It was 72 degrees at 10:30am in New Hyde Park as I awaited my train’s arrival. The weather looked promising as I headed into class wondering what crazy things we would be getting ourselves into today. When I arrived at Penn Station, Mike greeted us with detailed insight on how the day was looking for us all. Greenwich Village, he said! Two words that put a smile on my face instantly.
We were about to travel to New York City’s gay and lesbian epicenter. “Because of its long-standing tolerance, the village had a large homosexual community for many years and has been a base for feminist and gay activists, but it also attracts middle-class and professional people who, perhaps because of the traditional Village sense of community, have frequently and visibly exercised themselves in political and social causes.” [BG pg. 129] I was somewhat familiar with the village, having been a frequent tourist for many years there, and also because I did my first paper in this class about the Stonewall Inn. (Which can be viewed at the PAPER 1 tab on the top of this webpage.)
We took the one subway downtown to West Houston Street. Once on Bedford Street in the West Village, we experienced its charm that holds a different sense of uniqueness against all other areas in New York City. I felt safe, I felt welcomed, I felt at home. The class first stopped at the White Horse Tavern in the far West Village. “Founded in 1880, the White Horse Tavern was once a watering hole for Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, and other writers.” [BG pg. 143] Places such as the White Horse Tavern still exist in the Village today because they hold nostalgia for the decades of people and influence that have swept those city streets.
We then traveled our way to the Village’s center, Christopher Street, also known as the heart of New York’s gay and lesbian community. The gay liberation movement started on this street, 53 Christopher Street to be exact, at the Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall Inn is the historic building I wrote my paper on, and the landmark that antagonized homosexuals in the 1960’s to liberate for their own equal rights. “The riots of Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher St, were a turning point in the struggle for gay civil rights.” (Blue Guide, 130) The Stonewall Riots of 1969 was the single most important event that had sparked the liberation movement for gay rights. (For complete information and story of the Stonewall Inn please read my paper located on the top tab of this webpage labeled, PAPER 1.) As I took a picture of the landmark, Don explained to the class where the word “faggot” came from. The words origin come from, “burning wood,” which was a slag term used against homosexuals in correlation to those in the early history of American society who were burned alive at the stake if they were proven guilty for being a homosexual. Don had shed some light on an interesting though and I really began to think about how intolerable people can be based on phantom ideologies they create themselves.
The class then set foot from Christopher Street to Washington Square Park, moving past Gay Street, Waverly, and Jefferson Market Garden. Surrounding the buildings of New York University, Washington Square Park still stands shadowed by tall trees, a beautiful fountain, and the famous Washington Arch, which was dedicated in 1895. “In the early 1950’s Robert Moses, the Parks’ Commissioner and always a highway advocate, decided to push a highway over, under, or through the park to ease down-town traffic on Fifth Avenue, a project that Villagers defeated after a decade-long struggle.” [BG pg. 131] Mike and Don told us social activist Jane Jacobs led these protestors against Moses and his intrusive highway plans.
Washington Square Park has also been home for the last several years to the National Pillow Day Fight, which is held each April as a charity event to get people to donate their pillows at the end of the event to then be dispersed to homeless shelters across New York City. (A video can be found below illustrating how intense the pillow fight actually got.)
Café Wha was our next destination. We stopped at 115 McDougal Street to admire the café, which was once the bohemian heart of the Village. Bob Dylan and other folk singers from the early 1960’s performed here regularly, creating an atmosphere for amazing talent and taste.
The Merchant House Museum tour followed our long walk throughout the village. At this point, some class members grew tired and impatient as the heat rose and our patience thinned. Our stamina for the rest of the day was significantly reduced and we weren’t aware for we were in store after our lunch break. (To see what I learned about the Merchant House Museum, look for the blog post below.) Lunch break was an hour and fifteen minutes long today. We were dining in St. Marks Place, where cheap food was found to be an understatement. Being very familiar with this area, I took some classmates to my favorite food shop, Pomme Frites, where we enjoyed the best Belgium fries New York has to offer.
After a fulfilling meal, the class lugged our now even more tired bodies to the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space. This was a new experience Mike was taking our class on, a tour in which the class has never done before. We learned about New York and its original squatters or what may also be known as the original ccc-squats. Our more then radical tour guide Bob also let us experience the 9th Street Community Garden Park. The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space was centered on the many active movements lead in the East Village over several decade long battles to preserve some urban space for the city dwellers to enjoy. Personally, I didn’t find the tour enjoyable since Bob held a different perspective of each topic being discussed that I myself could not relate to.
We ended our tour and our class that evening in Thompson Square Park. Bob in great detail went through the history of the park and the culmination of the ever so famous Thompson Square Park riots. “Throughout the years it has witnessed two historic riots and many political demonstrations—sparked by poor economic conditions, oppressive labor relations, the Vietnam War, and gentrification, among other causes.” [BG pg. 167] This park was a place for movement, a public entity where community members could gather and express their opinions in an open-forum style. These sanctions within New York City are what help preserve people’s freedom of speech and what has provoked change and demonstration from its people.
As we ended our second class, some of the classmates and myself distressed during happy hour at a friendly bar-dive located in the Village.
We were about to travel to New York City’s gay and lesbian epicenter. “Because of its long-standing tolerance, the village had a large homosexual community for many years and has been a base for feminist and gay activists, but it also attracts middle-class and professional people who, perhaps because of the traditional Village sense of community, have frequently and visibly exercised themselves in political and social causes.” [BG pg. 129] I was somewhat familiar with the village, having been a frequent tourist for many years there, and also because I did my first paper in this class about the Stonewall Inn. (Which can be viewed at the PAPER 1 tab on the top of this webpage.)
We took the one subway downtown to West Houston Street. Once on Bedford Street in the West Village, we experienced its charm that holds a different sense of uniqueness against all other areas in New York City. I felt safe, I felt welcomed, I felt at home. The class first stopped at the White Horse Tavern in the far West Village. “Founded in 1880, the White Horse Tavern was once a watering hole for Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, and other writers.” [BG pg. 143] Places such as the White Horse Tavern still exist in the Village today because they hold nostalgia for the decades of people and influence that have swept those city streets.
We then traveled our way to the Village’s center, Christopher Street, also known as the heart of New York’s gay and lesbian community. The gay liberation movement started on this street, 53 Christopher Street to be exact, at the Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall Inn is the historic building I wrote my paper on, and the landmark that antagonized homosexuals in the 1960’s to liberate for their own equal rights. “The riots of Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher St, were a turning point in the struggle for gay civil rights.” (Blue Guide, 130) The Stonewall Riots of 1969 was the single most important event that had sparked the liberation movement for gay rights. (For complete information and story of the Stonewall Inn please read my paper located on the top tab of this webpage labeled, PAPER 1.) As I took a picture of the landmark, Don explained to the class where the word “faggot” came from. The words origin come from, “burning wood,” which was a slag term used against homosexuals in correlation to those in the early history of American society who were burned alive at the stake if they were proven guilty for being a homosexual. Don had shed some light on an interesting though and I really began to think about how intolerable people can be based on phantom ideologies they create themselves.
The class then set foot from Christopher Street to Washington Square Park, moving past Gay Street, Waverly, and Jefferson Market Garden. Surrounding the buildings of New York University, Washington Square Park still stands shadowed by tall trees, a beautiful fountain, and the famous Washington Arch, which was dedicated in 1895. “In the early 1950’s Robert Moses, the Parks’ Commissioner and always a highway advocate, decided to push a highway over, under, or through the park to ease down-town traffic on Fifth Avenue, a project that Villagers defeated after a decade-long struggle.” [BG pg. 131] Mike and Don told us social activist Jane Jacobs led these protestors against Moses and his intrusive highway plans.
Washington Square Park has also been home for the last several years to the National Pillow Day Fight, which is held each April as a charity event to get people to donate their pillows at the end of the event to then be dispersed to homeless shelters across New York City. (A video can be found below illustrating how intense the pillow fight actually got.)
Café Wha was our next destination. We stopped at 115 McDougal Street to admire the café, which was once the bohemian heart of the Village. Bob Dylan and other folk singers from the early 1960’s performed here regularly, creating an atmosphere for amazing talent and taste.
The Merchant House Museum tour followed our long walk throughout the village. At this point, some class members grew tired and impatient as the heat rose and our patience thinned. Our stamina for the rest of the day was significantly reduced and we weren’t aware for we were in store after our lunch break. (To see what I learned about the Merchant House Museum, look for the blog post below.) Lunch break was an hour and fifteen minutes long today. We were dining in St. Marks Place, where cheap food was found to be an understatement. Being very familiar with this area, I took some classmates to my favorite food shop, Pomme Frites, where we enjoyed the best Belgium fries New York has to offer.
After a fulfilling meal, the class lugged our now even more tired bodies to the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space. This was a new experience Mike was taking our class on, a tour in which the class has never done before. We learned about New York and its original squatters or what may also be known as the original ccc-squats. Our more then radical tour guide Bob also let us experience the 9th Street Community Garden Park. The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space was centered on the many active movements lead in the East Village over several decade long battles to preserve some urban space for the city dwellers to enjoy. Personally, I didn’t find the tour enjoyable since Bob held a different perspective of each topic being discussed that I myself could not relate to.
We ended our tour and our class that evening in Thompson Square Park. Bob in great detail went through the history of the park and the culmination of the ever so famous Thompson Square Park riots. “Throughout the years it has witnessed two historic riots and many political demonstrations—sparked by poor economic conditions, oppressive labor relations, the Vietnam War, and gentrification, among other causes.” [BG pg. 167] This park was a place for movement, a public entity where community members could gather and express their opinions in an open-forum style. These sanctions within New York City are what help preserve people’s freedom of speech and what has provoked change and demonstration from its people.
As we ended our second class, some of the classmates and myself distressed during happy hour at a friendly bar-dive located in the Village.
Merchants House Museum
(What I learned from this tour)
The Merchant house on exhibit was built to sell in 1832, located near the ritzy area around Bond Street. The Tredwell’s owned the home, housing their family of eight children and four house-servants. Uncommon to a large family back at this time, the Tredwells were lucky enough to have all eight children survive to their adulthood.
The lower floor of the home was used strictly as the family floor. Located in the family floor is the living room, kitchen, and bunks for the servants to use. Normally visitors would not stay on the family floor of the house because all the nice fancy furniture and décor belonged upstairs. Rats and other rodents would reside in the bottom floor to invade the kitchen at night or the trash that was overflowed with many unsanitary conditions.
The Federal Census Bureau had recorded four Irish women as house-servants to the Tredwells, all of who were new immigrants to America. What was interesting about the house is that it has a bell-service from the kitchen to each room in the top two floors. The Tredwell family would ring the bell, calling the servants to wait on there hand and foot whenever they were called upon.
Another interesting thing I learned about this time period was the use of a “call hour.” Family’s would have specific times during the day or week in which others could travel and stop in to say hello and chit-chat due to the lack of communication-technology they had in this time period. One person would go to a friend’s house and say hello. Then that friend would be socially obligated to visit the person who just visited them and so on.
We noticed as a class how different things were back when life seemed to be much more simplistic then how we all communicate today.
(What I learned from this tour)
The Merchant house on exhibit was built to sell in 1832, located near the ritzy area around Bond Street. The Tredwell’s owned the home, housing their family of eight children and four house-servants. Uncommon to a large family back at this time, the Tredwells were lucky enough to have all eight children survive to their adulthood.
The lower floor of the home was used strictly as the family floor. Located in the family floor is the living room, kitchen, and bunks for the servants to use. Normally visitors would not stay on the family floor of the house because all the nice fancy furniture and décor belonged upstairs. Rats and other rodents would reside in the bottom floor to invade the kitchen at night or the trash that was overflowed with many unsanitary conditions.
The Federal Census Bureau had recorded four Irish women as house-servants to the Tredwells, all of who were new immigrants to America. What was interesting about the house is that it has a bell-service from the kitchen to each room in the top two floors. The Tredwell family would ring the bell, calling the servants to wait on there hand and foot whenever they were called upon.
Another interesting thing I learned about this time period was the use of a “call hour.” Family’s would have specific times during the day or week in which others could travel and stop in to say hello and chit-chat due to the lack of communication-technology they had in this time period. One person would go to a friend’s house and say hello. Then that friend would be socially obligated to visit the person who just visited them and so on.
We noticed as a class how different things were back when life seemed to be much more simplistic then how we all communicate today.
| Watch here to see me and my friends at the National Pillow Fight Day in Washington Square Park! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsOVeI9eqNU&feature=youtu.be | Check out this view of Washington Square Park: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMuRZzSS4yI&feature=youtu.be |
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