Noun
he enforced sociability of the midday meal
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sociability
I also found this word in the same article we’re using for our final, when I read the sentence in which the word was contained in I understood what the word meant but just to be very clear of its context I looked up the word.
I found this word today during our class when we received our Article for the final coming up. I didn’t notice the word at first until I re- read the article again and saw it and got confused by its meaning until I looked it up
New York City has been and always will be a place known for its boisterous noises and wild energy that is the lights, people and entertainment. Even if we don’t think about it, sound is always apart of our daily routines in the mornings, weather its hearing the alarm clock or walking through the streets listening to the unorganized symphony of cars honking. Sound is what keeps us going and what gets us moving faster even if you don’t realize it, an example would be the ticking of a wristwatch that would no doubt make you speed up just a tad faster in order to make it to work on time, or the sound of the Starbucks barista yelling out your name to alert you that your coffee’s ready. There is no doubt that we rely on sound, however, the blissful serenity that is quiet is not a daily constant that most people get to enjoy. I have found the best route to make sure that my commute from home to school is the quietest route.
One day on my own commute to school, I took the long way. One way for me to get to school is to walk down five blocks away from my house to the B41 bus, during that walk its quiet in my neighborhood and I like to hear the sound of the wind breezing past me as a car drives by because its very peaceful. When I reach the bus stop which is on Bedford Ave, I see a lot of people who are waiting for the bus dressed in their nursing scrubs or business casual wear, and younger people who are around my age or younger who have a dazed look in their eyes, or a very blank expression blasting their music on their headphones. When the bus finally comes, it makes a very loud screeching noise as it approaches which annoyingly interrupts the calm flow of my own music. The bus is always crowded but noise is usually kept to a minimum as the riders are either silent scrolling on their cellphones, or quietly chatting to their friends or asking a stranger if this is the right bus to be on. As for me I am a person who is always musically attuned, I usually start off my mornings with lo-fi hip hop beat instrumentals and soft R&B. I really like my music because it isn’t too loud and isn’t too quiet, but it has the right amount of slow beat that I can bob my head to. The ride down Flatbush is much more peaceful that way. When I get off at Atlantic Ave, I begin weaving my way through the insane amount of people who are very loud and awake which makes the walk annoying to hear the dissonance meshing sounds of cars honking and the music playing in my headphones. When I get reach City Point on DeKalb always makes my mornings a little bit better as I get to breathe easy in the open and quiet space inside on the first floor. Although on Jay Street, it’s even more loud and crowded my mornings are always better with those small five minutes of quiet, listening to my chill music.
There are many people who enjoy listening to their favorite tunes in the morning, weather it be slow jazz or loud rock music. There are many benefits to listening to music, especially in the morning according to Sandra Pawula of ‘‘How listening to music benefits the brain’’, “Listening to music triggers the brain’s nucleus accumbens, responsible for releasing the feel-good neurochemicals dopamine”(Pawula.). Music can help relieve some anxiety problems and reduce stress. It is even more beneficial to listen to music if you’re a student studying hard because Pawula also states that “science has shown that listening to music enhances reading and literary skills, reasoning and mathematical abilities”(Pawula). So creating a well rounded studying playlist so that you can concentrate is an extremely good idea if you’re determined to remain focused and energized. In addition to that, Deane Alban of ‘‘How music affects the brain for the better’’ claims that, “listening to music at work can make you a happier, more productive employee, especially if it’s the music you’ve chosen”(Alban). Music can improve your mood to a positive one and thus make you into a motivated person who completes tasks at a quicker rate. Alban also infers that, “Music … helps students excel in the following ways: improved language development, improved tests scores and increased spatial intelligence”(Alban). Music is a subject that is very easy to dismiss because of the stereotypes that surround people who prefer to listen to to a certain type of music more than another. Music has a lot of unseen benefits that can help the brain keep healthy and stay active which helps us do well on tests, learning abilities and overall intelligence.
In conclusion, sound is a constant in our lives that we are always adapting to in order to benefit our own need of survival depending on our environment. Quiet is a sound that is very under appreciated, I took a route of quietness and I valued the few minutes I got to spend when it was just my music alone.
Works Cited
Alban, Deane. “How Music Affects the Brain for the Better.” Be Brain Fit, 22 Nov. 2017, bebrainfit.com/music-affects-brain/
In New York City there are undoubtedly a lot of places to go to for the beauty, serenity and the energized business that is the city. New York City has always been a place that has many descriptions depending on where you go in the city. However, there isn’t a lot of people who get to experience these wonderful places on their commutes to work or school. There isn’t much time in our daily lives to appreciate the surroundings that we are in due to our constant day to day worries and schedules that take over our lives despite our dreams about living carefree.
One day on my own commute to school, I took the long way. One way for me to get to school is to walk down five blocks away from my house to the B41 bus that is always crowded, or if it isn’t crowded all the seats are taken up by older people. Thankfully, this time I was able to get a seat by the window so I can look out at the passing neighborhoods. As a person who is always musically in-tuned, I usually start off my mornings with lo-fi hip hop beat instrumentals and soft R&B, driving down Flatbush isnt anything new to me but with my own music in my ears I take notice of a lot of different things I would have ignored before. When I get off at Atlantic Ave, I begin weaving my way through the insane amount of people that are somehow awake and loud at ten in the morning. Walking through crowds in the morning is absolutely not my cup of tea as I am a very fast paced walker while the rest of the people are very slow, its even more troublesome as there are people who walk faster than you only to slow down in front of you once they passed. Walking through City Point on DeKalb always makes my mornings a little bit better as I get to breathe easy in the open but loud space and look at all my favorite shopping stores like Century21 or Forever21. When I get to Jay Street, its always crowded no matter what time of day it is, even more-so than Atlantic Ave. I can say that on this walk, I know that I like the business energy of the area because it makes me appreciate the quiet even more.
Ashley Jean-Francois
New York City is a place that’s well known for diversity. Food and entertainment. There are a lot of people from different backgrounds so its very hard to stay close minded in a city thats very in-your-face about all these different kinds of cultures. However, there are many juxtapositions in place, like an old building being right next to a new cafe. In New York City, gentrification isn’t actually a good thing and could ruin the lives of many who aren’t able to keep up with these changes.
The juxtapositions also lie in City Point’s popular, Dekalb Market. Usually, on Fulton street there are a lot of old, slightly run-down buildings that are mom and pop shops that the people around the area could afford. Compared to the rest of the neighborhood, City Point sticks out quite a lot because it’s in the makings of being tall luxury residential buildings with many amenities. Compared to the other old tenements that’s near by it’s a big juxtaposition. City point is a large food, shopping and entertainment destination. On Willoughby Street which is just near Dekalb, that one street is very dirty and is always crowded with a mixture of people white-collar workers and students. The food places around there are very tiny, and old but they have prices that are affordable for everyone. The socioeconomic status of people moving into Brooklyn versus the status of people who already live in Brooklyn is the biggest juxtaposition here, because City point has now become a ‘trendy’ place and as all trends do they push out the ‘old’ for the ‘new’ to have space.
While Brooklyn is now becoming a “little manhattan” the construction of City Point could be the potential downfall of all the other businesses surrounding it. City Point has a luxury food market that the majority of minorities in the area cannot afford, juxtaposed to Mcdonalds which isn’t too far and is always overflowing with people because they can afford it. Dekalb Market for the most part is very spacious as only a few people are able to truly enjoy it if they have a higher income. Of course most people will not see the problem because what’s on the surface is much more appealing and fun to talk about, it’s fun to go and explore the new luxury buildings and it’s fun to go to your favorite shopping stores that’s now new and available to Brooklyn thanks to City Point. However, there are and will be the unfortunate people who will both figuratively and literally be pushed out of the equation and it isn’t fair. Colson Whitehead opens up with, “the New York City you live in is not my New York City”(Whitehead). This is true for most people. Because their view of New York was much simpler and affordable juxtaposed to the other New York that younger generations see, they see the new cafes and stores opening up right near the old and rundown buildings that were those same shops before time eroded them into nothing.
Although, some people may say that City Point is a great addition to the neighborhood as it could bring in new people, more entertainment and more popularity which means more money would be put into the area to make it better. However, the migration of these new people will be the downfall of the locals who already can no longer afford to live in Downtown Brooklyn. The racial demographic of the area is 58.7% White, 23.8% Black and 16.3% Latino/Hispanic as of 2016 according to Macaulay.cuny.edu. The area has changed drastically where minorities are left with the lowest paying jobs and insufficient housing. Will Self of Charles McGrath’s article about him concedes that, “There is a deep sadness to American poverty, greater than the sadness of any other kind.”(Self/McGrath). This statement further supports the previously stated thesis statement because there is a large meal gap in the community where people have to cut down on the amount of food that is bought because of housing costs. Dekalb Market’s expensive food market will only become a useful amenity for the people who can afford it.
In Conclusion, Gentrification does more damage to people than helping. Property values may go up, new people may move in and the overall aesthetic value of the town may go up. There are people who are suffering because of those juxtapositions, although old and new can coexist that doesn’t mean that they should exist.
Works Cited Page.
5) McGrath, Charles. “A Literary Visitor Strolls in From the Airport.” The New York Times, December 6, 2006.
For this new project, I chose to walk around Willoughby Street because every time I came to school it was always crowded and loud. Since I had the time to actually walk around the area, I noticed distinct differences between that street and City point-Dekalb Market that had just recently been built.
I can say that I’ve known the Fulton area pretty well since I usually went there to go shopping with my mom when I was a little bit younger, but, walking down Willoughby Street felt like I was walking down Flatbush Ave. There were lots of loud people.. too much loud people, its a bit dirty and a handful of unsavory people hang out there on the street. The shops that lined up on the street were all very close together, there was about one or two deli shops that looked newer than the old buildings so it contradicted with the overall cheap feel of the area. But when I walked down a bit further to where City point was, the air felt way different. From Willoughby Street you can only see the back of city point, its still under construction but there is a different feel around that area even though its only one-two blocks away from Willoughby. City Point is cleaner, and its a little less quieter. Compared to Willoughby street which only has a few shops here and there, inside City Point there is a huge variety of shops to go to! Also theres a huge market downstairs which has, what I like to call, the flavors of New York City. It has lots of different restaurants of different cuisines that its like going to all the different places of the city.
In Charles McGrath’s “A literary visitor strolls in from the airport” Mr.Self says that, “Its that he couldn’t conceptually grasp the idea of walking to New York. I love that.” I feel like that really resonates with my experience because whenever I ask one of my friends to walk with me to Dekalb market they always complain about how far it is from the school, but when I show them what inside is like they feel like they’re exploring the whole taste of the city even though they’re in one place. Walking down Willoughby Street is loud and a lot of rowdy people are there but when I make that transition from there to Dekalb its almost like a mini-manhattan.
I think its very interesting to know that although Willoughby and Dekalb are two different places, with very different vibes. They’re both places people go to get food in between school and work, and they both have their own distinct “tastes” of New York City.
“City Limits” is a post from The Colossus of New York written by Colson Whitehead, the entire article is about their experience living in New York City. The entire article has a very conversational tone, like the author is talking to a friend rather than millions of people on the internet. Whitehead goes into detail about his initial thoughts of New York City, he remembers looking out the subway window as the train left the tunnel and thought that everything is filthy and he still calls a building he saw the Pan Am building simply because that is what he grew up with. New York City is a city that never stays the same after a day, there is always some old building being torn down for a new coffee shop or some random new open space that appears out of nowhere. This article is talking about the differences between tourists in New York and natives of New York. Tourists always come to New York City for the many different fun things to do and fantastic places to see, however, to a native of new york some new shopping center used to be an old park or the old and dirty sidewalk you used to walk down is now new and sparkly. In New York City there are a lot of nameless cities in new york city, filled with people who have different versions of what their new york city is like. However, it doesnt change the fact that one way or another new york city people are all neighbors. I think that is the point that Colson Whitehead is trying to make at the end of his article, despite the many, many differences there are in the city everyone is still close to each other one way or another.
Monuments are statues, plaques and any other kind of physical medium used to commemorate a specific person or grand event that happened in time. There are numerous national monuments all around the United States, landmarks or statues that are protected by law. Monuments exist to establish a feeling of wonder, ‘why is this here?’ and ‘what has happened for this physical representation here’. It is those kinds of thoughts that makes one think about the overall historical background of a certain monument and then prods the question, ‘is this offensive to anyone?’. Personally, I think monuments should just be moved into a museum were history is remembered and learned from without bias of any kind.
There are a lot of confederate monuments being petitioned to be removed, the confederate flags and all things to do with confederacy makes a significant amount of people very uncomfortable and uneasy because of the history it represents. Gregory Smithers from washingtonpost states that “the removal of confederate monuments would quite literally, erase an unsavory, but important, part of our nations history”(Smithers Washingtonpost). I am inclined to agree with this because our nation is built upon the enslaving of many, many people. It should be necessary to see and learn about the thoughts of the people living in the past and learn from them because since then times have changed, nobody likes talking about it but in order to learn from past mistakes the nation must face the mistakes and collectively and effectively correct them.
These monuments have been posted up for years, I find it a bit odd that the statue situation is only now causing an outrage despite the many, many times numerous people has walked past them and has not said a word about it until now. These days people are all about political standing, resistance and opposition of the current system. While it is good to stand ground against the many injustices and flaws the government has, mob mentality has people jumping in on the bandwagon without having a shred of knowledge on the matter and I think that’s exactly whats going on with the conversation of removing statues. Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire argues that, “confederate statue removal is a local issue, not a national one…if we’re going to have a real debate about confederate statue removal, lets do it. But lets not lump all statue supporters or opposers into the realm of the saints or the devils. That’s dishonest identity politics.”(Shapiro DailyWire). Shapiro makes a very strong claim by saying that confederate statue removal is a local issue which I agree with, all things confederate is mainly a southerner problem rather than a national problem because of the history that has taken place specifically in the south. Every argument has become some kind of subjective good vs. bad conversation and that should not be the way to go about the political issues. The keeping or removing of these statues are in no way a “step forward to equality” because of the stigma about them, while I agree that these statues shouldn’t be up because of the history behind them I also think that they should just be put in a museum where people can find out and learn more about the statues in an area that’s for all people by all people protected by the law and public.
Museums are put up so that people may learn from the past and experience what kinds of circumstances the world had that lets us all have the future we have now. There are different kinds of museums, museums for art, nature, science and history as well. Which is why I propose that all these controversial monuments that are being taken down should be put in a historical museum so that both the people who are for or against monuments being put up can come to a compromise. Despite the various horrendous events that has happened in the past, history is a concept humans cannot change which is why removing or destroying a monument all together would be like erasing history. Putting them in a museum would also solve the problem of people worrying when will criteria for monument removal should stop.
In conclusion, I think that people should be more open minded about the topic rather than engaging in the social mine field territory that is ‘good’ vs ‘bad’. Monuments are just statues, plaques or any other kind of physical representation of a person or an event that has happened, any kind of monument that sends a message that is racist or potentially threatens a certain group of people should be removed and placed in a museum where the public can observe it in a place where learning and knowledge takes priority over everything else.
Works Cited
Website Title: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Article Title: SMITHERS: A Historian’s Plea for the Removal of Confeder[…]
Electronically Published: July 27, 2015
Date Accessed: October 03, 2017 Author: Gregory D. Smithers
Website Title: Daily Wire
Article Title: Why Are We Really Talking About Removing Confederate Monumen[…]
Publisher: The Daily Wire
Electronically Published: August 17, 2017
Date Accessed: October 03, 2017 Author: Ben Shapiro
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-confederate-monuments-20170818-htmlstory.html
http://web.a.ebscohost.com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=806fdfe2-dd66-47fa-b846-9ba5b84f9162%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=124897207&db=a9h
Ashley
Derick
Brandon
Monuments are statues, plaques and any other kind of physical medium used to commemorate a specific person or grand event that happened in time. There are numerous national monuments all around the United States, landmarks or statues that are protected by law. Monuments exist to establish a feeling of wonder, ‘why is this here?’ and ‘what has happened for this physical representation here’. It is those kinds of thoughts that makes one think about the overall historical background of a certain monument and then prods the question, ‘is this offensive to anyone?’. Personally, I think monuments should just be moved into a museum were history is remembered and learned from without bias of any kind.
There are a lot of confederate monuments being petitioned to be removed, the confederate flags and all things to do with confederacy makes a significant amount of people very uncomfortable and uneasy because of the history it represents. Gregory Smithers from washingtonpost states that “the removal of confederate monuments would quite literally, erase an unsavory, but important, part of our nations history”(Smithers Washingtonpost). I am inclined to agree with this because our nation is built upon the enslaving of many, many people. It should be necessary to see and learn about the thoughts of the people living in the past and learn from them because since then times have changed, nobody likes talking about it but in order to learn from past mistakes the nation must face the mistakes and collectively and effectively correct them.
These monuments have been posted up for years, I find it a bit odd that the statue situation is only now causing an outrage despite the many, many times numerous people has walked past them and has not said a word about it until now. These days people are all about political standing, resistance and opposition of the current system. While it is good to stand ground against the many injustices and flaws the government has, mob mentality has people jumping in on the bandwagon without having a shred of knowledge on the matter and I think that’s exactly whats going on with the conversation of removing statues. Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire argues that, “confederate statue removal is a local issue, not a national one…if we’re going to have a real debate about confederate statue removal, lets do it. But lets not lump all statue supporters or opposers into the realm of the saints or the devils. That’s dishonest identity politics.”(Shapiro DailyWire). Shapiro makes a very strong claim by saying that confederate statue removal is a local issue which I agree with, all things confederate is mainly a southerner problem rather than a national problem because of the history that has taken place specifically in the south. Every argument has become some kind of subjective good vs. bad conversation and that should not be the way to go about the political issues. The keeping or removing of these statues are in no way a “step forward to equality” because of the stigma about them, while I agree that these statues shouldn’t be up because of the history behind them I also think that they should just be put in a museum where people can find out and learn more about the statues in an area that’s for all people by all people protected by the law and public.
Works Cited
Website Title: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Article Title: SMITHERS: A Historian’s Plea for the Removal of Confeder[…]
Electronically Published: July 27, 2015
Date Accessed: October 03, 2017 Author: Gregory D. Smithers
Website Title: Daily Wire
Article Title: Why Are We Really Talking About Removing Confederate Monumen[…]
Publisher: The Daily Wire
Electronically Published: August 17, 2017
Date Accessed: October 03, 2017 Author: Ben Shapiro
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.
