Opinion Paper #6: Robert Moses and the Modern City

The question from this reading is whether Robert Moses was corrupt or not. In my opinion, he was not really corrupt, but was probably too ambitious. I think big leaders always get critics no matter what they do. There will always people who like to talk about what someone does wrong instead what they did right. Nobody can make everybody happy and satisfied.

As you look, New York City is very well organized. This city has such a high population density. I can't imagine how this city would survive without having all these bridges and express highways. I question whether NYC may have grown to such a large population or become one of the most famous cities in the world if it wasn't for such an ambitious and forward moving thinker as Robert Moses. He was a master planner and powerful person.

That said, perhaps he was in a seat of too much of power and didn't know how to properly use it...

Opinion Paper #5: 1811 Plan and Birth of the Metropolis

In 1789, after Washington was inaugurated as president of the united States in New York, many important events in history of New York happened. The city had rapidly grow and physically changed. The population of the city in 1783 was 12,000 and it became to more than double between 1783 and 1786. In 1790, 19 percent of the city's white households were slave-owners. After gradual process, by 1810, New York City had the largest community of free blacks in America.

New York City had begun to change phycally as well. The west side of Broadway had begun to develop with new building and streets in 1776 and by 1796, it extended to develop the line of currently Houston Street. There were various improvements in Wall Street in 1786. It was the home of many banks and insurance companies, as well as the wealthiest and most fashionable New Yorkers. Interestingly, Taverns played an important role in New York City in 1700s. Taverns offered not only rooms for guest,but also political meetingsole. They were in every area of the city. It is interesting how they had political meetings at Tavern.

It was interesting reading to know how New York City developed by gradually.. Also, as I said many times in other opinion papers and journals, it is amazing those streets and blocks are still there after more than 300 years.

Field Visit #3: The Limits of Architecture and the new "High Line" Park

High line Park is 1.45 miles long and located on Manhattan's west side. It starts from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. It has only a few access points to get into the park including from Gansevoort, 14st, 16st, 18st and 20 streets. The high line was originally constructed in the 1930s to move dangerous freight trains above street level in order to decrease fatal accidents.

I was happy to see the High Line park. I remember it looked awful and in disrepair when I had passed by it before. Whether I was in a car or walking on the street, I was always able to see all the dead plants and trees coming over the railroad. I had heard that the city was looking to transform it into a park, but was skeptical of the plan because first, I couldn't picture a long and narrow park in the sky and second, as with most New York plans, I didn't believe it was going to get completed this soon. The park opened in June 2009.

One of the most interesting stories behind this park was that the idea to transform a railroad line to a city park first came from the neighborhood residents. They created the community group that pushed the idea and got Mayor Bloomberg to become a big supporter for the project.

Even though the park cost the city over $50 millions to build, I think the idea to do it was genius. To just remove the old railroad would have cost the city just as much as spending to transform it into a park. And given the lack of land to build parks within New York City, the High Line park is a great idea!

We also went to the another landmark that was remodeled in NYC: Chelsea Piers. Also located on the west side of Manhattan, Chelsea Piers was originally a ship terminal in early 1900s. The space is now used as a sports and entrainment complex. Since Manhattan has very limited land, New Yorkers didn't have many places to play team sports besides expensive health clubs. Chelsea piers offers many different sports such as indoor basketball, soccer, rock climbing and gymnastics etc.

Field Visit #6: Skyscraper Museum and Shanghai / Manhattan Exhibition

The term "Skyscraper" first applied to buildings in late 19th century as a result of how tall the buildings in Chicago and New York were being built. It also developed further as an active industrial steel industry allowed for even higher buildings. There is no official definition or height that specifically classifies a building as a skyscraper. However, skyscrapers have to be taller than wide and most of them are modern looking with a futuristic design. There is a bit of controversy regarding what makes a building a skyscraper. Some people say a skyscraper is based on how tall a building is. Others say that a skyscraper has to be made with steel. Interestingly, the world's tallest skyscrapers are made almost entirely out of concrete.

In the beginning, skyscrapers were just office building, but now we see examples of them as residences. Building a skyscraper has a symbolic relationship that shows a city that has been economically successful.

The special exhibition in the skyscraper museum was about 21-century of skyscrapers in Shanghai. Shanghai is a city in China that has been developing very fast and pursuing a path of modernization and urbanization. One district in particular has shown significant growth: Pudong, which is on the east side of the Huangpu river. For example, the Shanghai tower is currently being built in Pudong by Gensler, an American firm. The building will be the second tallest building in the world and will be completed in 2014.

Shanghai and New York have a few similarities. Trading is very important in both of cities so both have a large financial district. Population density is also very high in both cities even though New York is a lot more smaller than Shanghai. If New York is the 20th Century version of modern landscape, then Shanghai is the 21st Century version. Most of Shanghai has been developed very quickly in the past decade.



This trip reminded me of when I first arrived in New York. I was so shocked by all the tall buildings lined up in Midtown which I had only previously seen in movies. Of course, the feeling was very different between seeing things in movie and in reality. I felt, for the first time, that the world is so big and I am very small. I am curious at how I might feel if I went to Shanghai and saw all those buildings outside of the museum photos and in reality.

Field Visit #1: Museum of the city of New York!

Visiting this museum was a very interesting experience for me as a foreigner. Before I went to this museum, I didn't even know that NYC was founded by Dutch people.

Manhattan's original name was New Amsterdam which means another or a new found Nether land. Manhattan was originally purchased from the Indians with beads worth only $24.

New Amsterdam was founded by the Dutch as a place to do business and was operated by a trading company. The Dutch had to fight with the Spanish and Portuguese empires to dominated trade with Asia so New Amsterdam was a perfect place for them to do business without competition. The first trade was fur and tobacco. Fur trading was a successful export back to Europe. They exported or exchanged salt, sugar and slaves to the English colonies and to the Caribbean. New Amsterdam became the largest trade network.

Dutch influence remained strong in NY for many decades after English takeover. The majority of the city's inhabitants were ethnically dutch until the early 1700s. Certain areas in Manhattan still show their dutch heritage evident in their names such as Bleaker Street, Varick Street, Broadway, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Coney Island, Flushing and Harlem etc.

I learned a lot about NYC from this visit. I especially remember the short movie about New York's history. The movie broke up New York's past into perfect time periods, making understanding the city's history easier. I thought that starting with visiting Museum of the City of New York was a great beginning to this class, Architecture of New York City.

Field visit #2: Queens Museum of Art "Panorama of New York City" Exhibition.

When I first walked in to the exhibition room, I almost screamed!! It was one of the best exhibitions that I have ever seen. A huge map was lying down on the floor in a dark room. I walked closer to the panorama and saw all these small buildings lined up in each street. Planes were arriving and landing from the airport. The lighting would mimic the sun was rising and setting, letting me imagine what Manhattan looks like in the morning and the evening. All these details were amazing.

As a foreigner here in America, I never really grasped the whole picture of New York and its surrounding areas. This exhibition showed me not only Manhattan, but also Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and Governor Island as well. I had no idea Staten Island is that large and how small and densely packed Manhattan is compared to other parts of New York. All the tall buildings were in Manhattan while all the and small buildings are far from the city. I had seen a map of Manhattan many times even before, but I was amazed again how well every single street and blog was constructed in this city.

Some people think that one of the problems with Manhattan is that it has too many high buildings on such a small island. I think, however, that the tall buildings and skyline is what makes New York City beautiful. Manhattan is such a small island that the city's different cultures can interact with each other giving it a very unique environment. Some parts of the city are very modern such as the financial district. Other parts still have older buildings such as Soho and East/West village.

One of the reasons why I like this class is that it is very well organized. Visiting Museum of the City of New York and Panorama of New York City exhibition was the perfect beginning of this class, Architecture of the City. That gave me much better idea of what I was going to learn and talk about in the class.

Opinion Paper #4: Wall Street Then and Now!

New Amsterdam began to take shape in the mid-1630s. By 1643, the population was 400 to 500 and over 18 languages were spoken. As the population continued to expand, the increase in new settlers became a source of corruption in New Amsterdam. When Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam in 1647, it was still destroyed from the Indian wars. He started to improve the city year by year with building houses by the East River and bridges across the canal. As a result, New Amsterdam faced east to the East River in 1660 where all the English wealthy people would live later.

When New Amsterdam reached population of 1500, English took control of it in 1664. when British ruled this city from 1664 to 1783, New Amsterdam was dominated by merchants, lawyers, traders and public officials with 60 percent of white people. The Dutch and the English kept fighting over the land of New Amsterdam and the Dutch took it over again and renamed New Orange which I have heard for the first time.

Few English, Scottish and Irish families emigrated to New Amsterdam since the colony was taken from the Dutch in 1664. The Dutch still remained the dominant group within the population, but were losing property. The English and French began to settle in with much more succeed in business than the Dutch. By 1703, the wealthy English merchants all lived in the commercial areas where in the lower Manhattan by the East River and all others lived elsewhere.

By looking at maps of New Amsterdam, I can see how Wall street looked like back then. It looks very alike how it is now. The street called De Heere street in 1640s is Broadway since 1700. As a foreigner, especially coming from Asia where has not enough land compare to population, it is pretty amazing how Wall street looks just like how it was 300 years ago.