MHC TUBE
NYTube
NapoliTube
“Nap”sterTube
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Post 1945 New York City
Visions of Gotham

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Peopling the Decades
Writing with Light: New York Since 1945
Fun-o-Movie
I’ve Worked D* Hard On This
You Know I Have Other Classes Too, Right?

Just make sure that when you are posting it you select the “html” tab, and then select the embedding code to the right of the slideshow on the Slideshare page. At this time the “Post to” –> Wordpress does not work due to a version conflict between the plugin and the Wordpress version we are using.

This year I wanted to try something different in my section of the Macaulay College Seminar 2, The Peopling of New York City.

This is the third semester that I have taught the course.  In previous semesters students have elected to take on topics such as specific neighborhoods and specific immigrant groups as the focus of their research. One significant problem emerged fairly quickly. Students interested in the 19th century history of some neighborhoods simpler were not able to find any information. This led to the development of projects that clearly demonstrated much work, but did not have adequate primary source material.

I also wanted to try to make this project more fun than the standard website. While I have no objection to websites, I wanted to see if something more was possible; something that intimately connected course content with the web projects.

I therefore decided to focus the class on my own research interest, which is New York City after 1945. I assigned four good books on the subject as material for reading and discussion. I also asked students to think about the people in of New York City in a new and slightly different way than I had before.

While in the past I had treated this class as strictly an immigration course, I wanted to acknowledge that immigration is not the only way the city is ‘peopled.’ Yes, certainly there were immigrants both before and after 1945 and the course did not ignore that fact. But other things also shaped the people of New York City.

So, I allow the students to pick any topic they wanted to take on. The students could have selected immigrant groups to follow, especially after 1965. But they understood, as I do, that New York City is a place to invent and reinvent yourself, and that way ‘people’ the city.  A quick look at the autobiographies of the students will demonstrate the truth of this claim.

Therefore, for example, one group elected to look at the history of Vietnam veterans in New York City. Veterans had gone abroad, served in Vietnam, and had come back changed. Some were wounded, others hurt in other ways, but all had to forge lives for themselves here, back home in New York City.

Most significantly I asked the students to create documentary movies based on their research.  The results appear on this website.

The College had provided each student with a flip camera that takes excellent video and has terrific sound. This permitted students to conduct quite a large number of interviews for their projects. They had to learn how to interview, and how difficult it is to find interviewees.

To do this, they had to read. So they read outside their own comfort zones. Having picked topics about which they knew little, they had to become experts and quickly.

In preparing a film, students also had to write. A lot. They had to figure out precisely what they wanted their film to say and how best to deliver that on a screen.

They also had to learn to think critically about the sources they use. Some were of greater value than others. Some were trustworthy and others not. Not even interviews can be taken at face value.

Finally, they had to learn the technology in order to put the film together. Most students used iMovie, a facility built into their Apple computers.

They quickly found out that moviemaking is not as easy as it looks. Movies gobble up information. In order to make a film of even 10 or 15 minutes they had to have a lot of information to work with. And so they went out and found it.

I am intensely proud of the results.   These students have worked very hard, and I believe as you watch their products, you will agree.

Philip F. Napoli
April 30, 2009

We chose to focus on the role that government played in the 1980s AIDS epidemic. Through our video, we tried to convey the extent to which budget and policy decisions made in New York City in the 1970s contributed to the increasing incidences of HIV and AIDS. Beginning in 1975, a fiscal and political crisis left New York City without the resources to pay its operating expenses or the ability to borrow money from the public. This crisis was rooted in global economic changes, but had a major effect on New York City. Then, the NYC banks decided to stop lending money to the city, a move that could have caused the city to ultimately declare bankruptcy. The EFCB (Emergency Financial Control Board) was appointed to balance the city’s budget so that it could once again borrow money from the public. It called for severe budget cuts in the city’s spending. Agencies with health responsibilities were particularly hit hard. The numbers of hospital workers, bed, and days providing service dropped tremendously.
Most researchers believe that the HIV infection first appeared in New York City during the 1970s and spread rapidly among men who had sex with men and injection drug users, first, and then, throughout the 1980s, to the wider sexual and drug networks. In New York City, 41% of AIDS cases were related to injection drug use, compared with 25% nationally.
Other decisions made during the fiscal crisis contributed to the inadequate HIV prevention services. Most health educators were laid off in 1975, so the Department of Health lacked the means to communicate health information effectively. In the city’s low-income minority communities, it took the Department of Health more than a decade to establish a network of AIDS educators. During this interval, the HIV infection proceeded to spread rapidly.
For our project, we decided to interview former mayor Ed Koch, to see his view on the government’s policies during this time. We also conducted an interview with an epidemiologist, who we conveniently found at Brooklyn College. We further plan to conduct an interview with an AIDS patient, to see their point of view on the major effect the government can have on their struggle with AIDS. We also plan to get in contact with a member of ACT-UP- an organization geared towards ending the AIDS crisis.
The most difficult part about this project was the technological aspect. Many of us were not technologically advanced, and so we found the end product to seem distant in our minds. Also, it was difficult to find images and videos on AIDS that were appropriate and relevant. Sometimes they were one but not the other.
On the whole, we all learned a lot about our topic through research. Some of us did not even know of this event in history, because it is not one that is discussed in history textbooks. Two of us even took formal classes on the history of New York City, and still we had never heard of this event until we had done the research on our own.

Your Tech Fellow,

John