Library report #2-Jhojansy Guzman

Humans heart and soul belongs to that only and unique special place where, there is an explainable confidence and satisfaction for no reason. Some of this place one could think of, might be a special place that one once visited, a place that remind you of a loved one but, one that we all have in common is the neighborhood where we grew or that we remember the most from childhood. Indeed a neighborhood is the only place that shapes humans way of living and thinking. But, what happens when a neighborhood changes to a such degree that it does not feel it as that place you can identify with. Zoning(Land Zoning) is a 20th century worrying phenomenon that has been causing this changes all around the globe but, an interesting place to look at is to the City of New York as a whole. Zoning is defines as a legal instrument managed by The Department of City Planing to regulate the use of the land. In addition although this is a very long and arduous process, is this law making citizens life fade away through time;sure it is. Usually investors take a big role in this game since, they are the ones that put in the money and propose future projects in the designated areas. As seen in New York, places that before where industrial factories are now brand new-luxurious buildings, beautiful right. Now, ask yourself the question, what middle class person is willing or have the income to pay the rent in any of those luxurious apartments, none right. Zoning is really devastating New York middle class. This phenomenon is making people displace and give up all that have been cultivating for years just because a very absurd investor decides to tear down a whole neighborhood and gets it approved. Although on June 2016 there is a 8.2 billion plan to build affordable housing for low income and try to slow down zoning but, will these 8.2 billion plan build enough for everyone?; highly doubt it. Day after day New York is becoming more and more expensive, resulting in those people who cannot afford it, looking for new horizons. More worrying is the fact that a minimum wage job won’t be able to cover all needs not far in the future. We are all trapped in the hand of developers whose only and main goal profit.  New York real meaning is fading away; it is not the place for everyone but, what defines you, is the money in your pocket.

The so well-known Gowanus canal is one of those unique feature that only New York has: a water canal in a city. Although it is a man-made canal it is fascinating to know the impact this canal had, back in the industrial era, where ships carried cargo to factories. Back in the industrial era, the canal was the most important body of water that New York had which led to a new lifestyle to the borough of Brooklyn. The present history about this canal is not as enthusiastic as it was before, we can now the leftover problem that the industrial era left to Brooklyn. Along the shore of the canal a lot factories sat around, some of which you can still see today. Some of this factories fabricated cement, some other where a lot more contaminating like gas plants. In these days we can perceive and even physically see the problem that the canal is facing. The Gowanus canal is considered as the most polluted and contaminated in the United States. Back in the days when there was no sewage system in Brooklyn people used to throw in their waste into the canal. Many people might think that those factories around the canal are the causes of the huge contamination but, the factories are only part of it. Ages before the revolutionary era there was the transatlantic commerce, were people of every type of ethnic, specially slaves, were brought here to forcedly work while some other come searching for new life and things. As known this people where not treated like humans, many of them died of whatever disease it may be but, the point is that some of this bodies were thrown in the water. Another huge problem and hard to resolve is the sewage system in the Gowanus. The problem is that the sewage drain connects to the canal and not all of it goes to the treatment plant. At the end my concern is: is the canal ever going to be a free pollution water body. Knowing that the most pollution is not on the surface of the water but in the bottom makes me doubt sometimes, just because how hard it will be and the amount of money that this project will take. On the other had is the government willing to pay the remaining balance for the project. Indeed, the fact that to remove all that amount of is a process of years and the plan they have is to cover with multiple layers the contaminated sediment, seem like an idea that will temporarily work. The reason why I think this method won’t work is because of the fact that in case of a flood the canal water will start to flow removing all layers little by little. There are organization that have been pushing for the cleaning project but, nothing seems to happen.  The challenges to remove pollution from these waters are infinite and arduous.

The polluted Gowanus1.0

A neighborhood is the place that shapes the live of its people way of living in a certain way or the other. My neighborhood is the most special place where I don’t feel any type of discomfort. My neighborhood is a place full of buildings with no houses ,where buildings age date back to the 1800s. Right in front of my building there is a very noisy school that during the night it becomes the most silence place on earth. Where right down the block people gather to chat even in the coldest days of winter. There is one non-common thing about my neighbor that I think it makes it unique and it is  the fact that the shape and the outside structure of the material of the building are all the same, you can confuse your self very easy if they did not had the building number outside.Although my neighborhood is a very diverse place, it’s not really gentrified as one might expect.In every block you will find either a barbershop, a street vendor, a bodega or a supermarket. The majority of people that live there are from the Caribbean which makes it kind of unique in the way that other races do not opt to try and create a business. A couple a of block away from my building  there is a space that  years ago was full of trees and now there are a couple of basketball courts and baseball field. This place in the winter is like a desert where no one’s visit and in the summer turns out to be like a garden piled with flowers. There are a couple of vendor trucks that open at  night to sell things like tacos; it is mainly authentic Mexican food. Although my neighborhood has it good sides it also has its bad sides, there is not one place in the world that can have all of the best and perfect things that one may be looking for. There are places where no one would like to walk though because there are illicit thing going on, danger can be smelled from the far distance. Also another danger that exist in my neighborhood is the fact that there are multiple gangs and they are all enemies which sometimes one need to take extra caution while walking. The most important thing that brings my neighborhood alive and makes it feel like home is how courageous people is. As I have seen from experience it is kind of unusual to see people from different background and races have the same opinion about certain matters and adopt the good thing from one another. In my neighborhood it really feels like family, where the inner you is no longer there but, it is the one that the neighborhood builds inside you. In my opinion this is something phenomenal and rarely seen in communities where there are many different races and each of them their own way of living, those things are set apart and now you inherit what the neighborhood has given you.