Adi Laho, Michael Javier Delgado, and Isaac Warshauer
October 11 — Harlem and surrounding neighborhoods in Upper Manhattan
Here was the premise:
We (Mike, Isaac and myself) were to go out into any street in the general area we so choose and ask for directions to Marcus Garvey Park (Mike’s chosen site from Stranger Experience 01 as we agreed it was the closest and most well known locally… so we thought). We were to get verbal instructions and ask people to draw a map of the way to the area we chose.
It was mid-day on a Sunday. People were a bit more relaxed than any other day of the week. Nonetheless, it was a bit awkward to stakeout and choose who to approach at first… there were too many people to choose from and we were a tiny bit uneasy about our innocent deception. Mike, an East Harlem native, wasn’t sure he could convincingly portray a stranger in his own neighborhood. However, me and Mike were to converse and record while Isaac who had a higher viewpoint naturally, being taller, was to stay back and document the process for this part of our interesting social experiment.
The next part was the most difficult as me and Mike had a very hard time trying to convince everyone, from that point on, that our phones were either dead or not working in 2018, disguise our New York accents as we are both from the city, and that we really got confused by written or verbal direction to cue the visual approach of drawing maps by the direction-giver.
We started at Lexington Avenue and 116th Street. A middle-aged Latino passed by, I stopped him to ask for directions. Why did we stop him? As an older man, we hoped he would have more patience, and he appeared to be a resident of the neighborhood. As it turned out, he took seriously the responsibility of directing us, mentioning all the large parks nearby and telling us to be careful of our safety at Marcus Garvey. “There’s a lot of bad people there. You have to be careful.” An interesting bit of advice but showed concern for our well-being so we took it well and went on.
We asked him to draw a map, but he chose to write out the directions instead.
Next, we walked over to Lenox Avenue and asked a man selling produce (he was easy to ask because he was already interfacing with customers). He didn’t know where the park was and told us to talk to two African-American women setting up a table on the street (possibly to distribute political or community information if my memory serves me right). The younger woman was very friendly and quickly gave us the simple instructions: “up a few streets and over one avenue.” She obliged us with a small map as well.
We then decided to move further away from Marcus Garvey Park for the rest of our investigation as proximity should change the method and type of direction-giving. We kept running into the same problems though:
- People were hesitant to draw and would rather write down directions or emphasize verbally.
- Older people especially preferring this while younger people were a little bit more willing to draw a map than the latter.
- Fighting the urge to walk with kind strangers who would walk or take us in that general direction.
- Avoiding advice to get on a nearby bus or train stations.
We went to 145th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. We hoped to find a police officer in the hope that his/her response would provide a contrast with the guidance we had received from civilians. An MTA employee across the street was the next best thing. To our surprise, he had no idea what Marcus Garvey Park was or where it was. Another problem that we kept facing was the further we went from Harlem, the less people knew the famous park or its name. Most would just give us directions to a nearby park they assumed was the Marcus Garvey, we nodded our heads to not correct them and reveal our lack of ignorance to its location.
One block westward we encountered a group of three people outside of a church: two young African-American women and a young man. People were leaving the church so we thought the service was likely just concluding. We approached this group because it seemed relatively easy to interrupt their casual conversation. They expressed some surprise that we were asking about Marcus Garvey Park — it was far away. They agreed that we should only make the trip on foot if we liked to walk and wanted to take the time. One of the young women wrote us part of a written set of directions and began a map before suggesting that we follow them (they were headed the same direction). We were really happy that first she stared drawing on the paper but then she proceeded to immediately erased her drawing (she might have been embarrassed for some reason or thought we wouldn't understand her sketch). My efforts to make her stop and re-draw instead of write failed. The other young woman walked with us one block west before we feigned a desire to take the subway instead to avoid the long hike.
We walked back to Amsterdam Avenue and entered a nearby clothing store. We asked the clerk for directions but a man in the store overheard us and said that he lived nearby. He volunteered to show us the correct bus. We followed him out of the store and down the block. He repeatedly told us to go to 125th and ask for clarification there. He was in a bit of a hurry, but he was willing to draw us a schematic map of the journey.
This experiment taught us a few interesting things. First, it was clear most people were glad to assist us. Perhaps that might have been different in areas with higher concentrations of tourists. Second, we learned that Marcus Garvey Park, despite its size, is relatively unknown in the city at large or at least the name of the park carries less weight than we thought. This is probably due to the fact anyone further away from the park would not venture that far just to go Marcus Garvey Park (used mostly by Harlem locals) and would rather go to Central Park or Riverside Park for a multitude of reasons. Third, we learned that maps make little sense to people giving directions in Manhattan. Manhattan is conveniently a grid, this guides the natural inclination people have in New York when giving direction to say such things as:
“Go straight two blocks, and make a right… its right there, you can’t miss it”
A common phrase you would hear in direction giving or receiving. Hopefully a foreign tourist knows what a block is.
Parts co-written by group member Isaac Warshauer and revised…
Hacking Urban Experience
GSAPP, Columbia University
