Lamps and Postcards

Hi my name is Kate Dries, and I'm a senior at LaGuardia High School. I have interning at the Hester Street Collaborative project for a couple of months. Recently, the interns have been focused on taking images of the neighborhood, like the one on the left, and using them in lamps based roughly on the design and style of Chinese paper lanterns. These would hopefully be used to get the neighborhood involved in expressing what they like and dislike about their own community. By using lamps to represent these ideas in a functional manner, we can help target the wants and needs of this community in a more specific endeavor, at the Sara D. Roosevelt Park, which is going to be redesigned soon. Many of the inhabitants of the neighborhood do not speak English, so getting them to use images to express their emotions in a visually interesting way could be really exciting. We've spent the last couple of weeks designing lamps out of paper, trying to isolate a few specific ones that are easy to make but beautiful, and so could be taught to other people of all ages.
Turning these same images we've taken to put on the lamps into postcards was Alex's idea. He feels that by looking at the lamps as postcards from the neighborhood, as a kind of snapshot of what is going on here, we can better use them as ways to express what we think about the neighborhood. It has been helpful in encorporting text into the lamps, and has really broadened the possibilities that this project has for us.
I guess this has all been discussed before on the blog, but it is a little abstract and confusing as an idea. It took me awhile to get it. Recently, I've been out more looking around the neighborhood and taking pictures. This is really fascinating to me because though I've lived downtown all my life, I've never really been to a lot of the lower east side. There is so much I haven't seen, and its really cool how many different areas you can walk through in half an hour. Some of it is really ugly, but others shots, like the one of Brooklyn and the river above, are really beautiful.
Today I went around and shot some more specific pictures, instead of just whats ugly about the neighborhood and whats beautiful (though usually I don't find anything under these categories; mostly everything is just interesting to look at). Alex wanted me to go out and take pictures of benches and parks and things that might inspire us in the garden that we worked on over the summer at P.S. 134. I did this the other night with Jenny, but it was really dark and we didn't get really good shots. I got some good ideas for what has been done in the area, but everytime I go on one of those walks it just makes me want to inject some pure beauty into the neighborhood. It often seems like you have to search too long for it.

HEY IT'S YANELY AGAIN !

Since my last posting, we have been experimenting with the lanterns. We are trying to reach a goal of 4 perfect lanterns. We have several different designs that we are considering for the final 4. The lanterns should be able to incorporate both text and images sort of like a postcard. In fact, we are making bootleg postcards using images from within the community to help us combine the two things. We feel that the lanterns should portray a strong idea about the community to the viewers. Today, I froze my behind off outside while taking pictures for the postcards. I bumped into Jenny and Susan and they both accompanied me to take more pictures. Alex's bootleg camera died out and left us with a mere seven pictures. After returning to the oh, so warm office, we charged the battery and uploaded the pictures.

Hi my name is Robert Silva and I'm an intern at the Hester Street Collaborative. At the beginning I thought that we would be going to a construction site, moving bricks and wood but it was really diferrent. The Hester Street Collaborative is an Architectural Firm.

When I first came here we made our own designs and symbols in concrete.The name of the project is called Step On Your Neighorhood. The second activity that we worked on was designing a small box so we could put concrete in it. However before that we had to do measurements so that all sides could be equal.After the concrete was smooth and almost dry we put our own designs in it. The next day when it was dry we took out the screws and wood to see how our concrete design looked and we all were amazed at the results.

The next project that we did was the Garden in which our task was to help 5th graders at PS. 134 with their garden which Hester Street Collaborative and the school has been working on since last year.We helped them clean,water,and fix the garden.Also we went to a school that is across the street from the Hester Street Collaborative to help students design for benches for a playground. It was an 8th grade class.Most of them had good ideas for the benches.It took us 3 weeks to do all this, we only got to see the 8th and 5th gragers once a week.

Lunch time was my favorite time. We traveled around Chinatown but stayed near the firm. We went to eat fried dumplings, vietnamese food, chinese buffet and red bean bun which were all surprisingly delicious.

Internship In Hester Street Collaborative Was Great!

Hello! my name is Yomaris Millan I am an intern in Hester Street Collaborative, I come from Pablo Neruda Academy for Architecture and World Studies. I am a sophmore in my school and this is my first time as an intern. I have to be sincere and say what I thought intership would be like. I thougt internship was going to be boring and a waste of time. But... I was wrong. One thing I could say about Hester Street Collaborative is that they get to work immediately.

The past few week I've been in internship, I have to admit I've had a blast! I really enjoyed being here. Alex Gilliam my supervisor made this experience for me very exciting and intresting. I also enjoyed working with the other interns from my school Robert Silva, Josue Ortiz and Victor Vidal. Being here has been a great experience, I got to eat vietnamese food,dumplings and even got to eat in a buffet and I have to tell ya all the food was delicious and at an unbeatable price! I couldn't believe how cheap things are here in China Town.

Now let's get to business! In my time here we've been working on two projects. One of the projects we've been working on is called Step on your Neighborhood for PS.134, the second project is working on fixing up the garden which is also for PS.134. The project I enjoyed the most was the Step on your Neigborhood Project and becuase I like it so much I decided to write about my experience.

In the beginning of this project I was working with Robert Silva and Jihye who was also an intern here from Pratt College. First, Robert and I were drilling holes in the wooden peices that later on we would use to put in cement. Second, Jihye and I were taking one side of the wooden pecies and sanding them so that the inner walls of the square we were going to make would be smooth. But after we had sanded the wooden pieces Jihye would spray Polyurethane.

Then, Robert and I were trying to drill the nails into the wooden pieces to make it a square and that wasn't working out at all. The wood kept on breaking so the next day our friends Josue and Robert were drilling while Victor and I were molding clay into sqaures so that we would go around the neighborhood and find some unique shapes or designs and stamp the clay into them.

Last, Robert and Josue were finished in making the squares so Victor and I were mixing cement and putting them inside the squares. Later, that day the cement was almost dired up and Robert,Alex and I were taking things that we found around us and started to make designs in the cement. I took a saftey pin and started to press it in the cement, then I took another one and started to imprint the end of an architectural scale into the cement.

I've learned so much in only three weeks. I'm so sad that this is going to be my last day here. I wish it could be longer but sadly it's only three weeks. I've learned alot about architecture, China Town and Korea (from Jihye). Working in the garden was also a great experince beacuse I had the oppurtunity to learn how to deal with kids. It was very difficult, at the beginning it was a havoc but it gave me a taste of how I was when I was younger. But I really liked it even though at times I was lazy and tried to get away with things Alex was always keeping an eye on all of us. At the end of the day when it was about time for us to be dismissed were would reflect on how the day went. We would talk to eachother and discuss what we liked and didn't like,what we did good and what we could improve or have done differently. That time of the day was very intresting. I think it's something that they should implement in school.

The Sunday Fair and the Results

Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, what a week we had! Sunday we were involved in an Asian American for Equality Summer Festival, on Bayard St.-, which was exciting because three weeks ago we interns had suggested Hester Street could participate in a community fair as a means of raising awareness of the mission of Hester Street. A table was rented for last Sunday’s fair in Chinatown. We spent the whole week preparing for it. Tuesday and Wednesday us men constructed a wooden frame to display posters. All of Friday was spent on xeroxing and printing postcards, newsletters, posters, and the blog. The xerox machine and I are not colleagues anymore. We are enemies.

On Sunday, we packed up everything and setup shop on the corner of Bayard St. Leslie from Leroy Street and Dominick’s friend Alena came to help Anne and us interns. As you can see, I had made a sketch of all of us at the table. I had imagined that we would have had a hard time passing out flyers, but it was quite the opposite. I don’t know if the residents understood what it said, but they took them. The little old Chinese ladies were especially happy to take free stuff. They took our paper clips from the table, and one asked if she could have our only pen. I grew up knowing about that sort of behavior, but pens and paper clips?

Dominick and I had a problem handing them out, but the ladies did a marvelous job. I guess people that pass by can’t resist a nice smile. Alena single-handedly was able to draw in two pages worth of contact information for the mailing list. But it’s not to say that the guys did nothing. Dominick was very charming to the people his own age that spoke primarily English. Since I was the only Cantonese-speaking member of the group, I had to act as the Hester Street representative to the Chinese Community. I’m a very, very shy kid and not too knowledgeable with Chinese, but I tried my best. I explained to the bewildered people of the organization’s desire to have the youth of the community to help restore broken down areas and replant flowers. If I had more time to prepare, I think I would have described Hester Street more correctly. But, the adults understood what I was getting at, and were excited to hear of available activities for their kids.

In the end though, we managed to pass out all of the papers and postcards. I was so glad that the day was finally over. I thought I was going to eventually faint from an anxiety attack.

Today Anne, Dominick, and I explained to Alex, Jenny, Susan, and our littlest member Jesenia of our experience. We broke into teams to brainstorm on methods and activities to improve on future conventions. Generally, most of us wanted to have an activity involving children, possibly either a hands-on project or a game. We voted on the best ideas, and Alex pulled out the ones that sounded reasonable to do. Each of us volunteered to work on one activity. We will explore methods of educating children and their parents about Hester Street, methods of gaining information from the community and new ways of getting people involved in Hester Street, and improving the community. My assignment is to find ways for participants to gain knowledge of Hester Street by transforming postcards into a three dimensional piece that represents Hester Street. Presentations will be given on Friday. Wish me luck.

Journal Entry By Susan

Today’s day of work started out a little differently. Instead of going to the garden first, Jenny and I went to the office to plan out our next garden-related agenda. That didn’t really happen though. We worked on something else that was just as important.

It was really early, around 9 a.m., but we were already up for some researching. Chelsea Garden Center had promised Hester Street Collaborative some donations of plants for the garden weeks ago. They haven’t arrived yet and it was getting pretty hard to be patient since I wanted to plant them. We thought the problem was that it was hard for the Garden Center to contact Jenny, the one who convinced them to contribute to the garden. Or maybe the problem was the transportation of the plants. My job was to research on van/truck rentals with enough storage room at an affordable price. I had some help from William, Dominick and Jenny, but still we couldn’t decide on a vehicle. Well, this could wait until later since we didn’t even know the amount of plants we were going to get.

In the garden, the mosaics were a big issue. Everyday we always trying to take another step in finishing the mosaics. When I arrived, I immediately started work on the mosaics. In other words, I cleaned the tiles by scraping off pieces of cement glue sticking out that prevents us from filling spaces with pieces. I used a hammer and “the claw” together. It was hard work. I had to twist my wrists in different angles. It tired me out. While I was cleaning, others were trying to finish the river mosaic and the pieces that contrast against it. We were concentrating, so there wasn’t a lot of conversation going around.

At the end of the day only Jenny, Jesenia, Le Wen, Zi Yi, and I were left in the garden. The garden was a mess, but by each of us taking on a certain task, we were able to finish in about a half an hour. I know that seemed like a long time, but for us, it was pretty fast. The mosaics seemed more complete and cleaner than before

Gardening Today by Jenny

Hey. This is Jenny again reporting on the work in the garden. Today’s session has contributed to the construction, as usual. And as usual, today’s session has its pros and cons.

Well, lets talk about the cons first. What happened today that drove me crazy was when the little volunteers kept mistaking the real plants for weeds. We ended up having to replant several flowers. They didn’t know what a weed look like, so we tried to explain it was anything that looks like grass or has a red stem. It was so cute when this little girl replanted the leaves because she thought that it might grow into a tree. Others also became confused with the fact that grass is a weed. I guess we should have been more specific.

I guess another con would be that we could have better organized the gardening tasks for that day. We only fixed up the part of the garden that looked as thought need a lot of attention. Although that does help maintain a tamed appearance, nothing drastic has changed.

What I thought most improved today was the little kids from the camp kept looking through the fence and asked if they do some gardening, even though they were in the middle of playing dodge ball or basketball. I was so glad that kids just came in interested in working in the garden with us. Especially since it would take a pretty long time for 5 or 6 people to finish the gardening ourselves. I was hoping from our last session at the garden that we could influence the kids who volunteered last time to help out again, if it seemed more enjoyable than other activities. We could make friends with them so they wouldn’t hesitate to come help again. From today, I guess it was a success since so many kids came to garden. Some didn’t even tolerate the fact that they had to leave to eat lunch.
We were able to fix up parts of the garden that we always neglect, like the area under the bushes. We raked up all the leaves under there and surprisingly it made was a big difference. I didn’t think that people could tell that there were leaves under a bush. Well, the hard labor of raking paid off, so I hope the leaves on the bushes will stay there.

Gardening Today by Susan

The very first thing I remembered, when Jenny and I finally showed up to the garden, was people telling us that we were late. We arrived at approximately 10:30 am. That seemed early to me. Anyways, we came earlier than we did on Tuesday, so we were off to a good start. The kids from Henry Street Settlement were already there, along with everyone else from Hester Street. For what seem like a small garden, there sure is a lot to do – especially when it comes to weeding and cleaning. I tackled that job today with the help from almost everyone.

Near one end of the garden there was this plot of flowers that was 99% filled up with weeds. Jenny, William, three kids from Henry Street and I weeded that container. At first, the job went really slow. We had a problem distinguishing plants from weeds. As a result, many flowers were pulled. To stop the massacre, we organized ourselves into smaller groups with different responsibilities. Some weeded, some discarded the piles of weed, and others replanted the flowers that were pulled by accident. (Must save the flowers!)

After we became a little more organized, we had a lot of fun. It wasn’t awkward at all. We talked, joked, laughed and worked at the same time. Later on, others joined in wanting to help too. I guess one thing successful today was that we learned to work together and get along. It wasn’t that hard.

After that big job was done, I went to help clear leaves and garbage from behind the benches. It required a lot of careful handling from everyone involved because we didn’t want to kill plants, or accidentally dig up seeds. It was kind of frustrating, since the plants were all tangled in garbage and they snap easily. However, it was all worth it because a lot of people thought that it looked cleaner.

Our teamwork was super, but something we need to improve on is cooperation between other groups. For instance, it could get really nasty if someone was picking up trash in the soil and suddenly someone waters the area they’re at. Not only would they get soaked, but also wet dirt and mud is not pleasurable to work in.

Oh yeah… At the end of our work in the garden today, we all pitched in to clean the materials. Anne made me realize that I have a problem with trying to be a perfectionist! I guess I have to learn that garden work does not require every single job to be done perfectly.

Hi, my name is Susan Zhang. Today would be my first full day of work in the garden.
I did a good amount of gardening upon my entrance into the garden – if you consider clearing away trash along with the soil as gardening. I ‘gardened’ with Jesenia and some students from P.S.134. We also worked on the mosaics glued onto one of the plant containers together. One of the main goals for today was to at least make some progress in completing the garden’s first mosaic container. The girl I was with from P.S.134 - Marsali - and I reached for that goal by simply finishing her mosaic and clearing away the extra cement that covers the mosaic pieces with the end of a paint brush. It wasn’t that easy since the majority of the cement glue had already hardened. It was also very frustrating because very little difference is shown even after a lot of hard work.

Alex, Jenny, Dominick, William, Zi Yi, Le Wen and Janet joined us later on with ideas and goals of their own (Anne was already there). Jenny joined us with the mosaics and showed me how to use a hammer and a shovel or just a shovel to chip off bumpy pieces or dried cement. I’m not sure why but I got really excited and interested in trying out her ideas. It was really fun and I even got around with trying out other tools that were available. By then this girl named Lily was also working on the mosaics. I have to admit, I felt as if she had more concentration and determination than me to smooth out the bumpy container. She got so involved with her task that she even decides to skip her lunch period. In my opinion, I think today was a success already since the project was able to attract kids from P.S. 134. The playground was filled with kids playing and having fun. It was amazing how a lot of them offered to help work in the garden rather than continue playing with their friends.

Another job that I perform that I thought would make a good contribution to the garden was planting seeds with Jesenia. She had brought seeds that would one day sprout into a sunflower, a snapdragon, or an aster. The flowers were going to be really pretty, the seeds were easy to plant and the best part of all – we would see results in a short time! The sunflowers were buried behind the benches by the fence, the snapdragons in a container (I didn’t help with that unfortunately… I was busy), and the asters in another. The sunflowers weren’t much trouble but the asters were a whole different story! First we turned the soil with Janet, and then took a look at the seeds for the first time. The seeds were so so so so tiny! Like no larger than a grain of rice! Another trouble with this is that if we were to follow the directions we would have to place each seed in a hole 1 inch by 1 inch. I’m not sure if Janet and Jesenia shared the same opinion as me but I was like “As if!” (I wasn’t good with measurements and being precise with a tiny object in the heat with soil all over me) Well, we ended up randomly spooning out a little of soil for each seed, throw a seed in, slap a handful of dirt on top and forgetting all the measurements and the exact place they were buried in. I really need to work on my patience when I garden!

Then there was the weeding… it wasn't very difficult except for the fact that I constantly got sprayed by the water hose while weeding. Actually, I should thank the kids from P.S.134 for that… it was rather refreshing!

Playtime at the Garden

Hello people, it's me William. I know, William is writing again. I'm sorry, but I just have to tell you all what happened today. Alex, Dominick and I joined Anne, Jenny, and the Henry Street Settlement kids at the garden. It was designed by the students of PS 134. We're fixing it up for them for the summer. This would be the second time for me going to the garden. I was really hyped to get out of the cool, comfortable office for the dirty, humid outdoors.

Anne made me in charge of supervision. I was suppose to ask the kids if they needed a helping hand. My first attempt of interacting with people was a failure. I assumed it was because of me being much older, and therefore creepy. So, I walked around the small garden, picking up fallen bark and leaves. Can ya believe the trash people leave? My gosh, there were so much plastic wrappers. There was even a smashed glass bottle! Ugh, I tried my best to clear that away.

Alex had us interview one child each. He wanted us to practice our interviewing skills for the oral history assignment, that is later on in the internship. I was assigned to talk to a little girl in pink. I pretty much followed her, but didn't say a word. I thought, 'I'm a guy attempting to talk to a girl no older than nine years old. How creepy is that'. To solve this problem, I waited until she was doing something I could help her with. I saw her raking, so I took a broom and swept the garden path. Alex checked in on me and told me to stop sweeping and talk to her already.

I saw her working on the mosaics, and came up to her to lend a hand. When I asked her for her name, she said "...Megan..." as though she were scared. I could understand why. I could be a kidnapper. But after working together for a while, we opened up to one another. I found out that she wanted to be an artist. She would like to have a natural pond on the corner of the garden. I thought I'd throw in a silly question, asking if we could put animals into the pond. She surprised me by saying it was too much responsibility. Some one would have to take care of the animals. Instead, she suggested to me to have objects that would resemble creatures in the water. Unfortunately, due to my reluctance, I wasn't able to ask her more questions. She was a sweet little girl though.

I was surprised when another camp came in, a bunch of children came into the garden. They were asking why we where created a mosaic on the flower plots. I thought about it... It was a good question. I couldn't answer them, but was able to get two girls to join in. They really liked the assorted colors, and one of the girls, Ariel, said we deserved a medal. I don't know about a medal, but a grant... Maybe. Although they really wanted to help, their counselor took them back to their group. I was disappointed, but hoped that they will come back.

Information is the Key

Today is wednesday. Technically we, Dominick and I, were not suppose to be here, but we had to make up our absent days. We started the day a little late. Even the adults were reluctant to come into work at the precise time. But it was okay cause when I was able to write up a new draft of the newsletter that was suppose to of been sent out a while back. Heh, I guess I haven't written it to perfection yet. With Alex's guidance, I'm getting closer to my goal.

When Alex did come in, he immediately put us to work. He wanted us to look for information on how to get information. ... Yeah. Did you pause for a second? He gaves us two sites to check out to help us understand what he wanted. One of the sites was about hypertexts that allowed a person to follow a link to the item inquired. It is pretty much talking about search engines and sites that exsist only to harbor links. It goes on to say children learn more from the net than from educators. I assumed this was because the internet has became a part of people's everyday lifestyle.

We also examined another site called Photovoice. It was a volenteer program that sends recruits as photographers to in need areas. Most of them are children from 16 to 20. Alex wanted to show us how images that send a message to a viewer. Their photos depicted the hardships, sorrow, and endurance of the refugees, poor villagers, and the homeless. It really excited me when I read more about the program, since I have been wanting to get back to serious photography. I might consider volenteering next year.

We went back to Alex to report on what we had interpreted from the two sites. We talked about the power of images, which was basic photo 101 to me. Alex got to talking about oral history. In my head I though, "It's basically letting the speaker talk freely about their past, right?" It is actually more like an informal interview. Alex asked us to look into it on the web, and constantly questioned us if we understood what he said. We did, but the problem was coming up with the solutions to receiving information we need from people. To us there is no other way to ask people other than annoying them with questions. We're nice kids, and we don't want to do that. Anne and Alex tried to explain the concept of oral history to us again, but I didn't quite understood where they were going with it.

Alex gave us a final assignment to find out about the history about Chinatown and the Lower East Side, and brainstorm on what we needed to know for the project ahead. He also gave us a little warning of our future assignment to each get oral histories of five people in the neighborhood. Major gulp.

The Hideous Building By Dominick Freeman

This has to be one of the hideous parts of Chinatown. On the Corner of Allen and Division Streets right across the street from the Gas Station, this building has to be the most grotesque thing I ever saw! There is graffiti everywhere the store seems as if it were abandoned for years. Ironically, the only thing that was left clean were the lettering for the store, on top of the countless murals of graffiti at street level.

William Chung and I went on an assignment to find a building that annoys us the most and when we saw this hideous building ...I was speechless! Broken glass on the windows and not to mention the burnt walls surrounding it. But the most scariest thing has to be the color of the facade, a dark, gothic color that makes me want to run away from that block and never go back again. Below the windows there are burnt walls and and a graffiti tag that said HI-5.

There is another part of the street that is just as hideous as the building across from it, the Allen Street malls. The fences are like spagetti; it's all over the place, it spirals around with split ends. The sidewalks looks as if an earthquake struck New York, with one part of the concrete higher than the other, making it dangerous to walk on it and trip. It's the summer and the trees in that mall doesn't seem like its growing leaves, but rather drop chip of bark on my friend William Chung on the arm. I couldn't say more, this part of town needs to be renovated and maintained!

I have some plans that I had to brainstorm as my assignment. For one, I would like to see that hideous building repainted, we need to give some life to a building that is part of our lives everyday. The graffiti needs to be cleaned out, graffiti only shows neglect and always will. I would love to see the street level part of the building to be a nice store or restaurant so people can spending time on that block. For the mall, the trees need some leaves, at least some fake ones to make it look pretty. Sidewalks needs repaving and resurfacing so people can feel safe not to worry about tripping. Also, fixing up the fences and the benches would make it more convenient for people to sit or tak a nice walk on this warm day.

Hi, I'm Jenny Chen. Today, I was working on the garden in PS134.
The whole day wasn't wasted on non-resulting activities. We made a lot of progress on short term work. We started the day with volunteers from Henry street. We brainstormed ideas in which we can improve on the features of the garden and cateogorized the ideas into short term activities and long term goals.
After our discussion on the potential goals and worked on the short terms goals that ranged from raking leaves to pulling out weeds.
Gardening was a whole new experience for me. To me, gardening is helping maintain the life of plants by pulling out weeds and watering the plants, and also making the appearance of the garden more pleasant to observe.
The importance of today was to make progress on our short term goals, but if generalized, the purpose of today was to clean up the garden and make our work on the garden in the future to be less burdened.
I felt as though the hard work in garden today paid off. I could really tell the diffence between how the garden used to be and how it is right now. It is amazing how a little weed pulled out makes such a huge diffence in appearance. Even though I think the the garden looks great as it is right now, I can't wait to see the finished product of the garden.

- The next day
Today's goal was merely just to research on the plants and ideas that will better suit the garden. We went though our ideas realistically and made sure that our ideas didn't go out of hand like building a whole fountain in the garden.
My favorite idea was to mosaic the garden's pathway with marbles or pebbles. I like that idea because when you think of a garden, you immediatly imagine all this different kind of bright colors, but with a dull solied floor, the dull color does'nt compliment the colors of bright flowers. With the colors of the marbles mosaiced on the pathway, it can bring the colors of the garden to the next level.

Well, hello. This is Dominick Freeman and I feel happy that I can write the first blog for HSC. Well today Iwas a bit nervous, feeling like a computer illiterate once again. I never knew what on earth HTML was all about. My co-worker William Chung and I didn’t know what to do until he found a site that made HTML a bit easier for us. We moved as fast as a snail but we made it through and we have accomplished our first step to our new webpage. (hehe)

I felt an accomplishment by learning the basics but there are other things that made me feel a bit sad.Alex Gilliam, our boss, took us around the corner to see a wall. It was a ugly-stained wall that surrounds the handball and basketball court. The wall was stained with many shades of red and it made me scared because it shows neglect. Even though it was left to peel, the kids still play in the court. They play handball and they still have time enjoying themselves.I looked at them play and I was saying to myself that these kids would like to see something done to the wall. I would like to see something creative done to that wall like a mural that would make it more appealing to the community. If it works out in the end, Chinatown would look much more beautiful and I want to see it glow when I’m walking on the street.

Well anyways, I love to have my first blog posted and I would do some more construction work on the webpage. Now only if I had a manual….

Heh, hey. My name is William, and this is my first web blog entry at the Hester Street Collaborative. Woot-woot.

This is my second day working with the collaborative. The first day was a real nervous one. Another intern and I had to setup the exhibit that displayed what they did with kids from PS 134 and MS 131. We put up photos of the kids working and learning from the guest speakers. I was impressed and surprised to see the work the kids had done. Especially the job they did with the flower garden.

Anyways, my second day went well too. I came in too early, cause Anne wasn't here yet. But, another person put me to work. I was like, "Oh man, another boss. Act cool." He name is Alex. He seems alright. Very impressed with his education in carpenting.

Alex gave me a little assignment to pick fifthteen photos that could be postcard worthy. They had to represent what we do here, and look good. Was it a test of my abilties? Nah. I tried to see it as a musuem report. I walked around the basement looking at the images, and writing my analysis. I went to the computer to print out the photos for my presentation. I was all nervous, but Alex said I did alright. I basically said why some images I choose I thought were powerful, and others were fun to have as postcards. Man, I wish I had one night just to write an essay, and be all student like. Wait. What am I saying? I'm out of high school. Why am I still thinking school-ish?

I really like the mural photo (the one displayed). I remember it when it still looked nice. It's suppose to show the endurence of the Chinese immigrants. Now the wall is covered with graffitti. Dang youths who don't appreciate art. I believe it is important that the postcards show what the neighborhood needs fxing, as well as the improvements. Hopefully it can delieve a message to others.

What time is it? I hope my shift is almost over. Ha ha, just kidding. I like it here.