Category Archives: Neighborhoods
Neighborhood Faces: Clayton Patterson
Sporting a bright red zip-up and his signature skull cap, Clayton Patterson arrives at 161 Essex Street and leads the way into his gallery, the extensive archives that have made Patterson one of the most reputable folk historians of the Lower East Side. He has spent close to forty years now documenting the life and culture of the area through photography, film, and art. Even at 63 years old, it’s clear that he has no intentions of slowing down.
“A lot of it is built in your own intensity,” Patterson said, “ whether you have the love and dedication and ambition…because if you do that’s a disease…but it’s a good disease to have.”
Clayton Patterson is not a native of New York City but he is most certainly a figure of it. A proud city dweller, Patterson is extremely passionate about his work. The intimacy he feels with the Lower East Side is palpable. So while he may have not spent his adolescent days hanging out on city stoops, he has plenty of pictures of kids who have. He may have not grown up with the American government, but he cares about the fact that they’re cutting art programs in schools, and he has made documentaries exposing police brutality. Patterson believes the key to establishing a name for oneself is to develop something unique and to believe in its potential so wholeheartedly, that others believe in it too. So although Patterson spent the first thirty years of his life in a town he described as “primitive” and “isolated,” his philosophy is hardly reflective of the fact.
“A big part of ‘making it’ is creating an illusion,” Patterson said, “I mean, you want your illusion built on facts and reality but, you have to create an illusion…if you can’t create an illusion of how great it is…you’ve got nothing.”
Patterson touches briefly upon the topic of Occupy Wall Street, as well as Romney’s recent “47%” comment. Lines begin to appear on his forehead. “I hope the youth of today doesn’t lose sight of the advantages they have…when I was a kid growing up it used to be like NBC, CBS…they were far away, they were castles in the sky, impenetrable institutions…now with the new technology, everything is much closer.”
As someone who spent his first years in the U.S without a green card, and a more-than-limited budget, its clear that Patterson relates to the struggles youth are dealing with today. And the illusion idea was one he became familiar with. He had to build his reputation from scratch despite having already built one back in his hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Back home, Patterson was a fine art print maker, well-known for his skills. He also taught courses at several schools, including the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. Patterson was comfortable in Canada, but unfulfilled. He wanted more. At NSCAD, Patterson got a taste of New York through the artists who visited from Manhattan. Patterson was intrigued but it was not until he visited New York for a weekend on a school-funded trip that he decided to move.
“Coming here for the weekend you kind of had that feeling,” Patterson recalls, “at that time the Bowery was down and dirty… but it sort of gave you the point of view that you too could be here…welcoming, not too intimidating…enough to let you know that it wasn’t all just paved with gold or whatever.”
Despite being lured by the welcoming atmosphere of the Lower East Side, Patterson’s first gallery exhibits were in Soho, with a crowd he quickly grew tired. At the risk of losing money and stability, Patterson began to focus on the Lower East Side. To display his work, Patterson bought a building that was once a sewing factory and converted the space into two parts: a small storefront for his custom baseball caps, the other an art gallery. The gallery looks like something out of an I Spy book. Paintings, photos, books, stickers, dvds and posters flood the room with color and imagery. While the stimuli would surely prove overwhelming to some, it does not seem to faze Patterson. Upon entering the room he pulls two chairs from the clutter effortlessly. After extending an inviting palm towards one, he sits in the other and looks around the room the way people do when they realize someone is looking at their work for the first time.
“It’s all about doing what inspires you and makes you happy…” Patterson said, “That’s heaven.”
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Protected: Small Business Proposal – Upper West Side
Tammy Tibbetts: Empowering the World One Girl at a Time
Tammy Tibbetts
Lindsay Brown, STF Volunteer and Seventeen Magazine October cover girl. Photo courtesy of She’s the First
By Vivian Nunez
On a normal day you will find Tammy Tibbetts sitting at her desk with teal and magenta colored She’s the First gear, cupcake ornaments, and images of young girls from all over the world surrounding her. She is a 26-year-old former magazine editor taking on girls’ education with an organization that as Tammy said, “started as a piece of my heart, but before long became an international network of students, educators, and volunteers.”
Tammy is the President and Founder of She’s the First, an organization that started as a media campaign in 2009 and recently became a full-fledged 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. She’s the First has grown under the attentive eye of Tammy Tibbetts, who up until this year was a full-time volunteer for her own organization. The original media campaign and ultimate vision for She’s the First grew from both Tammy’s journalism background and a life changing trip she took to Liberia.
“My vision is to use the power of storytelling to promote digital literacy and cross-cultural dialogue among youth worldwide,” said Tammy, “and use social media to create social change.”
She has used the power of social media to delve into issues that have been plaguing the world for years, creating a growing brand presence on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Many of the current volunteers and chapter members of She’s the First have found out about She’s the First through social media sites this is why, “beyond supporting girls’ education in the developing world, She’s the First also has the unique opportunity to drive involvement, leadership, and experience among students in the U.S.,” said Tammy Tibbetts. Her drive to empower girls worldwide is one of the reasons why there are now 40 She’s the First Campus Chapters in the US and more than 265 girls being sponsored to date.
Yet, Tammy said that she “didn’t just hop out of bed one day and say let me start a non-profit organization.” At age 23, all she wanted to do was bring awareness, through a PSA YouTube video, to what the lack of girls’ education really meant. A video that was influenced heavily by her experience in Liberia where she said she saw the “transformative impact an education could have on a child and the only hope of breaking the poverty cycle.” She hashed out the details of the mission statement “on a sweltering hot August evening in my Upper West Side apartment,” she said, with Christen Brandt, the current Director of International Operations. By mere coincidence the She’s the First video ended up snowballing into “a movement led by Millenials,” explained Tammy, “women declaring their ‘firsts’ in creative ways to show that with an education, we can break barriers, pay it forward, and ultimately eliminate gender disparities in the classrooms worldwide.”
She’s the First’s connection with the Millenial age group has also led Tammy to become a mentor to many girls she comes across. She does not hesitate to “take everyone under her wing…she is probably a personal mentor to hundreds of young women,” said Meaghan O’Connor, a She’s the First volunteer. “Mentoring is so rewarding,” said Tammy, “if you empower others to succeed and they in turn then pay it forward, you’ve created an incredible ripple effect that will far exceed anything you are individually capable of.”
The stance Tammy takes on mentoring is also the stance she takes in regards to girls’ education and She’s the First. “Scale of impact is very important to us at She’s the First, but at the end of the day,” said Tammy, “I think about individuals.”
Hima Tamata, one of the girls She’s the First sponsors.
Tammy has taken on the reigns to lead a movement that plans on changing girls’ education one girl at a time. “For underprivileged girls, the impact of a sponsorship is life-changing,” said Tammy Tibbetts, and “what I know for sure is that education is where all opportunity begins.” She hopes that 10 years from now “when I think of She’s the First 13th birthday party, I will tell everyone that we’ve sponsored thousands of girls around the world and that we have hundreds of chapters around the U.S..”
Hear a little about girls’ education and social media from Tammy herself:
Protected: East Shore of Staten Island: Small Business Proposal
Sailing the Hudson: Emily Whipple and the Manhattan Sailing School’s Rite of Passage
As tides change in Dennis Conner’s North Cove marina, the enduring constant in Battery Park City’s waters is the Manhattan Sailing School that Emily Whipple helps direct.
The Mermaid, an office-classroom hybrid flanked by the school’s 24 J-24 sailboats in the marina, rests in the shadow of the World Financial Center and the ascending Freedom Tower. For the last three and a half years, Whipple has stood in the center of that bobbing vessel, helping New Yorkers discover and develop their passion for sailing.
“On the weekends, we’ll teach a basic sailing course for 50 to 80 people, for a Level 1 certification,” Whipple said. “We decided to add more weekday courses, so we teach the two-day course throughout the week, too. We can teach up to 150 students a week.”
Originally located in the South Street Seaport, the Manhattan Sailing School is celebrating its silver jubilee this year. That’s 25 years of introducing enthusiastic people to life as sailors in a city where most time exhausted on the river is on crowded ferries.
Working as a Mid-19th Century Carpenter in 2012
By: Teresa Roca
Norm Pederson arrives at his 19th century style workshop at the crack of dawn almost every morning. Inside, wooden buckets hang from the ceiling above him, spoons, butter presses and rolling pins sit on tables beside him, and scraps of wood are scattered around him. As Pederson carefully makes his way through the cluttered room, sounds of wood shavings crackle beneath his wood-dusted work boots, as he gathers his tools, and prepares to split and shave wood for his next creation.
Pederson isn’t a professional carpenter. He is a volunteer at Historic Richmond Town on Staten Island.
“I portray the farmer who would be working in a shop like this in the 1850s,” said the 17-year volunteer. “I make things the way they were made at this time. That means style, materials and methods.”
Norm Pederson in his carpentry shop.
A Staten Island native for 66 years, Norm Pederson dedicated his post-retirement to fulfilling two passions that began during childhood: carpentry and history. With Historic Richmond Town becoming more volunteer dependent as business decreases with each passing year, Pederson volunteers to help the village stay alive and to inform people of America’s history, just as he was informed as a child.
“My grandfather came to this country from Norway in the 1890s as a carpenter,” said Pederson. “My father taught me carpentry when I was a little boy with my grandfather’s tools. He taught me how carpentry was done during my grandfather’s time. I still use some of my grandfather’s tools, which is a pleasant connection with my own past.”
Pederson visited Historic Richmond Town, the only living historic village in New York City, frequently as a boy. The now 25-acre village with 15 restored buildings only consisted of a museum and the Voorlezer house, which is a national historic landmark.
Despite his passion for carpentry and history, Pederson didn’t pursue either as a profession. After flunking out of college (“I had a lot of fun in college”), Pederson enlisted in the army. He later worked for the city is a deck handler on the Staten Island Ferry, cleaning litter and handling lifeboats. However, he never forgot the skills taught to him by his father. He continued to practice carpentry and research history casually throughout his life.
Pederson got involved with civil war reenacting and returned to Historic Richmond Town for an event in 1994.
Pederson’s carpentry shop.
“I got talking to some of the people who work here and they were very interested in other people who were interested in history,” said Pederson. “Then an offer was made and I got involved. One day I saw the shop, which hadn’t been used in ten years or so and I said, ‘can I kind of hang out in this shop?’”
Pederson now helps visitors explore American life in the mid-19th century by allowing them to experience the life of a farmer through his carpentry demonstrations.
When people come to Pederson’s shop, he always makes sure to follow one simple rule: grab the visitor’s attention.
“Sometimes I go for a cheap thrill, such as splitting wood,” said Pederson. “Showing how it splits seems like a very simple thing, but it actually catches people’s imagination. If you can do that, then you might go a little further and talk about the technical part of it. You don’t want to start out with the technical part because we don’t want to bore people to death. We want to entertain them.”
According to Felicity Biel, the director of education and programs at Historic Richmond Town, “Norm is a wonderful asset. He relates well to all ages of visitors and makes the story of earlier American life so accessible to people who visit his shop to see his demonstration of farmer and carpentry skills.”
Pederson’s wooden pieces aren’t just for show. His items are displayed in museums, sold to visitors, used to furnish historic houses and more. Pederson also helps Richmond Town by performing American Folk music by playing the fiddle with band member Bob Conroy at Richmond Town events, helping the maintenance team pick up litter, and fixing things around the village.
“Beyond what visitors can see, Norm has also helped behind the scenes,” said Biel. “He has repaired spinning wheels that are used in the school workshop programs and carved wooden yokes so young visitors can try them out.”
Despite school and camping trips that drastically helps Richmond Town’s business, the village still suffers because of the neighborhood’s development throughout the years. As Richmond Town continues to modernize, becoming more upper class, people are beginning to forget about this rustic village that has been at the center of Staten Island’s history for hundreds of years.
“You get a lot of people from other countries. You don’t get many Staten Islanders,” said Pederson. “Since the bicentennial it has been down. Europeans are great listeners because they are interested in our history. Americans are not interested in their own history anymore. That is partly why this place doesn’t have much money.”
Although Pederson does not get paid with money for his long hours of hard work, he does get paid other ways.
“I never make a lot of money, but that was my choice. I enjoy my life,” said Pederson. “I am a very lucky person in the sense that Historic Richmond Town needs something like this and they’re nice enough to let me do this. When you are teaching, it’s really rewarding to have people pay attention to you. Having people ask intelligent questions and being respectful, what could be better than that?”
Podcast: Although Pederson enjoys volunteering at Old Richmond Town, there are down sides to volunteering as a carpenter.
Backgrounder: Union Square
Union Square is located in Manhattan, it connects 14 street with 17 street (south to north) and Broadway and Park avenue south (west to east). Union Square is located on the periphery of several neighborhoods: the Flatiron District to the north, Chelsea to the west, Greenwich Village to the south, and Gramercy to the east. Union Square is historically and politically significant: a lot of protests and demonstrations took place there. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1997 after it held the first Labour Day Parade. Greenmarket is my favorite thing about Union Square. Every week local farmers bring their organic produce to sell in the city.
Union Square is located in the southern part of Midtown, which is Manhattan Community District 6. The district covers 1.4 square miles. The total Population of the district is 142.745. There are 103.667 white people that live in this area, followed by 19.917 of Asians and the last one in the first three is Hispanic race which is 10.830 people. The total housing units are 92.067. In recent years the population has grown substantially.
The five main interests of the district are: tourism, business and retail, restaurants and residential. Homelessness is a growing concern in its economic situation. NYCs tourism industry is centered in this area.
As far as the environment goes the main problems here are noise and air pollution due to traffic and busy lifestyle. This district has a number of parks (including Union Square Park) which are the showcase for the city and which are being cleaned and well-maintained (they should also be cleaned of the excessive commercial activity).
One of the buildings that belong to Beth Israel Hospital, one of the major hospitals, is located on Union Square (other hospitals that are located in this district are Joint Diseases, Veterans, Bellevue and NYU Langone Medical Center.