Nicole McGuire
2/12/2010
Activity # 2
The place that I was recommended to visit was the Bay Terrace Mall located in Bayside, Queens. When I was first told about this place, I thought it was going to be a small mall area with a few places to shop. But when I reached my destination I was actually surprised by what I saw. The mall is outside and separated into different sections with numerous restaurants and shops. It reminded me of the outlet stores located in Long Island called Tangers. The mall being outside kind of gives it a suburban feeling because it is not cluttered up all in one building.
I decided to go during the middle of the afternoon and since the mall was outside it was pretty quiet and not to many people were around. The only people that I saw were the people who work in the stores, mothers with their young children, and elderly women. The mall is surrounded by a huge parking lot which shows that most of the people who shop here do not come from this neighborhood. “Automobiles are often conveniently tagged as villains responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and futilities of city planning” (Jacobs, 7). The use of cars also gives it an suburban feeling because people in cities usually take buses and trains to get to their destinations but no trains are that close to this mall but you could take the bus. The stores were random in the sense that they were not organized in any particular way. The restaurants were not all right next to each other and the shops were separated also. I felt lonely being there and almost felt out of place. “The sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers” (Jacobs, 35). If there were more people around I might not have felt so out of place. Or maybe if there was more people my age walking around in the different shops then maybe I would of felt a little more comfortable with the situation.
As I was walking around I also noticed that there were huge apartment buildings right near the mall. There buildings were so high and isolated from the streets and from the mall. It almost seemed as if those buildings represented a different part of the city that’s how separated it felt from where I was standing. I did see those buildings when I got off the Q28 bus and just looking at them made the whole environment uncomfortable. “ The high-rent tenants, most of whom are so transient we cannot even keep track of their faces, have not the remotest idea of who takes care of their street, or how” (Jacobs, 39). While I was walking around all I could think about is how desolate this area is and all the danger that could be caused within this one area and the people in those apartment buildings would have no idea what was going on. There were no people really paying attention except some security guards but even they were busy talking on texting or talking on their cell phones. Some of these women were even letting their children just run around some of the areas not realizing that their child could easily get kidnapped and no witnesses because there was no one actually watching.
Just from walking around the mall you could tell that not many people in the neighborhood have much contact with what goes on within the mall or if they even have any type of contact with the neighborhood itself. The neighborhood did not seem bad but I did not feel safe. I do not know if it is because I have never been here before or because of it having such low density. “The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many little public sidewalk contacts” (Jacobs, 56). This statement is true because you get to know your street and neighborhood through making contact with the people you surround yourself with. Maybe the people who live in this neighborhood feel safe because they see one another on a regular basis, but for one of the first times in my life I felt really uncomfortable walking around not knowing a single person and as if I was all by myself in an huge outside mall.
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