyed through these two articles. Topic 9 Greenwich Village is the place where various elements of the city mix and mingle, giving birth to the artists and new movements of expression. This is characterized perhaps most explicitly in Jack Kerouac’s description of it in “New York Scenes” (1960). Throughout this piece, he continues to illustrate the many different people who come together in this place by pointing out how their different exteriors actually reveal themselves to be housing a very similar interior individual. While Kerouac simply describes the world he sees around him, he is often blamed for bringing about the destruction and degradation of these areas of town because of his, and other beat artists’, use of drugs as a means of expanding thought (Harris, 2003). The process by which this occurs is outlined in Jacobs’ article about “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1961) as the author illustrates how it is only the transient, tenement dwellers on the street who do not participate in the observance of an incident occurring in the street below. This lack of interest in what is happening is the single greatest contributing factor to crime, not the work of Kerouac and others who merely point out what is happening. Topic 10 In her article “The Aesthetics of Absence” (2004), Maria Sturken explores the many different ways a single specific space can be identified as place. The space she examines is the emotionally-laden empty space of the fallen Twin Towers in New York following September 11, 2001. Within the first page, she has introduced the idea of this site as a place of absolute destruction, a place of new beginnings, a place of lost innocence and a place of extreme emotions. As she continues her discussion, the events of the day that the towers fell are revealed to have transformed the meanings of several other objects as well. The various identifications that are made with these objects and the place that made them so unique have also made it difficult to determine just how to reapportion the use of this space in a way that captures all of these identifications as well as leaving room for other, new identifications. Works Cited Cantrell, Anne-Marie and Diana diZerenga Wall, “ ‘We Were Here’: The African Presence in Colonial New York,” Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City (2001) Conant, Helen. “A Ramble in Central Park,” Harpers 59, 523 (October 1879): 689-701 Cresswell, Tim. “Defining Place,” in Place: A Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004), 1-12 “Crosstown Expressways,” in Robert Moses And the Modern City: The Transformation of New York, eds Hilary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson (New York, 2007), 212-227 Dickens, Charles. “New York,” American Notes (1842) Dolkart, Andrew. Biography of a Tenement House in New York City (Santa Fe, 2006), 36-58, 65-72, 82-94 Foster, George. “The Points at Midnight,” New York by Gaslight (1850) Gutman, Marta. “Equipping the Public Realm: Rethinking Robert Moses & Recreation,” in Robert Moses And the Modern City: The Transformation of New York, eds Hilary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson (New York, 2007), 72-85 Harris, Luther. Around Washington Square: An Illustrated History of Greenwich Village (2003), 264-274. Hood, Clifton. “The Subway and the City,’ and “The Subway Crush,” 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York, 91-101, 113-119 Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), 38-41, 50-54 Kerouac, Jack. “New York Scenes,” Lonesome Traveler (1960). Olmsted, Frederick Law. “The Plan for the Park’ (1865), “Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns” (1870) “Remembering Africa under the Eaves,” Archaeology 54, 3 (2001) Riis, Jacob. “The Blight of the Double Decker,” The Battle with the Slum (1902) “The Route of the Road; Passenger Stations and Tracks,” The New York Subway (1904) “Slavery and Servitude at the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House,” and “Slave Housing in New York’s Countryside,” Slavery in New York, ed Ira Berlin and Leslie Harris (2005) Sturken, Marita. “The Aesthetics of Absence: Rebuilding Ground Zero,” American Ethnologist (August 2004): 311-325 Taylor, William R. “New York and the Origin of the Skyline: The Commercial City as Visual Text,” In Pursuit of Gotham: Culture and Commerce in New York (1992) Yamin, Rebecca. “New York’s Mythic Slum: Digging Lower Manhattan’s Infamous Five Points,” Archaeology (March/April 1997) Read More