Circle Line Field Trip

• TOURIST
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For me, this trip made my year come to a complete circle. We started the year on a boat tour, and now we are ending it the same way. I took pictures of Ellis Island, Freedom Tower, and Statue of Liberty. They represent the beginning of freedom in New York and in The United States. However, these monuments (if you’d like to call it that), aren’t used in my daily life, which qualify it to be a tourist-like photo. As a tourist, you take the cliched photos with little photography conception also. It’s a way of remembering that thing from your eyes, but still highly recognizable to everyone else you’re showing to.

CITIZEN

The infrastructure of bridges is very important because it connects Manhattan to the surrounding Burroughs and the rest of the state. Without it (and the tunnels of course), commuters would have to travel by ferry, tourists would have less to photograph, runners and cyclists would actually have to go somewhere else to be active, less architects inspired by bridges, and most importantly, there would be little trade of goods and services. Therefore, they are extremely essential for living. Both are made to cross into Brooklyn, so that’s helpful.

The Brooklyn Bridge was made by architects John A. Roebling, Washington Roebling, and David B. Steinman. This design is great because it was the first hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge, and had great structure that the most important was in 2010. The Williamsburg Bridge was made by Leffert L. Buck, and Henry Hornbostel. Originally planned for an interstate as it’s usage, it would never see the day because the interstate got canceled. . They didn’t design it well because “by 1988, more than 200 cables in the suspension had snapped, and pieces of concrete were falling from the bridge. The bridge’s structural integrity was rated as 1.6 out of a scale of 1 to 7. Inspectors were appointed to monitor the bridge’s status and make temporary bridge closures based on the amount of stress placed on the bridge.^[4]The bridge was completely shut down to motor vehicle traffic and subway trains on April 11, 1988, after a painter noticed a large hole in a girder; upon further review, inspectors also discovered severe corrosion in a floor beam.^[5] ”

REFLECTION

• I think it’s great to have this trip because the first one felt alienated. A large mysterious jungle about to enter, but now it’s home. So now I like to take photos of things I haven’t seen before. It changes your mindset of actual design concept and having an individual perspective. Different than being a tourist, it’s a way of remembering that thing from your eyes, but requires questioning of what it may be and why. Granted I didn’t fully embrace the photography mindset I typically do, I still was conscious. With these photos, I like to frame them different than the typical cliched photo. With the bridges, I liked to play with the perspective of being on a boat than on land. And I also liked how the bridge separates the city landscape with the eye with symmetry. I guess I envision hope for the next NYC. It will be a completely different landscape then, but it will still represent a saturated version of America’s values and societal norms. Hopefully, freedom is still highly expressed. Viewing NYC from a boat, it tilts my idea of size. It still feels large and quantitative, but when we loop from the Hudson to the East River and you see the left side of the Empire State building, and then it’s right, it minimizes the scale of Manhattan. It’s interesting how a boat has the power to both intimidate and relate.