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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.
My Lovely New York,
It was on January last year, which I first came to the New York City. My boyfriend had a 10 day business trip to the Long Island so he took me with himself to take the advantage of the trip. It was night and cold when the plane landed in JFK, we were too tired so we took a taxi to a hotel in Long Island. The day after I decided to go to Manhattan and take a tour around the city, before that day I had seen the New York City only in the movies and I had no idea about the atmosphere around the city. The first place I saw in Manhattan was Times square, it was breathtaking for me, I couldn’t believe such a place ever existed and I couldn’t believe the atmosphere, it surprised me and made me smile, I felt so happy and excited inside. I remember that day clearly I thought that Manhattan is incredible, I fell in love with the city and I thought what if I move to the city, I couldn’t believe there is such a difference between San Diego, CA, where I used to live, and this great city. The day after my boyfriend and I decided to go up the Empire State Building, it was my second phenomenal experience in the City. I couldn’t believe the altitude we went up and I couldn’t believe the photos that show how people made this huge building on those days. By seeing those photos I felt that city has the rich background that you hardly can feel in the other cities. These two experiences were my first impression of the Manhattan which I never forget them. By staying here for 10 days and having communications with different people and see some universities and their architectural programs I felt this city can be the only place where I can live there. After we flew back to the San Diego we both decided to move to Manhattan and we moved in two months. Now it is more than a year that we are living in Manhattan and we both love this city. My feelings never changed about the city, I am still thinking that this city is the best city in the world and I never want to move out of this city.
Little New Yorker: Baljinder Kaur
New York City is one unique central hub of population that is home to many “first generations.” Having been a New Yorker, from birth to present, serves as a foundation of what makes me who I am, the making of the first generation. A typical New Yorker, to me, is a person who needs to be on the move to function on a daily basis. Not everyone in the city has the time to slow down and give you a chance to walk past or exchange greetings. It’s all or nothing, you’re either busy or aren’t busy at all. It’s like survival of the fittest, you need to make your way to your goal or destination on your own in order to live up to your standards today.
There’s a difference between the city now and then. When I was growing up, from the time I was born to around the age of nine years, I lived in the mildly crowded neighborhood of Corona. Corona is like the dream of a child, there are so many places to go to in a short walking distance of your home. You could walk around the corner of your house and be bombarded with various types of toys, clothes, shoes, and food markets or stores. Everything was a mixture of one culture or the other. There was never a day I didn’t see something new, as if trying out a different smoothie blend a day. One venture I really remember is the toy stores that would have displays outside during the warmer weather, in which they would have a small tub of water with a toy animal swimming in it. This always fascinated me. Every kid would have to stop in front it just to watch, even if they weren’t buying it. That was window shopping in those days, you could just go watch it everyday.
One of the factors that have an extremely important factor of what defines the city to me is Education. I’ve always have had a passion for learning new and interesting things everyday. But the key role here is the school field trips that I partook in. I don’t recall ever missing a single field trip because I never wanted to be left out. Almost every month my class would go on a trip to a museum, aquarium, zoo, circus, play, or an orchestra, depending on the season. Unfortunately, back then we didn’t all own or allowed to have cameras, otherwise I would have captured many pictures as a part of my memories. I would find myself caught up in a view of an animal, detailed act or just plain sight of where we were located. I was absorbed in the tremendous amount of information that I could intake from those trips and would always have something to discuss about with my siblings or parents. My parents described me as a talkative child because I liked to note every extract detail of things and share them. I always found that school trips made a fun relaxed environment and allowed us students to interact with our different interests and backgrounds to learn.
New York City just has a lot to offer. Sometimes, I like to recall older days and wish that I could relive those moments one more time. I even contrast it to today’s world; yesterday was low and yellow screen T.V. and today is the big LCD screen. Just as if you were to view a film from 10 years ago and contrast its color to a film made today. Yesterday was more of a time where you were actually interacting with the environment in physical form and today almost everything is done digitally, it makes me miss the old days. However, I still find that I learn something new about our city almost everyday. There are still places I have never been to even though I lived here my entire life, which hasn’t been long so I wish to try to get the best of it.
Unfortunately, as a part of growing up in New York City, a lot of responsibilities come into hand, just as in any other city. These things that should really be noticed or visited drop to the bottom of our “to-do-list’s,” or simply go unnoticed. This is the reason why I chose a profession that allows me to interact with the rest of the world and the environment.
My New York
Even though I only been in New York for three years, New York City have become my favorite city. I just feel like this is the place which provides all the opportunities for everyone become whatever they want. This is where I’m fulfilling my dreams of become an architect, is the place where most of my love ones are. Is just a beautiful city. I love the simple way of walking down the streets, look at the buildings and see how tall an amazing they are, taking the train or bus. Everything seems to go so fast. Everyone is just trying to get to work or school and everyone is in their own business. I love New York, but this wasn’t always true.
The truth is that since the beginning I thought of New York to be the place with infinity of opportunities. Although I didn’t like it so much because I was so used to the life of a small country, living a more private life, in a big house and lot of space and coming to NY was nothing alike, we came to a small apartment in the Bronx, which we could hardly feed in. Everything was too tied no privacy at all, learning English finding jobs and getting used to the school was hard. When I first land in NY, I was very excited because everything was as beautiful as I saw it in TV, NY architecture was the first thing I looked at, the buildings and houses were just so different, never thought that this beautiful place wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was.
As the time passed by everything changed we overcome our difficulties, we learn the language, my dad found a stable job we got into school and we moved to a big house which my family owns. I heard a lot of bad things about the Bronx neighborhood but I can proudly say I’m from the Bronx, so far there’s nothing like my neighborhood. We have two years since we moved here and everything have been as peaceful and safe as the first day. Now everything feels so comfortable in New York, and is very hard for me to say that I wouldn’t live somewhere else, but New York.
Little New Yorker: Baljinder Kaur
New York City is one unique central hub of population that is home to many “first generations.” Having been a New Yorker, from birth to present, serves as a foundation of what makes me who I am, the making of the first generation. A typical New Yorker, to me, is a person who needs to be on the move to function on a daily basis. Not everyone in the city has the time to slow down and give you a chance to walk past or exchange greetings. It’s all or nothing, you’re either busy or aren’t busy at all. It’s like survival of the fittest, you need to make your way to your goal or destination on your own in order to live up to your standards today.
There’s a difference between the city now and then. When I was growing up, from the time I was born to around the age of nine years, I lived in the mildly crowded neighborhood of Corona. Corona is like the dream of a child, there are so many places to go to in a short walking distance of your home. You could walk around the corner of your house and be bombarded with various types of toys, clothes, shoes, and food markets or stores. Everything was a mixture of one culture or the other. There was never a day I didn’t see something new, as if trying out a different smoothie blend a day. One venture I really remember is the toy stores that would have displays outside during the warmer weather, in which they would have a small tub of water with a toy animal swimming in it. This always fascinated me. Every kid would have to stop in front it just to watch, even if they weren’t buying it. That was window shopping in those days, you could just go watch it everyday.
One of the factors that have an extremely important factor of what defines the city to me is Education. I’ve always have had a passion for learning new and interesting things everyday. But the key role here is the school field trips that I partook in. I don’t recall ever missing a single field trip because I never wanted to be left out. Almost every month my class would go on a trip to a museum, aquarium, zoo, circus, play, or an orchestra, depending on the season. Unfortunately, back then we didn’t all own or allowed to have cameras, otherwise I would have captured many pictures as a part of my memories. I would find myself caught up in a view of an animal, detailed act or just plain sight of where we were located. I was absorbed in the tremendous amount of information that I could intake from those trips and would always have something to discuss about with my siblings or parents. My parents described me as a talkative child because I liked to note every extract detail of things and share them. I always found that school trips made a fun relaxed environment and allowed us students to interact with our different interests and backgrounds to learn.
New York City just has a lot to offer. Sometimes, I like to recall older days and wish that I could relive those moments one more time. I even contrast it to today’s world; yesterday was low and yellow screen T.V. and today is the big LCD screen. Just as if you were to view a film from 10 years ago and contrast its color to a film made today. Yesterday was more of a time where you were actually interacting with the environment in physical form and today almost everything is done digitally, it makes me miss the old days. However, I still find that I learn something new about our city almost everyday. There are still places I have never been to even though I lived here my entire life, which hasn’t been long so I wish to try to get the best of it.
Unfortunately, as a part of growing up in New York City, a lot of responsibilities come into hand, just as in any other city. These things that should really be noticed or visited drop to the bottom of our “to-do-list’s,” or simply go unnoticed. This is the reason why I chose a profession that allows me to interact with the rest of the world and the environment.
New York City , a place where dreams come true. A place where people dream of going to. The city of money , fame, and tall skyscrapers. That’s how most people view New York, me however I have a different point of view.
I lived in Bayonne, New Jersey all my life. Bayonne is 30 minutes away from manhatten both by car and the path train. The path train only takes 25 minutes to get you to 33rd street in Manhatten. Theres another path train but that one goes to lower Manhatten and takes about 7 minutes. I’m so close to New York but I was never a New Yorker , I was always an outsider. But then again what’s an outsider to NYC. Walking in the street everyday you never see the same faces twice. People are dressed in all types of weird clothing and nobody judges. Not only that but its completly normal to get on a subway and see someone dancing or singing. You don’t see that where I live.
My New York is that live place full of good energy and vibes. The city streets are always lit and shining and people are always out enjoying themselves without a worry on their mind. I normally go to school early I go to college in Brooklyn and when I’m in Jersey it’s so dead and people are barley awake. However when I get into NY everyone is wide awake and very energetic. They’re always in a rush running up and down stairs as if their life depended on it. It always baffled me how people can be so alive at 6 in the morning. When I step foot into Manhatten I am forced to wake up and catch up with the crowd and keep up. I wake up right away and I guess NY streets has that effect on people.
Not only is NYC busy in the morning but its also busy at night. New York City has the best nightlife. From the bars, to the karoke lounges , to the fancy resturants. The possibilities are endless. I can honestly say that everytime I go into NY I have a new experience. Every single day I see or witness something I’ve never seen before. I call it the wonderland , and it has an effect to make anyone fall in love.
I’m so in love with New York that some people call me a “wannabe newyorker” and it’s true I am . I want to be a New Yorker. I love the positive energy in the streets. My New York is ALIVE. It’s not boring its exciting and adventorous. I love NY and probally always will .