JDG's blog

Why Williamsburg?

Well, for one thing, I live in Williamsburg. This is definitely my neighborhood and at times I feel a need to defend it almost. I think Williamsburg gets a bad rap for being the neighborhood that annoying twenty-somethings go to be hipster bums. While this is true sometimes, I find this neighborhood to be vibrant, fun, and as full of life as just about any neighborhood in Manhattan. People also criticize it for becoming “condoburg” which is certainly a concern of mine as well. I think with my work, I wanted to point out that these new developments, while standing out, have become an important part of what this community and neighborhood is about. The only people you really see complaining about it tend to be people who never come here. They feel the need to criticize from a distance.

What do you mean when you say these developments have become an important part of Williamsburg?

I guess what I am trying to say is that Williamsburg is so fascinating right now because it is a reflection of our economic and cultural situation that I think gets ignored in Manhattan. When you walk around Williamsburg you are guaranteed to see empty lots with old work permits indicating some fundless project. You are also guaranteed to see some squeaky clean and empty new apartment building. Next to that you are likely to see a house that remains from god-knows-when. It just amazes me that all these places coexist right next to each other. When I say that these condos are important, I just mean that they are as important as the townhouses or the factories in defining Williamsburg’s aesthetic right now. To that same token, the empty lots are as well. This is Williamsburg’s landscape and it seems to only bother people who don’t live here.

What do you mean when you say it is a reflection of our economic situation?

Hideous Condo Take one step out the door. That’s all it took. Look left, look right, look straight ahead. All over the streets you see the scaffolding, the bright orange plastic barriers, the plywood walls. The sounds are just as bad. The banging, the yelling, and the general sound of developments flying up overnight. You began to wonder what this street would end up looking like. “Is this South Beach?” you wonder as yet another behemoth, decked in white stucco and modern design, appears from under its scaffold skeleton. This was Condoburg. This was where Manhattan was spreading its greedy little fingertips. This was where developers came to dream about skyline views and ten minute commutes. Where the lots were the size of Texas. Where we could make a whole new neighborhood full of glass boxes and young professionals. This was paradise.  not so shinyThings have slowed down now. Paradise has been postponed until we weather the storm. So now we have these relics of a different time. In New York City, things move real fast so six months can really be a different time. We see plans dying. We can see the rotting corpse of a dead investment. These are our neighbors. This is our neighborhood. This is the recession’s neighborhood. Our economy is written all over these streets. There is a story being told here in all the rusting metal alongside the abandoned factories alongside the Polish-owned row houses of North 9th Street. This is Williamsburg and Williamsburg is a dynamic representation of our current situation. Northside Piers You can start right at the Bedford stop of the L train. (That’s where everyone starts I think.) Step out and look in to the distance.

Central Park While I can appreciate Whitehead's need to turn New York in to a series of vignettes, each profiling another aspect of New York, I find his choices a little tired and almost self conscious in selection. I tend to think that my problem with this book is related to the fact that I have lived here since childhood and am therefore, less interested in hearing someone else's understanding of New York. What frustrated me is that the depth of his prose belies the fact that he is rarely saying very much. He distracts you from the content with his form. I too could go to Central Park and go shot for shot explaining, "this is where my friend lost his virginity, this is where they drank 40's of malt liquor, and this is where I got high for the first time." If I dressed it up in interesting language and with the occasional snarky comment I too could have this deep revelation about Central Park, but I don't think its deep. I think this book is more about the author than the city. Very few of the details in his explanation of Central Park gave me new perspective of the Park. Surely, some of his details ring true, but his delivery of these details shows me someone more concerned with his personal experience than some sort of objective understanding of New York. UNfortunately, it feels like he is passing his own opinions and emotions about a place as the actual feel of a place. While Frazier's vignettes seemed to be a little more universal, I find Whitehead's to be too personal under the guise of universal. There is a condescension and irritation to the narrative. I understand both those emotions in relation to New York, but find myself annoyed by it when I know this book is written for those who want a window in to the city. I find that the tone paints the city in a strange way. Maybe I'm just nervous about "my" city being misunderstood at the hands of another New Yorker. Maybe its a pretty typical New Yorker response to say, "well no shit Whitehead. You're not special for noticing that." And maybe he isn't. But maybe he is. Maybe verbalizing all those little moments is what New York needs to be understood. I'm not convinced but I could be wrong.

A New York Original Reading Frazier's essay entitled "Canal Street," it struck me that in describing one of the most vivid and colorful streets in New York, Frazier turned to stories about people to best get at the nature of Canal Street. The character of Gary reads as a way of understanding Canal Street and its inhabitants. Hardened, opinionated, all about the "dallahs," and fiercely New Yorkers. I realized that so often when we talk about places, we talk about the structures and the physical landscape, but it is really more often the people that have interacted with that landscape and molded themselves in relation to the landscape that offer a stronger perspective on what kind of place that is. In my first blog for this class, I talk about Telluride, Colorado, and I realize that while Telluride is such a visually arresting place, the people that inhabit the town are as much a part of the town as the court house and the surrounding mountains. It would be no place without them. I like thinking that people absorb all these physical elements around them. In Gary's case the incessant commerce and traffic of Canal Street, in a Telluridians case, the mountains and small town charm. Once absorbed, these elements play themselves out in the personality and style of individuals. People are the dynamic manifestations of their surroundings, taking in all the sensory experience of their surroundings and producing a state of being that both complements and takes advantage of that place. In knowing that someone is particularly high strung or laid back, we get a sense of the environment they surround themselves in. In seeing how someone dresses, we begin to understand their environment as well. We can begin to look at place as not so much a geographical location but a state of being, a full-spectrum cultural experience. "Places" do not exist separate from the people that interact with them, instead they are often defined by the people, and in turn, people are defined by them. Gary would be something entirely different if not for Canal Street, and Canal Street is nothing without the Garys of the world.

Just walkWhen Auster, very early in his book, discusses the feeling of walking through New York City, I immediately said to myself, "Yup, he's got it." There are very few cities as open to foot travel as New York is, and as any New Yorker will tell you, there is no better way to see and experience New York than by walking neighborhood to neighborhood. New York, for all its scale and density, is really made up of the ever-changing details and walking New York gives you a chance to feel those details. At the same time, by focusing on such a small scale of New York, by looking at the individual bricks, graffiti, and windows of New York streets, one loses a sense of where one is. This, to me, is how I understand Auster's description of being "lost." While I may be able to locate myself with my mental map of NYC, the lack of direction allows us to get swallowed up and embraced by New York's wild swings of emotion and aesthetic. While Auster describes New York as the "nowhere" that Quinn had built around himself, he does not mean the place does not exist. Instead, I see it as a decentralization of place. When we get lost in New York and its minute details, we need not have a sense of our own place. New York swallows us whole, and the density of experience and stimulation around us make it unnecessary to say I am one place as opposed to another. We are in New York, totally unspecified, and more a state of mind that a physical location. That is what I see as the nowhere of New York. It may sound scary to a tourist, but there is nothing as intoxicating as New York's energy. It is truly like a drug in the way that it can alter you sense of the here and now. As well, I can overdose on New York's energy and need to escape, but no more than a week away I find myself yearning for it once again. Just walking the streets gives one that feeling. The irresistible energy, movement, and life. Sometimes we fight it, on our way from point A to point B, but other times, when we are open to it, we allow ourselves to get lost much like Quinn. In those moments where we wander without direction, we learn the most about New York and ourselves.

Crowded slums
In Tuan's essay on "Spaciousness and Crowding" I think he raises some interesting questions regarding cultural understandings of space and crowds. I might have assumed, or at least not thought about the nature of how people perceive population density. To me, what I perceive as crowded would be crowded to anyone but what I realize is that our own notions of space completely change the way we view what is overcrowded. Americans put a huge amount of importance on private property and what is "their" space versus someone elses. In this way, we can feel our space violated and overwhelmed when there are a lot of people. Culturally, we are not normalized to sharing a space with too many people. In contrast, I spent time in a small Fijian village where the houses were the size of an average american bedroom at best. While the spaces were much smaller, it was the way in which their society shared spaces that allowed for what could be a crowded and oppressive home to turn in to a much more spacious area. Because Americans take so much time to say what is theirs versus someone elses, we lose a sense of what is "ours," insofar as what can be public and for all. For many cultures outside of ours, private space is often shared closely with neighbors. Home is defined by smells from neighboring kitchens, from the noises next door, and from the culture that closeness provides. In suburban america, home is defined by the absence of the other which might explain why any presence of the "other" might provoke a feeling of crowding, of oppression. For such basic concepts as space and crowds, there seems to be a limitless amount of possible interpretations and feelings depending on where one is from.

Madison Square Garden

Taking up the entire space of 33rd to 31st street between 7th and 8th avenue is the self-proclaimed, world’s most famous arena. I am referring to the legendary Madison Square Garden, the home of the New York Knicks and Rangers, and the home to several special events every year from boxing to concerts, from Wrestlemania to the Republican National Convention. Madison Square Garden, or MSG as I will continue to refer to it, holds a special place in New York lore. It has been host to several of the defining moments in New York sports and culture and will continue to do so for several more years. While this may seem like the job of any city’s arena complex, so few share the centrality and the history of MSG that make it a special place. MSG belongs to such an immense number of people in terms of our shared history and serves as a microcosm of understanding how the city itself connects this entire region of the five boroughs, Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester, and Connecticut to each other. It may exist on 33rd and 7th but it exists in the collective consciousness of this entire area, and is a special place because of it.

Landscape?
I thought it was very interesting, if not to be expected, that JB Jackson took the time to spend a chapter discussing the meaning of “landscape.” It is certainly a word that when thought about manages to dodge any simple definition, and eventually becomes quite confusing when trying to define it. Jackson is right to see its most common manifestation as influenced by artists. The landscape to them was a single shot and angle of some natural confluence of trees, rivers, mountains, prairies, meadows, fields, etc. This is a definition I think most people still hold close to themselves and would not mistake. It is one of the few things I actually think we might refer to as a “landscape.”

I was trying to think of when I say landscape with any sense of it being the correct word. In truth, I think describing art is just about the only time I would say it. I might refer to the “landscaping” of a home or a building or a park as well, but again, this is far from what a landscape truly is. Both are pre-fabricated sights that are supposed to encourage a love of nature. The artist chooses his angles and colors wisely just as a landscaper might choose a nice arrangement of hedges, trees, and flowers. Somehow, these have actually nothing to do with natural land.

So why, when someone says, the American landscape, do we know what that means? We would almost never refer to anything in America by saying, “look at that landscape.” Perhaps it would be check out that view, or check out that building, or check out this road, but rarely would you hear, check out this landscape. It doesn’t really make sense. In truth, I think it is because our idea of landscapes is that they are fixed and with some order. We often note views and buildings because they affect individually, not as a collection of images. Landscapes on the other hand, when not painted or built by hand around a garden, are all-inclusive. They represent the order of all things in a given realm. I could say the Yosemite landscape and that would make sense. And in this case JB Jackson can say the American landscape and have it make sense. At the end, I commend Jackson for digging in to this subject as it is often the way we refer to things that elucidate the most about the nature of those things themselves. In this way, I think landscape is a fascinating word.

Main Street Optimo?After reading Jackson's take on the "almost perfect town" of Optimo, it struck me just how familiar I was with Optimos. While I never grew up in one, or even spent much time in one, his description of looking up the side street on your way through town to see the courthouse and public space triggered some sort of strange nostalgia in me. Was this the "America" I had been missing? Living in New York City certainly isn't living in America as it is commonly perceived. I thought of town-wide 4th of July parties where everyone gathered in the town park to enjoy the festivities. I thought of giant elm trees shading a perfectly green lawn outside of the courthouse for kids to play on. Certainly, these towns do exist, but why do I view them with a nostalgia? Why do I look at them as though they are dying, like this is the end of the perfect town? How can I even think of it as a perfect town?

To me, there is something comforting about a town that has a history, however insignificant or uneventful, that drives its identity. I love the idea of the newly educated man, out on the frontier ready to lay down some roots. When I do think of my own Optimo (the near-perfect town) it is always out west where the vast expanses of land create these islands of commerce and civil life. It is no surprise that I associate these towns with some sort of frontier mentality. The West has represented a truly American spirit. One of discovery and individualism. Somehow, my Optimo is a child of these times. A town born from a community of go-getters, living on the edge of society and making a way for themselves. This was a town born from the inside, not the outside. Maybe I see these places as a dying breed because they really are. Maybe my nostalgia is not misplaced. These towns represent a different way of life than we are used to now. Just as Jackson's Optimo has the choice to deny its history and create a new story of tourism and commerce to outsiders, most Optimos face that choice daily. I suppose my nostalgia comes from thinking of these towns fighting every day to retain their individualism, despite the fact that 50 miles away there is another. They fight to stay themselves and to maintain an identity. In the end, I think that is what I like about these places. I like thinking about an innocuous town in the middle of nowhere that has an identity forged from its history and its people. I may not know that history or that identity but I can relish the fact that that identity exists and it is not just homogenized in to the big-box retail history. These towns may be nameless but they do have an identity all their own, and that is something I can appreciate.

The Grid Life
While there are several elements of Waldie’s writing that I find commendable and even enviable, the thing that popped out most to me was his ability to further the significance of his story by his peculiar choice of style. His writing is abrupt, slightly chaotic, and cut off in to tiny little chunks. While at first this may look appealing, the short, paragraph long chapters, one soon realizes that the book loses an organic sense of movement because of it. Does that remind us of something he is writing about?

For me, it is clear that Waldie chose to write in such a way because of how it parallels his experiences with suburbia. The unstoppable grid wrote people in to an exacted and measured lifestyle. Everyone’s plot was exactly the same and was therefore repeated over and over and over again. There were too many different people crammed in to houses that looked exactly the same. In this way, Waldie’s writing travels from stories of death, to descriptions of subdivision politics, to poetic statements on life itself in little more than a page. His short chapters mirror the chopped up way of life so prevalent in early suburbia.

As his story suffers from an inability to grow organically, so too does the suburbs. But in this case, Waldie benefits from his stylistic choice as the choppiness of his story only enhances what he is speaking about. As for the suburbs, the repetition and abruptness of gridded-lot lifestyle does little to enhance anything and instead seems to stunt the growth of those who live in it.