Garny's New York

I travel through the Union Square subway station almost everyday to get home and to school. From school I get on the six train, which is usually overcrowded with commuters, to get off one stop to 14st. After I maze through the overly packed train car I make my up the stairs and head to the platform to position myself for the arrival of the Q train. En route I to the platform I look to my left and see people walking back and forth, meticulously examining a very vibrant and colorful wall. I might have seen this wall once or twice before but never really took the time to understand what it was. On this day I slowed down and in some sense entered into a new space, like I’ve entered a museum without opening a door. As I joined the audience viewing the comments posted by anonymous people on colorful post-it notes, I realized that this wall was a reaction to the results of the presidential election. I got the sense of being an onlooker of a very historical period in American History. I thought to myself “this is going to be in the textbooks that my kids will read”, and that I could actually say that I saw how it affected the community and myself. The election has caused a lot of turbulence in the lives of many New Yorkers and citizens across the nation. The way in which the people at the 14st station displayed their thoughts and opinions across the wall was very beautiful and creative. The preconceived notion of wall has taken on pretty negative connotation, which was boastfully perpetrated by Donald Trump. Using the wall in Union Square to promote people’s ideas and opinions, often ideas of peace, love, and positivity, in a peaceful matter surly captures the image that many New Yorkers have for what America should be in a very creative and vibrant way.While the country is more divided than previously presumed, efforts like this, I believe, will push for more unity and more involvement in the American political system.

On Tuesday November 8th I visited Samsung 827. I was on my way home and made it to my last at Church Avenue, Brooklyn when I got a text from my childhood friend, that now attends Hunter College, asked to hangout. I was really tired but we rarely see each other although we both go to school in the city so I figured why not. So without leaving the station I switched platforms to the Manhattan bound Q and B trains. As usual when we met up we didn’t know what to do so I suggested the Library. That only lasted 20 minutes when we found ourselves getting food. Later we found ourselves at the Best Buy in Union Square. I haven’t been to a Best Buy in a very long time and found that there were so many advancements in technology. I was once a heavy gamer who was always up to date with all the latest and greatest hardware. It was at Best Buy where I realized that Playstation had pushed out two other versions of their latest console. We browsed through the headphones section, testing various headphones, using songs from our favorite artist Logic as a sample. We then encountered an enthusiastic Samsung fan who was also a Best Buy employee who suggested we visit Samsung 837. We had time to kill so we did. We were greeted with a playground of Samsung gadgets and people testing futuristic devices. The store was very trendy and had a DJ. The experience was very stimulating as it brought to light new ways to experience media and new forms of sharing memories through virtual reality. The future of Samsung seems limitless with the new innovative technology that they are pushing into the market. I believe that Samsung will change the way this generation will be remembered forever.

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On Thursday October 27th, my friends and I visited the Rubin Museum of Art. It was a rainy day but we decided to walk since the subways would have got us there in the same amount of time. We got to the museum and quickly got lost and security had to direct us to the ticket admissions desk (it was a small museum). The person at the desk informed us that the CUNY free admissions program was ending shortly so we fortunate to take advantage of the savings before it was over. The museum was filled with Tibetan art and Buddhist culture. There were sculptures of Buddhist gods and goddesses. What really fascinated me about the art was the complexity of the culture and the understanding of the human body so early in history. My favorite piece of art in the museum was the clay sculpture of Yellow Jambhala which was quite detailed. The sculpture was of a yellow human like figure with a large crown atop his head. He had large eyes and stared with a very menacing glare. He holds a mongoose in one hand and in the other hand he holds fruit shaped gems. Yellow Jambhala is the god of wealth and I thought the sculpture was interesting because of how detailed and exciting it was to look at. Looking at the sculpture makes me feel like the figure would animate and start attacking me because of how menacing it looks. Another interesting thing about the sculpture is the purpose of it being built in the first place. Why would humans create this image to worship? The idea that this would somehow bring them more wealth and fortune is something hard for me to wrap my head around. How could it be that worshipping this deity bring about more wealth? I have to assume that in someway worshipping the god of wealth has brought about some form of positive energy to the ones who practice it, for it is still part of many peoples lives today.

I was on my way home and was transferring to the LIRR at Barclay’s Center and saw what I’ve never seen before. Usually I transfer to the LIRR and I see the usual flood of commuters and I get my ticket and go on my way. It was a Friday night when for the first time I witnessed a flood of hockey fanatics invade the station. These fans were prepping to watch their Long Island Islanders perform on the Barclay’s ice. These fans were decked out in their best Islanders jerseys, which created such a vibrant and colorful scene of orange and blue. There are beer stands in the station that I have never seen before, the station is buzzing with anticipation and excitement. As I waited to pay for my ticket and watched the sea of blue,white and orange pour into the station and continue up the stairs, I couldn’t help but wonder what is it that makes these people want to travel a long way to watch something they could watch at home? It quickly came to my attention that there was a certain type of excitement that couldn’t be reached sitting on the couch. The coming together of people you’ve never met before to watch your favorite hockey players battle right before your eyes, score a game winning goal, and to hear the thousands of people roar in excitement and appreciation,  it must be electric. I’ve never been to a grand scale sporting event but I can understand why people take part in such entertainment because it’s almost unmatched by anything else on earth.

A common preconception of New Yorkers is that they are rude, self-interested, misanthropes.  Well, most of the time this isn’t false. However, on this particular occasion I found that maybe there are New Yorkers that aren’t cut-throat and ruthless.

I had just finished an intense workout on my arms and I didn’t have any lunch, which was a big mistake. As I walked into the locker room, all sweaty with my arms pulsating and throbbing, barely breathing, I sat on the locker room bench to catch my breath. I sat there light headed and absolutely enervated wanting to grab a pillow, cut the lights out, stretch my legs and take a long nap right in the middle of the locker room floor. My friend, luckily for me, snatched me up from the fantasy that I was slowly drifting into. I dragged myself over to the rental locker and remembered that I had a protein powder ready to make a shake. I then woke myself up and began to put a sense of urgency in getting dressed. I got my protein shake ready and took a sip to get some kind of energy into my body. My friend I go to get some food at a restaurant I’ve never heard of before, he tells me it’s like a Chipotle. I’m on the brink of passing out so I’m willing to eat anything. We walk down Park Ave to meet the famous Dos Toros Taqueria that he was talking about. I was greeted by a large sign with a rustic background and Dos Toros glowing in fiery red. I walk in and my friend begins to order spitting out “Dos Toros” lingo, “bowl, guac, beans…”. I’m next and I point at what I want as if I can’t speak English. I get my food walk up to the register and get ready to pay. The lady asks me what did I get and I point at it and say “that”. She punches in the numbers and tells me “$10.86”. I pull out my debit card to pay for my food, like I always do, and she swipes it. Out of nowhere I hear someone scream “IT DECLINED”.

I’m clearly disoriented at this point as if someone threw a flashbang into the restaurant. I get to my senses and reach  for my phone to check my finances and realized that I lost my debit card earlier that day and locked it so that no one could swipe it and take advantage of my hard earned $72. Before I could explain the debacle of my life to the cashier lady she hands me a receipt reading $0.00 and says “it’s okay”. I couldn’t have been more grateful to this women who let me sit in this well established restaurant and eat their food for free. This women is clearly the needle in the haystack. She could have easily kicked me out, taken the food, and sold it to the next customer but instead she decided to let a poor, hungry college kid get some free food.

However like I stated before, a common preconception of New Yorkers is that they are rude, self-interested misanthropes and most of the time this isn’t false and I am a living testament of this statement as I didn’t even take the time to get this very generous lady’s name.

I was standing in the 81st Street Station when I came to an even deeper understanding of how complex the city of New York really is. I had just left the Museum of Natural history for the second time and entered the station. First I started off by just looking at the station and realizing that since this station was literally connected with the Museum of Natural History that it had certain distinct features that no other subway station has such as images of elephants and dinosaurs. I really admired these distinct designs  to the station. Having just left the museum, where I was studying the Hall of Human origins, I was still in a state of inquiry. Examining and observing the changes in the biological aspects of human origins and understanding the slow cultural and architectural advancements of early humans had put me in a place to try to understand how everything fits in the timeline of human existence. So, 200,000 years ago the first homo sapiens took position in the vast amount of species on planet earth. 70,000 years ago the first known form art took place in Southern Africa on a piece of clay. 25,000 years ago humans constructed small huts designed with the use of mammoth bones. With all these discoveries still ringing in my head I couldn’t help being hypersensitive to my surroundings. The idea that I was how many feet underground about to take a train powered by electricity that would travel at an inhuman speed underground and over bridges into brooklyn felt unbelievably new. Then, in my head, I zoomed out and looked at NYC as if you could see the layers of NYC stacked on top of each other from the skyscrapers above to the network of underground stations and realized that this is probably the most complexed place on earth. Under the greatest city in the world is located so many sub cities connected by railway. The web of stations all underneath Manhattan each differing from each other and expressing different aspects of the city through architectural differences and cultural differences is absolutely amazing.  It is an absolute privilege to witness and be part of such a dynamic city.

On September 17th I visited the Museum of Natural History with my friends I’ve known since elementary school. The museum interested me in ways I’ve never imagined it too. The first exhibit we visited was marked in big, bold letters “Hall of Human Origins. This exhibit was the most interesting to me because it’s allowed me to open my eyes to new ideas. The possibility that humans evolved from lesser life has never even been a consideration for me. Lately I’ve been opening my mind to new ideas and the Hall of Human Origins brought to light so much new information and possibilities. The museum brings together the history of the human species. The Museum is very descriptive in the development of human cultures all over the world. Taking an anthropological perspective, it was also very interesting to compare and contrast the cultures from different areas of the earth. It seemed as if geology played a big role in the evolution of the culture of the people. For example the people of Mexico and Latin America wore much less clothing than those of North America. The fact that North Americans also had animals such as the buffalo also greatly impacted their culture in contrast to other cultures. My biggest takeaway from this experience is that we as a species are highly complexed organisms that posses a beautiful history of cultural development. We as a species have also advanced in unbelievable ways through things like communication and technology. Looking at our past and physically seeing how much we have developed with so little to work is absolutely astonishing. On the other hand, now that we have made the world so much smaller through globalization and have surpassed our ancestors by so many years in advancements, how will this impact the culture we build as a species for years to come?

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