Activity #2

Activity #2
Rosedelle A. Chery
Visit a place someone told you to go
For this activity one of my classmates, Selma, suggested that I visit Arthur Ave. in the Bronx. The only thing she told me about the area was that people called it “Little Italy”. When I asked a friend of mine, who lived in the Bronx, if she ever heard of that area, all she told me was that it always smelt like food. I didn't put all the information together until I actually reached Arthur Ave and I could see what they were talking about. I have never been to the Bronx before, mostly because I always heard about bad things happening over there. Over all, going to new places can be intimidating. I used to brag that I have been to ever part of New York except the Bronx and vowed that I would never go there. This assignment definitely put an end to that, but luckily, I was pleasantly surprised when I reached “Little Italy”.
Though this activity eased my fears about going to the Bronx, it confirmed my thoughts that the train ride from Rockaway Beach, Queens, to the Bronx would be the longest ride I would ever take going from one borough to the next. The bus and train ride took about 2hrs and 35 minutes and I had to transfer between the Q53, the A and the D trains. Thankfully I had a test coming up so I had plenty of reading material for that long ride. When I got to the Bronx at Fordham Road, I realized that it looked a lot like Jamaica Ave. in Queens expect for the fact there was a highway passing along side. I thought this was Arthur Ave at first, but I was told by someone that I had to take another bus. Of course, this was after two people told me Arthur Ave was in the opposite direction. I found a map and realized that I, indeed, had to take another bus. While on the bus, we passed Fordham University and it looked like it was its own little town. Its old style buildings and the plush green yards looked way different from the Fordham Road, which was more urban and mixed with a shopping Center. This illustrated Jane Jacob’s belief in “mixed- development of cities”. Here in one area there were stores, mostly small business and residential buildings, and down the block there was a big university that had a very old Victorian look to it. I think it really does add to the diversity in the Bronx that within this local urban area, there’s a big and different college campus in the center of it all. I think this differs from the schools in Manhattan or in other parts of the city in that there is not really any diversity in the buildings. The schools look the same as the other buildings that surround it and there’s nothing really special about them.
When I finally reached Arthur Ave, I walked down the entire area not really seeing what was there. The only thing that I saw was that, unlike the busy streets of Fordham road, this neighborhood was quite and had more of a homey feeling. As I walked around a second time, I started to see why it was called “Little Italy”. On almost every block there was a pizza shop, an Italian restaurant, or some other kinds of Italian business, with residential buildings and houses, like Fordham Road. However, it lacked diversity. Arthur Ave is a beautiful area with some cobble sidewalks and beautiful stores, but to me, it was sort of bland. I think that Arthur Ave was developed to attract Italian people looking for a place that would make them feeling like they were still in Italy or people looking for an area in the city that had a suburban feel. The Bronx as a whole reflects Jacob’s point of “Cities as Ecosystems”, “Mixed- development of cities” because it is very diverse pertaining to the different communities that are there. However, Arthur Ave seemed like it was its own ecosystem and kind of secluded from the rest of the Bronx. It did seem like the economy of that area was dependent on the local shops and stores that were around there because there wasn't many main major chain stores around. However, Arthur Ave helped give lift my sour expectations of the Bronx and showed me that you really have to go to a place and examine it before you make judgments.