Bryant Park is one of the larger privately owned and run parks in Manhattan. It is located in Midtown Manhattan at 40^th St., between 5th and 6^th Avenue. Management of the park is provided by the Bryant Park Corporation, found by park president Dan Biederman. It is a non-profit organization. The establishment of the park as a public gathering space began during the 1970’s. At the time, Bryant Park was known as a symbol of the Decline of New York, as gangsters and other unsavory people would be known to gather here. Dan Biederman sought to invoke the Broken Window Theory, cleaning up the park to encourage street goer’s to visit once more and discouraging unsavory characters from reappearing.

It was a huge success, as present day Bryant Park could attest to. The park is frequently visited by civilians and tourists alike. One of the main attractions of the park would be the huge lawn in the center of the park which people are encouraged to sit down for relaxation and lunch breaks. The park is also famous for its various events and amenities that constantly changes depending on the season and year. Recently, Bryant Park overlaid the lawn with a large ice skating rink during the winter season of 2013. It was dismantled a few months back in February – March and the reputable lawn was open once again.

Connected to Bryant Park is the New York Public Library, of Ghostbusters fame. It is located on the East side behind Bryant Park on 5^th Avenue. The library is in a joint partnership with the Bryant Park Corporation. A majority of the library’s storage is stored within an underground building under Bryant Park. Even though it is connected to the park and part of its building is under Bryant Park’s property, Bryant Park does not have any jurisdictions of any form to alter the library’s exterior or its associated properties.

During our walking tour of Lower Manhattan, I’ve realized why tourists made it a priority to visit the city of Manhattan. The reason is because Manhattan is secretly a treasure trove of eye candy for the masses. By this, I mean that some of the distinct architecture is actually not there but one can tell it used to be there. There are many unique building styles that have been renovated for modern times but it’s even more interesting when your mind can still see the original building.

The first building we came across, The National Museum of the American Indian, was a large Greek architecture influenced building. However, it had actually been refurbished from its original design, which was a colonial era port docking reception area. At the moment, it is now just a lobby sitting area before entering the actual museum. The most memorable thing about it was that despite being overhauled, one can still see traces of its old intended use as a sailing port reception area. The oval layout of the seats is probably reminiscent of the reception desk’s shape and the gaps in between were where the teller windows were. The ceiling have motifs painted of past sailors experiences and voyages. It is incredible how such small clues were able to construct such a precise image of a past history.

The construction of the Erie Canal was a major development for New York, resulting in a revolution of transport and settlers flooding in from the West to the East. Although the new Canal brought a movement of poor immigrants to New York, the city was ill equipped to house all of the new citizens. The city’s proposed idea was to construct large multifamily dwellings called tenements to shelter the immigrants. Ironically, while tenement housing did solve the problem dealing with living spaces for immigrant laborers, their poor quality design and sanitation became an even worse problem for the immigrant settlers to deal with.

The tenements were designed mainly to take advantage of the 25 foot x 100 foot lot, resulting in very slim buildings but with more floors to include rooms. These buildings were clearly built to fill quantity rather than quality though. To fit as much people as possible, each floor was designed to accommodate approximately 20 families at a time, resulting in ridiculously cramped living quarters. These apartment rooms also lacked the most basic necessities such as kitchens and toilets. It was common for each floor to have only one or two public bathroom, which every family on the same floor shared. In addition, due to multiple tenement buildings being erected in very close proximities, they would block out the sunlight from each other. If a building was lucky, one or two of the families would receive sunlight through their windows.

Due to the cramped living conditions, sanitation was also deplorable in tenement houses. Due to the lack of a proper sewage and water system, most tenement families were content with just dumping their trash on the floor and outside on the streets; resulting in germs, animals, and disease to move in with them. The cramped quarters made it even easier for disease to spread as when one family with a sickness would often spread it to the adjacent families, whom themselves spread it to their adjacent families, repeating until the entire floor was infected.

The tenement buildings were a result of poor planning and a lack of care for the actual living conditions of its tenants. While the Erie Canal did bring a variety of wealth to New York, it also created the need of tenements: a poorly planned and maintained experiment. However, not all is a sense of disappointment with the tenements. It was due to the attention brought upon these sanitation violations that led to the improvement of living conditions by law, leading to the modern building code of today.

The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 was a revolution in several ways, most of which lead to the success of New York as a trading port city. Known as Clinton’s Folly, referencing the “mistake” of Governor De Witt Clinton for backing such a risky project, the Canal turned out to be the city’s best source of new revenue during the 1800’s.

The first impact of the Erie Canal was the direct bridging of Albany, New York and Buffalo, New York. This direct line improved and minimized two things, the time and money required to transport people or goods from the East to the West and vice versa. By canal boat, the trip from Buffalo to Albany was sped to only a little above an hour, compared to conventional means on road. Shipping cost for services and goods was also reduced to about 90% of the original costs it took pre-Erie Canal era.

With the quick and cheap relocation time came immigrant settlers from the East, who are more than eager to move to New York. With these immigrant settlers also came new goods from their specific culture, generating a new source of trade and revenue.

New jobs revolving around the canal such as boat maintenance were also created, making an even bigger innovation for the immigrants to come. In addition, the business rivalry between the steamboat transportation/shipping and railroads led to an improvement of both businesses as both tried to reel in customers.

With the new canal came the introduction of a huge line of business revenue for New York, leading to an increase of population, a new route of travel and trade, and new occupation improvements. The Erie Canal was known as a huge mistake at the time of its construction but it was proven incredibly wrong after a few years.

For a majority of my life living here, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I know about New York, yet I don’t “know” New York. As a child I was born in Brooklyn. I lived in a quiet suburban area and once in a while I would go with my family to visit Manhattan. I did not think much about the city then when I was a child. As a child, Manhattan just seemed like a mess of tall buildings to me. I did not think too much of it at the time. At around ten years old my family moved to Staten Island, where visiting the city became less of a simple trip and more of a chore. For the latter part of my teenage years, I rarely had time to go out to the city. It wasn’t until after I graduated High School that I got my chance to revisit my old vision of Manhattan.

The New York of today can only be described as fast and furious, particularly the city of Manhattan. Manhattan is often seen as the main “face” of New York, as most tourists refer to Manhattan whenever anyone discusses the Big Apple. Compared to Manhattan, the other 4 boroughs of New York are much tamer and peaceful. The unique essence of Manhattan is often recognized for its fast paced and chaotic nature. The people of Manhattan have a distinctive sense of spirit, which can often be mistaken for aggression or impatience. Since the construction of higher buildings and successful businesses, Manhattan has become a very busy city.

However, despite me not being up to date with the current mentality of Manhattan, I do enjoy this side of New York compared to the much slower and peaceful boroughs. The energetic nature of Manhattan can be viewed as a learning curve before being able to appreciate it for what it is: A chaotic yet engaging form.