How has gentrification impacted old-time residents of lower east side?

The definition of gentrification is the restoration and upgrading of deteriorating urban properties. This is usually done by middle class or affluent people, which would displace lower income citizens. As stated in the American Heritage Dictionary on answers.com. This is effecting the Lower East Side by tearing down establishments that the residents in the area love, also ruining historical buildings and destroying architectural details. The LES is known for being the first home to immigrants since the 1800s. Gentrification is wiping away collective memories of many immigrants. This community has little protection on its buildings, especially the important ones. (Here).
 

A strip of storefronts in downtown Mansfield was torn down on Monday, Dec.12. The main reasons these places were torn down was the lack of public parking, lack of tenants for the local mall and according to the director of Clemmey Development Company, Mr. Clemmey says it was "too cost prohibitive to keep". To me this makes no sense to tear down places for these petty reasons. LES residents, mostly kids or growing adolescense, are being effected emotionally. I too as a resident of the LES share their simpathy because the places/stores they grow up going to as a child is something to cherish throughout their lives. For these places to be torn down right in front of our eyes is just terrible. Childhood memories is the biggest most important thing in life. For them to be erased from our neighborhood would be tragic.

Research Blog

The Lower East Side, located around the south eastern part of Manhattan. For years immigrants have traveled to New York mostly to Manhattans eastern side. In the past 12 years the LES have gone through drastic changes as more people started to make homes for themselves in the neighborhood. Gentrification is the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating area that often displaces poorer residents. The New york times in 2008 stated that the Lower East Side was the most endangered places in America. Through interviews with tenants, business owners and community organizers, this would explore the struggles lower and middle class residents face. Fight for Survival is going to be a film that explores the neighborhood history and the current efforts of locals to preserve the neighborhoods rich immigrant history.

This topic means a lot to me because gentrification focuses on the changes in the economy, putting businesses out of business to put new store fronts or a new building. Growing up in the LES I visited plenty of old establishments and bodegas. I always went to the store with a bunch of friends when I hungry or just wanted to hang out. To see that my childhood is just washing away with a stroke of a pen makes me feel like in life I'm going to lose everything sooner or later. Now there are only a few establishments open that I enjoy going to, but I feel is going to be torn down some day. This topic is very interesting because when companies tear down establishments, where do they go? Where do the workers go? It concerns me that its that easy to rid of store, restaurants, and shopping areas.

Research questions:

• Where do the establishments go after torn down?
• How has gentrification impacted old-time residents of the Lower East side?

 Katz has been around for about 120 years and counting. It all started and became to be back in 1888, when a Russian immigrant family established a delicatessen in the Lower East Side. Long before smoking, pickling and refrigeration was invented to preserve food. Katz has a reputation for recreating the flavors of the old world. Food carts helped spread food ideas.

Food carts were made and used within the lower east side for the past 200+ years. The food cart is a mobile kitchen that sells common street food to the local pedestrians. It's usually located in highly populated areas, selling a wide range variety of different foods.This is an easy way to spread your business throughout a city, giving everyone a taste of what you believe is the good life.

Film Blog

 My film will be based on gentrification in the Lower East Side. Over the years, the LES has big changes as more affluent New Yorkers make a home for themselves in the neighborhood. Fight for Survival is about the struggle of middle and lower class families in the Lower East Side to adjust to socioeconomic changes in the Lower East Side. Through interviews with long-time business owners, like coffee shops and restaurants and l also by passers from the area. We will see how people cope with and try to fight ethnic and economic changes in the neighborhood. 
So far my group and I accomplished a few things. So far the film proposal pages are complete, followed by two recorded and scheduled interviews with L.E.S. establishments. Building a website for our film was completed. In addition to completed 10-25 tweets for each team member. Established B-roll shots have been taken and uploaded. Every piece of footage that has been recorded was uploaded to iMovie.  Lastly we've accomplished setting up meetings for all the people being interviewed in our documentary.
The things we need to do now are make accounts such as Facebook and Tumblr for our film. There is some work teammates have to do independently such as film blogs on there media storm blogspot and photo essays for their project. We need to complete the last interview with another L.E.S. establishment. In addition to editing any footage we've gathered over the week. Lastly we need to promote our film to the public eye.
  
 

Recently I have participated in an Imovie workshop led by kwan. I've started to build a film with a classmate by the name of Lisselotte from Goonies productions. It is real easy to edit films, but at the same time it takes a lot of patience and time. Editing a film thats around 15min should be very challenging. I'm looking forward to it. Enjoy the video!

The Cinematography Workshop

A family is determined to give their disabled son a whole and vital life. In the midst of a great burden, one small child – with a seemingly endless supply of love – is the blessing that holds a family together. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/training/a-thousand-more

 I attended a Cinematography Workshop led by Ariana Allensworth. Cinematography is the choices one makes when filming.  We watched clips from Michael Moore's films who is a documentary filmmaker.  He made the films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko.  This workshop introduced to me the basic tools for film making.  Basic tools such as close shots, wide shots, b roll shots and also a few different types of film angles.

I would best describe my own style when it comes to film making would be having plenty B Roll while showing different types of picture or video footage.  I would either use audio such as music when performing a B Roll or bits and pieces of an interview. Another shot I enjoy including when recording an interview is a mid close up or in other words a body shot. The reason I use this is I feel like in order to catch the true emotion that is being conveyed, you need to catch their body language. I believe the way they move while talking expresses how they feel when speaking about the subject. Also, close ups on the face, which is good catching one's facial expressions. These techniques could work great in a documentary.

To Be Heard

The film To Be Heard was a documentary made by 3 teachers. They focused the documentary on 3 students within their spoken word poetry class. The film pretty much showed how the 3 students were close to eachother, and used poetry to speak about their lives and helped them express themseleves with this form of writing. They aimed their writing to do bigger and better things, trying to go to college. The english teachers that built this film wanted people to know that you can use your language to fight and these words could be your weapons. Words could only take you so far, let it be your guide to success and never give up. Its your decision on which road you want to take, but always have that mentality to stay on the right track.