Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Yay! Everyone go look at the documentary!

Hey guys! This is Fiona again, and finally I've decided to upload the documentary! I also have pictures from two weeks ago, we learned how to silk screened and everything, it was pretty awesome!


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Saturday, December 23, 2006

December Update

Well, I guess we're making monthly updates now since we keep forgetting to update.

After we finished the documentary and presented it in November, we decided to take a break from working on the park and do some work on the garden. We cleaned up the garden and took all the signs down. We're going to have to make them differently since gluing paper signs onto wood didn't work so well; maybe we'll silkscreen them?
It was already December, so it started to get cold and we couldn't work outside anymore. At the office, we played with some designs on the t-shirts and practiced silkscreening.
Last week, Anne's friend, Jackie, came to interview us about the SDR documentary and youth media in general. It was pretty interesting. She gave us snacks after the interview :)
During the interview, Dylan silkscreened a lot of the shirts while Yanely ironed them. They looked really nice. I'd show you pictures if I had any.

Yesterday, Anne took us to the Museum of Modern Art. We looked at many different pieces, most of which were puzzling. I really liked the wallpaper with different frames in the piece. As a whole, it was an image of a brick wall. Within each brick, something different and unusual took place. Between the bricks, you could see cement dripping in random areas. It looked really cool. In one frame/brick, there was a smiley face (well, not really smiley, it had a blank facial expression) and next to it, there were geometric shapes, kind of like boxes, with faces on them too. Each one had a different expression... You couldn't even tell what emotions the objects were emitting because they were so strange. There was also a model of a building that's being constructed in China. It's GIGANTIC! Go check it out some time.

That's all for this month. Happy holidays!

- Steph

Monday, November 13, 2006

Whoosh finally a update!

Hey this is Fiona speaking :D!
Finally! We've been too busy to update our blog lately, and we apologize! So, a little update on what we've done this month... We were working on the project that involved the reconstruction of Sara D. Roosevelt Park. We decided to make a documentary, so we could show the community some ideas that can be put to work for the reconstruction. [I think that sentence made sense x.x] . With a lot of group work, spending a lot of our time going to different types of parks around the city, we got our documentary done! I'll put it up on YouTube soon, so everyone can check it out :D We also had a visioning day at the park so people around the community could take part in how they want their own park to look like.

In the mean time, here are some pictures!!

This is one of the pictures from Visioning Day. Children put what they wished their park to be like on these lanterns and they were put up on a string for everyone to see.

These are all the models that the children built. These wonderful creations came from their vof their dream park.


We were so excited with all the children contributing to visioning day that we also took part in it and built our own dream park!



This is me [Fiona] in SDR park, discussing about what the park should look like.


This is Sonya [left] and Anne [ right]. Sonya was a guest, who's a film producer. She stopped by and gave us some ideas and advice for our documentary. Thank you Sonya for helping us, and also letting us use your camera! Look at Anne smiling :P


Look at Jennifer with her shy smile :D


Look at Zhoudi [left] and Winnie [right]. I caught them off guard :D


Kevin waving at the camera! :Waves:


Raymond didn't want to take a picture, so I forced him to...look at his face...he looks all evil x.x


Look at Stephanie, she doesn't even want to have her picture taken. Hehe, Stephanie with her sour face.

Okay! Well, next week will be a lot of fun! We will be heading to the PS 134 garden, and we will clean that garden up so it'll be nice and clean!

I'll be back soon with more updates! :D

-Fiona

Monday, October 09, 2006

A Documentary? No way!

Hey, everyone! This is Steph. Yes, I'm back! So, we're just going to continue where we left off during the summer. We've got some new volunteers with us. Their names are Fiona, Winnie, Zhoudi, Kevin, and Jeffrey. Jennifer is still with us. Everyone else is just too busy for us and yeah, they're not cool. So far, we've been looking at other parks around the city. We went to Seward Park and a few playgrounds at Central Park. We also went to this park down the street. It looks like it's a private park for the building behind it, but I guess it's not. At those parks, we observed the population, the equipment, and uses. We plan on creating a documentary on park structures and everything that we observe. Our goal is to visit 10-15 parks upon completing the documentary. We're going to show the NYC Parks Dept. what we've been doing and hopefully, they will hear us out. We're still going to work on the P.S. 134 garden, but right now, we're really focusing on the SDR project more. Keep checking for more updates later.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Last Day ='(

Hey this is Judith. Today's the last day for all of us in CPC, but if we get the chance we'll probably volunteer and work here during the school year or come visit.

We spent most of today putting up all of the signs we made on the fences around the garden. It took a really long time but we finally finished at around 5 PM. They look really nice and colorful. It took a lot of work making the signs and everything and now that we've finished with them and we're done putting them up it feels like a great accomplishment. In addition to that, we also cleaned up in the basement and swept everywhere so that there was no more sawdust on the floor.




Overall I think I had a very good experience working here and of course, I'll miss working here. Byeee everyone! =D

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

bye bye...

wow, its the last time i'll be writing a blog again. well for hester street that is. This is jeanette by the way. It's been fun working at hester street. i learned many things such as using photoshop and using Adobe indesign. Its has been fun. i'm might come back for the fall. Today we continue with our "Garden Sign Factory". Today we had to drill the holes into the signs and glue the mascot signs onto the pieces of wood. Then we spray polyurethane all the signs. Then we used liquid polyurethane to paint the edges and the holes that we made in the signs. This is so that we can have the whole sign polish so that when we hang the signs outside in the garden, the signs won't break apart due to the rain. Right now we are still drillign the holes into the signs and painting them with liquid polyurethane. So toxicating x_X so much.

The Garden Sign Factory:


stephaine, fixing and gluing the signs


me, drawing the holes for where i'm going to drill the signs.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

This is the last time you'll see me

Hello. It's JENNIFER AGAIN, but this will be my last post. Work is going to end this Thursday. Ahhh! I really had a lot of fun. I loved the smell of polyurethane, unlike everyone else. I'll also miss observing people at the SDR Park. It's unfortunate that I didn't get to stalk someone. Maybe I can do that later this week! Hahahaha... Yesterday we sanded all the wooden signs. I learned to use the orbital sander correctly. I love it when I get completely covered with sawdust. Just kidding. I really really like how it comes off so easily though.

Today we continued to work on the signs. There are about a hundred signs. Yes, wow. Afterwards Judith and I went to Avenue of the Immigrants (Allen St) to fix one of the people's middle initial. It's supposed to be "Edgar W Hopper," but it's "Edgar J Hopper." I don't understand how they'd mistaken a J for a W. By the way, those are my initials! Hahahahah! Jennifer Wong! HAHAHAHAHA. It was kind of hard to remove the J with only water and some metal brushes. We still managed to remove it with the help of Stephanie, who we call "God."

I'm going to miss these days. It was a very very very fun experience. I might even come back during the school year. It's too bad that Alex went to Texas though.

Well... goodbye then. BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I can't think of anything cool to say...

Monday, August 14, 2006

LAST WEEK?!?! NO WAY!

Hey, it's Steph. This is the last week that we, the CPC interns, are going to be working here this summer. Wow, the last seven weeks have gone by quickly. This has been a great experience. I gained a lot from it and I'd love to come back. I had a lot more fun here than I would at any other job that was offered. Typing, filing, etc? Psh, who actually wants to do that? Well, maybe some people. Anyway, I met some cool people here. SOOOOO, today, we finished sanding what we had left of the Pick Me signs. We started polyurethane-ing them, too. We still have to drill holes into each of the corners, polyurethane the holes, and hang the signs up at the garden. Then, we'll be done! Jeanette's still working on the mascot signs, but she's almost done with them. I attempted to write the summary for the Sara D. Roosevelt Park surveys, but it was hard, and my writing is too sophomoric compared to Alex's. Uh, I guess I'll have to get some help with that later. Anne invited Bonnie to come over and helpus out for the next few days. I guess that's about it for today. This was a great experience and I had a lot of fun. BYE, EVERYONEEE! Have a nice rest-of-the-summer! OMG, THE SUMMER'S ENDING?! AHHH, so soon. (sigh)

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

WHEEEEE

Hello again! This is Jennifer's weekly post! I'm doing it at home because I forgot about it during work. These days I have been working on the SDR Park postcards using InDesign and Photoshop. It's actually kind of fun! A lot of the HSC interns left, and only the ones from Chinese Planning Council (including me) are still working here. It's a little too quiet sometimes. Yesterday we went to the garden as usual, and we lifted a few heavy garbage bags onto a dumpster thing. We used a wheelbarrow that kept heading towards different directions! It was kind of amusing.

Today we cut out the garden signs that Yanely completed. They all have pictures of random fruits or animals that you tend to see at the garden. We are planning to place them around the area in order to get people excited about the garden. I got better at cutting with blades! It's more accurate than cutting with scissors. I also learned how to use spray mount. At the beginning I sprayed very unevenly over the signs, but now I know the right way of using it.

Alex is leaving for Texas soon! I thought it was only a trip, but apparently he'd be gone for at least three years. I was surprised haha... And I think this is my second last week here at HSC. Maybe I should work here again some time in the future.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Rain? No rain? What's with the weather?

Yo, it's Steph. So the first thing we did today was go out to Columbus Park to give out our survey. We want to compare Columbus Park and Seward Park with Sara D. Roosevelt Park to see what people like about each park. With that information, we will be able to make SDR Park better, hopefully. While Judith, Eric, and I were out at the park, Jeanette and Justin were working on the stencils and signs for the P.S. 134 Garden. They had to work with the mascots that represented each grade at the school and make it look like the signs that say "Grow Me!" and stuff. Since the mascots are animals or insects, they'll say "Find Me!" or something like that. While they were doing that, Jennifer worked on the postcards for SDR Park. She had to scan and print out the five postcards we wanted to send out first. She also had to call Leah to find out who to send them to, but she didn't pick up. Uhh... When we came back from Columbus Park, we organized the survey answers into a chart. We still had to go back to SDR to survey more people; but before we did that, we worked on the signs for the garden. We cut them out after they were all printed. Alex cut boards for us to spray mount the signs on to. Before we went to the garden, we shaped the boards to fit the signs as best as we could. At the garden, we watered the plants and threw out some garbage. Before we knew it, it was 5:30 pm and the day was over! Wow, how eventful... and... exciting... YES! EXCITING! At one point, it rained for like two and a half minutes! NO WAY! Yes way. Well, that was great. I'm exhausted. Good night.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Today was a bit cooler than yesterday but it still felt like 100 degrees -_- We went out a bunch of times in order to interview people and ask them to fill out our surveys. At first we went to SDR at around 10:30 AM to 10:50 AM. There weren't too many people at that time and we were able to do only 11 surveys. We wanted to ask some of the people at the handball courts and the basketball court but we they were playing and we didn't want to bother them. Later. We decided to survey people at other parks in order to use that information to compare it with SDR. We thought of going to both Columbus Park and Seward Park. First we changed the SDR survey to accommodate the Seward Park survey. Then, we went out to Seward Park at around 1:45 PM and interviewed people there. There weren't as many people there as we expected. It was probably because of the weather. We talked to about 15 people, most of which who were there either eating lunch or watching their kids play. After that we went back to Hester Street and compiled the data into another chart in order to analyze the information. On Monday, we will change the surveys again and go to Columbus Park. We will also continue interviewing people at SDR throughout the week.

severe delerium and anxiousness

hey its Emazing Em writing. Yesterday was 106 degrees, and its was awful. Well, not really for me becuase I got to stay inside all day long, and didn't have to go to the garden like the rest of the troop who had to eventually run to CVS pharmacy to seek refuge from the unbearable, poor-kitchen-atmosphere-like, deadly hot air. So, I was sitting at the computer next to Yanely who also stayed inside, and was focused on finishing a sign for the garden fence project. I told myself that this had, HAD to be done by the end of the day. The first design looked extremely ugly; I didn't like it at all. Then the second design, which I was okay with, was not approved by Alex The Boss. He took one look at it, and tried to politely say that it basically looked like a piece of poop. Anyway, so I was intent on designing a successful sign, and my determination made me go a little crazy. Z100 was blasting the same tunes over and over again, and Yanely and I kept humming along with our eyes glued to the computer screens when suddenly Alex ran down the stairs (thankfully he did not dramatically bump his head and fall on his butt at the bottom of the staricase again) to check up on us. I showed him my new design, and he seemed okay with it. Then he plopped into a chair next to us girls and tried to explain to me how to use Adobe InDesign when Yanely interupted him, and Alex exclaimed "be quiet before I kick you in the tooth," and as a result, this made us laugh quite hard and then we couldn't stop. Yanely and I had been sitting in front of the computers for a little too long which made our eyes a little fuzzy, and the excessive Z100 tunes made our ears hear things a little differently; we were obviously not in our usual state of minds. We concluded that we were suffering from a severe case of delirium and anxiousness to finish our assignments. However, our determination helped Yenely finish her signs, and helped me almost finish my sign. It was a very successful day and we got a lot done. Hopefully in the future, actually in my last two days, I will not suffer from severe delerium and anxiousness again.

too hot to function!!! >=o

hi this is jeanette again. Yesterday was really really hot but we still had to go to the garden because we had to water the plants or they might have die from the heat. We harvested some beans on monday and yesterday we harvested some lettuce. There wasn't much to do at the garden because i went to the garden late and most of the people before did most of the things that need to be done. I spent the whole day with Ona working on the mascot stencil for the different grade. We finally perfected them \^0^/~~! There is a bee, ant, humming bird, dragon fly, and squirrel. Our style was to have certain parts of the animal/insect be seperated. We spent a lot of time thinking about how to disassemble the squirrel =\ . Later on we scanned them into the computer and fixed it up. I learned a few more things about using adobe photoshop now =)

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

water please!!!

Uhhh! Its absolutely deadly outside. It is supposed to reach 100 degrees today with a heat index of 110. This kind of heat can be overwhelming and can sometimes cause death especially among the construction working crowd. Well, I guess I should consider myself lucky becaue i am not a construction worker but rather an HSC worker. I am privileged to nice cool air conditioning and icy cool people who entertain me and keep me good company. Today was a stencil day. Jeanette and I worked on ways to create a uniform style for the stencils so that the t-shirts and posters that we make are drop dead attractive. We want people who pass the p.s. 134 school to stop in their tracks and gaze at the soon to be garden related mural on the northern brick wall of the school. I drew a lot, and I cut a lot, and I cut some more (the wings of the humming bird took alot of razor edged slicing), and produced three new stencils. Not just any kind of stencils. These were new, sleek and built to perfection. They are durable and reliable. HOWEVER, its not the end. We are still going to have to come up with stencils that have an angle kind of perspective. This is a hearty challenge, one that I am looking forward to plunge my teeth into.
Until next week,
JUST KIDDING!!!
There will be no next week! This is my LAST week at HSC:( . Therefore, this is my last blog! So i hope you enjoyed reading about my lovely days (I hope you also got a little jealous of my superb experience) and I hope you have a nice life.

Goodbye!
QUEEN ONA

It's August...

Awww... It's August already! Half the summer's over! Oh well. This is Jennifer again! Hehe. I didn't write a blog last Tuesday, because I had to go to CPC Workshop (Career Exploration). It was so boring, and I'd rather be here at HSC. These days I've been working on categorizing our postcards of the SDR Park in different ways. We categorized them by the area at first, but then we started dividing them by age group and type of activity too. Stephanie and I made different charts for them. Judith, Eric, and Justin are going to go to the park later to pass out surveys. We're pretty much done with our observations of the park, so gathering the opinions of random people seems to be the next step. This might be kinda hard because of the language problem, but there are people who are willing to translate. Last week we presented to the Park Department. I feel much more comfortable with presenting now, so yay! We also had a Pot Luck last Thursday, and we all contributed food from our own cultures. It was very fun! I had a red bean popsicle and some watermelon! Work is very fun as usual, and it's even better now because I've grown closer to the people working here.

Monday, July 31, 2006

THE LAST DAY OF JULY? ALREADY???

Wow, I can't believe July is ending. I guess that means that half the summer is over... Oh well, tempus fugit, but that's nothing new. So today, Monday, we did a lot of work on the garden; or so it seemed. After we finished the postcard booklets for Sara D. Roosevelt Park, we worked on the stencils for the garden. We had to modify each of the stencils to make them match each other. After a stencil was designed and tested, even though it looked good, there still seemed to be something missing. Something could be changed to make it look better, but it was hard to decide how to change it. While the stencil-improving was going on, Yanely was working on the "Water Me!" "Pick Me!" "Grow Me!" and "Plant Me!" signs. It seemed pretty frustrating working with Adobe Photoshop. I guess it's not that easy. Then, we FINALLY went to the garden. We cleaned up, moved the bean plants into a sunnier area, and planted the lettuce into the empty planter. Quite a few kids showed up to help out. It was nice. Well, that's all for today. Peace out.

Friday, July 28, 2006

the power of the key

What's up y'all. It's Justin and Eric. There isn't much to say for today because we are only going to be here for two hours. That's because of the workshop on Tuesday, which counted for eight hours of work so we can work three hours less. So we'll tell you what happened yesterday.

Yesterday, we went to the garden at 11 AM. We watered the plants and passed out fliers to kids, inviting them to come to the garden. During that time, we experienced some very funny events. While we were watering the plants, Eric noticed that the two containers were low on water. He suggested that we go fill them up with the hose. Then Eric plugged the hose into the faucet at the side of the school. But, we found out that the knob to turn on the faucet was gone. So we went in to the school and asked the people there to help us turn it on. The janitor helped turn it on with a screwdriver-like object that fits into the missing knob area. When the container was full, we went to find the janitor to turn it off but he wasn't there. The containers were overflowing so Justin went and filled up the watering cans while Eric tried to close the faucet with his hands. And then a miracle, Eric gave up trying to close it with his hands and started playing with the garden keys. He saw a weird object that looked like it would fit into the missing knob hole and it fits! And that's how we saved the garden from overflowing.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

a short fun-filled day

Today we started off by making another list of things to do for SDR and the garden. The SDR group continued organizing the postcards and making them into booklets while the garden group continued to work on our "Harvest Me!" stamps trying out different ways to make them work better. The "Harvest Me!" stamps were a huge pain especially since we were cutting styrofoam and we were cutting out small letters. After a few hours of hard work, everyone became hungry so we started our potluck! Everyone brought or bought different types of food and we all shared and ate until we were bloated. There was rice, noodles, dumplings, fried bananas, cherries, a huge watermelon (which we didn't even finish eating), and red bean ice cream. Everything was delicious but we couldn't finish it all and gave some food to some people in leroy street studio who have helped us. A bunch of people also came down to eat some watermelon. We also took a bunch of pictures while we ate, everyone had a lot of fun. Maybe we will have another potluck next week.

man, i forgot again

Hello, it's Emilija Bedilija. so maybe my day shouldnt be wednesday and rather thursday to post a blog. Anyway, i will talk about yesterday, wednesday the 26th. The day started out with the new morning meeting method where Ona, Ming, Yanely, Alex and I meet at 9:30 to have a discussion of what has to be done during the day. We made a list of what to do, and then Alex had to leave to pick up some, actually a lot of donated soil for the garden using Diana's truck. In the meantime, the Interns and I did what we had to do. When Alex came back, we all kind of jumped in surprise and then tried to avoid being near him because he was covered in dirt, and closley resembled a bum. We had lunch, and then went to the garden. It was actually a very successful garden day because many kids and some adults showed up and helped us in the garden. We also harvested many peaches. Then Claire visited! We were all very happy to see her. That was Wednesday the 26th.

Pe@c|-|!

hi this is jeantte again =) sry nothing was posted yesterday. Worked another long day at the garden. We harvest all the peaches at the garden! i ate a few =x they're pretty good. We also grouted the planter that the kids from ps 134 created. It was fun at first but it got messy when i started to use my hands because the tools weren't working for me. We also got a truck load of pottsoil, around 25 bags. It was a pain in the ass to carry them to the garden but we need the soil. We have this purple pink stuff that when you plant it and water it, it will grow a variety of flowers. I helped prune the peach tree since we picked all the peaches off of it. We put them into a bucket and when we got back to hester street, we put them all in a giant brown bag so that they would ripe more. Some of the other interns replanted the rest of the tomatoes into planter. We had some kids from a local afterschool program helping us. It was really fun. They really helped with watering and grouting the mosaic planter. Some of the other interns raked the empty planters and mixed in potting soil into it. We put some potting soil into the pots that had only dry dirt and we planted some new seeds into them such as lettuce, carrots, and beans. We did a lot. We really need more seeds for the loney, empty, potting soil. =(

pictures of the peaches that we picked:

yummy peaches =p

a few kids from the local afterschool helping out the interns replant the tomatoes. =)

why good day

hello, hi, labas, hey, hola, bonjour.
(several ways of saying hello)
anywayss, today is not my official blog day (tuesday is) but i forgot and as a result i am writing one right now!!
on tuesday, i worked really hard on creating posters for the garden. the posters had a picture of a peach on them and read "harvest me!". These posters were made in an effort to create awarness of the garden and spur exitement and envolvment of the community. yesterday, we took these posters and put them up around the area of p.s. 134. this way, people who walk by the posters will find out about the garden and hopefully want to find out more about it. Contact information was included on the posters on little rip off peices attatched to the end. we also worked ALOT in the garden yesterday. I helped load huge bags of mixing soil that almost crushed me under their heavy weight. Alex helped me load them onto my shoulder while Jeanette pointed to the ones i should take. She ws afraid of falling down under the weight and resulted in playing with a centipede and a leaf in the trunk of the pick up while alex and i did the grueling labor that should have recieved extra high pay but unfortunately did not. I guess the advantage is that we will get nice toned bodies and pirky muscles. After a nice lunch and some time spent in refreshing air conditioning, we all headed over to the garden. We spent time transplanting tomato plants, watering and sweeping. I even made some grout necessary to fill the cracks in the tile mosiac of a plot. A good thing is that 4 little kids showed up. Hopefully they are becoming aware of the garden and enjoying themleves.
Well, enough for now.
-Queen Ona

Monday, July 24, 2006

whoosh!

Hey, it's Steph. Today, we got a visit from Rachel, who is a designer of some sort. Part of her profession is to observe how people use things as opposed to the way they were designed to be used. With her observations, she designs those objects in a way to that'll make them more useful, or easier to use. That's pretty much what the park group is supposed to do with Sara D. Roosevelt Park. The garden group started designing posters/fliers to advertise for the dirt days at the P.S. 134 community garden. We made a few drafts for the fliers. Then, Alex said we could make stamps that say "Harvest Me!" with an image of a peach. We made a big one for bigger sheets of paper and a small one for postcards that we could hand out to people walking by on the street. The stamps were cool, even though they were hard to make. When we tried them out with paint, we found that the print came out better if we used paint brushes instead of ink rollers. The prints we made with the ink rollers weren't as clear as the ones we made with the paint brushes. With the paint brushes, we were able to put paint on just the words and image. With the ink rollers, paint got all over the stamp block, even in places we didn't want it to. A lot of excess paint was in the spaces between the letters of the words, too. It was hard to clean. While we were finishing up the stamps, the park group went out to the garden. They watered the plants and swept the floor -- the regular stuff. That was pretty much it for the day. Bye bye, kiddies!

Friday, July 21, 2006

<('.' <)<( '.'<)<( '.' <)<( '.' )>(> '.' )>(>'.' )>(> '.')> dance kirby dance

Yo, it's Justin and Eric both of us again. Today was awesome. The only interns that came in today were the both of us, Ona and Emilija because everyone else had today off. We had fun painting the animals that were cut out that would be the mascots of each grade at PS134. Then we looked for pictures of dragonflies and hummingbirds for the mascots. We found a great one for a hummingbird and were about to print it out, but something really funny happened. When it was about to be printed out, someone printed on the transparent papers that Eric put into the printer. Therefore, he had to put another transparent paper into the printer. Also, Jenny from CPC came and interviewed us. It was cool and funny. Then it was time to go to the garden, but it was delayed because it was raining really hard. We waited until the rain stopped to go. Then it was time to go, but we came back after walking a few blocks because it was thundering. Alex said if it thundered six times, we were going back. So here we are, back, typing the blog. And that's all for now. Peace in the middle east!!!

Thursday, July 20, 2006

about wednesday

Hey it's Em writing. So today is thursday, but I'm going to talk about yesterday, which ofcourse was Wednesday....yay a garden day. The day started out with my group (garden group) diligently and patiently cutting out animal stencils. Once our fingers felt like they were going to fall off we decided to stop and brainstorm some ideas of how to achieve our garden group goal: encouraging community members, students and teachers (of P.S. 134) to help create an educational garden that they would be proud of and excited to be associated with. Then for lunch, wednesday lunch, we all met at Seward park to eat together. Some of us got wet, while others prefered to be dry, or they were just too lazy after eating a lunch full of MSG to run around in the sprinklers. Anyway, it was a fun lunch and Alex pointed out that the parking meters on the street were solar powered. I think he was really excited about it. As soon as we returned to Hester Street, half of us went to the garden and the other half of us sanded the shelves of our table. It was hard and sweaty work. Then we went to the garden and I ate a peach off of the peach tree. It was good, a little hard and sour but nontheless peachy. Then Alex's friend Lizzy came and tought us how to transplant cucumber plants. Unfortunately Alex happened to dribble some worm poop juice on my shoulder which made me a little sad, but I enjoyed learning how to transplant a cucumber plant. Berfore I knew it, it was six o'clock and time to hop on my bike and ride home!!

an exciting day full of action

Today we arrived to our beautiful, new, fully built table. we divided into two groups one working on preparations for the garden, and the other working on the Sarah D. Roosevelt Park project. The latter organized the postcards and began to create an efficient system of recording the data we have found so far. A design professional friend of Alex's will be coming in on Monday to assess our work so we need to be prepared to present. We printed out the photos we took at the park and made them into very aesthetically pleasing postcards. We need to present the types of people we found hang out in the park, what they do, and their age groups. Yesterday a trip to Columbus park showed us how other parks are used and how their design benefits the community.
The garden group is creating signs to make sure that all the community members know about next DIRT DAY!!! Anybody can come help out at the garden. We are looking for those with experience and without. We will be transplanting the potted plants and maybe sneaking some of the peaches and beans. The peaches are almost ripe but still a little yellow and hard. Maybe we'll make a pie or something to celebrate the harvest.

long long long work

Sorry nothing was posted yesterday. Hi this is jeanette again. I'm an intern at hester streets collaborative just to remind you. Yesterday we went to the garden near ps 134. I worked until 6 something at the garden. It was tiring but fun. At first we were weeding the plants so that we can plant some potted plants and vegetables into the planters. We finally decided to transport the tomatoes and the corn plants to a planter but we didn't know how so Alex had a friend come in and teach us. We dug a ditch big enough for the plant to fit and then we put fertilizer into the ditch, the fertilizer is water that had worms living in, then we put dirt over it so the plant doesn't touch the fertilizer directly. When plants are transported, they are sensitive so its best to keep them from the fertilizer for now. Then we covered the roots with dirt and learned to make mounts so when we water the plants, the water doesn't go anywhere else but the plant. We also harvested lettuce because we noticed that some lettuce looked fried from the last dirt day. We were planning to harvest the peas but we some how forgot. The peaches look good enough to eat, but we can't pick it yet because they aren't ripe. I ate one though.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Wheeee

Hellooo. It's Jennifer again. It's so crazily hot these days. Yesterday we worked at the garden again, and I swept stuff. We also might have drowned the plants because we wanted to get rid of the water from those huge barrels. They should be okay, since they were so dry when we got there. There were also sprinklers in the nearby park, and we ran through them a few times. It felt really nice. There was a CVS Pharmacy, which felt like heaven because it was air conditioned. We bought a small bucket of strawberry ice cream, and that was really good too. Today we printed pictures I took at the park. They actually came out pretty nice. I really want those swings to be fixed, because everybody likes swings. We're also finishing up the big table in the basement, and it's really shiny right now. Stephanie and Eric are putting yet another coat of polyurethane on it.

A few days ago I was covered with sawdust (we were cleaning up the basement). It was pretty fun, and I liked how it came off so easily. Stephanie and I also carried all of Mark's boxes up to the second floor, and it was quite an experience. There was this really heavy box that we carried up the stairs together. It always felt like falling, and I think we disturbed some of those serious looking people on the second floor. The basement is so much cleaner now though.

Work here is fun as always.

ona likes to build things

Hello, hello, hello!!
Currently, I am sitting at a computer that is very dusty. In fact, my hands are pale because they are covered in light yellow sawdust. Wondering where all this sawdust came from??? Well, i will tell you. These piles upon piles of sawdust in every nook and crany of the basement are from the many hours of sanding a table that we are building. In fact, I helped design this table and it is marvelous to see it almost completely done. We are planning to eat lunch on it tomorrow. Hopefully it works out. The table has gone through many stages of being sanded and then painted upon with polyurethane. Alex is a perfectionist, but so am I so it is okay. This morning I spent quite a while organizing postcards of the park, analyzing them and brainstorming ideas of how to get public opinion. We need the public opinion in order to go through the reconstruction process. Today we are also going to be building the shelves of the table. The last thing that needs to be done to finish it!! YAY! I also can't wait for tomorrow when we get to go to the garden. My plan is to hang plants from the fence. That way we can spice up the walls of the garden and effectively let all the plants get sunlight.
Until next week,
Ona

Monday, July 17, 2006

A Slow Day...

Hey, this is Stephanie. So, it's Monday again. Today was a pretty slow day. We started out trying to finish what we didn't get to do on Friday. We sanded the tables more. I learned how to put a sanding block together -- yay! We cropped and edited the photos of Sara D. Roosevelt Park. It took us a while to find the pictures on the computer because we forgot where we saved them. We were supposed to scan the postcards that we made, but we didn't know where they were...so that didn't work out so well. We made a guest book for the garden. Jeanette made a really nice cover for it. Then, we had lunch. Now, we're about to go out to the garden and fix it up. We made a whole list of things to do there. I hope it won't be too tiring. Ahh, it's so hot outside. Oh, and Claire's not here anymore, so we're going to have to work a lot harder -- boo. =( She's gonna come back and visit though, so yay!

EDIT -- 10:06 PM
It's Steph again. I'm at home now, but I thought I'd fill in what we did at the garden today. We cleaned up the wagon that all the tools were in. It was pretty hard, but not as hard as cleaning the barrels of water. We had to find somewhere to dump all the dirty water and refill the containers with cleaner water from the hose. We decided to water everything. We even watered the trees on the sidewalks. The barrels were really heavy, so it was hard to drag them to another area to dump it out. Uhh...what else did we do... We swept a lot, as always... Oh yeah, we used chalk to tell people to come to the garden. We wrote "Come to the P.S. 134 Garden" at most of the entrances of the playground. Then, when Alex got there, we studied some of the pots of plants. We had to pull some weeds out of some of the pots because they were blocking the sunlight for what we wanted to grow in those pots. We'd have to research on some of the plants because we're not sure what they look like and how to take care of them; like okras and how to transplant cucumbers. I think that was about it. Hmm...okay, good night!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

a very busy day

Today was a very busy and exciting day... well, sort of. With so many things to do, it was hard to determine exactly what to do first. We have been working on publicizing the garden, the Sarah D. Roosevelt project, the table etc... We've been making postcards depicting the comings and goings of the park next door and plan to send them to the head of the parks department. We want the park to be a place that fits the neighborhood's wants and needs. Old people and young people alike use it daily for, often times, very different purposes. We organized the postcards, making them as clear as possible to those who will be receiving them. We scanned them so as we will have a documentation of the project and, brainstormed on exactly how we would bring attention to our cause. We might take a survey in the near future, but that would involve writing in Chinese.Uh oh. Later, we began to redesign the stencils, we want them to have a stylized appearance and will use them to promote the park with t-shirts and other paraphenalia. At present, we are uprooting the garden in front of all the weeds and garbage, it will be lovely.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Hard at work in the garden

Hi this is Jeanette. I'm an intern working at Hester street collaborative. It has been about a week since i worked here. It's kind of fun working here. Today has been a busy day. In the morning, we were preparing things and events for kids from ps134 that were planning to come back to the garden to help us and also bring in the plants that they planted last time. We were also sanding the tables down because the polyurethane didn't work out. Some of us interns went out to Sarah D. Roosevelt Park to draw on more post cards of things we think needs to be changed in the park. After lunch, we went to the garden to see what we can improve or fix up in the garden. Today was my first time at the garden. Claire and Yanely were pruning the rose bush and trees that were blocking sun light from other plants. Ona and I were mixing dry dirt with the potting soil into pots so that when the kids bring in their plants, we have soil ready for them to put their plants in. Jennifer, Judith, and Stephine were watering the plants and sweeping the dead leaves and dirt in the garden. Eric and Justin were helping to lossen up the dry dirt but they decided to quit so all the girls helped to shovel the extra dirt into the corner of the garden. A lady came in today and bought in the cucumber plant that her child was growing. The lady was really excited. Another lady bought in corn that her child was growing. There wasn't actual corns but there were sprouts. Also there are peaches growing on the peach tree and apples growing on the apple tree. I want to pick the peaches when they are ripe. The tomatoes are growing nicely and so are the peas. The sunflowers are blooming into little flowers and there are some peppers growing too. We found only one strawberry in the strawberry patch. We decided to move all the potted vegetables onto the bunch next to the fence where people walk so that we can attract more people and get them interested in helping out in the garden. We decided to leave the garden when we were done cleaning up, because it sounded like it was about to rain, but when we got back to Hester Street, more people started to come in and wanted to plant their plants into the garden. I had a fun day working at the garden, even though there were bugs everywhere.

work-hard wednesday

Hello, this is Emilija, or Em for short, speaking. Today was the day. We (all of the interns) were going to go to the garden and have a bunch of kids come in and plant and do the many art projects we had planned. Unfortunately the weather predicted thunderstorms and we were forced to accept the fact that our grand plan might not work out. However, despite our grim expectations, we managed to accomplish an impresive amount of work in the garden. We cleared an entire plot, we swept and got rid of all of the annoying leaves, we pruned the trees, and adjusted the vines. We worked hard and were anxiously moving about trying to race the storm so that we could finish as much as we could in the garden. Also, two parents brought in plants, and Ming and I made a successful trip to the materials store and managed to bring back a bag full of disgustingly heavy grout without breaking our backs. Oh, and not to forget, this morning we sanded the table, made certificates, and practiced making postcards. Right now, Alex is in the garden with some other interns and apperently some kids are there too! Today was a grand day after all. I am having a good time at HSC, and look foward to working here throughout the summer. I also am very excited to see the garden progress throughout the summer.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

yay! tuesday.

Hello!!! My name is Ona Vaiva Rygelis, i am 16 years old and an intern at Hester Street Collaborative this summer of 2006. This has been my third day of work and im lovin it! So far i have helped design and build a table, observed people in Sarah D. Roosevelt park, and worked on making successful stencils for the kids at p.s. 134. These are all parts of several projects we have been working on at HSC. The main goal of these numerous projects is to create a pleasant, successful and collaborative community. I never thought that i would be capable of designing a table let alone building one!! I also came to realize the effort put into maintaining a garden. There must be a community or some group of people involved in taking care of and maintaining a garden constantly. I always thought one just plants a seed and voila! The sun and rain took care of the rest! I guess not. I am really looking forward to the next few weeks of working here. I obviously learn something new everyday!

Fun!



Hi people. I'm Jennifer, an intern at Hester Street Collaborative. Everything has been so fun. These few days I went to Sarah D. Roosevelt Park to observe the activities of random people. We want to rebuild the park in a way that fits their needs and make the place even better. Today I helped paint over the newly made wooden table with polyurethane, which apparently prevents water absorption in the wood. I really like the smell of paint, unlike many other people. I'm weird. I heard it was poisonous too. Yesterday I had a mini presentation, and I'm aware that I should be louder and more relaxed. That's something I aim to get better at this summer. Last Friday I worked at the garden, and it was nice and tiring at the same time. I've never been so dirty before, but it's not so bad. I'm very happy with the work here at HSC, and it's definitely going to be a great experience for me.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Ew...Monday...

Hi, this is Stephanie andClaire. Today, we started the day off with brainstorming ideas for activities at the garden on Wednesday. Claire ran the discussion beautifully. A few of the ideas we came up with were potato stamps, fun games, and postcard-making. Then, we split up into pairs and elaborated on the ideas. Alex told us how to make good presentations. Mostly, speak confidently and clearly and make eye contact with the audience. Afterwards, we continued with what we did last week; working on the table, studying the Sarah D. Roosevelt Park, and working on the garden. After lunch, we made a whole bunch of postcards for Wednesday. Claire and Em worked on making stencils for the activities at the garden. We went to the garden and cleaned up a lot. We fixed up the fence that kept the dirt from going out onto the sidewalk. We began emptying a planter into pots, which was really hard and tiring. Then, we walked back to Hester St. and took a well-deserved break...until now. Until next time...Stephanie and Claire. Dun dun dun!

Friday, July 07, 2006

Hard and dirty work

Hi this is Justin and Eric. We've just gotten back from the garden that we have been working on. We are exhausted from all the digging we did. We visited a woman, named Diana, who taught us how to print images on T-shirts using a screen. It was okay. Mostly we just mixed the paint, but Eric also put paint onto the screen for me to print the picture onto the paper. We did a lot more at the garden. We dug out a lot of bricks. Eric dug out a few worms. We learned that they live after they're cut in half. It was awesome. The hard part was when the dirt kept coming back down when we dug deep in to the hole so we put on gloves and dug with our hands. To make a tiring story short, we successfully dug a ditch by the fence and we left. Then, we bought soda. It was awesome. Well that's all for now. Peace out y'all. 'Til next time, which is next Friday.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

search and construct

Today there came three new interns named Ona, Em and Ming. Graciously welcomed into the Hester street community, they were taken on a walking tour provided and narrated by Mr. Alex Gilliam. The area surrounding the Hester Street Collaborative is home to many different types of conveniant stores such as, paint stores, lumber yards, temples, noodle houses and even brothels. who knew. A visit to the P.S. 134 gardens revealed beautiful ripe cherry, apple and peach trees as well as an abundance of garbage all to be taken into consideration when the future renovation is in action.
Upon returning back top the base, they nourished themselves with treats that can only be found at such prices in our beloved Chinatown, NYC. The red bean buns were exquisit.
The rest of the day was spent trying to find free potting soil, lumber and bricks online. It might be neccesary that a bake sale take place. A table is now in the process of being made. This is more complicated than it seems because the table is actually made from two tables and they are on wheels and they also serve as shelves. we'll see how it turns out.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Allen Street and the Garden


My name is Claire, and I'm one of the summer interns now at HSC. I live in India but I'm here until July. For the last few weeks I've been the only intern around since I don't have school, so I got to do a lot in a short amount of time. I came during the last stages of the Ave. of the Immigrants project, so sometimes I had to paint names on the sidewalk for the day. Before we got started, we had a lot of issues with how to paint on the uneven concrete. To find a solution, I vandalized a small portion of another street by painting a whole bunch of "F"'s everywhere to experiment with different brushes, etc. I also had to fill the holes in a lot of databases which was pretty rough and I'd rather not do that again. I sat by the computer and the phone and had to find the mailing addresses for different contacts, which turned out to be difficult sometimes because some people had died and I had to explain to their relatives why I was trying to mail them stuff. After the opening of the project, which involved more chair moving than expected but was still great, we're now focusing on the garden, how to promote and take care of it. I experimented with different ways to do signs, which helped translate into different ways to do shirts. Alex and I designed a shirt with a tomato, around which is written "EAT ME! at the PS 134 Community Garden". It looks really cool but it was a pain to cut the tiny letters out of tape - so we're going to silkscreen the pattern. I also experimented with different ways we could tattoo the kids. We went low budget and cut out a carrot and a tomato, which I traced onto Alex with a marker. It was fun but pretty weird - I wasnt expecting to draw with markers on my supervison, but hey, whatever. I also went back to school a couple times in the last two days (once with Yanely) to give the kids seeds so that they can bring them back to the garden in July. Some of the classes were really cute and calm, and some of them were rowdy. But we got tons of vegetable seeds planted - probably only a fraction will come back.... We did a couple more things but this blog is really long and I'm hungry, so I'll write a better one later. But so far I'm having a great time at HSC!

Monday, June 05, 2006

My Visit to the ICFF

Hey Guys, my name is Toni-Lee McDonald and I am an Intern at Hester Street Collaborative. A couple of days ago I attended the ICFF exhibit with Alex and Yanely at the Javits Center. I really enjoyed myself and it was a great experience. On display were new furniture ideas and everyday common household tools. One exhibit that I enjoyed but wasn't really impressed with their furniture designs was by Swarovski. What made the exhibit attractive to the viewers were the crystals that were placed everywhere, on the furniture and in the floor. It seemed like I entered a fantasy world. One of my favorite exhibits were wall compositions done by Jennifer Prichard. She takes interesting items, such as half a sphere or styrofoam attached to the tip of pins and attach them to walls to create a dazzling design. www.jpricharddesign.com
I was so impressed and intrigued by her work that I would like to draw up some designs of my own to create a composition on my bedroom wall. I will never forget this experience. There were many, many other designers, but only some of their exhibits and ideas were up to par, or at least what I think I would enjoy having in my home. Neverthless, I definately recommend, even if you're not really into design, a visit to the displays next year, it is really worth the while. You will definately enjoy it.

Friday, May 05, 2006

t 0 o L s



March 31, 2006
Jacelyne Bonilla

Yesterday, in my internship, we were working on the basement; we were working on cleaning and designing the basement of the firm. I started cleaning out a box that was full of tools, papers, and a lot of dust; I got real dirty cleaning it. After I was done, we put all the tools on the floor and put everything that need to go to a specific place for the board on the wall. The tools that needed to go the wall, we put them out together nest to the wall and the other tools either want in the box or in a bin. After that I started putting all the tools on the wall and it came out very nice and organize like the T.V. Today as soon as we got here we started working on measuring the basement that I didn’t measure last week. We did a few sketches from different points of view. When we were done, Alex showed us how to draft. So we started working on one side of the wall. Adam was working on one wall and I was working on the other. Then they ordered pizza for a lunch time meeting and presentation. After we had lunch, heard one architect present, which was very interesting. I was excited to be in an architects meeting and see the way they present and what the present. After that I was finishing the wall of the basement by putting the rest of the tools. Then I when I was done I showed Alex and he fix my mistakes. He showed me how to do doors for drafting, which was my mistake because I did a line but I was suppose to put like 2 or 3 lines. I found this week interesting because of the fact that I learned how to draft, fix a room and wall.

L a M p S





4/28/06
Jacelyne Bonilla

Yesterday, as soon as I got there Alex, Adam and I went to a Chinese bakery which was very different from bakeries in the Bronx because the Bronx bakeries are small but here they were big and they hardly spoke English. I wasn’t really hungry but I was thirsty so I bought a Gaterate. Adam and Alex were very hungry so they bought something that look like bread or a sandwich. When we got back, we started working on the basement. My supervisor, Alex, took us to the basement and showed us an exhibit of wooden poles that were on the floor. He told us that we had to think of a way that we can organize the wood and poles that were in the basement. First, Adam and I first were thinking of some solutions that would help us figure out what we can do with the basement, but then every time we thought f a good one, it didn’t work. After we found 2 solutions that we liked. So we left it there so we can talk about it with Alex. After that, we had lunch so we went to eat McDonalds. I was happy that I finally saw food that wasn’t Chinese food because Chinese food makes my stomach hurt too much. When we got back, we started working on another lamp. This time I had to use one of the other models I made and do the same thing I did the last time; draw a sketch and make photo copies of it; then write down the steps so that students can do the lamp. I actually liked this lamp because it wasn’t that difficult and it was fun to do.

Today when we got here, Adam and I started working on printing and organizing our journals for school since we need to do a journal every week. After I was done, we went to the basement and we started looking for wood that was in the back of the basement. The wood had to be about 8-10 feet tall for a shelf they are planning to do in the basement. So while Adam was taking them out, he would pass it to me, and I would place them on the floor. Then, while Adam was hammering the ceiling to see where the beams were at so that he can screw in the shelves, I was taking some tools out a box in the basement and placing them on the wall. Then I started drilling some holes in the wood on the wall for the screwdrivers to fit in the holes. After I was done, I trimmed 2 sheets of paper for some frames that they’ll be putting up. Then I went to lunch to eat some pizza. When we came back, there was a meeting and we decided to attend it. I enjoyed being there because it was very interesting and I really enjoyed listening to the house they were talking about. It was about a mansion in East Hampton, NY, for a real estate agent. It was big, nice, and it had a great view. I would love to live in a house like that. I really liked what we did today because I was always on task and because there wasn’t a time when I felt bored.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Yanely


4-22-06

Hey again, it's Yanely. I know that it has been a really long time since i posted anything but things have been rather hectic. The exhibition that took place at the municipal art society building took a lot of work and time. Also, we had been preparing for the charrette, which we(interns) kind of co-hosted. The charrette was an event that involved the students and teachers down at P.S.134, as well as some of the workers from Leroy Street and Hester Street. We all gathered around to discuss the goals that the students and teachers wanted to achieve with their garden. We discussed some of the things that need the most imrovement and we broke up into several groups. Some of these groups consisted of Plants and animals, garden club, neighborhood, events and scheduling, and identity. Each group worked together to come up with the top three main goals that would be the most productive for the garden. We then broke up the list into long term goals and short term goals. Everyone discussed ways that we could begin to work on the garden right away. The children had great ideas for the way the garden should look and feel to both them and everyone else in the neighborhood. I think that it was a very productive day for everyone and it seems to me that the students really know what they want their garden to represent and how they want to approach this task.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

makeover

Adam Garcia Internship
U1 3/31/06

This week in our internship we did something new. This week we began to work on organizing the basement. Yesterday (Thursday, March 30, 2006) we started to organize all the tools they had in the work shop .Jacelyne was putting screws in the walls of the work shop so we can hang the tools. While she was doing that I was making a small shelf for all of the screw drivers. Then that shelf was going to be attached to the wall. We put other things that were in the work shop in boxes and bins.
A lot of the people that work here come to work on bikes and they leave them in the work shop. There were about 10 bikes in the work shop. We needed to create more places in the work shop for all of these bikes. So my job was to hang these bikes on one side of the work shop. I had a certain amount of space to hang these bikes and I had to make sure they fit comfortably. I had to measure the place I had to work with and divide that by the amount of bikes we had. When I was finished I could tell that this gave us a lot more space to work on the work shop.
After that Jacelyne and I had to measure the work shop and create sketches s of the work shop to a scale. The scale we used was ¼ of an inch equals 1 foot. To create these drawings we used some thing called a mayline which was like a drawing board; this made it a lot easier to do because it help us draw straight lines.
This week Jacelyne and I also had a chance to sit on a presentation some architects were having. I didn’t really understand everything that they were talking about because they were talking about stuff that you really have to study to understand. They were presenting houses they were working on that are still works in progress. Even dough didn’t really understand everything they were talking about I found it interesting just to be there.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Fences


Hi my name is Adam Garcia and I am an Intern here at Hester Street Collaborative.I am 16 years old.I am a junior at Pablo Neruda Academy.I come here 2 times a week(Thursday and Fridays).Im here for 10 weeks (March-May).

The past couple of days of my internship have been a little different from the first 2 days in my internship. During the first 2 days of our internship we were always in the work shop. I have been in the workshop but not as much. These pass days my partner Jacelyne and I have been working on making small models of buildings. Today Jacelyne and I went to the actual place were making the model of, and took some measurements of a fence that we were going to make the small model out of. To make these small fences we are using small pieces of basswood. Even though I find this activity a little challenging I do like this entire model making because it is helping perfect my measuring.

Check it!!



Hi, my name is Jacelyne Bonilla. I'm an intern in Hester Street Collaboritve. I will be in this internship from March to May, twice a week for 10 weeks. I go to Pablo Neruda Academy, which is an Architecture school and I'm a junior. I live in the Bronx and i'm 17 years old.

Today was a good experience for me. In the morning, we had to take the cement out of the boxes and then drill it back together; we split the jobs, Adam would take the screws out so that it would be easier to take out the cement. After he was done taking out the cement, he made it smooth. While he was doing that, I was drilling the boxes back together. Then we were observing the cement and to see how it came out at. Some were smoother than others. The ones that were smoother were usually the weaker ones. Then we were sent to the park of a school that Hester Street Collaborative is working with which was about 5 or 6 blocks from the firm. We had to measure the gates of the park (height and width). When we were done with that, we went to lunch to eat pizza. After that, we went back to the firm to look over our measurements. Then we worked on the gates of the model of the school with the measurements we made. I found this day very interesting because I got to go out and explore more of Chinatown. We went to a park in Chinatown and saw kids playing while we were measuring, which was fun.