It is a Tuesday night in San Marcos Texas, it is a bit chilly outside as I walk up and down the square looking for a section of bars I can observe. As I walked East on Hopkins street I stumbled upon two bars, Harpers Brick Oven Sports Pub and The Porch. Both bars were packed with what looked like a mix of native San Marcos residents, and college students. These two bars shed light on what the square is; a welcoming place with a carefree atmosphere for all people who call San Marcos home to enjoy. While I walked down East Hopkins street on Tuesday night and neared The porch, I took note of how diverse the crowd was, both inside and outside of the bar. As I stood outside of The Porch I overheard two older gentlemen talking about work, one gentlemen mentioned how he could not wait to retire in the coming months, and that his age is catching up with him. As I stood on the sidewalk peering into the bar an older gentleman named Ron approached me and offered me a cigarette, I respectfully declined his offer and informed him that I was making observations for an English paper I have to write over public spaces. Ron told me that I had come to the best place in San Marcos to see the interaction of locals and college students. Inside of The Porch at the bar, I witnessed college aged students …show more content…
The streets were full of cars trying to find parking, as well as sidewalks packed full of people dressed in Halloween costumes ready to have a fun Saturday night. As I got up to The Porch I saw a very different scene than that of Tuesday night, the bar was packed full of people ordering drinks. The outside porch was buzzing with different conversations being carried out, I caught a few words from one group of party goers saying “bottoms up” as they all took a shot of what looked like a dark brown
Roll the windows down, turn the music up, and drive slowly. Now you're cruising. Cruising is the art of seeing and being seen, and in Tucson the center of this art is Speedway Boulevard. This six-lane street runs east to west through Tucson and is one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city. It hosts a mix of commercial and private buildings: small shops, offices, restaurants, grocery stores, apartment buildings and older homes, as well as the University of Arizona. Despite the apartments and occasional houses, Speedway is mostly a commercial street populated with strip malls and other businesses. Cruising is most visible along the more commercial, business-oriented East Speedway, which for the purposes of this essay is defined as the three mile stretch of road from Alvernon to Wilmot. Like most streets, Speedway was built for an entirely practical reason: to conduct automobile traffic from one place to another with a minimum of waiting. This utilitarian reason is inverted by cruising. The purpose of cruising, unlike driving, is not to arrive but to not arrive. Cruising is a social activity wherein the cars become tools for meeting other people as well as a means of getting from one place to another. The reputation of cruising, and of the nighttime Speedway, is not nearly so benign. As traffic slows and the music increases, the character of Speedway as a place - that is, a focus for human memory and experience - changes to reflect the activities and desires of the cruisers.
The Pilsen Neighborhood is located Lower West Side of Chicago, extending approximately from Western Avenue and Blue Island Avenue to Sixteenth Street and Canal Street. (Pero.) Today Pilsen has transformed into a colorful, artistic, and beautiful community with the population majority shifted towards the Hispanic. Over the course of these years Pilsen has gone through many changes ranging from cultural to economic and societal changes that have shaped into its present day form. Pilsen’s residents have resisted attempts to gentrify their neighborhood, and have preserved the community as a gateway for Hispanic immigrants.
Echo Park, one of Los Angeles’s most well-known neighborhoods, was once associated with gang violence in the 80’s and 90’s. The crime rate in the area was to the point that many people would not dare being caught walking out after dark. Nowadays, people do not fear walking in the streets of Echo Park after dark. This new sense of safety in Echo park can be contributed to its nightlife scene characterized by Indie music venues and trendy bars. You may ask yourself how this change came about?
When being combined, these interactions altogether release certain essential social force that pushes the sidewalk subculture to a more concrete state, in which less men choose to give up and to be drawn into the "fuck it!" mental state. And as the author pointed out at the conclusion, "the people working on Sixth Avenue are persevering. They are trying not to give up hope. We should honor them." (317)
The sidewalk is a social structure for the people who work and live in it. They are mentors for each other. They play the same role of self-direction and psychological fulfillment of a formal job or family for example; where the society is shrunken on that one sidewalk. They form an informal social organization and social control so they can survive against the outer social system; meanwhile, this social organization organizes property rights and division of labor. Although their life seems deviant, they still practice conventional social practices and norms. Although it might seem that these men are engaged in random behavior, yet there is an organized interaction of norms and goals, and a shared collective self-consciousness from having a shared common history.
Peering in from the eastern border of St. James Park, in the city of San José, you begin to get an essence of American life. From the upper echelons, to the lowly scum of society, St. James Park is known for its diversity. With the church at your back, you can observe the people pacing the station, glancing at their cell phones every other second as they wait for the train to arrive. An elderly man takes a leisurely stroll with the support of his cane. Kids playing soccer score between goal post marked by homeless bunker tree forts. Police reprimand a vagrant man for being naked while changing at his park bench. A used dirty tissue and old worn-in hooker boots lay carelessly on a picnic table inside the deserted playground area. The thugs make a quick score of some coke from their local street pharmacist. In the distance, bordering the western end of the park, are the steps leading to the Superior Court House: an everlasting symbol of justice and security presiding over American life. The frequenters of St. James Park are a part of a unique and complex subculture, in and of itself.
Entering the Courtyard Residence I had some presumptions of what we would experience with the older generations. As a result of my own experiences being part of a family composed of two different ethnic groups (white and Mexican), I have experienced many awkward moments with the older generations on my Father's side of the family who slip with racist remarks. Because of this, I had a hunch that we might encounter these moments at the Courtyard residence as well. That being said, it became an interest of mine to research the different ethnic groups who have migrated to Portland and find out what their perception of this city is. Although we may be called the most liberal and accepting city in the United States, I have often felt that this is not so in terms of being socially accepting as much as environmentally accepting.
As illustrated here, San Rafael can be seen as a study in contrasts, within its environment, the political beliefs of its citizens, and in the racial and economic breakdown of these citizens. I learned from Paul that San Rafael was much more than I had originally thought. I quickly discovered that it was not, in fact, the pretty little town that existed solely to feed the two large malls it contained, but in fact has its own charms and dirty little secrets. Just like every town across America, it is not exactly what it seems.
Duffy, John. "Occupy Austin.”. The Austin Chronicle, 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 21 July 2014. .
There are about twenty lots in our neighborhood; all consist of close to three and a half acres. Most of the lots have houses now, all of them are big and well kept; a perfect place to raise an upper-middle class family. Just outside of Richmond, the Boscobel neighborhood gives individuals a constant taste of the southern country air, a place to grow a garden, to sit out on the porch at night and look at the stars.… The neighbors are kind as they greet one another in passing. Families come together for picnics and cook-outs and mothers go on walks together with their dogs while the kids are in school. The kids of the neighborhood love to play by the creek in the back yard. They build forts and huts, find pretend food and crayfish in the creek, and play hide-and-seek in the woods beyond the creek. It is the peaceful, everyday life in the Boscobel neighborhood.
I glanced around the dimly lit dining room of our neighborhood Jack-In-The-Box at the collection of adolescent girls and boys gossiping about their absent friends, urban families enjoying their weekly treat of chicken fingers with exotic dipping sauces, and a teenage employee attempting to grasp a carpet sweeper with her fry-greased hands. As each of their gazes wandered the room curiously observing the quaint surroundings, their eyes conveniently skipped over the socially unacceptable figure in the corner, but I saw him clearly.
You know, sometimes being judged by your cover, isn't a bad thing. I don't let anyone know who I am, everyone knows my cover, but that's it. We all have something to be sad about, something to cry for. But how often do we think about that? We don't, when was the last time you looked at someone, and asked yourself, I wonder if life is more than a smile, I wonder if his life is hard? We don't, we just look at people and assume that they are happy, or sad.
I’m going to start out with the place I’ve lived my whole life Gresham, Oregon. It’s a pretty good thing having lived Gresham my whole life. Everything is super close like parks, stores, and schools. It was the best to grow up in opinion I got to see some stuff I should avoid and got to meet people that were helpful in my life. Also a plus of living in a smaller city is if you meet one person when you go to the park you will most likely see them another time. I have friends I played basketball with at Highland one year ago and still play against them to this day. There's a community more in Gresham, I think no one's afraid to talk to each other or ask for help and if someone needs help they won’t shrug them off. That’s one thing I don’t really see if other places everyone else has their own agenda and that doesn’t include knowing your neighbors. That’s insane, but it makes me happy that Gresham has friendly people unlike other cities. Maybe some of that is to do with schooling which is the next thing I want to talk about.
The essay; ”Living with strangers,” written by Siri Hustvedt deals with the attitude of urban living in New York City. There are many different rules of living between the country side and the city and there exist many unspoken rules in all cultures and societies. Siri Hustvedt tells us that she grew up in the country side rural Minnesota were it was a custom to greet everyone you met or else you could be accused of the worst possible sin, snobbery. Then she moved to New York City in 1978. Here she discovered how unpractical it would be to greet every person she met. Siri quickly learnt the simple survival law of the New Yorkers: Pretend it isn’t happening. The title “Living with strangers” refers to the paradox that we are becoming more isolated while being surrounded by increasingly more people.
Once upon a time, I saw the world like I thought everyone should see it, the way I thought the world should be. I saw a place where there were endless trials, where you could try again and again, to do the things that you really meant to do. But it was Jeffy that changed all of that for me. If you break a pencil in half, no matter how much tape you try to put on it, it'll never be the same pencil again. Second chances were always second chances. No matter what you did the next time, the first time would always be there, and you could never erase that. There were so many pencils that I never meant to break, so many things I wish I had never said, wish I had never done. Most of them were small, little things, things that you could try to glue back together, and that would be good enough. Some of them were different though, when you broke the pencil, the lead inside it fell out, and broke too, so that no matter which way you tried to arrange it, they would never fit together and become whole again. Jeff would have thought so too. For he was the one that made me see what the world really was. He made the world into a fairy tale, but only where your happy endings were what you had to make, what you had to become to write the words, happily ever after. But ever since I was three, I remember wishing I knew what the real story was.