Citizen Statement

After completing my blog entries I have thoughtfully reflected on my life as a citizen who currently lives in the city of Winston Salem but who also has a home in the suburbs of New Jersey. I have experienced new ways of perceiving how to live in a city as well as how to observe its surroundings such as the people, buildings, and the environment. Walking through Winston Salem and taking time to listen to sounds has been thought provoking and I can truly say that I am a participant in this world that is increasingly being composed of improving cities.

I really enjoyed learning about New York City's architecture and the main people who were involved in its construction such as Robert Moses and LaGuardia. I think learning about these influential people has given me better insight into how a city develops. I was able to relate my knowledge about Moses and Jacobs to when I went on the Post-WWII Winston Salem class bus tour with Kelly Bennett the city planner of Winston Salem. On the bus tour Kelly had explained that a city has a bunch of years already planned out for its future constructions. I thought that was really interesting and I liked being able to look through Winston Salem’s city planner and knowing that the city has a 5-year plan already made. This way the city is ensured potential for future growth. Kelly mentioned about Robert Moses’ New York City development and it was great to be able to know what he was talking about and being able to relate back to my viewings and readings about Moses.

Living in New Jersey made me become familiar with New York City without having to live directly in the city. Growing up I was able to visit the NYC so much so that I had a mental mapping of how my parents would drive across the George Washington Bridge and into the city. After driving across the G.W. Bridge we would then take the West Side Highway to get into upper Manhattan to watch Broadway shows or etc. After watching the Episode 7 of New York: A Documentary Film, I now know that the bridges and highway across Manhattan were Robert Moses's idea and his dreams. It was very valuable to learn about the history of Penn Station and how it was architecturally built beautifully, but then it had to be torn down as part of the urban renewal project. In the 1950s everyone was devastated by the tearing down of this historically architectural monument. Penn station not only had welcomed people and commuters into New York City, but it was such a grand way to enter a big elaborate city. Besides the architecture in the city, one thing that currently has not changed is how much people adore the beautifully constructed city. Beginning in the 1950s people had started to think of New York City as a home and a welcoming neighborhood. In recent times, I know how much people still adore New York City and what it has to offer the people living and visiting it.

It is incredible to think about the unknown and how far our society and culture will progress. Our class mural paintings illustrate this concept of a changing society and how far we have come and improved our technology and use of architecture. The first panel demonstrates the idea of people living in caves and their way of communication was by cave drawings. The next panel is of the pyramids and in my interpretation of it, it is how society began to develop  by building structures for people to live in rather than finding homes through nature. Hence, man begins to take control and increase his livelihood. The next panel is of the current city and interprets how people in society live today in skyscrapers and tall structures, making a living and a big advancement from the beginning of time with cave drawings. And the last panel depicts how the future is unknown like the vast galaxy. The next step in our future is like turning a page, you don’t know what to expect until you turn the page and begin to start a new chapter in life.

The story our panels depict that we painted for class reminds me of Jack Kerouac’s story cityCityCITY. The fact that his story takes place in the future and it describes a city that is overpopulated and how the Earth is covered in city. Technology overrides everything in the world and controls how people are reproduced even. In our society today, we have already come so far in advanced technology and people are constantly improving old technical devices developing newer and faster ways to communicate. Our society is just trying to improve itself just as Robert Moses wanted to improve the society by constructing a grand city that we still use today. Hopefully there will not be devastating reoccurrences such as the tearing down of Penn Station. But luckily we have learned from Jane Jacobs the journey of living and walking with people in an urban environment is more important than the separation of people and the building of infrastructures through a already great architecturally world. 

  

Urban Walking

Finding my way to new a place,

I see new things only at walking a pace.

I simply walk to Washington Park,

But along the way something in me inspires a spark.

I decide I want to make a change in my life,

By living simply and not having any rife.

The birds chirp peacefully and put me at ease,

I feel the lightness in the air through the spring’s breeze.

I pass a dog park along my walk,

And never before seeing this I open the gate’s lock.

I haven’t pet a dog in so long being at school,

I fall in love with them even if on me they drool.

I must leave the cute puppies as I am short on time,

But in my mood I become jocund and sublime.

I find that this walk has cleared my head,

And with all my worries I am finally able to put them to bed.

I enjoyed my 45 minute walk in the urban environment of Winston Salem. I began my walk out of Center Stage Apartments and onto Haled Street which then leads to S Main Street. I went down Cascade Ave to walk to Washington Park. I have never been to Washington Park this way but I realized that it was a lot shorter route than going any other way I have traveled. Also, walking along this route, I realized that it was familiar to me because I had trick-or-treated on that road this year during Halloween. However, since it was dark outside when I went on Halloween, the area looked different than on a cheery Sunday afternoon that I decided to talk my urban experience walk. I walked right to one of Washington Park’s entrances and headed through the park. I love parks and it reminded me of being home seeing swing sets and baseball fields. It was such a lovely walk, I enjoyed the fresh air and the time alone to be able to think and contemplate things that were on my mind. It was distressing because I had set aside time to walk and I knew that I could do my homework later rather than worrying about it now.

On my walk, I came to a conclusion that Winston Salem has its own identity and unlike New York City, Winston Salem is not a melting pot of pushing people together. I think Winston Salem is a small city but still allows the beauty of people living a suburb life because of the parks that are around the city and the cute houses that people inhabit. Also, Winston Salem’s population is not an overload of people or having too many things coming at you and it is not like to have to majorly adjust to survive, which is how Stanely Milgram expressed it in his film The City of the South. Living in Winston Salem is not like living in a major city such as NYC, which is like living in a place with millions of others and being congested by its constant activity. As expressed in Milgram’s film, only in New York City can you be three seconds late. I like normal pace of Winston Salem’s city rather than being rushed all the time like how it is in NYC.

Overall walking is a good way to clear your head, but next time I will share it with a friend and maybe jog next time instead of walk to get in some cardio as well as thinking time.