Activity # 6
3/28/210
“A “good” neighborhood is usually defined in terms of conventional shopping, schools, and perhaps public transit, rather than additional social services for the working parent, such as day care or evening clinics” (Hayden, 145). Throughout my neighborhood there are many resources like day care and evening clinics for working parents. There is this one daycare called “Miss Barbara’s Preschool”. This school is specifically designed for children 2 to 5 years and you have to enroll into the school. Once they enroll into the school, there is a 1 month trial period to see if the child is blending in with the other children and the environment of the school. Then there’s a daycare called “Mommy and Me” which is a program for young children where mommy can be present and the caretaker. There are different classes from the different age groups from 5 months to 3 ½ years old. This is to prepare the youngsters for pre-school and to get used to doing things without their parents. Then there is a Tutor Time located right across the street from the major Long Island Rail Road station. The parents can drop off the children at this Tutor Time and then go off to work. They stay open till about 8 p.m. so the parents have to make sure that they pick up their children before 8 in the evening. “A woman’s place is in the home” has been one of the most important principles of architectural design and urban planning in the United States for the last century” (Hayden). There used to not be a lot of daycare centers because women were the caretakers and took care of all the chores. There are no evening clinics in my neighborhood probably because of these reasons.
There are only a few spaces in my neighborhood that were specifically designated only for men or women. The obvious ones was the local barber shop called “Gentleman’s Barber Shop”. Just by the name you can tell that it is only meant for men and that a woman would not go in there to get their hair cut. When I looked inside there was a whole bunch of men sitting around the barber chairs talking amongst one another. There was even a calendar of young women in bikinis on the side wall. I was uncomfortable to even walk in because there was no women inside this shop or anywhere near this vicinity area. In my area that seemed to be the only major barber shop for men, but for women there was plenty of choices for hair salons. There’s a place called “Axios Salon and Spa” which does everything from getting your hair styled all the way to waxing. Then there’s other places called “Off 7th Hair Salon”, “Ulta 3 Salon”, “Symmetry Hair Design”, and other such places. But then there’s other hair salons that are unisex called “Lemon Tree Unisex Haircutters” which welcomes both men and women. This salon was more engaging because it made the environment comfortable so that both men and women could be able to come together in one spot. They did not make it gendered and kept the colors of the shop mutual. They had magazines for both women and men on the table. And there was also men and women who worked together cutting hair. Other “male” spaces were the cigar shop, and the auto shops around the neighborhood. The other “women” spaces were the nail salons, the all women’s gym called “Curves” which the machines are used for the specific purpose of women’s fitness. These spaces are specifically designated for one sex or the other because of the environment and how the places are designed.
Queer/Gay individuals claim space for themselves all over the city. I do not think there is any specific spot or place. But there are specific clubs that are for only gay men/gay women/bi-sexuals. But there are no clubs that are just specifically for “straight” people. At least I have not encountered that yet, but there might be. But in my neighborhood there are specific meeting spots for the Gay and Lesbian Community called community centers where they could meet and discuss with one another. They probably pick these community centers to get more privacy and to let the younger generation of gay youth feel more comfortable knowing that there are other people who go through the same problems they go through. “As Macfadden’s comment makes clear, gay men had to contend with the threat of vigilante anti-gay violence as well as with the police. In response to this challenge, gay men devised a variety of tactics that allowed them to move freely about the city, to appropriate for themselves spaces that were not marked as gay and to construct a gay city in the midst of, yet invisible to, the dominant city” (Chauncey 180) . It’s more of a “safe place” for young gay youth’s but also to feel like part of the community. As I researched “gay map of new York” it shows where all the gay hotels, bars, clubs, attractions, community centers, etc. are. It shows the different spaces that gays/lesbians can go to for entertainment purposes and to feel more welcomed to the city when outsiders come to visit.
The major space that people are engaging in “private” activities in public spaces is in the park in my neighborhood. The park is called Kelley Park and the teenagers go there during the evening hours to partake in having make-out sessions and sometimes even doing certain types of drugs. They think that because they are near the woods behind the bleachers that no one will notice them. But the major reason they go to the park is because they do not want there parents to know what’s going on in their lives. Going to the park makes they feel like they have their own privacy. Another “private” activity in public spaces is having basement parties 2 blocks down from where I live. Every Friday-Sunday a different house has a basement party where you have to pay a $5 admission fee and cannot be under the age of 16. But I know some teenagers who have actually bought fake IDS just to get into these basement parties. They do these parties in the basement because it seems as if they are cut off from the rest of the block and that no one will complain. I’m not sure if anyone has specifically complained about these parties, but from my understanding this has been going on for about 6 years now and I just found out about it 2 weeks ago.
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