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Monthly Archives: December 2010
Final Project – Stapleton
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- A local church run out of a storefront on Bay Street in Stapleton.
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- Stapleton Train Station links the neighborhood to the Staten Island Ferry and the rest of the island, offering a free ride.
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- The Stapleton Projects are infamous on Staten Island as being one of the most dangerous areas.
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- Industrial spaces and barbed wired are not an uncommon sight in Stapleton.
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- The North Shore of Staten Island, in which Stapleton is situated, is known for being more diverse than the South Shore.
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- Stapleton is also home to a small Sri Lankan community.
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- The New York City Arts Cypher promotes graffiti art in Stapleton. They are responsible for many of the murals found around Stapleton.
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- The topography of the area is very hilly. The Bridge looms in the distance as one heads up towards St. Pauls Ave.
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- A Well kept house on St. Pauls Ave
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- One of many large homes on St. Pauls Ave. It offers a sharp difference to the rest of the neighborhood. Here the people are mostly well off white homeowners.
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- Stapleton is also known for its local art scene, centered on Van Duzer Street.
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- The Full Cup is a local hotspot for bands, ranging from folk to punk. This is the sister of the establishment’s new owner, the fourth in a decade.
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- The Melon Farmers, a local band, plays on the front stage of The Full Cup.
Stapleton on Staten Island is not well known outside of Staten Island and so it is the focus of my final project. The area is mostly minorities, such as Hispanics, African Americans, and Sri Lankans. It is home to a number of Spanish and Sri Lankan restaurants, as well as a local music and arts scene on Van Duzer street that attracts young kids and adults alike on Staten Island. The area is mostly poor, but when one goes uphill towards St Pauls, there are large, well kept homes overlooking the area. It is a place of contrast and far more urban than one would expect for Staten Island.
Posted in Assignment Six - Final Project
222 Comments
Teaching and Training
I’ve been attending Mixed Martial Arts classes for around 6 months at a gym near my home. It is there where I met the subject for my environmental portrait project. The subject for this assignment was my MMA instructor who spends a majority of his time in the gym teaching as well as training for up coming fights. Though he was very open to letting me take pictures, many of the initial photo’s seemed unnatural and came out looking posed. It took multiple shoots to finally have my instructor behaving normally and focused on his training. But do not be fooled by his serious look, off the mat he often jokes and has a playful character. It is amazing to see the shift in a persons attitude and behaviors when doing what he loves most.
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- Always begin a workout with a good stretch
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- “On your stomachs, push up positions!”
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- Giving advice from the sideline during a sparing match
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- Getting into position
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- Speed
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- Balance
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- Follow through
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- Limbs are fragile, you must be careful when munipulated your opponents
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- Demenstrating how the correct way to immolize an attacker
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- Teaching a new student how to escape a mounted choke
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- Exhaustion from a days work
Issues
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- Entrance to a plaza downtown. The plaza is located two or three flights up from the street.
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- Entrance to another plaza, at ground level.
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- Benches sit empty and unused during lunchtime.
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- Benches here too sit empty, in a dark space in the shadow of nearby towers, surrounded by brown bricks and brown paint.
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- People walk into the plaza, surrounded by residential towers. But no one stays.
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- The main entrance to the elevated plaza, leading into the street. A dark, cavernous space that does not invite passersby.
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- A woman walks by an ampitheatre space in the plaza on 23rd Street.
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- A similar set up on the elevated plaza sits empty as well, but with no passersby.
In Manhattan, open space is a valuable commodity. The city had offered tax incentives in the 1970’s to spur the construction of public plazas to allow additional space to Manhattan crowds. However, not all of these spaces were designed to invite visitors. Of the two spaces photographed, one is set up several flights from the street. One entrance leads onto the street, but is dark and cavernous and uninviting. The other is situated along an expressway far from pedestrians. The developers could build a plaza to attract tax incentives, without attracting the unwanted crowd. The other plaza, on 23rd Street, was perhaps more well intentioned. Yet it is nothing but a cold, hard space of concrete and brown bricks that does not invite the passersby into it. It is well integrated, but not inviting.
October 1st-Chinese National Day
Posted in Assignment One - Event
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Americanized Indian Wedding
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- The make-up artist puts the last touches on the bride for her big day.
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- In traditional Indian culture, men never proposed with a diamond ring. They proposed with a dowry. Here in this photo is a cross between American culture and Indian culture; the engagement ring and the henna tattoo.
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- The groom has chosen to wear the traditional wedding attire and is fixing himself up.
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- Jessie and Nick are Americans embracing Indian cultures on their big day in the middle of NYC.
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- Bypassers are in awe as they see two different cultures merge into one
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- Both the bride and groom have henna tattoos on their hands.
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- A portrait shot of Nick’s family. Everyone is wearing a formal attire except his sister that is wearing a gorgeous sari.
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- Indian weddings are typically very colorful and very decorative down the little details such as the color of the turban and leis.
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- The four bridesmaids each carry a corner of the fabric to cover the bride as they walk towards the mandap.
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- Nick along with his parents are anxiously waiting for Jessie to come out. Here, Nick has a special veil covering his face that will be revealed when he and Jessie are up on the mandap.
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- This is a traditional setup for a mandap. The round plate in the middle is supposed to create a ring of fire and that when it is lit, the ceremony begins.
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- The mandap is supposed to be a sacred place where the bride’s parents and the groom’s parents facilitate the sacredness of the wedding between their daughter and son.
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- After the mandap ceremony, the party begins. Here, if you can see, the groom changes into his suit.
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- Indian dancers perform for the diverse crowd.
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- Everyone wants a piece of this.
Background on Indian Weddings…
Traditional Hindu wedding ceremonies can last for days and involve much ritual in which may be understood only by the priest conducting the service. This ceremony is considerably shorter and is intended to be understandable even to a non-Indian audience, making it suitable for intercultural or mixed Hindu/non-Hindu marriages.
Hindu weddings are supposed to take place outside, on the earth, under a canopy known as a mandap. If that’s not possible, you can build a mandap inside and pretend you’re outdoors. Seating under the mandap can be on the ground (carpets or mats would be a good idea) or on chairs.
Front and center under the mandap is the sacred fire. The fire can be small and confined to a brazier or dish for safety.
Traditionally, the bride wears a red or red and white sari. The sari should be draped modestly over her hair. The groom wears a kafni (long shirt extending to the knees) with pijamo (leggings) or dhoti (sort of an overgrown loincloth). The groom might also wear a turban.
Of course, in an adapted ceremony like this one great liberties can be taken with wardrobe. One rule which shouldn’t be broken is that anyone who enters the mandap or wedding canopy must have on sandals or slip-on shoes which can be easily removed (no shoes in the mandap!). In addition, it’s a good idea to avoid much black.
One feature of the bride’s wardrobe which has become popular abroad is the use of henna or mehndi to decorate her hands and feet. It’s said that you can tell how well a new bride is being treated by her in-laws from how long it takes for the mehndi to wear off. Mehndi treatments are increasingly available in salons.
Brief background on Jessie & Nick…
Jessie and Nick are both Americans, with Indian heritage and Scottish heritage, respectively. They met each other while they were attending Columbia University’s Medical School back in 2006. Jessie is a doctor at NYU Langone Medical Center and Nick is a dentist with his own office in the Upper West Side.
Posted in Assignment Six - Final Project
11 Comments
Problems with Baruch
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- There is always one elevator broken in the 23rd Street building which causes long waits to get onto it. Because of this, it makes students late to class.
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- Because of the huge influx of students into the school, there are only 6 elevators to carry an enormous amount of students to the top floors. Students often have to fight to get in if they want to get to class on time.
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- Its ridiculous how Baruch doesn’t fix the escalators when they know its a necessity. Because of this issue, students are forced to take the elevators which causes unnecessary over-crowing.
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- Its annoying how smokers ignore the boundary lines that tells them where they can smoke or not smoke. They know how much the smoke bothers people and they should be more considerate of non-smokers bypassing in and out of the building.
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- It’s sad how not every class is equipped with the proper teaching tools to lecture a class. This professor here is forced to utilize the internet on his cell phone just to read an important article to the class.
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- Often, there are not enough seats on the 6th floor computer lab in the library building to accompany the over flooding students that Baruch has. At times like these, students are forced to wander around the lab, usually for 30 minutes, just to find a seat to do homework.
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- Because of the huge influx of students into Baruch College, seats in the lunch room has become a rare commodity. There are too many students having lunch all at once that benches such as these, has been a rare as well.
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- There are a lot of holes in the ceilings, such as these, that are all over Baruch; especially in the 23rd Street building. Buildings such as the one on 23rd Street as well as the library building has become so run down that it needs a lot of maintenance.
Issues: Foot-Traffic In Manhattan
As a pedestrian you never know what you are going to see. The streets are busy, and the people are busy. When you do stop to look at something what could it be? What draws your attention? These are the questions that needed to be asked in order to understand the issues of foot traffic. The streets of New York City will alway be busy, but the things we take notice of may be fleeting and one of its kind. This assignment looks to not only expose the busy life of The Manhattan sidewalks and streets, but the things that can be easily missed and are fleeting.
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- Those arrows point in the opposite direction
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- Crossing Guards
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- Not buying what he’s selling
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- Getting impatient
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- Turning in for the night.
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- A cross-section
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- Lift Off!
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- Just a common sight
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- This girl is surrounded by busy-ness, literally and figuratively
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- Marching off into distant light
Posted in assignment Five - ISSUES (black & white)
Tagged Black White pedestrians traffic New York City pandimonium
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FIKA- Traditional Swedish’s Coffee Ritual in New York
Hejsan or Hello in Swedish!
After five years of operation, FIKA gained its’ recognition from an enormous amount of New York’s coffee lovers. At FIKA, it is more than just a coffee. Unlike Americans that take their coffee to go, Swedish love to spend some moments to indulge in conversations and relaxation with their friends and coworkers with a cup of great coffee. On top of that, most of the Swedish will pair their coffee with their famous sweet and delicious pastries. Hence, it is no surprise that the word ‘fika’ means to take a coffee break in Swedish.
FIKA Espresso Bar does not only promise the exceptional taste and quality of their coffee but also in their chocolates- or choklad in Swedish- made by their very own world renown’s pastry chef and chocolatier, Håkan Mårtensson. Mårtensson, the gold medalist of 2008 Culinary Olympic, is well known in Europe for his outstanding flavors, exquisite craftsmanship on all of his choklads. Being a fan of his creation, I would really recommend anyone to try any of the chocolates- my favorite is Adam.
Furthermore, FIKA also offers full breakfast and lunch menus as well. They serve some of the Swedish classic dishes and, best of all, everything is made in house and fresh daily. Not only that, for those who like to have some touch of taste of Swedish gourmet, this Swedish espresso bar also features some wide selections of homemade jams, cookies, and raspberry vinegar- all made accordingly to the traditional Swedish recipes!
For those who have visited FIKA, you know the indulgence is real and for those who have not, make a trip today.
Let’s have a FIKA…
FIKA Espresso Bar
66 Pearl St. (next to Broad St.)
New York, NY 10004
Tel: 646.837.6588
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- A FIKA Moment…
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- “Pastries, choklad, and coffee. That’s FIKA” -Franc, Barista
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- FIKA’s choklads
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- Indulgence in Conversations
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- FIKA (v.-Swedish)= Take a Coffee Break
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- Conversation and Coffee are the rituals of FIKA
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- Let’s Have a FIKA
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- The Perfect Latte
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- Meg- The Barista
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- Relaxation
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- Håkan “The Rockstar” Pastry Chef of FIKA (on right)
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- The Infamous Swedish Cookies and Pastries
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- FIKA’s Cookies, Rasberry Vinegars and Coffee Lovers
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- FIKA-ians on the Line
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- The Expression of Espresso
Posted in Assignment Six - Final Project
55 Comments
Unsanitary Things.
It has come to my attention that unsanitariness is not a big issue to others, but it is definitely something that has been bothering me. Coming from a germaphobic, I may in fact be more knit picky on how sanitary things are around me, but my observations of others has certainly brought a frown and sense of disgust upon my face. It goes anywhere from people leaving their dog poop on the floor to dirty puddles that children love to jump and play in. We are all the causes of the current pollution condition: cigarette butts, gum pieces, lottery tickets, etc all littered on our very own streets. People sit on these dirty floors, homeless people are collecting these used cans and bottles- but all of these are unsanitary things that may be detrimental to our health. All of the photos taken reflect the unsanitary environment around us that we might not have noticed previously. It starts off with something small like poop, then progresses into a cart of waste. Every small problem adds up to something big. The solution to it all is to do it the right way, be clean and put our waste in its own place, where its supposed to belong.
