Adventures of Urban Life

desiree b caro
In my area of Castle Hill in the Bronx i noticed a lot of typical sexualized and gendered spaces that are of frequent use. In response to Hayden's comment about good neighborhoods being places of good shopping, transit, schooling as opposed to social services i feel like the best neighborhood offer both. My neighborhood is the perfect example of that. In addition to having many places to shop, schools, and a highly functional transit system Castle Hill avenue offers a good number of places for the working parent to rely on. there are a few after school programs that parents are able to leave their children until about 6 or 7 in the evening. one of them being in the school that i attended and frequently work for (picture included below)
also, there are many laundromats and grocery stores that are open 24 hours. additionally there is at least one urgent care hospital within a mile of my house that is open 24 hours as well. i feel like there is an abundance of resources for working parents because most of the population of my neighborhood is of minority descent, with 2 or more jobs. it is understood that almost everyone in the area works long hours, therefore the businesses that keep their hours longer make a better profit.
Castle hill has a good amount of "male" spaces located relatively close to each other. there are at least 6 barber shops in a 5 block area, all of them are usually full of hispanic men getting shape ups and watching and cat calling women as they walk by. I also believe that liquor stores are "male" spaces. typically men are usually the ones to purchase liquor from those stores and usually are the ones to socialize in the store.
with all the "male" spaces in my neighborhood there are also just as many or even more "female" spaces. There are numerous places to shop for food, clothing, jewelery and many other things. in addition to that there are innumerable hair salons, nail salons, and spas within the area. these are places where women congregate periodically to gossip as well as get taken care of. while both male and female gendered places there are some exceptions. just because these places are gendered does not mean that there are never people of the opposite sex going into those places of business.
in my neighborhood i only noticed one "queer/gay" place and that was this bar called Mi Gente which has a LGBT night once a week. before his assignment i never really even knew that the club had a gay night even though i have been there many times. When i searched for the gay map of new york i found a lot of bars, parties, gyms, and hotels. i wasnt aware that there were gyms and hotels that were directly towards the gay community so i thought that was pretty interesting.
the place in my neighborhood where people are engaging in private activities in public is a park called Angel park. growing up i spent a lot of time in that park and as i got older i became more aware of the private acts being performed in public. the park is relatively small, not more than a block long, and located right next to the cross bronx expressway, but that does not stop people from smoking weed or drinking there. during the day the park usually has a few children, but towards dusk the teenagers overrun it. they come to play basketball but when the sun lowers thats when the smoking and drinking and even sexual activity happens. another private act in public is the graffiti that visible all around my neighborhood. while it is no where near the abundance that there was in the 70s and 80s(and not nearly as artistic) there is still a great deal of it still going on today whether its people tagging up their names for recognition or for artistic purposes.

The pictures that i included in this post are all within a one mile radius of my home and are places that i use frequently.


PS- I WAS THE ONE WHO WROTE ABOUT COMMUNITY BOARD DISTRICT 9. sorry i keep forgetting to put my name on my work.