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Shuxiao Tao_ MillionTree and Brooklyn Beach

5/18/2014

Before today, I've been to State Island before, and it was only a drop-by and don’t know why I should go there. Maybe it’s about the free ferry. While today I’m heading there for planting ‘Million’ tress, and eventually we plant over 10 averagely. It has been such a good time for each of us enjoying the every moment, and we get a badge for volunteering work. On the way back to the ferry station, I couldn't help to notice every house are so good at their gardening, with different landscape skills and traits. All these cannot simply learning from textbooks, but to enjoy and learn from your life. Thursday when I was in Williamsburg, people put a sign with three letters on the wall right above their entrance, “live, love, laugh”. What an inspiration motto it is, I can’t tell how many times I've lost the touch to enjoy the sunshine and walking out to the nature.

Later we went to the Floyd Bennett Field at Gateway National Recreation Area, the journey took quite a lot time, because it is at the northeast end of Brooklyn. However, bicycling to the shore and standing there, what is in the eyesight is JFK, Manhattan, Status of Liberty and others. It was not normal to ride a bike on the airport passway and it felt so nice about it.

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Chunqi Fang, May 17th, MillionTreesPlanting

5/18/2014

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Today’s weather was very beautiful. My choice was Million Tree Planting. I and Shuxiao Tao went to Staten Island by ferry. It was a really great trip by ferry. The view on the ferry was also wonderful. The first video was took place on the second floor of the ferry when it was leaving the Terminal. The angle rotated very slightly and the ferry changed its direction at the same time. The result is a both still and dynamic video. We can see the buildings in Manhattan show up firstly. Then the ships travel on the East River. The Brooklyn Bridge and the skyline of Brooklyn. Due to the camera was rotating, the shadow of deck corridor showed up gradually. And the most interesting thing was the shape of the shadow changed quickly due to the rotation of both camera and ferry. The trick is the back view was moving quickly, and the front view moved much slower.

The second video was took at Brooklyn Bridge Park yesterday. Because I liked the pumping water and the pave wary much. It also many information about the landscape design of the park.

Then we arrived at Staten Island to attend Million Trees Planting. We got gloves and shovel at the front. The guide guy was friendly and he taught us how to use these tools to plant a shoot in 6 steps. I drew a few diagram to explain this processing. It was a great experience to touch the nature directly. We and Bangyuan Shi and Emily Hwang worked as a group during the 2 hours planting. We saw a lot of earthworms during the planting and many interesting creatures. We finished about 40 trees in total. Great fun there.

After this we headed back to downtown Manhattan to next stop. I went separately to Central Park, where the third video was took at. When you walk through any pave in Central Park, you can see a lot of people activates happening around the pave. The variation of them was also great. Each people was doing different things there. The slopes and paves were designed very successfully.

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Activity (Emily Hwang&Bangyuan Shi)

5/18/2014

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We really woke up very early this morning because our destination is pretty far. After yesterday’s big rain, the weather is nice, sunshine and proper humidity. We took a bus at lower Manhattan then pass through two bridges and get onto this small island. Maybe because of the scale and the location of this island. I feel a unique kind of lifestyle happen here on this island totally different from Manhattan. On the way to our site, the house and typology is very interesting. A little bit like San Francisco, the road rises and falls a lot. Every house has its front yard with a lot of well trimmed plants.

When we get to our site we are put into different teams to plant trees. It’s our first time planting a tree, so it’s quite exciting. So in the first video, we took it by standing on one spot and turning around 360 degree to record people surrounding us: how they planting trees, explaining how to plant, children playing with each other or with earthworm. Our team of four accomplished forty trees, its quite an achievement to us. Another achievement is one of our teammate is very afraid of earthworm, but after this event, she conquered this fear.

After a quick snack time, we prepared to heading back. This time, we choose to ride a ferry. So the second video record the ferry journey. At first, people are talking and waiting for the ferry to leave, after a sound of whistle the ferry set sailing and a lot of people gather to the window spot to take a view of the river.

Today’s event is quite new to us. We go to an unfamiliar island, plant trees with unfamiliar people, use a way of transportation we are not that familiar with. So in summary, today is a novelty adventure for us.

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Panorama at the Park

5/18/2014

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Paige Buzard

This is a panoramic video clip of the first shoreline view when we entered Bennett Field. It was so refreshing to see that the boardwalk opened up to such a gorgeous ocean view. The sound of the waves was lovely. I liked the long views and the open sky. I think this is one of the very few places in the city area you can go to experience a completely new world. Here are no skyscrapers, pervious ground surface, vast spaces and ocean waves.
Bennet Field was not designed to be a park although it seems like the perfect place to have an expansive designated area. Bennett Field was originally an air field for famous pilots like Amelia Earhart, but it became the cities first municipal airport when Mayor LaGuardia landed in New York instead of landing in New Jersey. Its use as a municipal airport was short lived because it was turned into a naval air force base during the world war. Long Islanders manufactured planes and they were sent here before departing for battle. It was really interesting to see the old plane hangers. I even liked the abandoned look the buildings had, it appeared historical and mysterious and gave the site a nice character.

There is no doubt that the boardwalk under such a blue sky was one of the nicest views in Brooklyn. Even though sand had blown over the boardwalk, it was still possible to run or walk or bike along the ocean. I don't think that there was much maintenance going on at this park because the sand did not look like it was being managed and the plant life was overgrown and brambly (I think it went well with the abandoned feel of the site so there are places where management is best left at a minimum).
The second image of the above shots is of the bike and pedestrian lane. There was minimal signage but we all could easily comprehend the yellow line running through the middle and on the regular path we passed people without a problem. We did cross a bridge though and that was rough. The bike lane over that bridge was very narrow, especially for a two-way which as bikers kept pedaling at our group, you realized it was. To my knowledge, no one hit anyone else, but it was a little to close to comfort. I would have preferred to have a foot of space between handlebars, but now I know for future design.
The next image was of the group riding down the takeoff/landing strip. It was a special experience to have the bikes going down an old Navy air strip.
Bennett Field also features some programming and camping seemed to be popular here. There is a small fee and an area to set up tents. People were using the beach to go swimming, kayaking, fishing etc. There is probably more potential for this location but it must be hard to get people out here because of transit and distance from everything else. If Long Islanders would travel out to Jones Beach for concerts and live events, I bet that they could use Bennett Field for similar things and it would attract a large audience.

P.S. Volunteering for the Gowanus Canal in the morning was also a blast!

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Shuai Yan & Yichao Kang

5/17/2014

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Today is a cold day, sunny but smells like the autumn. We have two choices as volunteers. One is Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and the other one is MillionTreesNYC. We choose the first one. I sounds interesting. We can do something for the city, and make people notice the Green. It’s great.

We take the wrong subway and run to the meeting place quickly. We are volunteers of the Future Green Studio. At the beginning, I walked along this street 3 times to check the planter. People who was working on the plants is very interesting and different. Most of them were so carefully to put the soil in to the wooden box. Some body were waiting for the soil and water. After then, I was working on collection the trash. We killed the rank grass and found many disgusting garbage, like cigarette end stub, paper and tubularis. Something in them is dangerous, like broken glass. People who walking on this street always looking at us and want to know what we are doing. After hard working, this street looks more beautiful and clean. We had the BBQ near this street for lunch.

The second stop is Floyd Bennett Field. Although this trip is hard, it is meaningful. We ride bike to the park. All the way , we were able to seen the different view at the east of Brooklyn. It is really different with the city. It looks wide and nature. This park is really different with others, and the view beside the beach is amazing. Benet Field once was an important New York City airport, part of Gateway National Recreation Area. But now it is a park to do sports, know the history and other outdoors. It’s like an oasis far from the urban life, making people clam down and enjoy the nature.

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Kun Lu&Xiaoyu Li

5/17/2014

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This morning I took a participate in the volunteer activity for Gowanus Canal Conservancy. At first, I had no idea what I would do today until I saw the bolar gloves. I realized that we were gonna do something with soil. As expected, when we got to the site, I was told that we had to use shovels and utility carts to move the compost windrows which were 8,000lbs of food scraps from one place to another. The workflow was one volunteer loaded the composts, one transported from here to there, and another guy unloaded to the top of the old compost windrow. After a circle, the empty utility cart would go back to the original compost windrow. Then another circle would start again.

After I loaded my first cart, I tried to move it to another place, however, the full utility cart were so heavy that I couln’d even keep balance of it. After that, I gave up and stayed just for the loading of the compost windrow. The compost windrow was made of food scraps. It takes about 6 weeks to turn natural material into compost, heats up to 160 degrees fahrenheit and needs to be turned, to evenly expose all of the compost to the sun, about 4 times. We did it for three hours and all the old compost were moved to another place. Even though my arms were painful, I still have a yummy lunch which served by the conservancy.

After the wonderful work with other volunteers, we had a quick but happy lunch beside the road in front of a bar. The hotdog was really delicious for me because we just did a good job. Than, we took a a little bit long transfer by subway and bus to the south part of Brooklyn. Finally we arrived at the coastline in the south of Brooklyn which was a beautiful beach with a sunny and windy day. The only sad was that it was not the right season so that there wasn’t so many people at the beach. After a short conversation with the bicycle rent office, we got many beach bicycle and I rode with Yichao on a double bicycle because she was really not good at it. So you could imagine that I needed to ride hard, but still we finished it and not too bad. We crossed a express and went to a waterfront of a bay or lake I was not sure. There were a lot of people fishing and camping beside the water. The water was pretty beautiful and clear under sunlight with several boats on the surface. I went to the edge and tried to touch the water, really cold but refreshing. Not far away from the water, it was gonna be many sites for landscape design and architecture. I guessed it should be a wonderful site to create attractive place for New Yorkers and visitors in the future. There were enough open spaces and vegetations to be organized and planned by architects and landscape architects. We did spent to much time in front of the water and rode back to the beach which was extremely different with the waterfront. Standing before the coastline, I could get huge sound of roar from sea. However, what was strange was that it could help me calm down and meditate, even though I was tired enough after a busy day.

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kate chesebrough- gowanus + gateway / pan shots

5/17/2014

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we began the day volunteering with the gowanus canal conservancy.
their goal for today's work was to install planter boxes full of a native wildflower mix to provide a unifying element of beauty and micro-habitat areas. using perennials as ornamentals, they hope to suggest ways of using native plants to passers by. the planters themselves were made of recycled materials.
planters were already in place, and from start to finish our duties to complete this task were: to fill the bottom 6" of every planter with sand --> fill most of the rest with soil that the conservancy has made over time from collected foodscraps that are composted, as well as other sources of soil --> place perennials in --> fill around with compacted soil. we then weeded existing tree wells.
the entire street looked great after we were done for the day. it looks like someone cares about it! this exercise helps to deepen my understanding of ecological citizenship, wherein people come together to do things together for a truly greater good, true contribution as a society. i think i saw it happen firsthand today- people getting together for some slightly abstract reason today, and leaving with the solidity of knowing that they DID something that, while beneficial and a great way to spend a saturday morning in its own right, benefits lives other than their own [in this case, bugs']. being around energetic young people who organized the event was refreshing, as well!
the scale of our intervention was small, but it speaks to big ideas and is part of the much larger body of interventions that the gowanus canal conservancy is implementing- here are some of the things they are doing this season.

i made this pan shot by walking down 9 street. i pass through people's conversations, and pass the planters we helped to establish. [i also make a passing comment, mostly to myself].

then, we rode buses through brooklyn, on flatbush ave. this pan shot was taken from the bus window, looking out at the landscape we [routinely] pass through. i took this video in an attempt to highlight the difference between the conditions in most of brooklyn versus the conditions we would find at the gateway area.

we rented bikes at jacob riis park [right on the beach!] and rode to floyd bennet field, via a few bridges. we managed to somewhat stick together as a group during our considerably long bike ride. it was so awesome!
the airfield was in a relative state of disrepair, which was sort of exciting. i am glad to see any area whose former life has passed be opened to the public so that they can make sense of what it was, and how it is to be there now. these are fundamental design questions!
the spatial experience of being on the bike was unlike any i have had. the pace and setting of our ride was different than my more routine bike commutes, and we were in designated bike lanes for most of the trip, safely away from cars! the cruiser-style bike was so easy to ride, weightless compared to the miles of pavement we've been hitting. i loved riding the bikes across what used to be air strips, with their odd angles and straight lines, surrounded by areas that have been taken over by resident plant species.
to recognize the manhattan skyline and brooklyn bridge on the horizon, to see the planes full of people coming from and going to places all around the world just across the water, the juxtaposition of relative proximity to new york city with the practice of 'rough' camping, flocks of birds making their homes for the evening, the atlantic ocean waves stretching for miles- all made for an incredibly rich experience. i shall return!
in terms of scale, the gateway area was vast- and i am small! and i can make small changes [as we did this morning with the gowanus planters], and meanwhile i can make an effort to comprehend and be comfortable living within massive complexity.

this pan shot was taken from the seat of one of the bikes we rented for the day, riding on the former air strip that has become a much wilder place, with other members of the class ahead of me.

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Christian Freeman & Vincent Ryan

5/17/2014

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Today was a beautiful day, sunny and warm without the humidity that dumped on Long Island in a heavy down pour yesterday night (I, as an upstater, finally understand all the hullabaloo concerning Sandy's effect on the area). Vince and I opened the day by waking up and driving down to Staten Island - windows cranked down, radio cranked up. Upon arrival, we signed in, then spent the morning planting trees with 200 some odd other volunteers, as a segment of the 1 Million Trees foundation. As we soaked in the sun, wallowed in the dirt, and piled up empty plant buckets, I found myself feeling like I was back home: Perhaps it was the feeling of community the activity gave me.
After the volunteer effort, Vince and I drove back to Long Island and spent the rest of the day kayaking on the southern shore, near East Rockaway Beach. As I sang the Ramones song in my head ("Rockaway Beach"), I snagged a couple of panorama shots, which is much more difficult that you would think in choppy ocean water.

Vince was kind enough to catch my camera and take a picture of me in my first solo salt water kayak experience.

These panoramas are not meant to capture hustle and bustle, but instead the tranquility and sensory elements of the water. Kayaking is not about strength and speed, but developing a harmonic pace that allows the participant to feel a sense of power and control that one does not feel while being rushed and in a hurry (compare getting somewhere via subway with transfers to getting there by kayak).

While it took me a while to get into a pace, Vince and I were able to cover a lot of ground in little town. Instead of inspecting design elements, we instead opted to seek out bird's nests and relics that had sank under water onto shallow sand bards decades ago. What this experience translates to me, from the perspective of design, is the idea of a blank slate never truly being blank. Any development that would take place out on this water would effect the already lively, but seemingly naked, landscape. Digging holes to plant the trees in this morning illustrates a similar point: Vince and I began competing to find the most interesting garbage on the ground, the highlights of which included a coat hanger, an axe head, and a muffler. To sum up, each site we as designers shape, is extremely unique, even in ways that may not be visible to you at first glance.

The below image is an old bottle Vince spotted in the shallows near an osprey's nest on an inundated salt marsh. How he sighted it in the brackish similarly colored shore is a wonder to me.

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MAY 17TH, DAY 6, MENGRAN GAO

5/17/2014

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This morning I started with volunteer work at Gowanus Canal Conservancy. We did planting wild flower at 9th street. It was quite a lot work but very fun. It feels great to do this which will benefit people in the nearby community. Though it was hard work, I think it is meaningful.
Then we headed for Floyd Bennett Field and Jamaica Bay. We rent bike there and got close to the seaside. In this fine weather, it is very nice to ride a bike and be away from crowds and noise.
I took several videos along the way and choose to upload two of them that I think are interesting.
The first one is taken on the bus when we went though the bridge. It shows the change of bridge into road, the structure of bridge into streetlights.

The second video is taken on our way back to take bus in the end of day. When we passed by the sidewalk, two sides of it show the difference, one side is road and the other is filled with dandelion that shows obviously urban element versus rural element.