Author Archives: Anne Leonard

Listening and blogging assignment for next week

Leave a reply

Really nice work on the midterm presentations, everyone. Don’t forget to submit a PDF of your presentation slides by the end of the day today. For Tuesday, please listen to one of the podcasts linked below and write a 100 word blog post in response to this prompt:

What do you think the speakers and interview subjects did particularly well to communicate their ideas? What questions do you still have, or what do you think they could have explained better? Feel free to link to 1-2 of your favorite podcasts if you regularly listen to ones you want to share.

Podcast episodes:

There Goes the Neighborhood: East New York: Did it Work
Trickery, Fraud, and Deception
Our Town
Here’s the Plan
Daily News Sports Talk: How Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Bruised the Neighborhood
Learning Places Summer 2016: Influence of Beaux-Arts on Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station

 

 

Midterm presentations next week!

Leave a reply

Yesterday’s site visit gave us a chance to explore the scale, architecture and streetscape around the Barclays Center/Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park development. Looking ahead to next week, midterm presentations take place on Tuesday 10/23 and Thursday 10/25. In Tuesday’s class we circulated a sign-up. Please review so you know the date of your presentation and your place in that day’s order of presentations:

Tuesday: Davit, Jean-Pierre, Renzo, Chimdiebube, Katherine, Joel, Sabrina, Ralph, Saqif, Anesha, Mirna

Thursday: Zu Qiang, Daniela, Donna, Ericka, ChuXin, Terry, Maricel, Edith, Guiseppe, James

Presentations should be between 7-10 minutes including Q&A from your classmates (and instructors). Please submit your presentation slides as a PDF via OpenLab blog post by the end of the day on Thursday, October 25.

Site Report 2B due today, site visit Thursday, midterm presentations next week

Leave a reply

Today in class we discussed developing a good research question (and viewed the Prezi) and also explored our site through google maps and street view. On Thursday, bring a printout of a map of our site to take notes on if you like.

Midterm presentations take place next Tuesday 10/23 and Thursday 10/25. In class we circulated a sign-up. Please review so you know the date of your presentation and your place in that day’s order of presentations:

Tuesday: Davit, Jean-Pierre, Renzo, Chimdiebube, Katherine, Joel, Sabrina, Ralph, Saqif, Anesha, Mirna

Thursday: Zu Qiang, Daniela, Donna, Ericka, ChuXin, Terry, Maricel, Edith, Guiseppe, James

We have another site visit on Thursday. You have a choice: meet in our classroom by 2:30 to take the subway to Barclays Center together, or get there on your own and meet at the site where we sketched the Barclays Center, in the plaza in front of the main entrance. Please be on time so we can start promptly. Dress for the weather – clear skies, temperatures in the 40s, and a strong breeze are in the forecast.

barclays center entrance

Meeting place on Thursday

 

Brooklyn Collection site report 2B due Tuesday 10/16, and site visit 10/18

Leave a reply

Today we discussed newspaper research in historic and contemporary newspapers, including the historic New York Times, the Brooklyn Eagle, and other news sources from City Tech library databases, which you can access from home with the barcode from your college ID card.

Midterm presentation guidelines are now on the course site. Midterm presentations take place on Tuesday 10/23 and Thursday 10/25.

In class on Tuesday we watched the documentary film Brooklyn Matters and discussed potential themes that have emerged from our site visits and archival research so far. Part 2B of the archives site report is due on Tuesday, October 16. On Thursday, October 18, please be prepared for another site visit to the Barclays Center/Atlantic Yards site. We will meet in our classroom and walk together.

 

Brooklyn Collection visit on Thursday, October 4

Leave a reply

This Thursday, October 4 we meet at the Brooklyn Collection, 2nd floor of the Brooklyn Public Library, Central library at Grand Army Plaza, at 3pm (from the college, you can take the B41 bus, the 2/3 to Grand Army Plaza, or the B/Q to 7th Avenue). The purpose of Thursday’s research visit is to learn about a range of primary sources documenting the history of the Barclays Center and surrounding neighborhoods and begin to explore topics and form questions that will lead to your final project. The site report for the archives visit is due one week after our visit, October 11 with a short follow-up to your research questions due October 16. Please review the site report in advance of Thursday’s class.

Before the Barclays Center and associated high-rises were built, the site of the project was home to residential, retail, and industrial tenants. In advance of Thursday’s class, please read the following news articles that record some of the 21st-century history of the struggle over the site:

Newman, Andy. Guarding their Homes Against the Bulldozer, the New York Times, January 23, 2004.

Bagli, Charles V. Ruling Lets Atlantic Yards Seize Land, the New York Times, November 24, 2009.

Frazier, Ian, The Big Shoe, the New Yorker, February 1, 2010.

NYPL Map Division visit and site report #1 due on Thursday

Leave a reply

Site report #1 is due on Thursday, September 27. Please post a link to the PDF of your site report or upload the PDF to the media library of our OpenLab site.

NYPL Lion

By C.S. Imming [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

This Thursday is our visit to the Map Division of the New York Public Library, in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 476 Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. The closest subways are the B, D, F, M, and 7 trains at 42nd Street/Bryant Park. You are probably familiar with Patience and Fortitude, the famous lion sculptures outside the library. That’s Fortitude, above. We will meet in room 117 at 3pm SHARP. Come prepared to take notes (pencil only, please) and photos (no flash). In class today we examined familiar places represented on historic fire insurance maps of New York City and asked the question, What has time done to this place?

Tuesday 9/25 and Thursday 9/27

14 Replies

I remembered I’d taken a photo of the crumbling party wall and the ghost signs concealed by the recently demolished building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Flatbush Avenue last fall:

5th+Flatbush201711

5th & Flatbush, November 2017

Today the site has been prepared for new uses yet is now overgrown with plants, indicating no construction has been happening lately:

5th+Flatbush201809

5th & Flatbush, September 2018

Thanks, everyone, for participating in a great site visit today. The first site report is due on Thursday, September 27. Remember to save a copy of the site report template, and then edit it with your content and responses. On Tuesday we’ll discuss research in archives and special collections in preparation for our research visit to the New York Public Library Map Division, 476 Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, on Thursday, September 27 from 3-4:30pm. Before Tuesday’s class, please read the articles linked below, and comment on this post with 2 questions you have about these readings:

Introduction to Archives, Visiting the Archives, and Citing Archival Sources from the Purdue OWL

What are archives and how do they differ from libraries? and Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research from the Society of American Archivists

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources from Virginia Tech libraries

~Prof. L.

Our first site visit next week, and blogging assignment

2 Replies

Today we learned about one-point linear perspective and reviewed the site report template.

Looking ahead to next week, classes are not held on Monday, September 10 and Tuesday, September 11. The college is open, and the library is open 9-5 both days. On Thursday, September 13, we meet in our classroom at 2:30pm sharp for our first walking tour of our study site. Please come prepared to be out for 2 hours with a charged phone or camera and notebook and pencils for sketching. Your blogging assignment due Thursday, September 13 is one 100-word post. First read this opinion piece, “Urban Walking isn’t just Good for the Soul,” and then complete the following observational exercise: document the observations of your experience between your front door and the bus, subway, or parking space you use for your everyday commute. Post observations in a 100 word blog post.

 

 

Week 1, and blogging assignment for Tuesday, September 4

Leave a reply

On Tuesday we reviewed the goals of the course and viewed the film My Brooklyn (log in with your college ID to stream from anywhere). On Thursday we viewed the film Citizen Jane: Battle for the City and discussed some of its themes.

Regular blogging is an essential part of your participation in the course. Your first blogging assignment, due before the start of class on Tuesday, September 4,  is to reflect on the films we watched together and write one 100-word blog post responding to these questions:

How is change managed in a city, and who manages that change? Do people have a “right” to the city?

 

Welcome to Learning Places!

Leave a reply

Learning Places is an interdisciplinary course co-taught by Prof. Anne Leonard in the Library and Prof. Jason Montgomery in the department of Architectural Technology. Using methodologies from both professors’ disciplines, we conduct field research and archival research to study one site together in depth. This semester, our case study site is Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and adjacent developments known as Atlantic Yards, Pacific Park, and the Atlantic Center. The site is a short distance from campus, about one mile south on Flatbush Avenue.

Barclays Center Brooklyn

By Tandonva – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69757746

There are no required textbooks in this course. Assigned readings will be posted here on the OpenLab site or distributed in class, and recommended books are on reserve in the City Tech library. You will need a notebook or sketchbook and soft pencils for sketching during our field research visits. We will use cameras to document our research trips. A smartphone camera is fine; it is also possible to borrow a camera from the instructors. Our first class meeting is 2:30-4:35 on Tuesday, August 28 in L543 in the City Tech Library. Questions? Leave a comment below.