Author: Jake

After reading the articles about the Gowanus Canal, I have been able to get a better understanding of how the canal has gotten into its present day situation from the first article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.   In the article it describes how each politician in office would come up with a solution realize it is to expensive, then move onto a cheaper fix that will not last a decade at most.  I believe that the article is trying to get across to the reader is that if we keep following the trend of choosing the cheaper option to fix the canal it will never get clean in the end.  The guide book provided was mainly talking about the zoning of areas in the city and rezoning of already zoned areas.  While some parts of the canal have been put up for rezoning such as the residential apartments being built in the area,  It remains to be seen if that will have a positive effect on the environment of the canal itself.  The last article provided talks about the rezoning of the canal area and as I’ve stated I would hope that rezoning could have a positive effect on the environment around the canal but remains to be seen.

After watching the film my Brooklyn, it became more prevalent to me that the neighborhoods around the city have communities that are defined by the people who inhabit them.  Every community in the city that has been successful has taken years to build along with dedicated people wanting to improve the environment around them.  It became increasing clear that once a developer is given close to free reign over improving a neighborhood, it will destroy the sense of community that families have been building there for generations.   The Citizen Jane movie showed me that it is not in the best interest of the community and the city for neighborhoods that have been defined and lived in to be torn down for public housing to be built in its place.  The new housing not only looks more like a computer designed them but the housing style destroys any sense of community with no one wanting to get to know there neighbors, and people spending more time in there houses then on the street with there neighbors.  The film Human scale was very interesting as it showed how when new Yorkers were given the space to actually sit and enjoy a meal or talk to strangers they actually used it.  When parts of Broadway street were converted into areas for civilians to use instead of cars it really showed to me how appealing it is to actually have a place to sit in the city that wasn’t a park.  I feel that public space in new york city is a must and should be utilized more as while this is a city of 8 million people, we rarely know the person standing next to us, maybe the public space will help with that or at the very least give us more space to hang out with the friends that you do know.