Bagli’s recent piece about Stuyvesant Town relates to Fox’s story in that both discuss important social issues. Previously, housing was an issue of race and now it has evolved into a struggle of economic class that determines who lives there. Bagli targets the conflict of income within different socioeconomic classes while Fox focuses on a housing complex’s history and her grandparent’s activism to allow black families to live there. Traditionally, Stuyvesant Town was an area that housed World War II veterans and now its function for the next 20 years is still to provide and preserve affordable housing to middle class families. It no longer is a place where discrimination is prevalent or where significant tax breaks and financial support is given to veterans. It’s a high-profile complex with rents of $4,200 or more, which is a lot for middle-income families to afford. In both pieces, the issue of eviction is mentioned to show residents had a hard time fitting in and staying in the area.
Category Archives: Commentary and Critiques
Black and white
History repeats itself. The apartment complex was built by MetLife after World War II for war vets, keeping rents low. Now it is there to continue serving the middle-class. The recent coverage talks about preserving it and selling it so that I will remain affordable for its residents. It also relates, in 2006 when MetLife sold the property, rents were raised and tenants where evicted. In Amy fox’ story, there was a time where people where being evicted and it was the tenants versus the landlord.
Battle in Black and White
The more recent story relates to Fox’s piece in that they are both covering similar issues in the same apartment complex. In Fox’s piece, she focuses on MetLife’s reluctancy to integrate the StuyTown apartments and the battle that ensued from residents who were in support of the integration. In the more recent piece, Bagli speaks of those apartments and the changes that would force out the middle-class for higher prices. The battles are similar in that they reflect a major social issue: integration of the apartments in the 1950s and the reservation of affordable housing today. Fox also mentions the current issues at StuyTown in her piece.
Battle in Black and White (Class Question)
Recently, the NYT ran a story with the headline, “Stuyvesant To be Near Deal to Preserve Middle Class Housing.” See link below
Amy Fox’s story on Stuyvesant Town focuses on another theme–its history.
How is the recent story related to the Fox’s piece?
Where I Came From- A.J Liebling
I agree with Philip Hamburger. Liebling’s Back Where I Came From is like a double edged sword. Bittersweet yet tangy, honest yet jokey, lovely yet dreadful. He does not hold back and pushes the envelope and includes pain with a mixture of sarcasm and wit. Liebling loves his city, but he isn’t afraid to call problems out. He isn’t afraid to expose the agony that comes with living in such a big city. I love how Leibling compares the city to a “complicated Renaissance clock” or when he says “A man lives on a street until the mayoralty grows over him like patina.” These statements are examples of how fast and forgetful NYC can really be.
Liebling
Liebling’s “Back From Where I Came From” can be described as a love letter to New York. He uses description of New York to show this. Through his slight criticism of people and places other than New York,it is obvious that he has a fondness of the city he grew up in. Further, he says that there is nothing better than New York and the people who live here. He profiles various New Yorkers, showing their diversity and individualism.
A.J. Liebling
Back Where I Came From has been called a “love letter to the City of New York” as the author, A.J. Liebling, describes the city’s greatness and its diverse faces and voices. I believe it’s a tribute to the city but more importantly to the people who inhabit it. As a regional book, it is written in local language and slang to describe the people Liebling came across. Liebling was born and raised in New York City, being exposed to all it has to offer whether good or bad. He explains New York as “one of the oldest places in the United States, but doesn’t live in retrospect like the professionally picturesque provinces. Any city may have one period of magnificence, like Boston or New Orleans or San Francisco, but it takes a real one to keep renewing itself until the past is perennially forgotten.” New York is a city that has remained elegant and enticing despite its past. People are able to adapt to the changes the city faced over the years and contribute to its history. He says native New Yorkers are the best mannered, the women are the most beautiful with straight teeth, the climate is healthy, and the death rate is lower than in any other city. He describes people who are superstitious and only go into bodies of water an odd amount of times, people who are professional eaters and fasters, and a tummler who runs a nightclub business just to make a dollar. These are people that one might look past and ignore but are fascinating. Liebling specifically chooses them to shed light on the uniqueness found in New York City.
Joseph Mitchell
Jospeh Mitchell incorporates an exquisite style when he goes about writing. Reading Street Life, I enjoyed the easily-readable style he fuses with the thought that he pursues when writing. The constant use of repetition allows the information to be processed easier. Employing first-person often has bad repercussions, but the way he tangled it with his subconscious thoughts that felt as if I were reading my own mind and it was extremely effective. It was a great way to ease the reader into NYC street life: by connecting himself with the words (which I feel is extremely hard to accomplish for most writers) he is able to show and not tell the writer what he will be writing.
In contrast, I felt that the NY Times CITY LORE feature in movies was not as effective. Understanding that this was a movie feature for what was to come of Mitchell and Gould and the attached reading from Mitchell was the workings of a chapter from a memoir he never finished, I could not really measure them against one another, but I feel like the style of the writer is not quite there. I was completely against the quote to start the article after reading the nutgraf because I thought that it was too broad for the angle the writer may have been pursuing. The article felt scattered (I may have to re-read again).
I agree that Mitchell’s profiles are “highlife-lowlife” pieces. The use of Joe Gould as an interesting complex person in his feature really does break the rules of non fiction.
Joseph Mitchell
What do you think of New Yorker editor Harold Ross’s calling Joseph Mitchell’s profiles: “highlife-lowlife” pieces?
I think that this is an accurate way to describe Mitchell’s works. When profiling Joseph Gould he does mention that Gould studied at Harvard, but I feel like he sees him in a different class as his own. In Ross’s article about Mitchell, he questions the authenticity of his writing stating that “it’s clear Mitchell did make things up,” in some of his profiles. Although Mitchell comes from a higher class in society, he does take an interest in investigating those who pertain to a lower standard of living. This can be seen from the profile on Joe Gould. However, I found myself wondering if these events in Mitchell’s writing are true, because some of them seemed strange and extremely illogical. I questioned a lot of Gould’s project- the “oral history,” and upon realizing that Gould’s secret was that this was all indeed false, I realized that Mitchell and him both ended up fabricating events and situations in order to make their writing more interesting. It’s ironic to see that both Mitchell and Gould originate from a higher class life, yet Mitchell chooses to stay in it, and Gould does not. They were both similar in that they were only trying to write good works, but did not use true material to do so. Gould chooses to live a bohemian life, although he comes from a Harvard University education, but rejects that to live more freely. Mitchell stays in his educated, high class life, but along the way encounters Gould and sees an extreme form of exaggerating the reality in order to intrigue someone. With that being said, I definitely agree with Ross calling Mitchell’s profiles, “highlife-lowlife peices.”
Dasani Commentary and Critiques
I think It is ethical to leave out Dasani’s last name. Leaving her last name out just shows the delicacy Andre Elliot has for Dasani and her family. Yes, there is a good chance people can find out what her given name is, however I do think given her circumstances and given how graphic and personal this five part series is, excluding her last name is giving Dasani and her family the right to privacy in the only way possible. We already know about every other aspect of her life, so I don’t think a last name included in the story gives or takes away from the article.
The story to me is fine in length. In fact, I think Dasani’s story could be a great autobiography or nonfiction book. When reading this article, there is not one section or part of the article that is not engaging. Elliot adds so much description and detail that as a reader you can see what she is describing. Every aspect is covered, from Dasani’s living circumstance, her family, the projects she lives nearby, McKinney middle and high school, Dasani’s classmates and demographics. Elliot leaves no room for questioning. Everything is answered in details.
Policies and politics on homelessness is very relevant to the topic, however, this stories main focus in humanizing Dasani rather than categorizing her and shaping her into a girl that is a product of the problems faced by homelessness in NYC. The story is more focused on Dasani not being a product of her living circumstances. Dasani says it clearly.
“That’s not gonna be me,” she says. “Nuh-uh. Nope.”