As my final day here at The Loisaida Center draws to a close, it feels a bit ironic to be submitting my final assignment on time. While I still need to add my final edits to the newsletter that will be the culmination of my work here at the center, and therefore know that my…
An Interview with More Gardens’ Aresh Javadi
This past Thursday, August 16th, I sat down to speak with More Gardens’ co-founder Aresh Javadi about the group’s summer residency at The Loisaida Center, their proposed EcoVillage that they hope to build in upstate New York, and how he developed a passion for protecting community gardens. Aresh has a fascinating life story: having been…
Trouble at NYCHA
Loisaida is home to four New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) locations: Jacob Riis, located at 454 E 10th St; Jacob Riis II, located at 54 Avenue D; Lillian Wald, located at 54 Avenue D; and Lower East Side III, located at 722 E 9th St, half a block away from The Loisaida Center. NYCHA…
An Interactive Map of Loisaida
Below you will find a map, created through Google Maps, that demonstrates the neighborhood boundaries of Loisaida and highlights local cultural centers and organizations, affordable housing sites, service organizations, churches, community gardens, and cultural landmarks. These sites were chosen via my discretion, and brief summaries can be obtained by clicking on the pins.
The Loisaida Center and David Harvey’s “A Right to the City”: How Art is Gentrified
Perhaps the most interesting way to examine Loisaida Inc.’s relationship to David Harvey’s concept of right to the city is by comparing their contemporary role in the neighborhood to the one they have played in the past. The evolution of the organization from primarily service oriented to primarily arts and culture focused parallels the way…
An [Outdated] Research Outline
I would like to utilize this week’s assignment as an opportunity to establish a flexible structure that I would like the remainder of my fellowship research to loosely follow. Since I was not able to revisit with Loisaida’s program director this week, after realizing that a change in direction of my research might be necessary…
Loisaida Inc.: Blending Service with Culture
In her book Bargaining for Brooklyn: Community Organizations in the Entrepreneurial City, sociologist Nicole Marwell explains: “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…
Research Sources
As I continue to dive further into the history of Loisaida, I have become captivated with its community gardens. The gardens, which can be found on nearly every other block, are the fruitful product of a dark past- the lots they occupy are of buildings that were abandoned and burnt down by landlords during the…
A Brief History of Loisaida
Throughout my first two weeks here at the Loisaida Center, I have spent several hours poring over their archive of the monthly newsletter “The Quality of Life in Loisaida,” which ran from March, 1978 to December 1982. This newsletter, which was founded in part by the legendary Margaret Mead, contained essential tips, political updates, and…
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