Over these past ten weeks, my research interests in African American history and culture were re-affirmed. Seeing the voids in history has made me aware of what I want to see more of: black culture and history. While I was not able to interview Erika Hart, a participant in the Illness and Identity exhibit showcased…
Urban Practice Fellowship Mapping Project
*My Google Map chronicling the Place Matters sites and boroughs I have visited during this fellowships.* For my storytelling project with City Lore, I had a lot of freedom as to which Place Matters sites I chose to research and interview at. The first one was The Bronx Music Heritage Center (BMHC), next was the…
The National Black Theatre as an Archive
As I think about the National Black Theatre, Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleurs” (1970) comes to mind: This song is reflective of similar black art sensibilities that are pervasive throughout the National Black Theatre; it is celebratory and freeing. This song reflects a newfound black joy, along with other forms of expressions, that came out of the Black Power…
Historical Context of The Apollo
For the past two weeks, I was studying the history of the Apollo theater and Harlem. The sources I used were newspaper articles, scholarly articles, and the Apollo Theater official website. I have learned that prior to The Apollo Theater we know today, there was its predecessor, Apollo Burlesque. This venue placed a variety of…
Definition of a “field”: Thoughts on City Lore, cultural preservation, and community-organization relations
“Sociologists who study organizations sometimes use the term ‘field’ to describe a set of organizations linked together as competitors and collaborators within a social space devoted to a particular type of action — such as a market for certain products, the pursuit of urban development, or the realm of electoral politics. Agreements struck among the…
Response to David Harvey’s “Right to the City”
“Urbanization, we may conclude, has played a crucial role in the absorption of capital surpluses, at ever increasing geographical scales, but at the price of burgeoning processes of creative destruction that have dispossessed the masses of any right to the city whatsoever….The urban and peri-urban social movements of opposition, of which there are many around…
Oral History Article Structure: Balancing Interview Content and Academic Research
Going into my work at City Lore, I underestimated the academic research aspect of my project. I perceived my project to be largely based on oral history through the information collected in interviews. Once I was made aware of the strong academic research component, I dug back into my own personal history, a history that…
From South Bronx to Washington Heights: Interviewing for City Lore’s Place Matters
From South Bronx to Washington Heights: Interviewing for City Lore’s Place Matters While the first two weeks were about researching and getting accustomed to City Lore, the third and fourth weeks were when the action happened: I interviewed my first two sites for Place Matters. As described in the previous post, the first site was the Bronx…
Inteview with Bobby Sanabria from Bronx Music Heritage Center (BMHC)
Behind The Scenes The Bronx Music Heritage Center As I was taking an Insta-story right outside of the Bronx Music Heritage Center (BMHC), my interviewee Bobby Sanabria caught me in the act. Bobby is Co-Artistic Director of Bronx Music Heritage Center alongside Elena Martinez. After I briefly laughed off that slightly awkward moment, we entered…
Who Am I? Thoughts on Race, Gender, and Sexuality Part 2
Greetings! My name is Imani and I am a black African American middle class woman in a state of questioning. I am apprehensive of labeling myself, since I view sexual orientation as fluid. As a Gallatin grad student, I highlight the importance of cultural preservation through storytelling. Storytelling takes on many different forms, from advertising to folklore. I…
