Kamala Randjelovic

Blog posting for October 8th, 2007

Question #1

In Robert E. Parks “The City”, Park identifies neighborhoods as sections of a city which inevitably “…takes on something of the character and qualities of its inhabitants” (17). Park therefore defines neighborhoods that become representative of the ethnicities, beliefs and specific values of the people who reside in them. “Where individuals of the same race or of the same vocation live together in segregated groups” (18). In E.B White’s “Here is New York”, White applies Parks concept of neighborhoods to New York City, “So complete is each neighborhood, and so strong the sense of neighborhood, that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than country village”(701). In a way both Park and White juxtapose the idea of a person coming to New York City to leave a smaller place; town or village and recreating the neighborhoods of their childhoods. From the age of three, my mother raised me in a walk-up tenement in the East Village. The diversity of our building, and our neighborhood, reflected the diversity of her family and her childhood, which was spent overseas. My father also recreated in NYC, a community of Serbs much like those he spends time with in Belgrade where he lives. When White refers to neighborhoods as being self sufficient, he inadvertently shows why many new Yorkers can get by and not ever leave their neighborhood. White parallels Park’s idea that, “The small community…tolerates eccentricity. The city on the contrary rewards it. Neither the criminal, the defective, nor the genius has the same opportunity to develop his…disposition in a small town that he invariably finds in a great city.(26) through White’s depiction of the city as being “…always full of young worshipful beginners- young actors, young aspiring poets, ballerinas, painters, reporters, singers-“(702). I remember many such individuals in our building in the E. Village; aspiring musicians, bakers and make-up artists (one who is now a multi-millionaire) all of them rubbing elbows, and yes, tolerating each other and us, in those heady days of seeking success.