Tag Archives: Vinegar Hill

04. The First Visit in Vinegar: Site Report #1

04. The First Visit in Vinegar Hill – Site Report #1

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.

Reflection #6: Hypothesizing Vinegar Hill 1870-1920

My group and I created hypotheses about Vinegar Hill during the 1870-1920. We focused predominantly on how technological developments impacted Vinegar Hill as a place. During the time period we were given, Brooklyn was becoming much more connected to the rest of New York City. The Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge were completed in 1883 and 1909. These bridges directly attached Downtown Brooklyn to Manhattan. The construction of these bridges impacted Vinegar Hill in a few ways. One way Vinegar Hill was affected was many of it’s streets and buildings were demolished to make room for the Manhattan Bridge.

Bridges were not the only way Vinegar Hill was becoming more attached to the rest of the city. In the 1904 the first subway was opened. Shortly after 1904, many more subway routes were created providing thousands of people with easy and affordable transportation. In addition, cars were becoming more commonplace towards the 1920s.  All of these factors made it easier for people to come and go from Vinegar Hill. Before the bridges, subways, and cars, people would not travel very far distances. Because of that there was a sense of dependency on the shops and industries in Vinegar Hill. That dependency faded away when people were given more ways to access Manhattan.