draft research focus

In an effort to build a chaotic (network) “time map” upon a linear/chronological account of what has and is occurring at the Atlantic Yards, my research will be based on leads I would gather from personal interviews. I would use whatever information collected from these interviews to describe the present context—or the context in which these people live. I would like a chain reaction affect to result, i.e. if someone (a “present” subject) shared a memory about the Hot Bird restaurant (a “past” object), my next research step would be to research the restaurant or its owners and follow through with their personal story or connection to the area. It may lead to a dead end but it would allow me to move onto another person to interview. I think the purpose would be to highlight the social aspect of these areas or the human scale that exists within the city infrastructure. I am primarily interested in the smaller community efforts that activate the present context. The past and present would feed each other with information.

My goal would be to remain transparent or as seemingly unbiased as possible and let the subjectivity of those interviewed come to the foreground.

Plausible questions:

How long have you lived here? How long have you engaged in these spaces? Are you parents from here? Did they engage in these spaces? What is different between your experience and theirs? What has changed in the time that you have been here? What do you imagine this place to be like in 5 years, 10 years? Where will you be? What would you want here?

People I’ve tried/have briefly contacted:

Jerry Campbell – owner of 495 Dean Street

Norman Oder – Atlantic Yards Report

Frank Jump – Fading Ad Blog

Jimmy Greenfield – owner of Soap Box Gallery

Guy Ambrosino – artist exhibited at Soap Box

Tracy Collins – photographer on Flicker

People I’d like to contact:

a) people who tried to landmark the Wards Bakery

b) people who proposed the Prospect Heights Historic District

c) random co-inhabitants of the Atlantic Yards spaces: gas station attendant, auto repair owner

d) Dean Street Block Association

March 3rd Exhibition Concept proposal

Our group's ideas for the exhibition concept were as follows:

Vrushti created a historical timeline of events that occurred within the three sites that she thought could be laid out or diagrammed on a floor map. Here is an excerpt:

Atlantic Yards:

1955-61- proposal for Dodgers Stadium (for many of the same reasons Nets stadium was proposed for the site); opposed my Robert Moses due to the use of eminent domain to get the land

1963-67- Fort Greene Meat Market designated as Urban Renewal Area

1968-71-Atlantic Terminal designated as Urban Renewal Area; Baruch College campus proposal

1972-74-Special education high school, 12-story Mitchall-Lama Co-ops built, Baruch College campus proposal

1975-17-story NYCHA project built

1976-Fort Greene Meat market razed

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I though that the timeline would be a good idea for it would seem to tie the past to the present via these urban "milestones". But in light of not having enough time to research all the called-out items and Vrushti's idea of floor map, I wondered if get by with filling whatever research voids we have by "complicating" the idea of the timeline into something that we could refer to as a "time map. " It could be like a network of text and images. Collectively, at our discretion, we could link whatever images or text we want and somehow obstruct the view of linearty.

I just looked at Atlantic Yards Report and saw that Norman Oder blogged about the latest art installation at the Soap Box Gallery (which I had previously researched). The concept of the exhibit is "what was". How applicable! The artist took mangled steel from one of the Atlantic Yards' sites.

So, in going back to the exhibition concept, while there may be a linear timeline backbone, we could create these linking ties or associations through images or more text... for instance, the date/year of the opening of the Ward's Bakery and then call out the date/year the bakery was demolished and then link it to the date/year (say, if the steel at the Soap Box Gallery was from the Wards Bakery) the steel from is used as an art/political statement. Or the map could include urban/community milestones, like "Tracy Collins (flickr photo guy) takes his first picture to document the AY activity" or just show random things that existed-- things like footage on youtube. We could even play with the complexity of the date the footage was uploaded onto youtube, versus the era/year the actual footage represents. That may be too complicated. But the point would be to demonstrate that an individual thought that some (old) footage was significant on such-and-such a date. And therefore it is significant.

I like the idea of arguing for significance of what exists or does not exist based on emphasizing the documentation effots of participants ("the actors") of this urban story, ie Norman and Tracy.

The map then could maybe have its own hierarchy-- like historical textbook-like facts (gov't initiated issues/urban renewal projects) versus the public's/small community issues that we could decide are color coded.

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Post-March 3rd class notes:

Vrushti presented our group's idea with an interesting twist that I hadn't thought about. She interpreted the use of the mangled steel (which I had thought to portray in photographic form) as actually having the physical materials there.