The first thing I think about when I remember my tour of East Harlem was the weather that day, it was really cold and that was perhaps the most discouraging part of the trip for me. Other than that the trip was great and when it warmed up throughout the day I was a lot happier. One of my partners wasn’t able to make it that day so Elizabeth and I got to take the tour with Professor Gardner which was interesting for several reasons. First of all, as we all know from the previous trip, Ms. Gardner walks super fast and has a lot of energy so that was good because it kept us up and moving quickly. Another benefit of having Professor with us was that we noticed many things we wouldn’t have noticed without her, for example she was able to spot small parks in small spaces between buildings that we probably would have overlooked. She also already had a lot of knowledge which she shared with us that will be useful for our project. Anyway, I had been to East Harlem before for several reasons and have passed it many times on the M101 but I had never really paid close attention to all the things there are to see in the neighborhood. My favorite thing that I was able to take a closer look at on this tour was all of the street art and murals hidden in small gardens or parks or even just on the sides of building complexes. A lot of the work was by De La Vega who we learned about earlier this year. It was really interesting to see how many different cultures inhabited one neighborhood, on almost any given block you could find food from 3 different countries and many different languages on posters and signs. It was extremely interesting to see all of the empty housing developments that have been built recently and as I saw each one I remembered the line”that’s public housing, it’s not going anywhere” from the documentary we watched in class because it was interesting to see how these developments are literally across the street from the projects. When I raised this point to Prof. Gardner she told me that many of these developers had the idea that the projects could later be turned into “co-ops” which is clearly not happening. I wondered why instead of trying to push people out why no one invests in trying to improve what’s already there. The best part of the trip for me was having lunch at a Mexican restaurant with Liz and Ms. Gardner. We had tacos and a quesadilla and it was delicious 😀

The East Harlem “field trip” was interesting. It was nice to see all the community gardens, playgrounds, and inspirational murals. It was a cold day, though, and hardly anybody was out. Since most open spaces were empty, you could only guess what they really meant to the people there. It wasn’t my first time observing signs of gentrification. Something slightly encouraging was that my bodega-bought grilled cheese sandwich only cost $2. This shows that the neighborhood is not so gentrified that food is expensive; what’s available is still so cheap and lacking in nutritional value that enough people can afford it. What upset me most was bumping into an ambulance that was inching through the projects with its sirens blaring. It stopped and asked Ms. Gregory for directions to some address, and she couldn’t answer. How can an ambulance service claim to live up to its purpose if it gets lost in a housing project that is, by design, isolated from the street grid?

When I first arrived at East Harlem, I found it very interesting to see many things I had read about before from class readings, the housing, the ethnic groups, and certain institutions. Once my group had arrived at our starting point, we decided to split up into two groups, and divide the East Harlem, South into two sections so would pay more focus to our surroundings. As my partner, Daniel Choi, and I were walking around the South part of East Harlem, my eyes were immediately drawn to all the types of housing. In fact, Daniel and I were so intrigued that we entered a public housing building. There were building rules and postings written in three different languages: English, Spanish, and Chinese; This spoke to the diversity of East Harlem.

As we continued our tour, something that definitely surprised us was the amount of different churches around the neighborhood. At times we even saw multiple churches on one block. In addition to this, at times buildings seemed out of place on some blocks, and were often next to either a renovated building, or a brand new one. I expected to see people out in the street as well, but at times in seemed like certain blocks were abandoned, especially with all the worn down buildings that surrounded the area at times. Signs of gentrification became apparent when my partner and I encountered various “luxury rental” signs and retail space openings near brand new housing. It amazed me to see how simply going up or down a couple of blocks, one could notice a significant disparity between housing and buildings that existed.

The part of this tour that impacted me the most was when Daniel and I encountered an abandoned school, and got the opportunity to speak with residents of the area. When we first saw the building, we were unsure of what it was. The building was immense compared to all the other buildings that surrounded it. As we were taking pictures and notes of the building, a man approached us and he began telling us about the building we were looking at it. The building had been abandoned for years, and garbage had been accumulating throughout this time. Furthermore, there was construction right next to the abandoned school, but the man had informed us that the construction had been there for years as well. People had made complaints to city officials, but nothing had ever been done. It was infuriating and saddening to hear all this. The metal of the construction had rusted, and there was even cat food scattered because cats began using the larger pipes as shelter. Moments later, a woman had passed by and joined in on the conversation. She clarified that the school had been abandoned for 10 years! As Daniel had previously stated, we do need better representatives, because this was all appalling. The woman and man had told us that there was an infestation of enormous rats because of all the garbage that surrounded the school and the construction site. After our informants left, we continued our tour and were nearing the lower part of East Harlem, South. The more we walked down however, the more construction we encountered. Some of the other sites appeared old as well. We even encountered a large crane near housing, which reminded me of a video we had seen in class. If I were a resident near that crane, I too would be fearful.

Overall, the experience was very eye-opening, seeing East Harlem first-hand, and getting the opportunity to talk with a couple of locals. There is a significant amount of information that I acquired that will prove to be useful for the research project: the evident signs of gentrification, the different types of housing, the residents being neglected by city officials, the horrible condition of certain areas, the different branches of faith, and more to come as I further my research.

What really surprised me about East Harlem was the drastic split between the types of buildings I saw between 125th and 116th Streets.  At first, the buildings seemed rundown and poorly kept, but as we got further to 116th, it seemed as if the area was showing more and more signs of gentrification.  I was also a little curious as to why there were so few children in the parks and recreational facilities we passed by, especially since it was a day off for public school children.  I feel as if the pictures we took of community gardens and other open spaces will really give my group a good handle on our research project.  It seemed that every block we walked along had something new to offer, from various types of Latin and West African cuisine, to evangelical churches, to Turkish baths.