Tag Archives: 100 Words Reflection

07. Robert Moses papers and Archival Research Overview

Archival research is based on the type of the material we are looking for. The materials can be diaries, rare books, paper documents, photographs, et cetera, but can also be historical artifacts like jackets or trophies. To get access to this type of materials you should refer first to the archive website and find out what are the steps you should follow. It is a must to do an advanced planning for visiting the archive since this type of material very delicate and sometimes may be one of the kind. Actually I have an opposition about this type of rare or unique materials. I agree for farther research to have access to them, but to their copy not to the original ones, because as it was mentioned in the readings, those are irreplaceable. Anyway, at list they don’t let you to take them home, so you should use that time wisely whenever you get access to them. Archives have primary source materials and it will ground your research. This archives are accessible by others as well, not just by students or professional academic researchers.
The Robert Moses papers are organized in series and in numerical order from Series 1 to Series 16. The papers mostly include materials based on the type of job position he was at that time and based on the project he was working on. He had a long career as a public official and also he worked on many important projects that still stay strong nowadays. We can access to his series of papers by referring to the New York Public Library’s (N.Y.P.L) website, at Archives and Manuscripts, and find out the steps to follow. They may ask to fill a form with your information and the need for the material requested.

05. Using RECAP to evaluate the reading – Eamon Loingsigh The Power of Family Lore: Uncovering Brooklyn’s “Auld Irishtown”

The things that Eamon talks about in this article are relevant to my topic since he is giving information about Irishtown that later on became Vinegar Hill. This source helps on the research of my assignment but doesn’t fill all my needs. The author and the publisher are trusted sources. The author is a dedicated writer and researcher of this neighborhood.
Eamon comes from the Loingsigh family that has witnessed the history of this neighborhood, the changes area’s names, and the tough times that Americans gave to Irish. The currency of the source information is pretty reliable even though it was published nowadays, the content of it was taken by trusted sources like history books and family personal experiences.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle website is up-to-date source since it is dedicated to write the Brooklyn’s history and everything else that has to do with this borough from 1841. Eamon comes from an Irish emigrant family that moved to Irishtown, Brooklyn, New York in 19th century. His parents and grandparents told him stories about Irishtown, he read books about it and did research online. I looked up some of his sources like the book Gotham and I did verify them.
In that part of Brooklyn were known the neighborhoods like Dumbo, Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Navy Yard, but Irishtown wasn’t recognized as an actual place in official records. This made the author to write about it. Creating this source came down to his family, they told him stories about Irishtown. Nobody knew much about it at that time since the computers and internet didn’t exist, so it wasn’t easy to look things up.

03. Shirley Li – WikiGalaxy: A Visualization of Wikipedia Rabbit Holes

The name WikiGalaxy is beautifully given to the site and that is very true. I always end up clicking one of those blue highlighted words/links and like many of us I become dependent of the Rabbit Holes. The latest that I was captivated by the Rabbit Hole was when I was reading about Vinegar Hill and Brooklyn. I kept clicking on the highlighted words and it took me by surprise somewhere completely different from what I was supposed to be focused on. So that’s the funny part, that for that first assignment it took me a lot more time then the two preceding assignments combined. The time was longer but worth it since I got to learn stuff that I never heard before or stuff that I always wanted to read about. So my conclusion is that if you have a deadline you should force yourself not to be prey of Rabbit Hole, otherwise open your horizon by clicking those links that interest you.

02. The Whiskey Wars That Left Brooklyn in Ruins

Based on the reading I noticed that Brooklyn distilleries issue was very important to the merchants of vinegar hill and to the government as well. This caused several wars between them when the government raised their taxes, closed and destroyed their illegal activities. The corruption somehow always finds the way through by bribing revenue officials and infiltrating into the government institutions. Even nowadays this corrupted activities still exist but they are very well hidden from the public, and people find out about this stuff after centuries in history books. This issue became harder to get rid of after the Brooklyn distilleries expanded a lot and became a huge method of income. After the distilleries stopped completely their activity vinegar factories popped up, and maybe that’s why the area got the name Vinegar Hill since it is located in a hill as well.

Seventh 100 Word Reflection: GIS and one GIS Graphic

(Pictured above is a GIS exercise I completed)

GIS has been and still is a very influential and liable tool from the time it was born in 1963, to today and probably will be the king of all tools for as long as humanity continues to reconstruct the space we live in and as long as we need a reliable source to pull out information on a region we are researching or working on. Over the years GIS and the purposes for GIS has transformed, but its transformations have been used to better serve the community as almost everyone uses GIS.

Sixth 100 Word Reflection: Hypothesis about Vinegar Hill 1820-1870

My group and I arrived at many conclusions on Vinegar Hill from 1820-1870. We believe during that time, the Ferry Lines refocused the neighborhood, and when photography was introduced in 1839 that changed how every thing was documented and collected. We also believe that during that time, the government of Brooklyn were the wealthy land owners in Brooklyn , and they made sure the government was ran how they wanted it to be and everything favored them. And as far as documentation goes we think that population, jobs, money, buildings, were some of the collected things with the exception of  the slave population.

Fifth 100 Word Reflection: Robert Moses Papers

The Robert Moses Papers are first divided into sixteen series, in addition to some of them being alphabetized and others being put in chronological order.  The materials included range from correspondence, speeches, memorandum, press releases, reports, plans, photographs, clippings, and public records. There are three ways to gain access to using these resources and those three ways are to either physically go to the New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts, the address is listed on the website, request access to the collection, there is a hyperlink provided on the website, or to get some of the work on microfilm.

01. The reflection on the borough of Brooklyn and its neighborhoods Vinegar Hill, Downtown and Dumbo.

After the readings I found out that Brooklyn has so much history to offer by reading, but most interesting by visiting its neighborhoods and feel the past. It amazing how they have been able to keep this historic areas untouched until now days like Vinegar Hill neighborhood. I can’t say the same about Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn since they have been modernized and very expensive, but some part of this neighborhoods are kept the same old way. One of the things that surprised me about Brooklyn was that it’s the second most densely populated boroughs not just in New York State, but in whole United States. Another surprising thing to me was that the name Breuckelen (Brooklyn) came from a Dutch farmer in 1646. Can’t wait to learn more about Brooklyn and looks like this class will do this in details.