Professors Montgomery and Leonard

Author: Jcollado

Jake Collado Gowanus Blog Post for Assignment Due on the 7th of April.

This is a reupload of the post I originally posted on Team 4’s page.

To answer the question “How could NY do things differently” would to first understand what was in place originally. According to writer Joseph Alexiou, a combined Sewage overflow system is in place of the area but later alternatives such as the gallon retention tanks, sponge parks, and rerouted sewer systems. The writer mentions that the city spends a budget of a billion dollars just for the tank portion while the entire project of Mayor Bloomberg’s Department of Environmental protection plan was estimated 500 million. The question of how NY could do things differently would be dependent on the infrastructure of the canal’s pipeline. The Victorian era construction and water runoff from the rain running down the streets allow a situation of more polluted water to cause a standstill of trash and bacteria in the water. The situation of the black mayonnaise that is sitting in the bottom of the canal also relates to the lack of clean flowing water running continuously alongside the use of the flushing tunnels. An approach for the canal would be to drain the canal, purify the tainted water while isolating and removing the garbage and tar mess would have to be an expensive environmental project.

“Clean” in 2020 does not only mean the quality of the water, but “Clean” also is the state that the area has been reformed and changed while adapting the close proximity of the polluted area. “Clean” is a word to state that the abundance of coexisting areas will affect each correspondent positively or negatively.

The right that New Yorkers have to a clean and safe place to live depends on the area of zoning that the resident has been researching. The Gowanus canal, while in the state of commercial and residential renovation and gentrification has a long history of industrial context. The right that the New Yorkers have to live and a clean and safe place to live is standard to anybody who wishes to reside, the area of the gowns has an average lot size of 20×100 with downzoning in effect in certain parts of the area.

Blog Post: Film Series and Special Lecture – Jake Collado

Describe the way each film (My Brooklyn, Citizen Jane, Human Scale) and the lecture presentation (Healing Spaces: Marching On! Blackness and the Spatial Politics of Performance) discuss public space and its role in cities. Which notion of public space appeals to you? How to you feel about public space in New York City?

 

In the film Citizen Jane: Battle For the city, the conflict between power broker Robert Moses and author of ”The Life and Death of American Cities”, Jane Jacobs showed how capitalism contrives over public opinion and in terms vice versa later on. In 1934, Jane sees hope in the city and after envisioning a corruption of absolute power from Robert Moses throughout 1960, where thousands of New Yorkers living in the slums of New York are being removed from their homes to a more modernistic and idealistic approach of progression without the insight of the public and the life among the streets. It was not until 1954, where urbanism started to grow, and the system of order had started to modernize as well. It was not until Moses’ defeat in having a street through Washington Square Park where later on, the plan to renew West Village was given up showing the audacity that the people living in the area can strive for.

In the human scale, the representation of China, which is holding the fastest growing economy in the world, also focusing on agriculture, but with enough space to hold its citizens. Change can always meet with resistance.

In the lecture presentation, “Healing Spaces: Marching On! Blackness and the spatial politics of performance”, The Marching Cobras street performance shows the impact that public life can live on through traditional representation of different cultural movements, dances, and songs. The two films and the lecture showed that the life, history, and impact that different people who come together can make a “way of being” in the impacting area. Public spaces such as parks, or any form of landmass where a huge number of crowds can surmise by gathering together and perform by committing tourism, commercial, or just plain relaxing, unknowingly also perform in expansion to educational and/or beneficial to both the area and its citizens.

To answer the question, Which notion of public space appeals to me, parks are both recreational and gives a sensation of peace to both an individual or individuals. For an example given, Bryant Park, when getting out of work taking lunch there in a warm afternoon, seeing both tourists and residents is both comedically and positive to see that a person is engaging in New York City life.

To answer the question, How do I feel about public space in New York City, it depends on which borough of New York City I am in at the moment. In Manhattan, various public spaces are both a delight and a curse depending on the time of day. Queens and Brooklyn are nice, but I am only there for my own business, the Bronx and Staten Island I do not travel to. Overall, public spaces in New York City is highly beneficial since New York City is compact.

Initial Class Reflection – JakeC

How would you rate your level of experience doing research in college?

My level of experience while doing research in college would be on the basis of intermediate to advance in my opinion. Research is necessary for everything, we do from educational to personal life. While in the New York City College of Technology, I have been spending 5 years of my life completing the Associates of Computer Science and now completing the Bachelor of Computer Systems. Research on long length papers and miscellaneous tasks is not new to me.

What is your expectation for this class supporting your classes in your major?

My expectation for this class to support my classes in my major is to assist on the fact that research-based classwork uses social skills allowing further expectations for further educational purposes.