How I Spent My Halloween

On October 31st when others were dressed up and gallivanting around the city, I was at a panel discussion about Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. I wrote about visiting the exhibit at the Municipal Arts Society and this event was related to that exhibit.

Here are eight minutes edited from the two hour panel discussion. You can catch a glimpse of me in the audience (in the red v-neck) right at the beginning of the clip. You'll notice that many people were wearing Harry Potter-esque, round, black-rimmed glasses. They were handing them out for audience members to wear as a sort-of tribute to Jane Jacobs who was known for wearing similar glasses. I did actually wear the glasses for most of the discussion (and was so proud for actually "dressing up" for Halloween after all), but alas, they filmed me at the one moment that I wasn't wearing the glasses.

City Ballet

I really enjoyed the Jane Jacobs exhibition today. It was small but well put together. The first room laid out Jacobs' four principles of urban planning (mixed uses, short city blocks, concentrations of people, and a mix of new and old buildings). A lot of the print and photos on the walls were immediately recognizable from her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Along side that were current examples from New York City (the book was published in 1961). Cleverly, the exhibit made use of one of the windows in the room overlooking the busy street below (I'm not sure exactly which street it was, but in the vicinity of 51st and Madison). On plexi-glass placed in front of the window each of the four principles were printed with lines seemingly pointed at various parts of the street below. It invited the viewer to consider the street below and how well it fit with Jacobs' ideas. In fact, most of the exhibit was centered on inviting the museum goer to consider his or her own neighborhood in relation to the concepts presented.

The second room was all about activism, both by Jane Jacobs and current groups and individuals. One pamphlet available was called "Can One Person Change the City?" and it laid out the eight steps you can take to get involved with your neighborhood.

I especially liked a video that showed two high school students giving a tour of their neighborhoods. One a boy from Williamsburg and another a boy from a housing project in the Bronx. The contrast exemplified perfectly what Jacobs was all about.

I went to college in Arizona and studied Jane Jacobs in my architecture and urban planning classes. Reading her work made me want to live in New York so badly and highlighted everything I hated about Arizona. My parents thought I was quirky when I went on about "sprawling chaos" in Phoenix. Cities just make sense to me. The first real city I lived in was Florence, Italy. Thinking about how Jane Jacobs described the "city ballet" in her neighborhood in Greenwich Village, I wrote about the city ballet that I encountered every day on my walk to school from one side of Florence across the Arno to the other. I still think about it.

I can imagine living somewhere other than here and hearing about this exhibition wishing that I could go. But here I am in NYC. I've been really soaking in the pleasures of urban life lately. I really feel like this is where I am supposed to be.

Cool exhibits to visit on a Saturday . . . just another reason why I love living in New York.

Saturday . . . School

It's my third year teaching and I'm finally going to teach Saturday school. I was so hoping that I would get the position and now that I have it I'm sort of wondering what I've gotten myself into. It won't be so bad. Just 10am-1pm. And there are only two Saturdays in October (well, there were three but for some reason they didn't tell me I was teaching it until after the first day) and then none in November (one is canceled due to Thanksgiving, and another due to the AP and some teachers taking a day trip to Atlantic City, and the others I'm not sure about). In any case, it's really good that I am teaching Saturdays because I will finally get a chance to see all of my newcomers in a separate group, that is beginners in English rather than grade-level groups. I just don't have time for that in my regular school schedule.

Even with Saturday school I'm planning on having an awesome day tomorrow. I'm going to go see the Jane Jacobs exhibition at the Municipal Arts Society and then a yoga class at Yoga to the People. I've finally found a yoga class that I love and now I'm addicted. I've been going four or five times a week for the past few weeks. Another great thing about the studio is that it's donation based so you "pay what you want." Finally yoga is affordable!

The End of Break

Spring Break is almost over. At the moment I feel like there's still a little bit of time but soon it will be tomorrow and that feeling will be gone. Thankfully we only have three days to get through before the weekend. And, my school is having our Quality Review so that should be interesting.

Well, my break started out very productive. I got up and went to the early classes at the gym and then came home and marveled at how much I could accomplish around the house before noon. I even went to some museums and FINALLY went to Zibetto. If you love good espresso even half as much as I do you have to check it out.

The second half of my break--not so productive. I slept in impossibly late several days and caught up on some movies on HBO On Demand. I'm on break though so it's allowed right? Hopefully tomorrow I'll make the early class at the gym and feel productive once again before going back to school. And, I should probably plan something for the kids to learn when we get back.

The View From My Apartment

Free Stuff!

I was walking home from the subway tonight and saw a sign that said "Free Books and Games." I grabbed an armful of stuff to take home with me. Look at everything I got. Nice books all in good condition and two colorful shapes games. I can definitely use this stuff in my classroom. I think I am going to go back tomorrow and leave a little note on the door thanking whomever left this stuff on the curb for the donation and letting them know that their books will be put to good use! I'm most excited about Chicka Chicka 123. My kindergarteners loved Chicka Chicka Boom Boom last year.

Kids Art Day 2006/Brooklyn-Queens Day

Being that it is my first year teaching, I never got to experience the joy of having a random day off for Brooklyn-Queens Day. Today with out the kids though was pretty good anyways. Actually, I was really lucky. I got to go on a parent/kid field trip for Kids Art Day at the Rotunda Gallery in Downtown Brooklyn. The trip was the culminating event after a series of Saturday workshops that were put on by a grant from Parents as Art Partners. I wasn't a part of the workshops but I volunteered to go on the trip to be the photographer.



The gallery was very nice and they work done by the kids was great. The piece done by the kids and parents at my school is called "Drawing Family Ties." It is a mural of people and family in our neighborhood. They did a really nice job on the project and both the kids and parents were thrilled to see their work in a real gallery. The exhibit will be up until the 17th but today was officially Kids Art Day so they had stations set up where kids could make books with different kinds of paper, stamps, markers, etc., and they also had a DJ spinning records. The space was a little small (our group had 37 people alone) but the kids didn't seem to mind.

Day Off

I took the day off today.

Actually, I had been planning to take it off, strike or no strike. A good friend of mine is visiting from Memphis and we haven't seen each other in five years. It was just my luck that the strike happened to fall on the same day that I was planning on taking off. So, instead of going into the city we had a lazy day in Brooklyn. We slept in, walked around Park Slope, went to lunch and had coffee at the Tea Lounge.

I'm all set for transportation tomorrow though. I found a ride with another teacher at my school in anticipation of last Friday's strike so I knew that I would have a way to get to school. I had volunteered her to drive about four other teachers who live near us/on the way to school but I was the only one with her contact info so this morning at 7am my cell phone was ringing off the hook with people trying to get rides.

We're all set with a plan for tomorrow though. I'm second to get picked up at 8:30 (which is pretty cool because school usually starts then). What a weird way to end the last week before break.

My First Snow in NY!

My alarm clock went off at 8:30 this morning and just as I was turning it off thinking that it was a mistake and I could go back to sleep, I remembered the plans I had made last night to go to brunch at 10 o'clock. Then I remembered that it was supposed to have snowed the night before. I sat up in bed and looked out the window but, being as blind as I am without my contacts, all I saw was a big blur. A big white blur. I put on my glasses and sure enough it had snowed quite a bit. I was so excited to go out and see snow that I forgot how much I had wanted (just two seconds earlier) to curl up into my down comforter and go back to sleep.

I bundled up in all of my new gear. I was so warm and my new boots were amazing. At 9am there weren't many people out on the street so fortunately I had my new boots to stomp a pathway through the fresh snow.

I met up with some friends in Union Square and we headed down 2nd Avenue until we came upon Virage. We had a yummy brunch and then walked around Washington Square Park. We also popped into a couple of shoe stores looking for boots for my two friends who weren't quite as prepared for the snow as I was :)

*No, the picture isn't of me. It's of my best friend Malinda and her boyfriend Al.

The housing search is over (fingers crossed)

I don't want to speak too soon but I think the apartment search is finally over. I found a place yesterday in Park Slope with a girl whose roommate cancelled at the last minute. I contacted the landlord today to get my credit check, etc. I haven't actually moved my stuff in yet, but all seems good so far.

As this relief comes (I can finally start focusing on planning the first weeks of school) I am reading about the devastation from hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I know that was somewhere on my ranking of cities. That could have been me. I can't even imagine. I think of all the work and preparation that I've been doing to get ready for the year and I can't fathom what that must be like to now not know if the house I just set up is still standing let alone if I would be going back to my classroom. Here's a link to the blog of a New Orleans corps member who is currently displaced from his new home.

Homeless in NY

It's not easy finding a place to live in New York. I'm currently staying with some other corps members in Brooklyn while I look for an apartment. Yesterday I saw one place and I have a few appointments for tomorrow. I hope something comes up soon. It's very unsettling being in a new city and not even having a place to call home. There is so much to do (get ready for school, organize my finances, buy furniture, etc.) but I can't really do anything until I have a place to live. Not to metion I want to start enjoying my first summer in New York! I have my fingers crossed for tomorrow.