NYC with Acadia and Lily

  An article we initially read that sparked our interest for wanting to learn more about the way the culture of NYC has changed was: https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/nyc-is-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher/ . In this article the writer, James Altucher writes that NYC "will not bounce back", and that this "net" that he always used to fall back on will no longer be there for him. We wanted to prove Altucher wrong, and we did. Although the city does have changed and restrictions put into place, it is definitely not dead. Another text we read was a large book on the history of New York. By reading a text that has in depth information about why the city is the way it is, we got an even deeper understanding of the places were were visiting and why.  Through reading articles about the current, and reading books about the past, we made our project that much more important to us.

 Click here to view our Museum of Natural History Vlog!  Museum of Natural History Vlog

 We visited the Museum of Natural History on a cold and rainy day. We walked through a pretty flower garden on the way in and everything had just started blooming. Acadia and I noticed a statue of a man in the garden that neither of us had ever noticed before on prior visits. We talked about how this project has allowed us to notice so many small details in New York City that we had not seen before even though both if us have lived here for a very long time. After reserving a time to come in, they had us pay what we wanted to for admission because we are NYC residents. They took our temperature at the door. The lobby was basically empty except for two staff members. As we walked toward more popular exhibits like the giant whale and room with all the mammals the 'crowds' were a bit larger. I put crowds in air quotes because compared to the normal crowds at the museum, they were much smaller. One exhibit that was fully closed because of covid is the butterfly exhibit. They also d

  Throughout these six weeks our essential question has not changed. We started out wanting to understand how the culture in New York City has changed over the duration of Covid-19. During the 6 weeks of senior project we continued to have that question leading our project.  We expected to learn more about the changes the city has made to adapt to the new restrictions. For example, the Natural History Museum now has time slots that you must sign up for in advance. Generally we spend most of our time in the same area, downtown Manhattan, so branching out, even though there are general regulations throughout the city, we wanted to see what the changes were put in place.  We anticipate this experience affecting us by giving us a new and deeper understanding of the city. Getting to interview people we never would have the chance to, and learning more about the place we have grown up in right before we go to college was really important. I know when we come back from college or even now

 We were very fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with Liz Parks, an art advisor working in the city  and mother to Lily. This interview was one that was very important to us because as we started to realize that we were focusing too much on changes in businesses, and less on changes in culture, we realized that it was necessary that we speak to real NYC citizens who experienced the pandemic.  Liz runs her own art advisory, and for anyone who does not know, that means that she has her own clients who she assists in finding art for their homes. This means that her job involves a lot of traveling to see art fairs and clients, and a lot of visiting local museums. We asked her questions about her job pre-pandemic versus now. "My job in the end didn't change that much, the only difference is that pre-covid I went to art fairs all around the world all the time and those all shut down," Liz explained, but she went on to say that these art fairs are actually beginning to o

 We had the opportunity to visit MOMA, and explore the art there for the day. In the morning, like many of thee other places we have explored, we reserved a time slot to visit. While neither of us are frequent museum goers, we would both agree that MOMA actually did seem fairly crowded compared to how we thought it would be. We spoke to someone working inside who explained how business is picking up and that they can have larger capacities of people visiting as the mayor allows it while cover rates stay very low in NYC. One room that we made sure to visit was the one that holds the Starry Night painting. This room was very crowded, while others with less well known art had no one in them.There did not seem to be limits on capacity per room.  When we got to MOMA, we started on the top floor, and worked our way down. We didn't spend too long in each room, but made sure to read the artist statements of our favorite works of art in each room. Our project is about noticing larger change