Scavenger Hunt Questions 5 &9

5 Ride one of the train lines from the start to finish [ie. Get on in the Bronx and off in Brooklyn] – who is getting on and off as you ride? What does this tell us about the neighborhoods they go through it? How do you personally feel on the train through this ride [Are people looking at you]?


I toke the A train starting at Dyckman Street and took it all the way to Broad Channel. I normally don’t take the A train so I thought it would be an interesting experience. But because I live in Rego Park it was a hassle to get from one end to the other. The trip brought me through three boroughs in about two hours. At Dyckman Street there were very little amount of people on the train and they didn’t look at me weirdly or didn’t even give me a second glance because I guess it looked as if I could possibly live in that area of Manhattan. But as the trip went on and got further to Far Rockaway and to Broad Channel I got a lot of looks, three and four glances from the same people as they watched me explore the A line.
The train got busy at the normal congested spots of Manhattan like 42nd St Port Authority, Canal Street, Fulton, Jay St. and so forth. The people getting on the trains at these points and for the majority of the trip was business people, college students and the normal people you would see on the train during the day on a weekday.
When the ride got to Lafayette St. I started getting looks from the passengers like I was in the wrong neighborhood and that I didn’t belong on the train but none the less I continued the trip and admired the difference in the subway stations as I got closer to Broad Channel.
The train ride to Broad Channel was a long and interesting one. I found the ride more enjoyable then the area of Broad Channel itself. The train ride was extremely interesting as soon as the A train exited out of the subway the walls were covered in graffiti and the houses became less enjoyable to look at. Once I got closer to Broad Channel the houses looked more like boat houses, or areas that you would expect to see in the south. But the topper of the trip was when the train started to go over the water at first I was a little nervous because I never knew that subway cars went over water like that, but then it started to go through what seemed like swamp lands and after that the area just seemed to get more run down. Houses were run down and surrounded by what seemed like unwanted overgrown grass.
It was an interesting experience and tells me a lot about the way the subway system was mapped out. Because as we got closer and closer to the run down area of Far Rockaway the train became less crowded with business people and instead became full with what seemed to be run down hard workers, living pay check to pay check. They seemed to be construction workers due to their dirty clothing and construction boots and tools in their bag. What disappointed me the most was the drastic change in upkeep in subway stations as we got closer to the poorer areas, shows where the governments concern is at.

9. Are there gated communities in any of the boroughs? Where are they [name one] and tell me the history of it? [when was it built, etc…]

Gramercy Park in Manhattan which focused around Gramercy Park, a private park between East 20th and 21st Streets at the foot of Lexington Avenue is a Gated neighborhood in New York City. Allow Gated communities are hard to come across and for the most part many of the communities that we see as gated communities do not follow the standard definition of a Gated community. Gramercy Park's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, First Avenue to the east, 23rd Street to the north, and Park Avenue South to the west (Fons,4).What makes the neighborhood private is that they all share the private park of Gramercy Park, where people within the area are the only ones with a key to that park. Also what makes the neighborhood a gated community is that it is privatized, expensive and exclusive.
Gramercy Park was a vision of Samuel B. Ruggles, a developer and advocate of open space. In 1831, he proposed the idea for the park due to the northward growth of Manhattan. The area was created for a private area for Theodore Roosevelt to get away and later became a place where the famous people lived or got away to. It is a place of many elite and private clubs that takes a lot of money and prestige to become a part of like The Players Club or the National Arts Club. The park and surrounding blocks were designated a historic district in 1966 (Fons,7).
The Area is high class and exclusive in everything they do. Originally the area was built and meant to be a public place where all could go due to the upward movement of Manhattan but like with all good things it became privatized for investment and profit and is now home to the richest of the rich.





Works Cited

Fons, Mary K. “Manhattan’s Gated Community: A Glance inside Gramercy Park.” The Cooperator: The Co-op & Condo Monthly October 2004




Lorraine O'Connell