I chose to take a picture of old stores on the front compared to the clearer residential buildings in the back. What’s striking is that they kept the stores the same which might make me think that the store owners may have kept their exterior the same because of nostalgia reasons or they simply didn’t have the funds or right to renovate their storefront. The story I could imagine from this is that people were attracted to how New York’s shops are so close together and wanted to live closer to the street with a variety of shops. However, the existing apartment buildings were too old thus they needed to create a highrise to meet with the demand of new tenants. If I had to do some research on this project I may look up if the owner is currently occupying the building, when it was created and if they own rights and responsibility for these stores. I could also see when the highrise was created and if possible see an image of how the daily life on that street looked. If it seemed lively then I could perhaps conclude that it was an attraction to live there at some point.
Ways of Seeing – FYLC Fall 2018
First Year Learning Community
