I always walk by the New York Public Library but I have never been inside of it. I am especially curious about their maps archive, its content and how it is organized. My group is researching the development and the impact of technology in the Vinegar Hill area and some maps can clearly show how technology changes some regions.
It was a great opportunity to hear the urban design students talking their points of view and to see their models. They approached some issues that weren’t even visible to me before and they purposed solutions for problems such as safety and lighting that would bring a massive transformation for the neighborhood. I think our class really beneficiated from getting in contact with the urban design students, who have a keen eye to urban development and are so much knowledgeable about the Vinegar Hill area.
New York Public Library is well known for its magnificent exterior and interiors. I had chance to visit and tour the inside the library years ago, I was really impressed by their multiple divided reading rooms structure and main reading room’s ceiling decoration. Also, they have great book collections in the library and their branch right across the 5th avenue. From the reading, it was good to know how they put old maps together into digitized version and open to public to access their online resources.
I’m really looking forward to going this site visit. And I’m going to find out how I can use this map efficiently in our group project.
Based on some of the other posts I read i’m not the only one that hasn’t been to the library in a while, and not just to use the bathroom but to actually research something. I think this should be a good visit, although we’ve visited the site and collected data on it, one of the best ways to find out the “why” of something is to look at its history. If we can see the conditions of the land or what was there before, we may be able to draw conclusions on the thought processes of those who decided to be rid of a “slum” to make way for this construction. I think this information should be beneficial to all groups
It will be an exciting visit to the NYPL Map Room- to be able to physical touch the maps is fascinating. Prior to this, I never knew this was open to the public nor did I know of this at all.
A cuple questions I would like to answer post site-visit are:
1. What was the demographic like pre-1940s and post-1940s in the Vinegar Hill/Navy ard area?
2. First sign of public schools in the area?
3. population density
4. conditions of the area?
5. Green space. Any parks visible on the maps?
6. Walking/pedestrian friendly? How wide/narrow were the streets pre-1940s and post-1940s?
This visit was well worth the short trip to the Voorhees building. Our class did plenty of research on the Farragut houses and it’s surrounding areas, documenting our finding on its safety, crime, demographics and so on. It was interesting to see another class who did similar research and used said research to devise a way to better the community. All three groups that presented their findings and solutions to use recognized the desolate nature of the area and realized that focusing on correcting that was key. Some ideas were to try to up the safety factor of the area with wider streets and shorter blocks and to add more commerce buildings, and some wanted to diversify the area into multiple forms of Commerce and residential buildings to try and create an atmosphere of camaraderie amongst community members. I thought all the presentations were well thought out and interesting
Urban design studio class reflection:
Meeting with three different groups who primarily wanted one thing for the Farragut houses neighborhood, and that was more commercial space to bring more people into the area, all in hopes of erasing the negative and scary reputation. And utilizing all the open green area. Being a skeptic towards certain ideas observing the students in their field and them being knowledgeable about the structure and their examples was very interesting because it was what I had in mind come to life. I would really love to see the playground by the F train turned into something beautiful.
I’m beginning to trust our professors more. Every class is a new experience that I actually enjoy and take something of significance home with me. I think that seeing these maps are going to be really cool. I really want to find out what the “slums” of vinegar hill look like.
.
I really enjoyed the visit to the urban life studio. We walked around the studio in different groups to listen to my peers talk about their projects, for the expansion of the Farragut houses. The students had also made a visit to the Farragut housing projects. They made representative scale models to show us their vision for the expansion of the farragut housing.They all made new buildings surrounding the older ones. New buildings were going to be built to be multi functional, with office space, commercial space and residential area. They cut the mega-block down into smaller streets with through-traffic. The ways that they created space for business,jobs, homes would help bring more traffic to this area and make it more inviting. This interaction very exciting and experience. I liked seeing urban renewal in its infancy stages.
Monday’s class visit to the 4th year architecture studio was insightful and impactful It was a great to have the two classes come together to share different projects within a similar topic. I would love to have more opportunities for co-learning environments like this.
A couple interesting pointers:
Professor Duddy pointed out a brilliant idea for additional future collaborations between the two sets of students. What if all the research the students from the ‘Learning places’ course collected of the history to the demographic to the real estate factors of the Farragut Housing from this semester with is shared with next semester’s architecture students who will work on creating a master plan for the area around Farragut Housing, wouldn’t the exchange of information there be extremely helpful in adding to the architecture students’ designs.
Another interesting finding were the solar sun path diagrams one group included in their master plan. They included the Sun’s path it travels from East to West throughout the day and how that factors into where specific buildings are positioned and the type of design to the type of material used for the design. This ties back to what we learned about in our site-visit: sun patterns was one of the reasons behind the architects’ intent when designing the Farragut Housing complex’s star-like shape.
What is most rewarding about interactive learning is regardless of what disciplinary study anyone may be in- how similar or different, we can all take away something new each time when information and ideas are shared. I have definitely gained new perspectives since day one and now I am starting to “see” what seems as everyday objects in an more analytical manner.
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
