Summary blog post of “City Limits” by Colson Whitehead

In the story name, “City Limits by Colson Whitehead”, the author and Narrator himself describes his perception about New York he knows. The story expresses a message that living in this very city can revolutionize you because in the reading the author mentioned in line saying, “That Canal Street used to be a canal. That Bryant Park used to be a reservoir. It’s all hokum.” This statement tells that the author hears much nonsense from people about New York being this, being that however he didn’t listen to their babbles and the reason was he cares about what he sees for himself now about the city limits. However, he also doesn’t like the fact that city being alter every single time, “Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own Ney York, not one of them seeing the same thing.” Moreover, according to author’s perception about New York tells us that it doesn’t matter what we see today in this city, who knows tomorrow it will have something brand new, and therefore many of us going to visualize is what’s stuck on our head from yesterday about this city.

Revision:

In the story name, “City Limits by Colson Whitehead”, the author and Narrator himself describes his perception about New York that he knows. The story expresses the message about the city that living in this very city can revolutionize you, and this is a fact because in the reading the author mentioned in line saying, “That Canal Street used to be a canal. That Bryant Park used to be a reservoir. It’s all hokum.” This statement tells that, the author hears much nonsense from people about New York being this and being that, however he does not care about those peoples babbles.  And the reason behind is he cares more about what he visualize for himself than what other tells from their perspective view as mentioned in the city limit.  Moreover, he also doesn’t like the fact that the city being altered every single time, and he mentioned it on the reading by saying, “Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing.”  Furthermore, the author’s perception about New York tells us that it doesn’t matter what we see today in this very city because who knows tomorrow it will have something brand new.  In addition, the author makes that statement as a fact with the view of his own about the city that he lived in.  Therefore, the existence of today’s world of New York may not be the same for upcoming tomorrow, and that’s why for many of us going to visualize is whatever stuck on our head from yesterday about this city.

Summary blog post of “Who Knows Brooklyn”

In the story of who knows Brooklyn by Ben Mcgrath, the author described the difference perspective views of two people, Merlis and Manbeck, and how they know Brooklyn better. “Merlis has published Eighteen books of his own, fifteen about Brooklyn”, and on the other side Manbeck published his own latest, ” Historic photos of the Brooklyn bridge.” They both are historian, however they don’t get along with each other while still living in Brooklyn. ” He’s always trying to screw me,” Merlis said of Manbeck. He thinks Manbeck doesn’t consider him as a friend. “I have an idea that he doesn’t think history is fun.” Manbeck said. And here Manbeck criticizing Merlis of not being serious. So, the author shows here that, even living in same neighborhood there’s always competition happens.

Revision:

In the story of who knows Brooklyn by Ben Mcgrath, the author described the difference perspective views of two people Merlis and Manbeck and how they know Brooklyn better. “Merlis has published Eighteen books of his own, fifteen about Brooklyn”, and on the other side Manbeck published his own latest,  “Historic photos of the Brooklyn bridge.” They both are historian, however they don’t get along with each other while still living in Brooklyn.  “He’s always trying to screw me,” Merlis said of Manbeck.  He thinks Manbeck doesn’t consider him as a friend because they both have different perspective view about their works. “I have an idea that he doesn’t think history is fun.” Manbeck said.  And here Manbeck criticizing Merlis of not being serious. Moreover, the author use them to show us how many people in our society can be egocentric about their own work, and make others believe that they can be wrong if they chose the individuals work. What I’m expressing here is not everyone likes to share his or her original ideas to others as being friendly.  Therefore, the overall message from the author is, even though living in a same neighborhood there’s always competition happens with each other’s.

Reflection:

Throughout the semester we’ve covered many things in English class by discovering the history of Brooklyn.  In the beginning of the semester my classmates and I had the chance to visit Brooklyn Historical Society or BHS and learn about the histories of Brooklyn heights.  This expedition was a walking tour and it gave us the whole new knowledge about this very place than what we have had in our memory before.  I mean knowing that Brooklyn is an urban area now than where it used to be a suburb area or farm lands, and places such as Flatbush is the example of one of them.  Moreover, after the walking tour we’ve got the chance to visit inside Brooklyn Historical Society and view the artifacts such as map, books, diaries, etc.   According to BHS the places in Brooklyn living right now they were used to be part of English colonist and they’ve ruled here and other places for many centuries. Furthermore, if we can think of it today it will be a enormous research and also be challenging by not knowing where to start in terms of every historical points or times.  Therefore, in modern day, today, there’s historical places that exist in many places of New York, and one of them we should be thankful to is BHS.  And the reason is this place has many historical artifacts and written documents that can guide us through the knowledge about Brooklyn of yesterday and modern day today.  So, thanks to Brooklyn Historical Society and the amazing tour they have walked through us during the semester.