I can’t believe it’s been a month since I updated this space. I know it would sound lame to say I’ve been busy, because I’ve probably always felt busy one way or the other - but grad school and life in New York City is a completely different type of busy. And I’m loving it :)
I’m sitting outside the Journalism School building, working on my pitch for the New Media Masters project while watching some kids playing on the lawn and enjoying the gorgeous Fall weather. This campus just feels like a park sometimes.
A tiny mouse just passed by. I got so used to these by now, and they’re a much more tolerable sight than the big rats you occasionally see crossing the subway rails. Those are some of the rare moments where I actually miss Amman’s stray cats. You don’t see stray cats on the streets here, but I’d take cats any day over rats and mice.
But this doesn’t make me love New York City any less. One of the amazing things about this place is that it takes you in as one of its own very quickly. Just give yourself one week of living here and you no longer feel like a foreigner. You get on the subway and you see people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds imaginable. No one is too different in New York. It’s a city of sub-cultures, and whatever your niche, you can be sure to find enough like-minded people who share your interest.
That said, communities are still somehow segregated, and there definitely is a sort of housing apartheid. One of the most eye-opening experiences of the city for me was the hunt for an apartment. A rent of $1,200 per month for a very tiny studio or a room share is considered very reasonable. Columbia University is located on the upper west side of Manhattan, and housing in the immediate vicinity of the school is quite expensive if it’s not university housing. But then you go a few blocks up and you’re in Harlem - the historical heart of African-American culture in New York. Harlem has changed so much over past years, as has the rest of the city with the work of Rudy Giuliani. He gets a lot of credit here for making New York a much safer place, but also a more expensive place. Harlem has been undergoing waves of gentrification, as have many other neighborhoods, especially in Brooklyn. It’s the common story you hear all over the city. It usually starts with artists, who, looking for cheaper space to rent and work, move into poorer neighborhoods. Students and educated young people looking for inexpensive rent follow. Suddenly the neighborhood becomes an interesting destination for more affluent people. Real estate developers move in. Condominiums rise up. Rent becomes higher. The ratio of racial minorities goes down or are driven out by the higher cost of living.
But I digress. I ended up finding a really nice apartment on the edge of Washington Heights, four subway stops away from Columbia. It’s a mini Dominican Republic up there, and even though I don’t spend much time in the neighborhood, I love the Latin American culture around me. Not to mention Latin American food. My new favorite thing is arepas :)
One of our main classes at Columbia this semester is “Writing and Reporting I”, and what basically happens is that you are assigned a beat to cover - a neighborhood that you report and write stories on all through the semester. My beat is Red Hook, in Brooklyn, and I find the place so fascinating and interesting. In a way I feel that beat reporting enriches my experience of New York, because I get to explore aspects that I would’ve probably not explored otherwise.
But Red Hook deserves a post or two on its own, so I’ll stop here, and go work on that pitch. I promised myself though that I’ll make some time for blogging more often, if only for myself, because I want to keep track of the thoughts and observations throughout the year. Whether or not I’ll be able to keep that promise remains to be seen :) If I don’t then I will at least try to post more photos.
I’m sitting outside the Journalism School building, working on my pitch for the New Media Masters project while watching some kids playing on the lawn and enjoying the gorgeous Fall weather. This campus just feels like a park sometimes.
A tiny mouse just passed by. I got so used to these by now, and they’re a much more tolerable sight than the big rats you occasionally see crossing the subway rails. Those are some of the rare moments where I actually miss Amman’s stray cats. You don’t see stray cats on the streets here, but I’d take cats any day over rats and mice.
But this doesn’t make me love New York City any less. One of the amazing things about this place is that it takes you in as one of its own very quickly. Just give yourself one week of living here and you no longer feel like a foreigner. You get on the subway and you see people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds imaginable. No one is too different in New York. It’s a city of sub-cultures, and whatever your niche, you can be sure to find enough like-minded people who share your interest.
That said, communities are still somehow segregated, and there definitely is a sort of housing apartheid. One of the most eye-opening experiences of the city for me was the hunt for an apartment. A rent of $1,200 per month for a very tiny studio or a room share is considered very reasonable. Columbia University is located on the upper west side of Manhattan, and housing in the immediate vicinity of the school is quite expensive if it’s not university housing. But then you go a few blocks up and you’re in Harlem - the historical heart of African-American culture in New York. Harlem has changed so much over past years, as has the rest of the city with the work of Rudy Giuliani. He gets a lot of credit here for making New York a much safer place, but also a more expensive place. Harlem has been undergoing waves of gentrification, as have many other neighborhoods, especially in Brooklyn. It’s the common story you hear all over the city. It usually starts with artists, who, looking for cheaper space to rent and work, move into poorer neighborhoods. Students and educated young people looking for inexpensive rent follow. Suddenly the neighborhood becomes an interesting destination for more affluent people. Real estate developers move in. Condominiums rise up. Rent becomes higher. The ratio of racial minorities goes down or are driven out by the higher cost of living.
But I digress. I ended up finding a really nice apartment on the edge of Washington Heights, four subway stops away from Columbia. It’s a mini Dominican Republic up there, and even though I don’t spend much time in the neighborhood, I love the Latin American culture around me. Not to mention Latin American food. My new favorite thing is arepas :)
One of our main classes at Columbia this semester is “Writing and Reporting I”, and what basically happens is that you are assigned a beat to cover - a neighborhood that you report and write stories on all through the semester. My beat is Red Hook, in Brooklyn, and I find the place so fascinating and interesting. In a way I feel that beat reporting enriches my experience of New York, because I get to explore aspects that I would’ve probably not explored otherwise.
But Red Hook deserves a post or two on its own, so I’ll stop here, and go work on that pitch. I promised myself though that I’ll make some time for blogging more often, if only for myself, because I want to keep track of the thoughts and observations throughout the year. Whether or not I’ll be able to keep that promise remains to be seen :) If I don’t then I will at least try to post more photos.
0 comments:
Post a Comment