ENG 2150 Gimme Shelter: the spaces we live in

The neighborhood I will be writing about will Chinatown, NYC! This is where I lived during my younger years of 1-7. I live in brooklyn now but its kind of like a second home and I’m going to tell you how it changed in the past decade in my view. I will also be going in depth in how exactly did it earn its rightful name of “Chinatown”. From when the history of when the first chinese immigrants came to NY, I want to show how Chinatown is the center of asian immigrant social, cultural, and recreational activity in NYC. Mainly I want to show how present day Chinatown that isnt just a neighborhood thats full of counterfeititems but it is also full of many traditional mom-n-pop restaurants that have their own specialties, you can yelp for years and still miss a tasty spot inthe cracks and crevices of Chinatown; the streets are packed with a tight knit and cultured community, hard-working people just looking for opportunity.

NEW YORK CITY. The place to be. The city that never sleeps. Some would even go as far as claiming it is what makes America. “the heart of United states of America. But really its nothing special to me. Ive had been to places that are much more enticing and a thousand times better than New York City. This advertisement is probably the best representation given to people outside of New york. “Times square 42nd street, the brightest city with everything you can imagine.” Well, not exactly… although this city is great it is nothing like what they show in tv advertisements or tv shows. It’s nothing like on television or the movies. Apartments are tiny unless you’re very wealthy. There is no empty couch in a coffee shop waiting for you like on the show “Friends” and no empty booths to call your own like on “How I Met Your Mother”. Most people work their tails off to survive and the odds of 4 or more friends having the free time to meet up with each other every day is ridiculous. Then there are shows like Seinfeld where the majority of the cast own cars and drive around Manhattan like it’s the suburbs. But – who would want to watch a tv show about 4 friends whose schedules conflict every day and wait on lines or stand in a a corner waiting for a table?

New York City is simply nothing like what it is shown to be. Almost like a mask over what it really is. A community that is a slave to work and time. We see money as the goal of life. Honestly to me, NYC is the epitome of greed, wealth, need and selfishness. Like Simmuel says, peoples qualitative uniqueness and irreplaceability become criteria of value, everyone is striving to be an individual in a vast city like New York City but is unlikely and almost impossible. Everyone and everything is objective and never what it seems. Although there may be bad sides to a metropolis like New York City, I also have to agree with Simmuel that this is a place of freedom for people to define themselves. It encourages individuality and intelligence, forcing out closed minded people and way of thinking.

All in all, NYC isn’t a terrible place but it never lived up to all its advertisements for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived here all my life or maybe it’s because I’m living in the wrong part of New York. I’m sure time management is important and universal all over the world but here in NYC, the only thing that matters is time management, you have to be on top of everything or else things won’t work out as well as you would like.

When I was first prompted with the assignment to bring in something that represents the stream of consciousness, I was stumped! After reading and researching about the stream of conscious, I found that stream of consciousness is something gives the person a creative impression, an observation, and a reflection of thought. A lot of things came into mind but the one that stood out was this painting that is commonly seen in the N and Q trains of New York City. This came into my mind representing what I think is the stream of consciousness, because I always think about how much time of my life is used to commute on the NYC MTA. A large majority of the time there is absolutely nothing to do except listen to the music, play that new game you downloaded on your phone, take a nap or stare around and think about what you see on the train. I always take the Q train, so I almost always see this painting. This painting in short is basically all the different types of everyday commuters in NYC. It shows the tourists wearing the iconic “I heart NY” shirt looking for directions on the map, the many different types of ethnicity, a woman doing her makeup, performers/actors, an old Jewish rabbi, an old Asian lady with bags of groceries, a musical artist with a large instrument, a hipster, a business man, a couple kissing, and a mom with her kids misbehaving.  I remember the first time seeing this painting and it brought some chuckles to me because it is so true and relevant to my life. This is really what I see almost every day I take the train; and I truly believe this painting depicts the meaning of NY, NYC. The melting pot of many different diversity and different people is the heart of NY. I also think this what people who live in NYC that takes the train almost every day, perceive the many different people they encounter on the train, but someone may look at this painting and feel totally indifferent.

This picture shows many principles of what reminds me of the stream of consciousness. Our minds are never stagnate and so many people have seen or came across this picture before. These people all interpret this picture differently to their own personal experiences on the train. Plus there are so many different people and actions happening at once in the picture, it’s hard to focus on just one part of the picture; which can bring many different thoughts and feelings about this picture.