Living in New York City we have a lot of options and variety in terms of traveling and routes. The MTA serves approximately 15.3 million people across New York, Long Island, and Connecticut. There are numerous routes that we can take to get to our destination. We all have different opinions on the routes that we take. We all obviously can enjoy quiet, peaceful, and beautiful routes, but the route that I chose is a little bit different. In my opinion I prefer a busy, crowd seeking walk. These walks personally energize me and don’t always have me tired in the classroom.

For my usual route to city Tech I usually leave my house around 10:10 and I take a walk to the Flatbush Junction Train Station. Usually on the Weekdays I really don’t have any appetite in the mornings, which is weird because on the weekends my appetite for breakfast is big. This walk usually takes around 10 minutes. When I get there I either take the 2 or the 5 train all the way to borough Hall. This daily Route that I take usually takes me about 45-50 minutes to get to City Tech. Sadly most of the time I Still feel tired and non-energized when I get there. A lot of my peers chose  routes that are quiet and are mainly geared towards sight seeing. The Theme that I chose for this route is a Busy Environment. My route is a little bit different because during the morning time I like to be awake and energized, especially for college. Basically I need an energizing and busy route in the morning time. In the Article How To Make Your Commute More Fun and Energizing by Kate Harveston She basically explains to us how your daily route to your particular destination can get boring and make you tired in the morning time. She tells us that you could wake up earlier, Try new foods, take a walk, or make a new playlist. When selecting a new route I really thought about time and busy scenes. Basically I believe you should always get to class a little bit early just so you don’t ever have to rush to class.

Last week I decided to switch up my normal route. I thought about taking the bus but I just kept thinking I would never make it to class in time due to all of the traffic. I knew I was going to take a different route that day so I decided to leave my house a couple minutes earlier, I left around 9:50. I walked over to Flatbush Junction but I took a quick stop at Mcdonalds to get my favorite drink from there, which is a chocolate chip Frappe. This quick stop took me about 5 minutes. As I walked out of Mcdonalds I decided to take the 2 train to Nevins Street and then walk to City Tech. Waking up a couple minutes earlier was definitely worth it for this route. In the article 8 Ways to Energize Each Morning by Geoffrey James he talks about having a good day and starting it with your best foot forward. He goes on to talk about how you should inspire your body and your mind. He wants you to have a set of goals and inspire yourself in the mornings. He then goes to talk about how you should fuel your body and your mind and talks about how “breakfast defines your physical condition for the day”. For this route I decided that the rapper Chief Keef would be the perfect artist to get you energized in the morning time. As you walk out of the Nevins Street train station there really isn’t anything to see really, but the reason why I Chose Nevins Street was because it was a very busy area. I basically wanted to hear the cars, people, and all of the noises from this busy area.  These loud noises helped energize and wake me up.  At that time it was around 10:58 so I still had a bunch of time to get to class. As soon as you walk down Fulton Street things start to look a little bit better in my opinion, but the area is still very busy which was a good thing. So far this detour was actually brightening up my day a little bit. As you walk down Fulton Street you get to see a lot of retail stores and a bunch of different places to eat. I actually now knew where I could go get something to eat after or before class. Personally I really don’t like going into the Jay St entrance of the school because there is always to much people and the elevators are always packed. I prefer the Brooklyn Bridge Blvd entrance which is basically the back entrance, so I would walk down Fulton Street until you get to there. As you walk down you have Columbus Park to your Left and the Empire State Building Straight ahead. If it is not cloudy outside you can actually see it perfectly.

In the morning time walking a fairly long distance actually changes my mood. This route is perfect for someone who needs a lot of noise to wake them up in the morning and does like a little bit of Beauty outside. This route isn’t much longer than my usually route. I will be taking this route occasionally due to the fact that it is really cold outside. This would be a perfect route for the spring time.

Sources

1) http://lifegoalsmag.com/make-morning-commute-fun-energizing/

2) https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/8-ways-to-energize-each-morning.html

The route that i take to City Tech daily would be the 2 or 5 train From Brooklyn College to Borough Hall. The route that i chose for this  experience would be taking the 2 Train to Nevins Street and then walk to City Tech. The Bus would be an interesting route but I most likely would barely make it to class on time due to the traffic… Of course this detour will be a little time consuming but in my opinion it is worth it. As you walk out of the Nevins Street train station there really isn’t anything to see really, but as soon as you walk down Fulton Street things start to look a little bit better in my opinion. I chose this route personally because I need something loud in the morning time to wake me up. Usually when i get to class I still feel half asleep, I feel like this detour would actually brighten up my day a little bit. Personally I really don’t like going into the Jay St entrance of the school because there is always to much people and the elevators are always packed. I prefer the Brooklyn Bridge Blvd entrance, so I would walk down Fulton Street until you get to there. As you walk down you have Columbus Park to your Left and the Empire State Building Straight ahead. If it is not cloudy outside you can actually see it perfectly. This route is perfect for someone who needs a lot of noise to wake them up in the morning and does like a little bit of Beauty outside. Usually I take the 5 train all the way to Borough Hall and that takes about 30-40 Minutes depending on the Train Traffic. For This route I leave the house about 20 Minutes earlier which isn’t that bad at all. This route isn’t much longer than my usually route. Personally I would never take this route during this time of year since it is freezing cold outside, but this route would be perfect in the spring and summer time.

New York is a very fast paced state that is always changing due to gentrification and other various things. This could be for the better or for the worse. Juxtapositions happen all the time especially in our state New York. A juxtaposition is basically the act of placing two things side by side and comparing them. There are a lot of similarities and differences for this juxtaposition. These past and present pictures may look similar but they are more different than you may think.

As I walked down Brooklyn Heights, which is right near the Brooklyn Bridge, I saw a lot of different looking buildings. I came across this Peculiar looking Brick Building. This building looked totally different from the others in the area. The building was “standing out” from all of the others in the area. At first glance I had no idea what it was but it looked like it was built in the early 1900s. The building is called the Brooklyn Eagle Warehouse and Storage company And it is located on 28 Old Fulton Street. There was a plaque on the building that was given to Walt Whitman, that intrigued me to do some research on it later that day. After doing research I learned that there was actually a lot of history behind this building.

This Old Brick Building used to be the home of the Brooklyn Eagle. This was a very popular newspaper company at the time. One of the papers editors was a man named Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman was an American Poet and journalist that had different views and beliefs on topics from others. His boss and the readers didn’t totally agree with his views. He didn’t become popular until a couple years after he stopped working there. He basically didn’t get the recognition he deserved at the time. The Newspaper company moved and was purchased by The Brooklyn Eagle and Warehouse and Storage Company. The Renovations were completed in 1894 and cost them around $300,000. In 1977 the building was turned into a Landmark. This is one of Brooklyns most Iconic structures. As you can see in the two past pictures, the times were definitely different. People back then were dressed in suits, in the first picture there is a local hat cleaning shop which you probably won’t ever see in Brooklyn today. In the Second picture you can actually see the warehouse after it was renovated in 1894. All of those local shops that were near the Brooklyn Eagle were gone to make space for the huge warehouse. Even back then Brooklyn was being modernized and changed. This juxtaposition actually reminded me of another juxtaposition that happened two years ago in Manhattan. It reminded me of the Old Toys R us building in time square. I remember going there as a kid ill never forget the Huge Ferris wheel that used to be there. This actually used to bring in a lot of tourists and now they turned the building into a lot of different retail stores. Colson Whitehead said this perfectly in his article From the Colossus of New York “You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now”.

In 1980 the Building was renovated into condominiums, this renovation cost them around $3 million. Currently the Apartment buildings are going for an “arm and a leg”. Right now there is a 2 bedroom that is going for $1.6 Million.This just goes to show how anything in New York can change in the blink of an eye. One Positive thing is that the Buildings outside look didn’t change from turning the warehouse into apartments. When we look at the building now we can still see some of the history behind it for those who know about it. I am also glad that they have that Walt Whitman Plaque up there to inform people what was once there before.

The location that I chose is called Eagle Warehouse and Storage Company, its about a 15-20 minute walk from city tech. To get there you can walk to Whitman and Cadman Park. You are going to see a huge monument called the Brooklyn War memorial. You are going to want to keep walking up Cadman Plaza until you get to Old Fulton Street. As you walk down you are going to see a huge white colored building called Grimaldis pizza, which is right across the street. The Warehouse caught my eye because it was a huge red brick colored building and it also looked different from all of the other buildings in the area. Believe it or not this is actually an 9 story apartment building. The Juxtaposition for this building is that a newspaper company called the Brooklyn edge was here. Their newspaper was called the brooklyn daily eagle and a popular journalist named Walt Whitman edited their articles. This is currently a million dollar Apartmant building.

Monuments are a very controversial topic currently, some want them removed and some want them to be kept. Monuments are a reminder of what the person did in their lifetime. Dealing with this whole situation can be difficult. This can be very hard for a person to decide, such as Bill De Blasio, this is a great opportunity to help him. I believe that These monuments should not have any negative controversy in the media or in the community, if they do we will take further action by removing it or moving it to a different location.

One of the criterion I chose would be What was the history behind the person. Basically did the person have a bad past. If the community is not happy and the monument has negative controversy then we should take action. For example there is a statue in central park named after J. Marion Sims, people called him the “father of modern gynecology and a pioneer in the field of surgery”. But a lot of people don’t know that he committed a series of experimental operations on enslaved black women. People in the community are not happy, having this monument in a public area like this is not a good idea. It is kind of promoting racism, and also it shows hate and negativity towards our race. A person like this should not have a statue up, at least not in this area. People now and days should not just know the good things that a person did in their lifetime, They should know every aspect of their life. The media and school always teaches the stuff in the person life that they did good but they never tell you about the bad side of them, its like they don’t want you to know what really happened.

Some people think monuments shouldn’t be taken down just because a certain group of people doesn’t necessarily like the specific person, but some of the monuments can get pretty offensive if you know the back story of that specific person. My second criterion would be letting the members of the community decide what they want to do. The community members actually live in the area and they walk past the specific monuments everyday, they should have an input to what happens. The options would be moving it to a different location which would cost tons of money or destroying/removing it. Not doing something about this situation that we are currently in would not be very good, if we don’t do something soon there could be an increase in protests, vandalism, etc. The community has to come together and do something about this as soon as possible.

One of my last criterions would be does the monument give a positive influence or does it have a good message. A lot of these monuments have people that were good to some people but bad to others. One example of this would be the monument that probably has the most controversy, the Christopher Columbus monument in Columbus circle. People mainly know him for being one of the first Italian explorers to discover North America in 1492. The thing people don’t know about him is that he killed and enslaved indigenous tribes. Columbus Basically invaded America and committed the act of genocide. On top of that there are 4 statues of him in New York. A statue like this is pretty vague because a lot of people don’t know about this bad side. This shows how he was a hero and a villain at the same time. On top of that he even has his own holiday which is insane. A monument like this does not show a positive influence and does not give a positive message.

A lot of people are saying that they want to keep the monument but put a plaque under it that explains the monument and what they did. This idea is terrible because it won’t stop the protests, vandalism, and violence. This idea will still not change the communities views on the monument. People want the monuments taken down because they are offensive, people don’t necessarily want an explanation plaque. This will cause even more negative controversy because it is not helping the situation at all. The only 2 options are removing it or moving it.

In conclusion, not everyone will agree with this criteria but it is completely fair, in my opinion. There are different options that you could choose. A lot of these “Historic Leaders” were both heroes and villains and we need to take Action.