Maria Popa - Activity 6

We went on both our field trips this past Sunday, and it truly was an informative and productive day. We started the day at Astor’s Place, and Johanna guided us around the East Village. We walked by Cooper Union College, and then spent some time in Tompskins Park. I couldn’t help but notice that unlike Central Park, where I usually go, this park was much more crowded, and the majority of its patrons were young people. Around 1 in the afternoon the park was full of families with little children, groups of teenagers, people walking their dogs, and a couple of homeless people sleeping on benches.

We walked around the East Village for a couple of hours and almost every street we walked on was full of people. Jane Jacobs would attribute this to the fact that this is a diversely developed neighborhood. None of the streets were strictly residential or for business; they all had a combination of small shops, restaurants, business offices and apartment buildings. Most of the people walking around that time were locals, and our group couldn’t help it but look very touristy and get a couple dirty looks as we were taking pictures of a community garden and blocking the entire sidewalk.

After our lunch break at Tahini we set off for Brooklyn. I haven’t walked across the Brooklyn Bridge for a while, and have forgotten what a big attraction it is for tourists and locals alike. It was a warm and sunny afternoon, and the walkway was very crowded. There were people jugging, biking, rollerblading, as well as people who moved at a speed of 1 mile per hour, and stopped at every 5 feet to take pictures, but most people were not visibly bothered by it.

After we got off the bridge we walked around Dumbo for a while. I never knew what Dumbo actually stood for (down under Manhattan Brooklyn overpass) and never really walked through it. The area is very old, and as our tour guide, Maya, informed us, it used to be an area of factories, but those got converted into lofts for artists in the 1960s, and now most of them look abandoned. The streets in Dumbo see far less pedestrian activity than the streets in the East Village. The main streets had 2 or 3 car lanes, and except the occasional jogger, we were the only ones on the sidewalk. As we got further from the bridge, we walked around the older part of the area. The only people we saw there were the people hanging around the projects, and a couple of camera crews on old, cobbled streets, shooting by abandoned, graffitied buildings.

Last on our agenda was the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. The shop is in an old light house and the only one in NYC, needless to say the line was 30 minutes long and people kept lining up regardless of how long the line was. Outside the ice cream shop, there is something like a dock area and people can sit by the water and eat their ice cream under a picturesque view. Throughout the time we were there we saw 2 couples come to take wedding pictures, and Qunicenera party. There were also little children riding their bikes, parents playing with their children, big groups that came just for the ice cream, dog walkers etc.

Even though I’ve been to both areas before, I’ve learned a lot on this trip. As a group we were able to recognize several things we read for the class in daily life.