At the very beginning of the semester when I was introduced to the Farragut houses, I went in search for primary source and history of the Farragut houses. I ended up in Brooklyn Heights library which is several blocks away from City Tech to gather information, the librarian there gave me one book and suggested that I should go to the Brooklyn Public Library which is the Central, main library for Brooklyn with lots of information on downtown Brooklyn and so I took the 41 bus and headed out, when I got there I was amazed to see this huge building with fine Art work at the entrance and the librarian at the Brooklyn collection was very helpful, nice to me so I appreciated that and that was a plus for me. She took her time and gathered information for me and continued looking for as much information needed .Thanks Ms. Librarian (I forgot her name) I thought that was really nice – I am looking forward to this 3^rd Brooklyn Public Library visit.

My experience visiting the New York Public library at 42^nd Street and Fifth Avenue was a great Education experience, I am sure that the entire class felt the same because we was able to explore the maps of the City of Brooklyn –William Perris 1855- Volume 1 as well as other maps of Downtown Brooklyn area. We were able to study, take picture and record info of these maps for about 1 and ½ hour, without any interruptions in a private reading room all to ourselves, I thought that was cool. I was truly captivated with this book Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Study By Mayor’s Committee on Property Improvement Bernard F. Hogan Chairman, Joseph Platzker Secretary, one of the pages were dated June 17, 1941 with lots of interesting information about Downtown Brooklyn. Then we continued on to the Map room in the 1^st Floor where we did some more exploring of this amazing room. I also had lunch at the Library eat a nice chicken sandwich and went to the bookstore and brought a book named Lost Brooklyn. Had a great time looking at the maps and exploring it a bit!! I look forward on a next visit to this great Library landmark very soon.

Last weeks visit to the NYPL exceeded my expectations on what i thought I would walk away with. I am hoping that the Brooklyn Public Library will be as successful. I have never been to this library, so I am going with an open mind.

My experience visiting the New York Public library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue was a great Education experience

I always walk on 5th avenue and i never tried to take a peek at this amazing library. I always thought it was a tourist site or museum. although it may appear to a lot of people as a museum because of the historic setting  and architecture up front. it is located Bryant park, i always stop by Bryant because they always have numerous shows out in the park and it is a great site i you want to sit down and watch the busy street of midtown , which is 5th ave and 42nd street. On Wednesday , i was amazed by this amazing library, as i walked in it was just an raised eyebrow moment, because i was amazed by just the crowd of people that was in the building, but the historic setting in there. Their map room was great , they have every single map in the world, located in this huge room, witch an incredible ceiling, they have globes all around and book shelves with maps of continents, islands, countries and old NY maps, and Brooklyn maps.that was amazing. i found a lot of New things about my site in Vinegar hill. my focus was not related to the maps but its good to know the history, the past and understand certain reasons they made certain decisions back in the day and i found that very amazing.

I really enjoyed our visit to the New York Public Library map room. I’d been to the library many times, of course, but I’d never been to the map room before. I didn’t even know it existed!

I looked at many different maps of the area around the Farragut Houses, generally known as DUMBO, downtown Brooklyn, and/or Vinegar Hill. I found lots of interesting information about the street layout and how it changed over the years. The most interesting thing actually was the fact that it didn’t change very much until the Farragut Houses were constructed.  At that point, the neighborhood was demolished. Streets disappeared, were deleted, replaced by superblocks.

I didn’t find a lot of new information about transportation to the area—the main topic of my research project—because transit maps were not made available to us during our visit to the library. I did find one page in one book relating to the subway system, however, a map showing plans for the second system, the city’s planned expansion of the subway right before the Great Depression. The Depression derailed the plans, and then World War II killed them entirely: there were no workers around to do the building and all available iron and steel was needed for the war effort. One part of the planned system, the Second Avenue subway, is still under construction today.

It was very meaningful to me to be surrounded by all those maps, the physical record of our changing city. I find maps—especially paper maps—fascinating, almost poetic, a way to be in touch with history. I’m glad I discovered the NYPL map room. I’m sure I’ll return.

Unfortunately my classmate and I ended up at another library and not the main branch located on 42nd street . After we got to the China Town public library as Google maps directed us the librarian there gave us directions as to  where we can access the  F train that would lead us to the main branch on 42nd street. Even though we did not get to look at any of the  maps in the map room (room 215) I did manage to gather some information about the Farragut houses in the remaining class time at the NYPL. I  asked the librarian for assistance and was assorted to a section where I  saw one map of the area where the Farragut houses were built in a book titled, “BROOKLYN  NY VOL 12”. Although this visit wasn’t a huge success for me I do plan on revisiting the library sometime soon to look at as many maps as possible in order to better understand what that piece land was used for before everything was completely demolish and to also gain a broader perspective of the current and future of NYC Public housing.

Architecture students brought new ideas to me about how I can differently look at the space. What I’ve learned from their projects is that open space is not safe and to make area safer it’s better to divide blocks and put more objects there. To make it safer they also want to build more commercial and residential spaces to make area more alive. Also i think it was a good idea to mix people by building luxurious and low-income places. At the same time all that projects were very modern but I really like the idea of historical district and it’s different from any other place stile. I was surprised how much work was done and how much ideas this student can bring to this world.

The Urban Studio visit clarified the idea of our project and I finally realized the main purpose of our research. The exhibition shows how beautiful and interesting we can present our work and make a good contribution into the data base of the New York history. The Urban Studio presented the history of one of the buildings of City College of Technology, the Mosaic Building. The exhibition includes 3D paper models of the area and architecture, historical timeline, pictures of the important  people who were working on the project. The story of the main element of the building, its symbolic and the author of it. It is the good example for us of how we can present our work.

Very exited to visit the library. As I was looking at the maps all this time and going deeper into the old pictures I hope to see more pieces that are not possible to see in digital version. Question if it will be possible to take a copy of them?

I want to look at the names in historical section. And, of course, to make a research in books about NYCHA and downtown Brooklyn history.