Thesis Statement

No matter how busy and diverse Flushing downtown area is, It is still in need for more business developments in order to fulfill all resident’s need. There still remains neighborhoods in Flushing that lack retail and wholesale outlets to cater for resident’s grocery and related needs.

Chapter 15

Jane Jacobs talks about Unslumming and slumming in this Chapter. "Slums and their populations are the victims." Starting with this sentence, she thinks that this problem has always been exist and will hardly go away in a big city. "Unslumming" occurs gradually, as people who could afford to move out choose to stay. Both slumming and unslumming are perpetual cycles which do not fit with current planning theory. And one of Jacobs main point is that: "The processes that occur in unslumming depend on the fact that a metropolitan economy, if it is working well, is constantly transforming many poor people into middle-class people, many illiterates into skilled(or even educated)people, many greenhorns in to competent citizens.” So we could see that the economic development is one big factor by making the Unslumming and slumming process. Otherwise nothing can really affect this phenomenon. And it will happen in all big cities like NYC.

Chater 13

In this Chapter, Jane Jacobs argued that it is very important and also difficult to maintain one city's diversity. She said that:” The self-destruction of diversity can be seen at outstandingly successful little nodes of activity, as well as along street streches." And to keep up on the good work of a city's diversity, it has to depend on all the people live in that city. The author gave the example of 3rd Ave., 8th Ave., and some other street in New York City to show the readers how to distinguish between a success and failure city diversity. “Streets (especially if their blocks are short) sometimes can weather much duplication of successful uses, or else can regenerate themselves spontaneously after declining and stagnating for a time.” From all these examples Jacobs want to tell us that “examples of the self-destruction that follows outstanding success are more usual in downtowns.” And therefore, the city planners need to find way to change it in order to maintain our multi-diversity.

The Interview

The object person for this interview is my land lord. And his name is Andy Ho. A 40 years old Hong Kong business man lived in New York City for more than 15 years. He moved to this neighborhood with his whole family like 5 years ago from Brooklyn. When I asked why, he said that, nowadays just more and more business opportunities here found in Flushing, and more than anywhere else. People are getting richer and richer everyday in Flushing. Their demand for the quality of life is also getting higher. So there are great business opportunities for the real estate development in this whole area. And that's what he is mainly doing to make a living here. Well that's another story, back to our interview, Andy likes about this neighborhood very much, and he said it's quiet and safe, far away from the crowds. Well, since he is my landlord, I guess he just won't say anything bad about this place.=_= Anyway, the only thing he found out changed a lot are the increase of Korean retail stores and restaurants around this neighborhood. Actually the Korean Street is only a couple blocks away from where I live. So he told me it was always convenience if I want some Korean food or something like that. Andy had two cars, one for him, one for his wife, they just drive to everywhere. I am sure he thinks driving will make life much easier than take the bus in this neighborhood. As we all know, we have a pretty bad bus service around this area. The closest bus is Q12, which is two blocks from my place. If I want to get another bus, I have to walk for another 4 or 5 blocks. Andy also thinks the service of Q12 is quiet unpredictable. Sometimes you wait for 30 minutes, they will just never come. He truly felt that there are definitely problems with their bus schedules. As I already said, during most of this interview Andy is in favor for this neighborhood. He said he is very satisfied with his life here live in this place. He gave ten points for his quality of life in the scale of one to ten.

Research From the New York Time Historical

FERRETTI, FRED. "Flushing: A New Center For Asian Markets And Food" New York Times October 13, 1983: p. C1.

This is a very old news, gets us back to 1983. By then Flushing is already the a center of Asian businesses in Queens. “The Flushing area, in particular Main Street, its commercial spine, and such adjacent streets as Northern and Kissena Boulevards and Union and Prince Streets, has become an Asian microcosm. It is still another of the city’s neighborhoods in transition, with a recognizable and sizable Korean-Chinese- Japanese-Indian Profile.” All Asians lives in New York City and Long island travel miles to Flushing on weekends just for some shopping. Also those restaurants are one big attraction for them. “The growing importance of Main Street in Flushing as an Asian food center now brings weekend shoppers by car from Long Island and Westchester for their miso, brown rice, salted codfish roe, fresh octopus, dried red dates, seaweed, bamboo shoots and dried mussels, abalone and ginseng root.” In that time Flushing just starts to turn to another Chinatown in New York City. There are more Koreans here at Flushing in any other single place in America.



DEUTSCH, CLAUDIA. "Links with Taipei help draw many Asians to Flushing :Commercial Property/Flushing's Chinatown A Polyglot Community Attracts Shops and Business". New York Times 1994, October 2: p. R1.

This news was taking place in 1994, Flushing. Unlike the Chinatown in Manhattan has the most Cantonese-speaking Chinese, Flushing is more like a center for Mandarin-speakers from Taiwan and main land China. “…or the growing number of Koreans and Asian Indians who have moved to Queens, are as likely to go to Flushing, around Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street, as to Mott or Canal Streets.” People may not know this, but in Taiwan they refer to Flushing as Little Taipei. That is also one of the reasons for so many Asian Businesses and restaurants here in Flushing have a Taiwanese boss or landlord. There are also different purposes for the Manhattan Chinatown and the Flushing Chinatown. “Manhattan Chinatown attracts a great many tourists on weekends…”. “Flushing Chinatown has a narrower focus and reach, but it attracts hordes of outsiders nonetheless. “

The Snow in my Neighborhood!

It is snowing~!!! I was so excited! As soon as noticed about the snowing I just ran out with my sleepers and pajamas and took some pictures of neighborhood. I know my act was like a kid, but...whatever! I think this will be the heaviest and last snow for this winter in New York City. This year's weather is truly strange...=_= Hope the cold weather can be over soon, I am just so sick of it! >'"< Can't wait for spring~!!^_^









The spring almost made it to Flushing...

Chapter 11 & Chapter 12

In these two chapters, the author is basically talking about the need for concentrations and some myths about diversity as she titled. Combine these two together; the idea is population is a huge fact for the economic growth and city diversity. As she mentioned in the beginning of the chapter 11, "The district must have sufficiently dense concentration of people, for whatever purpose they may be there." By saying this, the author means a well planed city must have a well planed population of people in different areas. And people make diversity; people make economic function in the right track. In her point, if an insufficiently dense concentration of people happens, it will make a failure city plan. As Jacobs did in every other chapter, she also gave readers numbers of examples of both successful and unsuccessful plan for concentration of people and mixture diversity in different US cities. “The other factors that influence how much diversity is generated, and where, will have nothing much to influence if enough people are not there”(p205) And it is also one of the most important factor in city planning. By giving both the definitions of High densities and overcrowding, the author wants the readers to know that in real life high densities have nothing to do with overcrowding. She also showed us how to differentiate the two situations and how they can be bad and good in certain places and time. And in Chapter 13, the author asks problems about diversity and gives proofs to answer whether the question is right or wrong. Such as in page 229, at the button part, “Is it true that diversity causes traffic congestion? Traffic congestion is caused by vehicles, not by people in themselves.” So, Jacobs keep discussing about all different questions for diversity as the chapter goes.

Ten Interview Questions

1． What’s your name?

2． How long have you lived in this neighborhood?

3． What do you like and dislike about this neighborhood?

4． Has this neighborhood changed since you lived here?

5． What are your opinions on certain changes of your neighborhood?

6． Do you feel the crime had been increased or decreased over time in your neighborhood?

7． Is the location you live convenience to go shopping, or doing any other activities?　

8． What’s your major mode of transportation?

9． Do you have any comment on the physical appearance or any change to it?

10．How satisfy do you feel about your quality of life by living in this area? (In the scale of 1 to 10.)

Two Paragraph HW

Since I lived in a big city for 14 years when I was in China, I was so excited after noticed that my family will move to New York City in august, 2006. Because I really missed those days in China, walking with crowds on street everyday, smell of gasoline in the air and big buildings all around you...etc. That was also one big reason for me to decide to move to NYC. And the first time when I got to Flushing, suddenly everything came back to me, it just felt like; I have never leaved from China. Everything here in flushing was just so Asian. The people, street signs, store signboards, restaurants, music from the CD stores, KTVs......Everything, they just made me keep thinking maybe I am not in USA anymore. No wonder it is the second largest Chinatown in NYC（according to some of the research, they say Flushing is the largest Chinatown in NYC). I was just so glad, finally I made to NYC, because another thing I missed so much about China is the food. Chinese food is my favorite and will always be.

The area that I live is kind of suburb of Flushing, It is mostly residential around my neighborhood. But just a couple of days ago, I heard the Korean street is just several blocks from the place I live, however I really doubt that if it is some place that you can walk to. Anyway, maybe I will make a visit someday when I figure out the direction. Since there are not much commerce and business in my neighborhood, most of the time it is just awfully quiet here. You see nobody, not even a cat on the street. Sometimes when I walk down the street from the bus station, the neighborhood is really make me feel sad and nervous, especially during the night. One reason about this is most of the people live in this area drive, because you can always see enough cars park on street. It is very difficult to find a parking space during the night. Anyway, from the research I did online, I learned that Flushing is not only the second largest Chinatown here in NYC, it actually dominates the north central Queens of New York. It is also the biggest urban center in the borough, and the growing heart of Chinese and Korean communities.

First Baptist Church, Flushing

Yesterday I was wondering along on Sanford Avenue I saw this church that I will pass by it almost everyday and never really paid much attention to it. Since from the appearance of that church looked so old it was not hard to guess that it built in a very old time period. And from my research it actually had been there for more than 100 years, isn't that impressive? I was thinking maybe it was built during the 1900, but never thought this old church was built in 1980. My god, it is even older than the age of both of my parents age adds up together.

The church is not big; it is a smaller size church. Like most of the churches here, it has pointing roof for every single one of its body structure. So are the windows, they are just very classic style of western church window. As you can see in the picture, the whole body part of the church is build with common bricks. The pointing roofs are instructed with black tile. And as I researched online: "First Baptist Church is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic urban body of Evangelical Christians committed to worship, fellowship, discipleship, social justice, mercy, and sharing the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ." Unfortunatly I couldn't go inside there since the church was locked up. maybe next time, I really would like to see how they designed the interior of it. Because most of the official church's inside are just so beautiful. Even you can't see any thing from the apperance of the church. Here is a brief history that I found online of this church:

"Geographic Profile

First Baptist is located in what may be the most religiously diverse neighborhood in the world. The church is located on the corner of Sanford Avenue and Union Street in Flushing, NY. Within a forty block radius there are multiple Mosques, Hindu Temples, Jewish Synagogues, Sikh Temples, and Buddhist Temples. The New York Times ran an architectural review on the $3.2 million dollar Mosque construction on the corner of Kissena Boulevard and Geranium Avenue.

Flushing has a rich history of religious inclusion dating back to the 1647 Flushing Remonstrance. This document drafted by local residents freed John Bowne, a practicing Quaker, from prison on the grounds of religious freedom of expression. Flushing was also the site of early anti-slavery activity in the 18th century.

In 1964 Flushing hosted the World's Fair. The whole world came to Flushing and the whole world stayed. During the 1980's Flushing's population went from 10% Asian to 50% Asian in seven years. Today immigrants occupy 70% of all available housing. The median income for the 11355 zip code area, of which the church is a part, was $33,000 at the time of the 1990 Census.

The Church is surrounded by many institutions in a dynamic neighborhood. Across the street from the church is Public School 20 for elementary students. Nearby, the Flushing Branch of the Queensborough Public Library has the highest rate of book loaning in the city. The Church shares parking facilities with the Franklin Nursing Home. A few blocks away is Main Street, a thriving economic center which has become a second Chinatown in New York City."

Source:
First Baptist Church of Flushing. Who We are. 2008
<http://www.fbcflushing.org/docs/who.html>

Chater 9

The title of Chapter 9 is The Need of Small Blocks. So in general, Jane Jacobs talks about how this idea works and gives several examples that exist in New York City. She believes that short blocks have much more advantages than long, super blocks. First she wrote about how inconvenience for people live in the area of Columbus Avenue and Eighty Ninth Street in Manhattan. Since there are long blocks all over that place. The author said: “In this neighborhood there is geographically so little street frontage on which commerce can live, that it must all be consolidated, regardless of its type or the scale of support it needs or the scale of convenience that natural to it.” And after this she also gives good examples short blocks like the one constructed in Rockefeller Center. During these paragraphs, author talks about the importance of the extra street across the Rockefeller Center between Fifth and Sixth Avenue. In her opinion without this street the Rockefeller Center will no longer be the center of economic and everything else in that area. Most importantly as successful block planning must be short and convenient for people to use.

School on Sanford Ave

This is a Korean Church School, which located on Sanford Ave. and 147th St. It just two blocks from where live. Since it is so obvious and so close to my house, I decide to write about this place. In the picture you could see it is very nice day sunshine all over the place. Unlike other buildings around it, the building seems unspeakable large and new in this whole area. There is this big basketball field just right on the side of it. The building designed with a very modern style. And I really like the color, just makes people feel so peace and full of youth spirits.

Without going in to the school I could already know that this structure was constructed after 1950, no more than fifty years. First of all from the outside of the building it already looks new and clean. After I asked one of the stuff works in the school, I learned that this building of the school was built in the late 80th. It is really not hard to tell in the first place. And the students going to the school are mostly Asian kids. Since it is a Korean high school, we can easily guess that most of the children here are from Korean or American born Koreans.

Chapter 7 & Chapter 8

From Chapter 7 and 8, we could tell from the author's point that the existing of diversity is very important to the part of big city planning. At the end of chapter 7, Jacobs generate four indispensable conditions that exuberant diversity in a city’s streets and districts. And according to her, “the necessity for these four conditions is the most important point this book has to make.”(p151) Chapter 8, as it titled, basically it gives many detail information and explanations about how important the need for the mixed primary uses. The author talks about this idea from many aspects, such as: time, space, people and etc. As it just begins, she said: “On successful city streets, people must appear at different times.” And in this long chapter, the author also gives different examples about how the mixed uses function in different situation. One other main point the author wants to tell us is primary use mixtures must be effective if they are to generate diversity. Then she talks about how to combine all the condition together in order to make them effective to the diversity.

Historical Component I: Waldheim, FLushing

"Forgotten NY Neighborhood."Flushing, Queens.11 April. 2002. 2008.
Forgotten NY.< http://www.forgotten-ny.com.>Path: STREET

SCENES; flushing;flushingremnants.

It is really such a miracle; I never know that the area I live actually have a name until I did this assignment, and looked at this website above. Before when people ask me where I live, it is always very difficult for me to explain to them. Maybe Flushing just has too many streets and Avenues. When I told people that I live on 147th Street and Beech Avenue that close to Sanford Avenue, it seemed always so hard for them to recognize this place. Anyway, finally I can tell them loudly that I live in Waldheim, Flushing. Although people may still never heard about this place. Still, it has an official name now for them to remember. Well I don't know why don't people use this name so often anymore lately, but the name actually exists according to my research.

" Today, Waldheim stretches between Franklin Avenue on the north, 45th Avenue on the south, Bowne Street on the west and Parsons Boulevard on the east." This webpage gives a detail information about the neighborhood that I live.

"Queens, NY."Flushing, Queens - Info on Flushing, a Pulsing Center of Queens, NY. 2008.
About.com.< http://queens.about.com>
Path: Flushing;Queens Info on Flushing;a Pulsing Center of Queens;NY

From this website I found may useful link about Flushing, such as: Queens: history, economics demographics, photos, famous spots, restaurant, etc. Almost anything about Flushing you can find it here. Even information about job finding and housings, it is really a great website to explore and learning.

"Flushing is the biggest urban center in Queens, and home of the largest Chinatown in New York City. Learn about its real estate, history, and restaurants through these articles and photographs" Chinatown is one of the most important identity about Flushing. It is hard to find anything about Flushing with out typing this word.

Something about my Neighborhood

Sidewalks

My friend and I rent a two room apartment that locates on 147th Street and Beech Street in Flushing, Queens, New York City. I know, recently I was talking about how bad is my neighborhood and how I dislike about it. But after I look at the pictures I took around my neighborhood today, I was thinking maybe it is just because of the winter. I really don’t like the winter in New York City, too much snow, wind and darkness. It makes everything looks so miserable, the sky is always dark and low. Trashes are everywhere blew by the wind. Some of them got on the trees and stayed there, even the trees are already looking bad enough with no leaves.

Maybe all those bad feelings about my neighborhood are just all cause by this bad season that I never really liked before. However, I almost forget how this place uses to look like in the spring, summer and autumn. Everything will be so nice when those times come. There will be beautiful flowers and plants grow in my neighbor’s front yard. I guess I have a neighbor is big fan about growing plants. Because in his/her front yard, you can always see all kinds of flowers, trees and other plants that I can’t even call out their names. It is just like a small forest when look in their yard from the outside. Well it is always a pleasant thing to do.

There are also many big trees around my neighborhood. Some of them grew on both sides of the sidewalks, which I like a lot. Trees have so many functions to our nature and environment in many good ways as we all know. Especially trees are very important to big cities like New York. They are natural air purifier that could take away all kinds of dirt and pollutions. Beside that, one thing I like about trees the most is that they reduces the UV ray from the sun. So I think they have done something big to prevent people from getting skin cancer by doing that. And that is one thing I really like about my sidewalks here around my house. By the fall, the leaves on trees will turn to gold, yellow or red. With a quiet environment like this place I live, everywhere is just too beautiful to look at. Oh I really those days.

Unfortunately in this bad weather everything looks different. The streets are big and empty. And the construction of a building that is two blocks away, they blocked one block of sidewalk for us to walk. That really makes me feel bad and nervous every time when I have to walk on the street with the cars are coming toward me from all directions. =_=

Front yard of the house I live.

The sidewalk

HW #1 Summary of Chapter Three

Chapter 3, The uses of sidewalks: Contact

After reading this chapter, I found out many new things about our city that I have never think about and notice before. That's probably because it's still not long enough for me to live in this great city.

Well, in this chapter, mostly the author is talking about how the city sidewalks involves in citizen's neighborhood and social life. She argued that a good planned sidewalk can bring the people in the city much close with “togetherness” relationships with each other. So, the sidewalks should not only provide us safety, more importantly it should have the function of getting a good contacts and connections with everyone in the neighborhood.
"Sidewalk public contact and sidewalk public safety, taken together, bear directly on our country's most serious social problem--segregation and racial discrimination."
Also, in this chapter, the author gives example about those big metropolises with unplanned city residential areas that lack neighborhood commerce and sidewalk life, such as Los Angeles.
"Los Angeles is an extreme example of a metropolis with little public life, depending mainly instead on contacts of a more private social nature."
She also talked about how cities' people like Los Angeles have contacts with their neighbors.
"When an area of a city lacks a sidewalk life, the people of the place must enlarge their private lives if they are to have anything approaching equivalent contact with their neighbors.

Summary of the Introduction

Introduction of the Death and Life of Great American Cites.

This part of the book basically narrowed down ways, conditions and importance of how people should plan or learn to plan our city in the correct directions. From many places we could tell author's main point.

(pg. 16)"...I hope these faults will be quickly corrected. The point is, we need desperately to learn and to apply much knowledge that is true and useful about cities as fast as possible."
The author informed us here that everybody is involving in the city planning; we all need to learn things and give them all to the city for building a better home for all of us.

(Pg. 14)"The look of things and the way they work are inextricably bound together, and in no place more so than cities. But people who are interested only in how a city "ought" to look and un-interested in how it works will be disappointed by this book"
We could clearly see author's main idea about this book from this part of reading. In now days, modern people most likely take for granted of always choosing those things only have a pretty outfit. And never really consider about whether the thing will work or not. After we found out the truth, it is already too late.

So, in the introduction of this book, the author tries to warn people about the importance of city planning in many different ways and aspects. And I am sure we will see lots Inadequate and shortcomings about our luxury New York City in the near future by reading this book.

HW #1, forgotten NY

Haha, almost forget I have English homework, anyway I am doing this last minute thing for a long time, you know it is just so hard to get rid off those bad habits.

Well, the first thing that captured my eyes when I got into that website is this link on the top part: YOU'D NEVER BELIEVE YOU'RE IN NYC．"Sheep and goats in Queens? Waterfalls in the Bronx? Homes on stilts? They can all be found in the five boroughs. This page will point you in the right direction to find scenes you'd think you'd never see in New York City." After reading this paragraph, it is pretty clear that this website is basically talking about stuff in New York City that people have been ignored, destroyed or forgot in a very long time, at least to me, it sounds like that. From exploring the site, I learned that New York City is not only about big and luxury buildings, there are many other things that even don't have much to do with a city are involved in this economic center of the US. Such as: Rock around the Rockpile at Mount Loretto, The House of No Return in Staten Island, The Guns of Queens, Inwood in the Woods which being described as Manhattan's last swatch of primeval forest(oh, that's interesting), Lemon Creek that runs through New York City Streets and many other things like those. By putting all those photos and interesting stories, the website itself tries to show something different to people about New York City from the one we used to think we know so well, but actually it is not really the whole truth. Anyway, I think the website of Forgotten NY is a very meaningful and interesting place to visit. It is not only introducing new stuff to us it is also bringing people’s attention back on some really serious issues of New York City that need to be working on with everyone’s heart.

Although I think that there are things that this website can do better, such as make it a little bit more organized. At the beginning when I got in there, it really made confusing somehow. There are just too many information in there, I didn't know what to look for.

(I don't understand why this picture is not show up, maybe because of the website blocked certain things from the outside)

On this topographical map section of Staten Island circa 1900, you can see Palmer's Run in the center, just under the first "L" in Kill.

"On this page we'll concern ourselves mostly with Palmer's Run which, as you can see on the map, has a number of branches. Of particular interest is the one that runs alongside Watchogue Road and Victory Boulevard (both very old Staten Island roads that go back to Colonial times. Prior to 1918 Victory Blvd. was known as Richmond Turnpike and, as its name implies, it was originally a toll road. It was renamed in honor of the armistice ending World War I). Palmer's Run, as well as Clove Brook, were harnessed for the mill industry in the 1800s but, as houses replaced farms and mills, the brooks were mostly sunk underground. With some exceptions..."

This picture are just for testing. Chongqing, the city that where I come from. See, their URL works just fine.

January 31, 2008

This is my first time using Blogger, it is really hard to find a nice name for this blog since it has to be something related to my neighborhood. Because there is really nothing to talk about of where I live. Anyway, I named my blog Flushing Forest because I live in Flushing, on Sanford Avenue&147th St, be exact. And it is really opposite to the reality. This place I live has nothing to do with a forest. There are people, cars, trashes...etc. everywhere. And I don't really like the place I live that much, nothing to do with the house and the environment, it is just too far from everywhere, the school and the subways. Hopefully I will find a better place to move out when the weather gets a little warmer. Ok, pray for me on that one.