October 23, 2015 admin

Follow Along

Week 1: During our week-long intensive pre-departure seminar in Seattle, students learn about the history of the UW campus and practice using participatory and qualitative research methods. Week 1: Program Co-Director Keith Harris takes us on a walking tour of the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle to learn about the changes being wrought by large-scale developers and tech companies. Week 1: During Keith Harris's walking tour of South Lake Union in Seattle, we learn about the radical changes the neighborhood is undergoing as Amazon and Vulcan reshape it. Week 2: We arrive in New York City to very hot and humid weather. Week 2: We begin by exploring our new neighborhood. Our hostel is in the East Williamsburg/Bushwick area of Brooklyn. Week 2: Our neighborhood is known for its amazing graffiti culture. A great example is a mural on the wall of our hostel. Week 2: Our new neighborhood is a mixed industrial and residential zone -- a type of zoning we'll be learning about through our site visits. Across the street is a demolition company. Week 2: Students fan out across the neighborhood to explore and gather info on resources and amenities. Week 2: Students cook us an awesome group dinner at the hostel. Week 2: Students wait for the L train to take us on our first field trip. Week 2: We ride the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands on our first field trip. Week 2: On Liberty Island, an actor playing August Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty, shares a wealth of information about the monument. We were interested to learn that it was a private initiative by a French political scientist who wanted to celebrate the philosophical and political affinities between our two nations after the Civil War. The early stages of the project were largely funded through private donations from French citizens. Week 2: Our group arrives on Ellis Island. Week 2: The registry hall at Ellis Island, where thousands of immigrants officially entered the city and the country. Immigration was (and continues to be) a major force for urban change in New York City. Week 2: Our class takes a break from the wonderful exhibits on Ellis Island. Week 2: Students board the M train for our second field trip. Week 2: Waiting for the M train at Flushing Ave. Week 2: The class begins a tour of the 97 Orchard St. building at the Lower Eastside Tenement Museum Week 2: The class pauses on a walking tour of the Lower East Side, where we learned about community activism and neighborhood change over the 20th century. Week 2: The M'finda Kalunga garden - a community space created by neighbors on the Lower East Side when the neighborhood was blighted by neglect. Week 2: Now luxury towers crowd out the old tenements on the Lower East Side. Government subsidies help to ensure that at least a few affordable spaces, for instance, for senior citizens, can still exist here. Week 2: Near our hostel, graffiti points to many of the same issues that plague the Lower East Side. Week 2: Students visit the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) to learn about rezoning and densification in neighborhoods like East New York, which is slated to undergo major changes in building regulations. Week 2: At CUP, students engage in a role play where they practice planning neighborhood building densities and think about what they would ask for from the city in return for approving a rezoning. Week 2: At CUP, students use toy blocks to visualize what a neighborhood rezoning could look like. Week 2: Students cook a group meal in the hostel. Week 3: Students go on a walking tour of Chelsea and the High Line, where they learn about the many waves of urban change on the West Side of Manhattan. Week 3: A cast iron facade, popular amongst industrial buildings of the mid-late nineteenth century in the Meatpacking District. Week 3: "Runs Both Ways" by Spencer Finch, an art project along the High Line using the colors of the Hudson River to tint existing windows. Week 3: London Terrace in Chelsea was the largest apartment building in the world when it was built in 1933. Week 3: Students visit the New-York Historical Society to look at the archives and learn about the resources open to them in the city. Week 3: Rain comes to our hostel in Brooklyn. Week 3: We take a rainy tour of the City College of New York campus, courtesy of a graduate student of architecture. Week 3: We visit the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York to talk with faculty and students about their work. Week 3: Prof. Marta Gutman introduces Prof. Toni Griffin at the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City at CCNY. Week 3: Prof. Toni Griffin of the J. Max Bond Center talks with students about her career as an urban designer and how that work has intersected with and tried to tackle issues of social and economic justice. Week 3: We present the J. Max Bond Center and the Spitzer School of Architecture with an original sketch of Seattle by our student Dat Nguyen. Week 3: We visit graduate studios at the Spitzer School of Architecture. Week 3: Students talk with graduate architecture students at the Spitzer School of Architecture. Week 3: Students take a walking tour with a neighborhood activist in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint to learn about the role of community groups in guiding and advocating for urban change on the local level. Week 3: We learn about the storied history of the Greenpoint Terminal Market, a source of neighborhood blight but also a center of a vibrant squatter community in the 1990s. It was landmarked by the city, but subsequently suffered a major fire that destroyed much of it. Week 3: Greenpoint is plagued by ground pollution from buildings like this, which was a soft plastics factory and a dry-cleaning plant before being bought by a developer who plans to turn it into luxury housing. There are limited resources for oversight of such sites, and Greenpoint residents have had to raise money to hire an environmental consultant who will ensure that construction does not unleash harmful chemicals. Week 4: We celebrate with a great meal at Thai restaurant Sripraphai in Queens before a week of working on individual projects. Week 4: We celebrate the end of our program with a dinner at Patrizia’s Pizza and Pasta.
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Week 2: On Liberty Island, an actor playing August Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty, shares a wealth of information about the monument. We were interested to learn that it was a private initiative by a French political scientist who wanted to celebrate the philosophical and political affinities between our two nations after the Civil War. The early stages of the project were largely funded through private donations from French citizens.