Activity #3 Public vs. Private

Activity #3 Public vs. Private

Rosedelle A Chery

Manhattan is probably the most well known borough in New York and the rest of the country. It is always bustling with people, cars, buses and, its one of the main reasons why New York City is called the city that never sleeps. However, in such a big borough with massive amounts of people, there really aren’t many truly public places, in my opinion. To me a public place is somewhere that anyone can go into no matter who they are or the time. I decided to walk down the 68^th and 3^rdave to about 58^th and 3^rdave on a Tuesday and Saturday afternoon to see if there any public gathering places or was it all private areas. The weather on both of these days was pretty nice, and the amount of people on the streets was much more on Saturday then on Tuesday. 3^rdave is one of the many major retail areas in New York city so I wasn’t so optimistic about my chances of finding public gathering places or many city own public places, besides the streets and sidewalks. As I walked down the streets, there were many stores, which were all privately owned. Through stores, like starbucks and shopping centers are supposed to be open to the public, they are privately owned and I would assume if the store owner or manager didn’t want a certain person in the store than they could refuse their business. Of course I’m not saying they can discriminate based on race or sex, but if the manager or owners knows that you have stolen from the store then they can surly refuse your business.

For a public area, I was looking for an open non gated place, anywhere that looked free and owned by the city. Granted even city owned places aren’t really public because, even though tax payers are footing the bill, the city can set up rules and require permits for a certain number of people to occupy that space for a certain time or reason. When I reached 62^nd and 3^rdave, a pigeon flew passed me, a little too close for comfort, right into this little sitting area. It looked like park or green area. I didn’t see any signs of ownership, but I didn’t see any people there. However, there were a lot of pigeons that landed there. I assumed that it was a public area because there were no guards or gates blocking the entrance, or any signs permitting entrance, it was just there and open. I think that there weren’t any people there because of the massive amount of dirty pigeons that was there. I asked people walking pass if they knew what the named of this place was or who it belonged to but no one knew. Still, I was happy I found a seemingly public place, and it was a cute little area. In the process of trying to get a picture, I walked into the street because I am deathly terrified of pigeons and there was no way I was going to get close to them. However, I almost got hit by a truck, so that wasn’t my best idea.

The only other places that were public were in areas in front of stores, where people were standing or smoking. It wasn’t directly in front of the door of the stores, but it was either to the side of or to a few feet in front on the sidewalk. On this journey, I came across 2 homeless men sitting across the street from Bloomingdales, near the train station and trucking area on 59^th and 3^rd. Since they weren’t sitting in front of any stores and no one was telling them that they had to leave, I assumed that they were sitting on public property. I know that if that area was owned by Bloomingdales or another store, they wouldn’t let these homeless men loiter in front of a privately owned area. The line between public and private really is blurred in the city. Even if an area is being paid for by tax dollars, we don’t really own it, city officials do and they make loitering and permit rules to assert control. Then there are places in which the public can enter but at the end of the day someone privately owns it. So nothing is truly public and free from control anymore.