chapter 6: Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park

Orchard Beach is a resource for bolstering Latino community identity and has contributed to sustaining NY's cultural diversity. This beach has a history of attracting people who like to make it their own. the place was created in 1880's. Budget constraints contributed to the park's low-key approach toward management during the early years. The park's passive approach to management eventually favored an increase in visitation and visitor autonomy.

Chapter 5: Jacob Riis Park.

This park does not have enough funds to keep the place proper. Jacob Riis Park has a beach where more socially and culturally diverse population encounter one another while engaging in a great variety of activities. In federal parks the government has to consul the public and has to consider the viability of cultural groups ways when managing and making major changes to the park.  Most people that use Jacob Riis Park are recent immigrants who do not speak English or do not have a citizenship.The cultural behavior of these park users poses a challenge for park staff. This park has different bays. Bay 1 is a bay where many gays go, it is also a nude bay. This bay is dirty which does not stop people from coming here, the crowd is diverse.  Bays 5 &6 are where people sit in groups or alone. These bays are more relaxed and quite and the crowd is mixed. Bay 14 the boardwalk has no facilities and acts as a sort of cul-de-sac for boardwalk activities. Mostly men visit this bay.

Chapter 4 The Ellis Island Bridge proposal..

The National Park Services wanted to build a bridge from Liberty State Park to Ellis Island. The restoration project included the construction of a bridge across the 400 yards of water between Ellis Island and Liberty State Park. People who were interviewed were into the situation, they took part of it with interest not just for the heck of it. They were understanding of the problem and its consequences even if they had different backgrounds. Some people view the changes as negative others positive. Residents of Ellis Island feel that the ferry is for tourist whereas a bridge would be for the local population who do not normally visit the island. If the bridge is built the locales will visit the island often and also learn the history.

chapter 3

Prospect Park is located in Brooklyn, it is 526 acres and was built between 1867-1873. It is a place recreation that is taken for granted or not noticed. The park is culturaly diverse. It also several crowd attracting features like the Bandshell, Park Zoo, Lefferts Homestead, historic house museum. There are 6 children playground, all at different locations of the park. The social life at Prospect Park is also rich and diverse. They got African/West Indies drumming and dancing. Haitan roots music. Many people use the parks for picnic and cookouts.

summary due november 3, 2011

"Urban Parks"

This writing talks about the history of parks. The very first parks were used for grazing cattle and militias purposes. Some parks were build for certain purposes like the Central park was build for landscaping. This chapter gives us a little history about different types of parks and the movements they started. Olmsted wanted to create great social spaces out of the materials of nature. So he creates the lakes, streams, waterfalls and pastures. Pelham Bay park belongs to the era of public reservation. it is selected for the scenic value of its shoreline ans adjacent islands alog long island sound.

h.w due october 27 2011

"The Cultural Life of Large Urban Spaces"
 This chapter talks about the importance of urban spaces in our lives. These spaces are good for cultural diversity, it brings people from all background together in one place. In NYC very few places retain the cultural and social diversity ater 9/11. There are 6 lessons that promote the sociabilities o small urban spaces.
1. People need these space to represent their cultural.
2. social interaction of diverse groups can be maintained.
3. Income and visitation pattern must be taken into account
4. differences in the way ethnic and social groups use and value public sites
5. symbolic ways of communicating cultural meaning are an important dimension of place attachment that can be fostered to promote cultural diversity.
6. contemporary historic preservations should not concentrate on restoing the scenic features without also restoring the facilities and diversions tat attract people to a park.

According to Whyte the main reason why people stopped using public spaces is because of the fear of terrorism.

summary due on October 20, 2011

Miles talks about how immigrants come to the USA for not only safety and financial issues but also for their families back home. Miles illustrates this through the story of an Ecuadorian. She talks about the challenges the immigrants face and the "questions of identity they struggle with." Even thought the Vicente works longs hours he is unable to pay his debts and can hardly send money back to his family. His family back home worries about him and fear that he might become too American. It was hard for Vicente to adjust to the US. He had to learn English, which is very difficult is you have spoken a different language through out your life. He had buy a car since he got harassed in the subway.

This article is interesting but not surprising to me. My parents left their country so we can have a better life and education in the states. They miss their family a lot and I have seen them hurt when they couldn't go home to meet a sick family person. However, now my parents go to India 2-3 times a year. My brother and I hardly go because we don't like the environment there.

Shandy talks about the way immigrants send money back to their country. According to Shandy people that receive money in their home country are moving to cities, where it is easier to get the transfer. She also thinks remittance are not just the transfer of wealth between people, but also serves to maintain ties of reciprocity within families separated by warfare and emigrants.

Zenner talks about how it is hard to distinguish between rural and urban since telecommunications are found throughout the world. Zenner explores what distinction meant in the recent past and what it may mean today.