I live in Manhattan and have never visited the Farragut Houses in Vinegar Hill before. I’ve been past the Navy Yards, but am most familiar with the parts of Brooklyn around City Tech. From previous research, I do have some information about transportation in the area. I know there were several trolley lines as well as several elevated train lines in that area before the projects were built. But though I know about trains, I know very little about the area on the ground. I know above and below it—but on it, almost nothing. I have never lived in any projects, but the projects on Avenues C and D in Manhattan are not far from my home in Stuyvesant Town. They are not very highly spoken of, but many students in my middle school lived there and some of them of them were really great. Some weren’t, of course, but that’s true everywhere. I assume the people living in the Farragut Houses are as nice, and as not nice, as people everywhere else.

I’m excited to see this area on the ground and see if it matches up with my assumptions about it. I’m not nervous at all. I might be nervous if I was exploring this area all alone in the middle of the night, but in the daytime with a group –there’s nothing at all to worry about.

I’m a New York City kid and love discovering new neighborhoods. I’m looking forward to this trip.

(Sorry–I thought this posted last week!  I guess I hit “save draft” instead of “publish.”)

I live in New York just for three years but all this years I was walking though it’s streets, driving car and biking. I was studying the photography and it was very interesting for me to walk on the streets and take pictures of the beautiful buildings and parks. As I’m also working in real estate I love to observe what people live in what area and the history of the buildings, how they are look inside and predict the market trends. I was thinking about fair housing for few years for now but I didn’t have a chance to go deeper into this category of buildings in New York.

I’m expecting to see the lower class area because it’s close to Navy Yard and too close to BQE which means that it’s probably noisy there. There are not so many stores in that area and the closest station is just York street F train. I think that streets will be older closer to the river, older buildings and older roads. There were many factories before I think some of that factory buildings are still there but they probably transferred into residential buildings. I’m expecting to see some empty buildings.

Very existed about this trip.

I went to a talk about internship and there I heard about the tech triangle, the area inscribed in between CityTech College, Metro Tech and Navy Yard. The site we are going to visit, as I understand, is in the middle of this area. I am excited to get to know this area better and how its community is impact by the presence of those center developing technology in that region. I guess books, maps and newspapers can help to clarify the history of this neighborhood.

n advance of our visit to the Farragut Houses, what are your thoughts on the visit and the observation and documentation you’ll be doing? What do you feel excited or nervous about? What do you imagine you’ll discover or learn about?

I haven’t heard of the Farragut houses before today and I walk around New York a lot, I’m also learning more about my city during tours with my company at Gray line New York City Sightseeing , where the tour guys really know there history of New York. I’m excited to find out more about this past of Brooklyn I love the details in the old buildings.  I lived in projects before and I know a bunch of friends and family members who also live in the projects.  So I doubt I’ll be surprise with what we see, but who knows because all projects locations are not the same,  some projects are really clean and the neighbors are nice and some really aren’t. I haven’t been to this location before but I’m excited to find out something new. I hope we find out the actual meaning of the projects because I tried to do some research and got stuck with the story about the immigrants moving to NYC. My drating skills are pretty alright,  I’m excited to see what we end up drawing and learning today.

In advance of our visit to the Farragut Houses, what are your thoughts on the visit and the observation and documentation you’ll be doing?  What do you feel excited or nervous about? What do you imagine you’ll discover or learn about?

When I think of the word, The Projects, a couple things come to mind- shady or unsafe, crime, low-income. These are all negative connotations, which to be fair was influenced by society. Truthfully, I was quite surprised that our first site visit was going to be public housing, the Farragut Houses. However, through several in-class exercises, including Professor Montgomery’s inspirational story of his time in Rome and Italy, I am beginning to understand the underlying purpose in the course. I am excited that my first “careful observation” sketching experience will be of something a little more unusual.

From how the street conditions are like, to the residents, to the general vibe of the Farragut Housing neighborhood, I know this experience will help me appreciate the tiniest details that we often overlook and to question, to dig deeper into understanding its connection with each other.