After the New York Experience

         New York, after the experience, has a entirely new light shown on it. Originally I saw the city as more of a feeling. You needed to have the right look, the right coffee in your hand, and the right time of day for the city to feel "right". Now I see that New York is a way of life, and it has been for centuries for tons of different people. These people built this city up from the ground to create every little nook and cranny that now makes it unique in its own right. New York pays tribute to these people and hard times that they went through with all of the amazing museums to showcase what they did, and why
they worked so hard to do it. We can see why they did it every week, to create this culture of New York as a whole. New York has so many separate areas known for the ethnicity or economic level that resides there. Areas are known for not only their present, but for their past which follows the area either showing how far they've come, or how far they've dropped, or possibly just simply how much the type of people living there have changed.
          New York is also a Mecca for art. There are so many different styles, levels, and concepts of art available for people to admire. This art can be anywhere from on the streets, to in the MET (the absolute largest building I think I've ever been in....containing art at least). I was able to see more art then I ever even thought existed. Sometimes I wasn't extremely enthusiastic, but other times I couldn't stop taking pictures I thought it was so intriguing. I loved that New York was home to so many different kinds of art, historical, modern, graffiti, and also from so many different cultural backgrounds. This really solidified the fact that New York really is the melting pot of America. 
         Another aspect of this class that I loved was of course the food. I've always viewed New York as a go to place for great food, but I've never really stepped outside of my comfort zone when it can to types of food I ate. I was able to experience Indian, and Thai food, both were surprisingly good and both very different from the normal "red-sauce" Italian style meals I'm used to. I know that so many different backgrounds of people reside in New York, but I have to admit I'm always ethnocentric in the fact that I assume everyone eats pasta and meatballs. Seeing that there are so many different kinds of food, preparations, and traditions relating to food in different areas really made me want to venture away from my norm and see what else is out there that I might like.
         This class really opened my eyes and was a wonderful experience. I really can't wait to go into the city next time and be able to understand where I am, and understand how all these areas started. So many known names for these areas I had no idea how they got them such as the "meatpacking district" or the "diamond district" obviously I knew then had something to do with meat or diamonds, but the actual history of how they started and how they became known by the world as this.The city is so much more to me then a night out on the town, its a historical landmark. Every building, street, store are all historical in their own right and I will always see the history behind New York's land from now on.

Immigrant New York

            This was our final adventure. I was so upset that this class ended, it was truly one of the best experiences of my college career. I was excited though, since our last class finally went through one of my favorite areas of new York…Little Italy! But we had a few ventures before finally making it there.

            Our first stop was to the Essex Street Market. I had never seen nor heard of this market before today. The market was created by Major LaGuardia in 1940. During that time street vendors were the main source of buying products, and because of this these vendors took up much of the space of the streets. Major LaGuardia (who had a love for cars as a main source of transportation) couldn’t have this. He decided to create an indoor market that these products could be sold to the public. That would eliminate the crowded streets, and still allow for peoples businesses to flourish. Delancy Street at that time was populated with mostly Jewish and Italian decent, causing this area to double as a social ground. Soon immigrants of Puerto Rican decent moved in and with them brought many new key items that allowed these markets to gain even stronger popularity among the town. The markets downfall came after the start of supermarkets. These “super” markets were just that, they had more variety in one stop, and people are continually drawn to convenience. Over the years the Essex Market had been bought out by different people and most recently was owned by New York Economic Development Corporation which decided that re-renovating this area, making it again available to market vendors would be the best choice. They were able to bring back the nostalgic feeling of the area where quality out ran quantity.

                Next we went to the tenement museum. This museum showcased the lives of immigrants 1869-1935 living in these tenements on Delancy Street. The entire purpose of this museum was to bring understanding and tolerance to the immigrant experience during this time. One five story tenement housed over 7,000 immigrants. There were immigrants from all different areas of the world, all coinciding together. Seeing how this population lived in the late 1800’s really brought attention to the extreme differences in living environments in such a short period of time.

                Lastly, my favorite part was walking through immigrant New York, through the lower east-side, the bowery, little Italy, and Chinatown. Chinatown took a while to actually get to where it is today. The Chinese slowly immigrated to New York from building the transcontinental railroad, and from cigar shops in Cuba. Surprisingly there were many laws that prevented the Chinese from immigrating to New York, such as law not allowing men’s wives and children to come. Originally “Old Chinatown” was native speakers only. This was because the jobs they were occupying were labor intensive and never required them to have to know English. In 1965 the laws changed and therefore an influx of new immigrants made their way to New York. They even created “Chinatowns” in Brooklyn and Queens. Chinatown nowadays is struggling with poverty, overcrowding, and has issues with using sweatshops and counterfeiting (BG, 108).

                Canal Street (known by most females as handbag heaven) separates Chinatown on the western side from the Bowery on the eastern side. The Bowery is very well known for their jewelry. In the 1930’s the diamond stores were mostly owned by Jewish population. Over the years the diamond district moved from the Lower East Side to Midtown on 47^th street where is now resides. The stores are now owned by Asian decent rather than Jewish (BG, 109).

                Little Italy began to be created in the 1880’s. Sadly nowadays this area isn’t as ethnically Italian as it once was. Immigrants of Asian descent are spilling over from Chinatown and Italians are moving away. Despite this, Little Italy is still keeping to its routes having plenty of Italian style restaurants, café’s, and festivals. The two big festivals are “The feast of St. Anthony of Padua” in June taking place on Sullivan Street, and “The feast of San Gennaro” in September. These festivals are by far my favorite time to be in the city. They are so lively and have so much great Italian food; it just reminds me of any family get together in my home. I wish I came to dine out in Little Italy more because the food is just incomparable to any other restaurants (BG, 114)

                Though this was our last class, and I should be happy that I will now have more free time in my week, it’s a bittersweet feeling. I got to know a lot of new people and share a fun memorable experience with them. I can’t wait until the next time I go into the city and I’m able to actually ride the subway and understand where I’m going! (Or if I don’t I won’t be scared to get lost and try). Overall I loved this class and wish it never ended.

Lower Manhattan up to Chelsea

         This week was slightly altered due to the current events of Occupy Wall Street. For a few weeks now there have been protesters speaking their mind about numerous different ideas, most relating to the high wages of CEO’s and corporations in comparison to their lack of jobs. First, like usually we took the 1 to Times Square, and the shuttle over to Grand Central. From there we walked down to where the action was at Zuccotti Park. 

         
Around Zuccotti Park there were tons of different News casters, cameras, and police, even horses, to secure the area. The protestors have completely inhabited this park as their grounds for reaching out to anyone who is willing to listen. I was honestly surprised when we got there, when I had heard that the protesters had taken over a park and it was becoming unsanitary because people were urinating everywhere etc., I had in my head an area as big as Central Park’s many great open lawns. I expected to not be able to move on Wall Street, and that the street would be completely bombarded with people pushing and shoving to have their own space. Instead I saw an area nowhere near as large, with many different kinds of people. There were the revolutionists preaching from the street corner to passerbys, the hippies  barefoot surrounding candles dancing to their own beat, the homeless people taking advantage of the free food and a place to lay down and not seem out of place, and a group of people playing music as if it were a festival.  The signs that people held up ranged from economic issues related to CEO’s on wall street, issues with the national debt, issues about past presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, people preaching love and peace, and even a sign that stated “ The Police only serve and protect the rich”, which makes me laugh considering they are surrounding a group of middle to lower class people who are using their right to protest, to make sure that no fights break out, and that no one gets out of hand to PROTECT them. They are not secret service huddling over CEO’s as they walk through the crowds so they don’t get spit on. One of the most disturbing things I saw was a mother with her two very young children, about 8 and 10, holding signs on the street corner. Besides the fact that she is exploiting these children, trying to make people walking by feel bad because they are young and in fear of not having work when they’re older (which if they get a college education the unemployment rate is about 4%, and if they choose to become educated in an area that is in need of jobs at the time, instead of choosing a random area of work, they could very well have a job very easily), these children do not understand what their signs even truly mean. I understand that they are helping their mother support a cause, but she is putting her children in danger considering this area could at any moment become violent with fighting, where police involvement may be necessary.

            Wall Street in the 1600’s was actually just that, a wall. Its original use was to protect the Dutch from the British, eventually the wall was torn down and the wooden planks used to build the wall were used by the people for lumber (BG, 64).

            After walking through Wall Street we went into the Federal Hall National Memorial. The fact that George Washington was taken into office in this building is really amazing to think about. I never knew that the U.S. government was truly started in New York City, though very shortly after it was moved to Philadelphia (BG, 69). The building now is a place where people can walk through and see timelines, photos, and recreations of what the build was like centuries ago. Though I know this building has a lot of meaning to the United States government, I found the exhibit inside to be boring. There wasn’t much to look at and it wasn’t very exciting.

            Next we walked down to where the World Trade Center once stood. It’s completely closed off due to construction, but you can still see the new building being made, though on a foggy day you couldn’t even see where the building’s top was. We walk around and over a bridge to where the World Financial Center is. Inside resides the Winter Garden which has palm trees from the Sonoran desert. This area was destructed after the World Trade Center attacks, but was quickly rebuilt in 2002 and reopened with new flooring, new palm trees, and a huge glass window at the end of the grand stairway that overlooks the construction being done on the World Trade Center site (BG, 61). If you look closely you can even see the recently finished memorial for the men and woman who died during 9-11, the trees surrounding the huge waterfalls.

    We were also able to stop into St. Paul’s Chapel, which after September 11^th, and housing so many people in-between the attacks, to rescuing, to clean-up, now has a memorial dedicated to all the men and women lost, the first responders who were there day in and day out to help, and shows the amount of support we had throughout the country with posters hung up inside. This church originally was built as an extension of the Trinity Church for people who lived too far away to go there (BG, 77).

         Before our very, very long walk down the side of the Hudson, we stopped at the Irish Hunger Memorial, which was made in honor of the Irish who came to the new world due to a potato famine in Ireland (BG, 63). This area has the actual remains of a cottage made out of stone that was brought over to New York and reconstructed and then surrounded by all different kinds of plant life that is well known to Ireland (BG, 63). I thought that this area looked misplaced in its surroundings, but at the same time I think that was the point. It is supposed to stand out and look like a piece of Ireland was just dropped down on New York City. Considering it is a self guided tour, I felt it wasn’t very eventful or had much to look at, just a beautiful view of the Hudson once you walked to the top.

            Next we took a nice long (extremely long), walk down the side of the Hudson. The sun started to come out and was reflecting on the water and was really a beautiful site. The only thing interfering with this stroll was our misinformed choice of clothing, and our empty stomachs. At the near end of our walk we reached the Meat Packing District. This area for years had been known for their importing of meat from boats and railroads (BG, 184). This area, being so close to Chelsea, became gentrified in the 1990’s and now has tons of high end stores and restaurants.            

           

Walking just a little further up the road we reached Chelsea Market, home of the Food Network! This was extremely exciting for me due to my secret love obsession with the Food Network, I feel like I know the celebrities as if they were my best friends. Years ago the Chelsea Market was home to the Nabisco Company, where items such as Oreos got their beginnings (BG, 186). Nowadays the Chelsea Market houses many high end food markets, some restaurants, and a few bakeries. One bakery called Eleni’s New York, had the most delicious cupcake I’ve ever had. Filled with fresh raspberries, and topped with raspberry butter-cream, this cupcake could satisfy anyone’s sweet tooth. The moist muffin-like quality of the cake, and the sweet butter-cream cut with the tart flavors of raspberry jam mixed in was the perfect combination for a mid-day snack.  

          Our last ventures for the day were to walk up and down the streets of Chelsea to see all the different galleries there were. After seeing plenty of modern art throughout the different museums we’ve been to over the past few weeks, I wasn’t really looking forward to any more confusion. The first few we walked into I couldn’t help but laugh at the minimalistic art that I couldn’t possibly understand how it is considered art. As we continued walking in and out of the different galleries, they became more amusing, more outlandish, and more entertaining. One had star trek figurines, frog cookie jars, and a Mr. Peanut. Another gallery showcased more erotic x-rated “art” with videos of naked men with numerous wigs on their heads so you couldn’t see their face, along with a man having eggs cracked over his head. Another area had a large room with a fan and a parachute where every 4 minutes the fan turns on and opens up the parachute. My favorite gallery was a room where they had numerous mannequins standing with these gown –like caps covering their bodies. These gowns had everything from puppets, to birds, to stuffed animals, and sequins covering the mannequins ‘body. My view on modern art is if I could do it, I don’t respect it or considered it art. I am not artistic in the least, so anything I could do couldn’t possibly be worth much. Even if the art is extremely odd such as these mannequins, I respect the art entirely because of the time, effort, and difficulty involved in making all of these costumes.  When I think of well known artists, they are well known and respected because of the thought, effort, time, vision, and difficulty of the works they produced; I feel the same standards should apply to modern art.

            This week was filled with many different things we were introduced to. The protests were interesting to see, to build our own opinion of what is going on rather than just listen to what we hear on the news. Walking to see the twin towers was nice to see how far they’ve come in only 10 years. I loved seeing the meat packing district and Chelsea because these are areas I always hear about but never really knew what they were or where they were. My favorite part of these adventures is becoming more acclimated to my surroundings in New York, and finally starting to understand the layout of where everything is in reference to each other. Next week is our last class, very bittersweet, hopefully we get a nice day to celebrate the end to such a great class!

East-Side Part 2

 This week on our explorations through New York, we re-visited the East Side of Manhattan. We began our travels taking the subway into Times Square then the Shuttle into Grand Central Station. Next we rode the subway uptown until we hit 103^rd street in East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem. Walking through the streets of East Harlem was much different from Harlem which we visited last week. The area, though still seemed lower middle class economically, the sense of culture and community was much more apparent than in Harlem.

Our first stop in Spanish Harlem was to the El Museo Del Barrio, which translates to the museum of the neighborhood. This museum was started by many groups of people such as teachers, activists in the community and artists from Spanish decent. The museum was started in 1969 and opened in a public school classroom. The artwork comes from Columbian, Caribbean, Latin American backgrounds and the artwork and history was displayed in numerous different places before it had a secure home in the old Heckscher Foundation for Children building. The museum now has a permanent collection, as well as collections that change regularly with new, less well-known artists displaying their work. The museum del barrio is also very involved with the schools in the area, have many outreach programs and festivals, most of which are free of charge. The museum is really working to help increase the education of the arts, and will help children in schools however they can (BG, 376-377).

A tour guide from del barrio was able to walk us around the streets of Spanish Harlem, to show us how art is seen all throughout the area. First we stopped to see a huge mural that was painted over 25 years ago to represent the people of East Harlem in their everyday lives entitled “The Spirit of East Harlem”. This mural showed men playing dominos on the street, people in the community hanging out talking, children, elders, singers, and anything else that was important culturally to the area. Recently this mural was restored by a man called Manny Vega Jr. due to reckless graffiti that was done over the painting. This mural is extremely important to the town, so it was important to have someone talented enough to restore this painting and give it the respect it deserves.

 Another area we saw on the tour of Spanish Harlem was an area that couldn’t be ruined with graffiti…because it is graffiti. This graffiti hall of fame, though is commissioned to be there, and for very good reason. These graffiti works of art are amazing to see. After seeing 5 Pointz in Queens we were exposed to the extreme talent that graffiti artists can have, but these walls in East Harlem were different in that they surrounded a school! Now graffiti isn’t always accepted in communities, and even though it can be amazing works of art, these spray paintings are facing children every day while they play outside during recess at school. I found the choice of placement for the graffiti hall of fame to be odd, but loved the work that was shown. The hall of fame was started by Ray Rodriguez in 1980 and is located at the Jackie Robinson Educational Complex.

Later we went to the Museum of the City of New York which is right next to Del Barrio. This museum didn’t have much to look at, and I did find the flow of art very cohesive. The rooms that I enjoyed looking through were almost completely devoted to the Twin Towers. They had photography taken of the buildings anywhere from when they were being built in the 1970’s, to the smoke seen from the towers during 9/11, to the new tower being built now. The video of the history of New York called Timescapes was my favorite part of the museum. The information was presented in a very interesting way, showing the timeline of events, explaining how and why things happened as they did and why things are how they are today. I think people take for granted what this miraculous city is, and forget that at one time this was all grasslands, and people had to come here and decide to build. These changes didn’t happen overnight and there were many different influential people with ideas on how to improve this city to make it one of the most important cities in the world (BG, 376).

For the rest of our explorations for the day, we went through the majestic Central Park. We entered at 103^rd and 5^th, and our destination was strawberry fields at 72^nd. In 1844 there was a lot of talk about reserving a piece of land in the quickly populating Manhattan for a public park. In 1856 this land was purchased for 5 million dollars. Now that they had the land, what were they going to do with it? A competition was started to have many different designers to add in their input of what they thought would be the best layout for this new park. In 1858 Olmsted and Vaux’s design was choose named the Greensward Plan. This plan allowed for the park to keep most of its natural charm, by only augmenting what was already there for them. This park was created for everyone in the areas use, whether they were poor, rich, or anyone in between. The 20 year endeavor allowed for jobs in constructing, not only in planting the hundreds of trees, flowers, and shrubs, but for the additions of a pool, zoo, transverse streets, and even an aqueduct system to supply water to the island (this aqueduct eventually closed and the people of Manhattan now receive their water supply from upstate). Many people wanted to push for additions of other things such as horse race tracts, plane fields, and even an underground garage(which I personally think would have been a great idea since Robert Moses decided to bombard Manhattan with so many new roads and highways, and since parking is always a problem in the city), but never the less all of these ideas and then some were turned down, trying to keep the park traditional to what it was originally made for…a break from the non-stop of everyday (BG, 280-281).

After walking back and forth, winding and weaving through different paths in the park, we finally reached our destination of Strawberry Fields. I’ve always heard about Strawberry Fields from my parents who were true Beatles fans (even their wedding song is Here, There, and Everywhere).  Growing up I assumed first that there were actually fields of strawberries, before I knew there was an actually song entitled Strawberry Fields. Then once I knew it was more of a tribute to John Lennon, I assumed it would be this extravagant area with Beatles paraphernalia everywhere, statues and the like. When my parents told me “No, it’s just a park” I didn’t understand what the big deal was…since it was “just a park”. Yet walking through Central Park, I was still excited to finally see what all the fuss was about. When we finally got there I couldn’t tell what was considered part of the “Strawberry Fields” and which wasn’t. We finally got towards the entrance to the street when we saw a crowd of people surrounding this big circle with the word IMAGINE engraved in it, and on it laid flowers making a peace sign. There was a candle light and pictures of John Lennon.  John Lennon was killed very close by to the now “Strawberry Fields”, at the Dakota Apartments which him and his wife Yoko Ono lived. A crazed fan was waiting outside his apartment for him one night, and shot him. Since John Lennon was such a huge public figure the world went crazy, especially New Yorkers. He was killed in 1980, and his memorial was created in 1985. The area is known as a Peace Garden because of Lennon’s forever strides to overcome fighting and war in the country. It’s said that the flowers creating a peace sign are put there by a homeless man, who is a devoted fan and gets new flowers every morning to lie here, almost as if it was his grave and tons of people come visit him every day (BG, 290-292).

After leaving Central Park, we walked down the now West Side to 59^th street, where half the class with their aching feet happily walked down the stairs into the subways to get back to Penn Station as fast as possible. I had never really been through Central Park so even though my feet weren’t happy with me, I was glad I got to see so many different parts of it (though I know there was plenty more that I missed). The two different museums we saw weren’t my favorite, though the Del Barrio had a lot of more modern artwork that I really liked because I felt they were more relate-able  then some of the other modern art we’ve seen in the past. One of my favorites was a rainbow that was made out of all different neighborhood shops and stores. All red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple had all the store logos on it and I thought it was really clever to use what was all around you to build something that stands for beauty.

West Side

         This week our class tried to conquer the West side of Manhattan. My day started out earlier than usual due to the lightening strike to the railroad tracks the night before. Scared that my train would be delayed and I would be forced to search for the class on my own, I made sure I took an earlier train to compensate for any potential time lost. Luckily the earlier train wasn’t delayed at all and I had a good forty minutes to go with my classmate to try out some bagels from Hot and Crusty right in Penn. Station. They were amazing! Best bagel I’ve ever had! After this I knew today would be a good day.

            After leaving Penn Station, we actually got to walk right out onto the street instead of standing underground in the steam fortress for the next 20 minutes waiting for the subway. We were able to walk only a few blocks to reach the famous Times Square. Interestingly in the early nineteen hundreds, as this area was just beginning to be built up with hotels, businesses and subway systems. The New York Times wanted a piece of this area, and was able to convince the city to rename it from Longacre Square to Times Square (BG, 217). They were in great competition with another popular newspaper at the time, New York Herald, which gave its name to another booming pedestrian area known as Herald Square (BG, 217).

            The main thing people think of when they think of Times Square are the millions of lights. The electronic billboards began to make this area one of a kind, and through the years they have became more updated using neon lights and now LED’s. These big screens allowed for large scale advertisement that people enjoyed walking by and soaking in the bright lights. Theatre was a big addition to Times Square. People realized the investment potential for building theatres and within only a few decades Broadway was flourishing with over 80 theatres! Sadly this wasn’t forever. The Great Depression caused this theatre district to slowly but surely close their doors. Movies began to become the go-to for entertainment causing theatres along with their employees to lose work. Eventually by the 1970’s even the movie theatres went downhill showing only pornography films, going along with the drugs and crime that now took over the area. In the 1990’s government took over helping restore a few theatres recreating 42^nd street to what it once was. There were many other government programs aided in the restoration of Times Square. These programs helped in the rebuilding processes along with servicing and protecting the area from crime.

            Our next stop was to Rockefeller Center. My connection with this building is that my boyfriend works at the building, though I’m sure he doesn’t realize the history that goes along with every detail of the building. The building was constructed in an art deco style, and the main lobby of the G.E. building is surrounded by huge murals. Originally these murals were supposed to be painted by Diego Rivera, but after he lied about what he would paint and Rockefeller disapproved of the mural he designed, his murals were destroyed and instead the murals were painted by Jose Maria Sert. The main mural wall is entitled American Progress where Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson reside representing the “Man of Action” and the “Man of thought” respectively (BG, 249). Other murals surrounding the main lobby represent time, disease, slavery, and labor (BG, 249). These murals more recently were restored, taking away the varnish that has been covering these murals for decades.

            MoMA was the next stop on our itinerary for the day. Being that we have visited numerous museums on our ventures thus far, I wasn’t very excited to go here, especially due to the extreme modern art exhibited there which I don’t really understand. To my surprise there were more artists’ names, and actual artwork, that I recognized here then at the MET. I guess I was assuming that most of the art we would see here would be more minimalistic, I completely forgot about Picasso and that he was one of the early modern artists. Picasso used a style of art called analytical cubism where everything is broken down into geometrical shapes rather than more fluid lines. Picasso’s most famous painting is titled “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” done in 1907. This picture depicted four prostitutes in a brothel and they had an African element to their faces, two women even wearing a mask (BG, 264). Other artist’s showcased in MoMA were Monet, and Van Gough. Both artists are extremely well known even to the artistically impaired bystanders, such as myself. Starry Night by Van Gough was always a favorite picture of mine. I never thought of it as modern art before, just a beautiful picture with beautiful yellow spirals of stars in a dark midnight background. I’m sure this painting has just been over publicized over the years, adding to the tourist appeal of everyone wanting to feel cultured in art, patting themselves on the back for knowing this artwork before stepping foot into the museum, sadly I fall into this group. Another artist I never realized was categorized into modern art was Monet. I have a few Monet pictures in my house (prints of course) of water lilies. When I heard the next room would have Monet’s water lily painting I was excited to the real version of the print I walk by every day. To my surprise it looked nothing like it! I never realized that water lilies were a main inspiration for Monet, and that the last thirty six years of his life was devoted to capturing the essence of a pond of his in his backyard (BG, 265).

            Now starving, the class made their way over to 9^th ave where we would stop for a Thai lunch at Yum Yum Bangkok. I found it hilarious that we were eating here, since numerous times my boyfriend and I have drove down this street laughing at how many of them there were! There are three different Yum Yums and they are all right next to each other! I was shocked at how much I really enjoyed this meal. A little weary at first, but the food tasted very similar to Chinese food and I couldn’t eat it fast enough. I’m happy to say I now like Thai food.

            Next we took the subway up to Harlem at 125^th street. I was definitely a little nervous to go to Harlem from everything you always hear that it’s not a safe area. Once we were there it took me a minute to actually realize how nice and quiet it was in contrast to the busier areas of Manhattan we were earlier. Granted Harlem is not a typical tourist area, it is beginning to be built up. Years ago in the 18^th and 19^th centuries Harlem was a wanted area due to the fertile ground. This attracted wealthy people to start building and in 1837 the railroads were built to reach Harlem, bringing with them a boom of development. Harlem became increasingly settled by German and Jewish communities of the middle class. Due to this, there were many houses and apartments built in anticipation for more middle class immigrants to arrive. Their thought of increased immigration was wrong and therefore much of the land built for new comers was left empty. Philip A. Payton, a realtor convinced landlords if they rented to black tenants that they would be able to still get high rents. In the 1920’s the Harlem black population more than doubled (BG, 438). Since the class was running late we never made it for the tour through the studio museum in Harlem but this museum featured African American artwork, as well as photographs capturing the visual history of Harlem taken by James VanDerZee (BG, 440).

            Overall this day was informative, slightly different being that we were being a tourist in some more non-tourist areas. There was a lot of walking, but worth it! Only three more days left I can’t believe it’s going so fast! See what next week brings.