Citizen Designer Blog

My first week

2011-07-15T15:25:00.001-04:00

Julian D. Brown

Hester Street Collaborative

On Monday, July 15 was my first experience at Hester Street Collaborative. Three other interns and myself sat around a table joined by 5 other staff members of the workshop & gave a brief Introduction about ourselves. Then we played a game, more of an ice breaker so that we could get familiar with one another. Each Intern paired up with a staff and told them our interests. After doing that we joined in a together to share about our partner, we told two truths & a lie, and the audience had to guess which were Fact & which was False. Later on that day we were given a tour around the shop & the area of Hester Street as well as all the organizations Hester St works & collaborates with. Later on during the day, we went out with a staff Member to a garden owned by a middle School that Hester St Collaborated with as our first task. We were given a tour around the garden and history facts. We watered plants, cleaned up around the area, Swept, learned names & functions of each plant, & I’m just looking forward to planting some new plants.
On Tuesday, July 16th we worked on the next project which was Silk Screen Printing, coming up with a creation or design that expresses who we are individually. So we worked on just our designs & coming up with a theme for the remainder of the day. We found ideas from things we worked on before in the past & looking into Catalogs, magazines & Graffiti Books. Then we started taking notes on the steps that it takes to get your work on a shirt as seen in store’s & perhaps TV. We then copied our pictures on the computer using Photoshop & adobe Illustrator to perfect & add to our pieces. (How Cool!)
On Wednesday, July 17 we spent all day getting to know & being familiar with using the tools of Silk Screen Printing. After displaying our creations, we chose colors that will reflect our designs. We worked with:
• Lighting Adjustment in Room
• Exposure Light Unit
• Silk Screen(300-200 Grid)
• Emulsion
• Paint
• Squeegee
• Scoop
• Tape
• Dryer
• Water
• T- Shirts
We then processed these steps to the shirts of our requested choice. Completion to us as Artist!
On Thursday, July 18, we took a tour all through the Park of Allen Street to see what works we should fix. We were educated on the past Years of Immigrants that started to come to the United States as well as New York from their countries.
On Friday, July 19th we went to the Hester Street Park to take down a couple of solar panels that were up from the Chinese New Year celebration last year. Now just looking forward for a new project to start & promote.

Sharon's First Blog

2011-07-15T15:08:00.002-04:00

Sharon Lee July 15, 2011

Hester Street Collaborative Blog for July 11th Week

On Monday, July 11th, Simon, Vincent, Julian, and I learned about our staff working with us in this organization. We introduced ourselves by names, our schools, and the staff told the four of us what their roles in the organization were. We also learned more about each other with a game called “Two Truths and a Lie.” We continued working on our logos and after lunch, we went with Jess to the garden near P.S. 134. Jess taught us a little bit about the plants growing there; we watered the plants, painted some kind of waterproof oil on the wood of the tables, shoveled compost from the bin to the pit in the middle, and talked about what we could do next time. I learned more about the staff and the organization I was working for. Also, I learned the significance of our roles in beautifying the garden next to the elementary school and what we could do the next time to help this garden that was usually uncared for.
The following day, we decided on what design should represent our logo and started to finalize it. We finalized it by putting the design into the computer, fixed it with the Illustrator program, transferred it to a transparency sheet, and prepared ourselves for the printing process the next day. On that day, I learned how to use Illustrator and how I might be able to use it the next time I might need it for something.
On Wednesday, we put our transparent sheets onto the silk screens that we cleaned and put Emulsion on from the past Friday. We put the screens onto the Exposure Unit while stacking three heavy cement blocks on the screen. After that, we washed it, blow dried it, and put tape on the edges of the frame and silk screen. I started to mix colors to get light purple at first then changed my mind to making light blue instead. The four of us tested out our designs, printed it on our shirts and our notebook covers. TA-DA! That day was the day I learned something interesting and fun that could be pretty useful—printing T-shirt designs.
Yesterday, we went to the garden to continue what we started on Monday like watering the plants again, pulling weeds, moved the compost in the bin into the pit, and watering that pit as well. Later on, we went to the benches on Allen Street where we observed the peeling paint, the deflated tires and recorded what we need to fix. Our actions helped me learn how our community isn’t cared for that much based on our work on the garden and we had to do to fix the benches on Allen Street.
Today, we went to the corner of Hester and Chrystie Street to take down the solar panels used for the lanterns in the past. Today wasn’t really much of a learning experience because all we did was take down solar panels.

Simon's first blog

2011-07-15T15:05:00.004-04:00

I’ve just completed a week and a half of working with Hester Street Collaborative (HSC) as an intern. I can already tell and say that I’m going to like the upcoming weeks I have with HSC. The other interns and I are having a great time. We are workers from SYEP and we get paid for what we do, but we are interns for HSC and that’s what makes this different from all the other experiences I’ve gone through for SYEP. This is something on the next level of learning.
On Wednesday, July 6, Vincent (my co-worker) and I took at tour around the office. We learned about the goals and motives of HSC. They want to help the community create a community that is compatible with them. I guess what I mean is that the city wants to help the community but it isn’t working out. The city has created a design and a plan for creating parks but this is their idea, not what the community wants. HSC hears the voice and the ideas of the community and bring it to people who can make it happen. I feel like as if I’m going to be part of something big, maybe not now but I believe that this organization will achieve its goals. Not only because it’s to help others but also because of the kind-hearted people that work here. They truly want to help and make a change for the community, and I feel like I need to help HSC in every way I can while I’m here to bring them even if it’s just a few inches closer to their goals.
Two more co-workers joined us from the SYEP program the following week. On Monday we introduced ourselves formally (not really) to each other, the staff of HSC and the interns. The reason I say not really formally is because the atmosphere was not tense or anything. It was pretty chill and everyone was enjoying the game that Gauri had set up for us. The ice breaker game was “Two Truths and a Lie.” I was paired up with Dylan and we learned about each other. We got a little bit carried away on sticking with one topic and we quickly changed so we could get at least two truths. We met back at the meeting table and played the game. Everyone saw through my lie because it was outrageously ridiculous. But the others were harder to guess. Overall we got a little bit closer to each other and the results were good.
After the introductions we went to the garden next to P.S.134 with Jess to water the plants. We learned briefly about the plants grown in the garden with Mauricio but we went more into detail and the history of the garden with Jess. After discovering the past of the garden, we went to work. We watered the plants, added nutrients to the compost of the garden, and added a new coating to the benches in the garden. We left and just worked on making a logo for ourselves for the rest of the day.
Mauricio, our supervisor and also our teacher, taught us the silk screen process. We needed to learn this so that we can make ourselves logos that would define who we are and how we connect to it. This project was to prepare us to create some sort of logo for HSC that we could put on post cards, gift cards and other things that we can give to our funding partners. I found this project very enjoyable. I was able to create a design using something I grew up with and it means a lot to me. To be able make this design and create a shirt using it, I found this project to be overwhelmingly exciting.
His method of teaching is very unique and effective. Mauricio started from the last step of the silk screen process to the first step. So the steps to the silk screen process goes as the following, well from what I remember. I may be missing some steps so don’t put your trust in me. We first cleaned a screen and applied some emulsion. This prepares the screen for print making. The screens were left in a room for a couple of days to dry up. While they were drying up we came up with our logos over the weekend.
The logo I came up with was very simple and yet attractive according to my co-workers. I bet they were just being nice. It was sunglasses with the word (I made up it when I was younger) on the lenses. It read NAGAROMO. It means something like have fun but make wise decisions too. We finally used Illustrator to add some finishing touches onto the design and we printed it out on the transparency. We then proceeded to execute what we’ve learned from Mauricio and printed our design onto the t-shirts. I was satisfied with the outcome because it was much better than I had expected.
On Thursday, we went to the garden again to water the plants. We finished adding the nutrients-filled soiled into the compost and we watered it. After that we went to Allen Street to check up on the “mallterations” to see what paint and how much paint we needed to fix up the benches made by the previous interns. The benches need a lot of repainting and some of them need new tires. Finally after a long afternoon, we called it a day.

Vincent Zhen Post 1 - SYEP 2011

2011-07-15T15:05:00.002-04:00

Vincent Zhen
7.15.11

Blag 1

Hester Street Collaborative is stationed in an office half sub-surface. The small staff of about 5 hinted at a tight community. Mauricio is this year’s SYEP mentor. A day long introduction of how the company works started with past projects, their participants, what it entailed and its outcomes. After this was a briefing on what we as SYEP members would do to assist and participate in HSC’s projects. There was an introduction of all the SYEP members and HSC staff as well.
Our first project was the silk screen project. The first half of the day was dedicated to making personal logos. Before this was a short lesson on typography and alphabet design. The second half was used to take these personal logos and create a final design by taking our raw designs and scanning them into the computer. We used Adobe Illustrator to take these raw designs and creating a smoother version. A 2.0 if you will. Using the Live Trace software in Illustrator, we could sand the rougher edges of our designs which were later transferred into a transparency.
The next day we could put the design into a shirt by process of seriography (Silkscreen). The process is done as follows:
Clean the screen (wash and dry)
Apply emulsion (emulsion is photosensitive)
Use a scoop to apply a thin screen of emulsion onto the screen
Tape transparency onto screen
“Burn” screen (put weight on top of screen for pressure)
Wash screen and dry screen to wash off ‘loose’ emulsion
Tape edges of screen to ward off unwanted splotches of paint
Test screen picture (flood and press ink)
If satisfied, press onto desired medium.

Tips:
Keep lines in transparency thick enough to allow ink to seep through easily which will reduce faded lines in medium.
Center the picture on the shirt using a piece of tape as reference.
Do not apply pressure when flooding. Just allow a smooth fill.
Apply pressure only when pressing.
Make sure the squeegee is wide enough to press the entire picture.
Make sure the color has enough contrast against medium.
Cover any and all exposed unused emulsion. Most light will harden emulsion or at least reduce photosensitive quality.

We visited the garden about 3 times. The garden is usually tended to by the school right next to it but since school is out during the summer, it is our responsibility to uphold the garden for the children next school year. We learned about several different types of plants the children were growing; grapes, cherries, mint, cabbage, etc… We watered the plants, got rid of some weeds, filled the watering barrels, and moved the compost from a couple basins to a pit. Along the way we found worms and a dead mouse.

This is my design for the personal logo project. This was put onto a shirt and later put on the cover of my notebook.

Jonathan's Second Post!

2010-07-30T10:32:00.001-04:00

Hey! It’s Jonathan again, posting my 2nd blog post. This is my 4th week here at Hester Street Collaborative; things are getting better and better. These 4 weeks has gone by quickly, and I’m almost finished as a summer intern. We started to work on the neighborhood map on the Allen StreetMalls. We gridded everything at first and it took a lot of time, but after we got everything gridded everything else was fun. We finished painting the map on July 26th. All the hard work paid off after we saw the results of the finished map. The next day, July 27th, we got new shelves! The shelves were used for our library books, and things started to look more organized. We sorted and organized the books into specific categories. After sorting the books, we headed to the garden; we watered the plants, raked the dead leaves, and re-colored the shed. After raking the leaves into a pile, we put the leaves into the compost pile. The compost pile is a place where we put all the dead leaves into. After the dead leaves decomposes it turns into rich soil that we can use for the garden, Today we stenciled the neighborhood names onto Allen Street Malls. The neighborhood names were Nolita, Alphabet City, East Village, Little Italy, Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Two Bridges. After spending the morning, and a little of the afternoon painting the neighborhood cities, we didn’t finish a couple; but I’m looking forward to finishing it tomorrow. We finished the day after going to the garden and watering the plants.

2010-07-30T10:25:00.001-04:00

7/29/10

Hey it’s Justin Lui again here with my second blog. For the past weeks my coworkers and I have been painting the map of the lower east side on Allen Street. The project took us about three to four weeks to finish and we finished it on 7/26/10. Now we are using stencils to write down the names of the different places on the Lower East Side. First we measured stencils to see how big each letter was so that we can figure out where to draw it on the white bars so that it was straight. After all the math stuff we traced the letter onto the floor then we started to paint. Also we use the color of the map to correspond to the words so like if Chinatown is painted light green the word Chinatown would be painted with the same color. We manage to finish Little Italy, East Village, Nolita, and Alphabet City Aside from working on the project we have be going to the garden at P.S. 134 to water the plants, repainting the shed and cleaning up the leaves that were all over the garden. Also we set up new shelves in the worksite and the shelves were heavy. When we were done setting up the shelves, we arranged the books in the mini library according too the different category then we placed it on the new shelves. After the past two weeks I was very tired but it was still fun working with new friends. Today we were supposed to go outside to finish the stenciling but it was raining and it keeps raining on and off, so we ended up not going outside and stayed in side cleaning. Right now we are hoping the rain will stop so that the ground can dry and the sooner it dries the sooner we can go outside to paint.

Michelle's Blog #2

2010-07-30T10:22:00.002-04:00

Hey, it’s Michelle again. Since my last blog post, the interns and I at Hester Street have gotten a lot done in terms of the Allen Street Mall-terations. We decided that we would use shades of green instead of our original colors (red, yellow, a whacky-looking purple..) and spent one afternoon just mixing different paints to get the shades we wanted. As soon as we got the paints done, we went outside and started gridding the circle using a chalk line and taping off the areas we would paint. The weather’s been on and off lately; unfortunately, it rained the day after we finished gridding so most of the chalk got washed away. Good thing we know how to improvise! We managed to finish the map in about three days and if you ask me, it looks pretty neat –

What we’ve been working on this week is the lettering for the different neighborhoods we’ve incorporated into the map – we’re using stencils to trace and paint the letters on the white tracks near the map (Chinatown, Little Italy, Lower East Side, etc.) There’s a lot of calculating involved (we had to measure a lot to figure out where we would start placing the letters). Our improvisation skills came in handy here a few times, too. The colors we used for the letters correspond with the color that area is on the map. After we finish this, we’re going to work on another map except this time, we’re focusing on streets instead of neighborhoods and using shades of red instead of green.

Aside from the Mall-terations, we’ve done a few smaller things to help around in the office. We’ve recently received a couple of new shelves so we spent a good part of one of our days dedicated to moving them and putting them together. We also sorted through the office library and categorized them to be put onto the shelves, and about an hour ago, we organized the papers and tools underneath the main table in the office and shelved them, too. I think we’re heading out again soon to finish the lettering, and maybe we’ll get started on our second map – that is, if it doesn’t rain again!

Neta's second blog

2010-07-29T11:22:00.001-04:00

This week has been really productive. I could not come on Monday, but Michelle, Justin, and Jonathan finished painting the neighborhood map on the sidewalk!!! The map looks amazing! On Tuesday we started to put a finish on the shed in the garden, it will protect the wood from rain and possibly vandalism, but it also shows the real color of the wood, red oak, it’s pretty. In the morning we put together shelves that arrived on Monday and organized all the books. Some of the books were neat; I even found one book that I had read just a few months ago about community-based architecture for a paper I wrote. This morning we organized some of the art supplies, the office is organized now. On Wednesday we spent the morning and part of the afternoon writing the neighborhood names on the white stripes that run between the maps. We painted the neighborhood name the same color we painted the neighborhood on the map; the neighborhoods are Nolita, Alphabet City, East Village, Lower East Side, Little Italy, Chinatown, and Two Bridges. We still have to finish painting some of the names today. The ones we finished yesterday look great. While we were painting a lot of people asked us questions about the pedestrian street malls. It’s exciting to see that people are become interested in them and will hopefully come back and use the street malls.

Justin- Blog #1

2010-07-23T14:25:00.000-04:00

July 15, 2010

Hey my name is Justin and I live in Brooklyn New York. I went to Midwood High School and will be going to City Tech for college. I am currently working at HSC. These past few weeks I’ve been cleaning and watering P.S.134 garden. So basically every day if its hot we go water the different vegetables, flowers and trees there. Also my coworkers and I have been thinking up ides to help out the garden, like give it a time schedule so that people in that community can go check out the garden. Also we thought up events so that kids and parents can learn things at the garden, and thought of making brochures so that people can have to learn more about the garden. Also we did a lot of research about the lower east side which is like Chinatown, little Italy, and other places. My topic was on Chinatown and I had to find out how many Chinese people from what area came to the Lower East Side, also I had to find out the different years that they came and how many people came during that year. I also had to find out the population number for the Chinese people that came to the Lower East Side. With the research that we did we will put it together to make a mural on the floor on Allen Street. The mural will be a bunch of circle with different painting on them. The painting will be a map of the Lower East Side with like different colors. Also my coworkers and I had to mix different paint to get a color that will catch people’s eye. Also this will help make the map stand out to people to make them want to look. So that’s about what we did so far and I cant wait to do more things with the new friends that I made.

Jonathan's First Blog!

2010-07-23T14:24:00.001-04:00

Hey, it’s Jonathan Li; a summer intern at the Hester Street Collaborative. This is my first blog post. I am 14 years old, and a graduate of Simon Baruch Middle School. It’s been an amazing experience here, for the first two weeks. One thing that has happened during the two weeks was visiting the P.S. 134’s garden. The first time I have gone to the garden many of the plants were dried up, since no one watered the plants, and it hasn’t rain in many days. After a couple of trips to the garden daily, and watering the plants; the plants started to look great again! The plants weren’t drooping anymore, or dried up they were looking very nice. We started to clean up the garden by raking the dried leaves out of the way. Enough about the garden, we started to do other things too. We did a lot of research about the Lower East Side’s history as well. We researched the neighborhoods inside the Lower East Side; one thing that I researched was the amount of immigrants immigrating into the Lower East Side over time. We are using the information to paint the Pike and Allen Street Malls. We will apply the information we researched and paint one of the circles on a mall this Wednesday also, the following Wednesdays! We also started on a mock-up for a painting we would do on one of the malls. The mock-up looked great, our summer interns and I put a lot of effort and time into the mock-up. I just can’t wait to do work on this outside. It is a lot fun here, and I can’t wait for more projects to come. I’m looking forward to spend my summer here at Hester Street Collaborative.

Neta's First Blog Entry

2010-07-23T14:18:00.005-04:00

Hey guys, its Neta. I'm from New Jersey, but i had heard of Hester Street Collaborative from my cousin and wanted to volunteer. Before the summer internship started I had no idea what to expect, but after being here for ten days I realized that this is going to be an amazing summer. The first few days we learned about the P.S. 134 Community Garden and the Allen Pike Street Mall-teration project. Since then we have tended to the garden and brainstormed ideas for garden events to draw in community members. I have learned that big projects take a ton of time, planning, and collaborating. We have also progressed far on the preparations for the Allen Street project. We met with the artists twice and made a mock-up map that is over ten feet in diameter to give us a visual aid when we paint the actual maps on the sidewalks of the street malls. This week we started painting the street maps on the sidewalk, I’m so excited:)!!!

Michelle's Blog #1

2010-07-20T15:43:00.005-04:00

Hey, my name’s Michelle, and I’m part of the Citizen Design Internship this summer at Hester Street Collaborative. I was born in the city, and currently live in Brooklyn. I go to Stuyvesant High School in Tribeca, and am going to be a senior (!) once the school year starts. It’s only been a week or two, but so far we’ve done (what feels like) a lot. Today we worked on the mock of one of the maps we’re making on the Allen/Pike Street “Mall-terations”. It was pretty messy working with paint and all, but we managed. The colors were a bit off from what we had on paper, though. I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s coming along really well but there’s still a lot of work for us to do before we actually start working on concrete. We still have to paint the other half of the map (it’s a circle) and maybe (?) do some more mock-ups for the other circles. Dylan, unfortunately, is sick today but left a very nice, instructive e-mail with Jess so the other interns and I are pretty much supervising ourselves. We went on our lunch break after painting and made our way to the garden when we came back. I feel like those of us who aren’t familiar with Chinatown will eventually know our way around before the summer ends. We’ve been wandering around a lot. We didn’t have to water much at the garden because it’s been pretty rainy the past few days. The plants are growing really quickly; it’ll be exciting once the garden opens up to the public – I’m worried, though, because I don’t want anyone to be careless with or around the plants after all our hard work sprucing it up. Here is a picture of what the garden currently looks like.

At least maybe it’ll give workers/volunteers during the school year something to do. I also still feel like we should eventually fix the plant signs once we have some time off from the Mall-terations because quite frankly, I don’t even know what I’m watering more than half the time. There are so many improvements I think we can make to the garden; it’s just too bad (or good) we’re focusing mainly on the bigger projects right now.

Edit: We've finally finished our mock-up for the Allen Street map! The colors still look sort of awkward to us, but that'll change. Here's a picture of the finished product:

Last Post.

2009-08-13T14:44:00.000-04:00

This is my last blog for HSC sadly. This summer was filled with many memorable moments. What started out as a summer job ended being a whole new experience. The many new things that I saw and did were unlike something I would have done on my own. This last week isn’t slowing down at all; there are still a few things to be done. As well as a few things that we didn’t do like building doors for the compost and putting up a gutter to make more use of the rainwater from the roof of the shed.
The floor is done and needs to be mopped already. It brightens up the room more than the old gray that we painted over. The garden is still growing. There isn’t much going on for the most part. The vegetable plants are perhaps triple the size they were when we first started. The egg plant plants are a lot taller but there are no more egg plants growing after the first few that disappeared. The tomatoes are slowly coming in, and the strawberry plants still have flowers and no strawberries. Yesterday, someone came into the garden and make use of the herbs. I helped her pick a rose which proved more painful. The kids that are breaking in left a mess for us to clean, they had spilled a container of red acrylic paint onto the shed floor and we had to use the hose to try and wash it out. Though I think the red sediment will be left behind after all the water evaporates.
We screen printed yesterday! It was really cool and it was the first time I ever did anything like that. Even though my shirt has quite a bit of flaws, it’s good as perfect to me because I helped make it. If I could, I would definitely go home and make more designs for t shirts and make them. Using the hibiscus flower I made, I printed it on the back just as something extra. This is definitely one of the more memorable moments.
Tomorrow is my last day, and I think the last day for the rest of the interns. We are leaving HSC on a happy note with a garden party if it doesn’t rain, although I’ll still be a bit sad that it’s ending. I will definitely try to keep in touch with everyone, and hopefully our floor design will hold up for a few years before it gets repainted. The end to a perfect first summer job.

-R.I.P Grandpa-

2009-08-10T11:49:00.000-04:00

Hey it’s George again. Sorry about not posting my blog up last week. The reason why I didn’t post my blog up was because my grandfather was in the hospital and he passed away on Friday morning. I wasn’t in the office most of last week because I was out at the hospital. However, when I was at the office cool stuff happened. On the morning of Thursday everyone in the office went to the Sara D. Roosevelt Park for a groundbreaking ceremony. At the ceremony there was a bunch of different speakers giving speeches. One of the speakers was Dylan House my supervisor. While the speakers were giving they’re speeches a student from NYU named Mike was recording the speakers talk. He offered to let me try recording the speeches if I wanted, so I said ok and I learned how to film. It was pretty exciting and fun. Then I asked him about what type of camcorders are the best to get to film and he gave me his card and he told me that if I wanted to I could go to NYU and he would bring me to the journalist department and let me test out the camcorders. After the groundbreaking ceremony at the Sara D. Roosevelt everyone went to the High Line Park. However, I didn’t go get to go because I got a call and I had to go to the hospital again.
On Monday we finished painting the map of the Lower East Side on the floor of the office. It makes the room look not as dull as before. We decided to paint the door of the fridge too. It looks so cool. The color scheme is Light blue street, little gray blocks, the water is dark blue like purple, the parks are little green, the bridges are dark gray and the project sites that the Hester Street Collaborative has been working on is like a bright orange color. We also moved the fridge into the shelves. It blends right in.
At the garden nothing has really happen. Except that there are a lot of mosquitoes so Larry and I went to CVS and brought bug spray. Sadly it was a little too late. Jess and Larry had already got bitten by the mosquitoes. However, I was lucky and I didn’t get bitten at all. Larry and Jess and I also help build shelves into the side doors of the shed. It took about three hours to finish but it seemed like it had just been only like 20 minutes.

One More Week Left !

2009-08-07T10:20:00.000-04:00

The floor’s complete date was August 6, 2009! The last of the varnish was put down and the map is done. The floor has gotten dirty already and could be mopped now. I think it looks amazing. When you walk in here it looks like a completely different office area. Its brighter and more inviting for younger kids. The refridgerator has also been moved. It now sits under the shelf with a diagram of Manhattan for the room. It’s got a really light gray as a background color, blue for the island, and orange to indicate the room. There’s also a compass rose on it that’s traditional that took Alex to do because I was too afraid to mess up >.<
Yesterday was the first day in a week that I been to the garden. Much hasn’t changed though the strawberry plants are flowering. There should be some strawberries this summer; I just hope they don’t rot too quickly. I wonder whatever happened to the eggplants…they were gone when I went to check on the eggplant plants.
Yesterday, we all went to the Sara D. Roosevelt Park for the Hester St. Groundbreaking. It was a lot of fun and it was really interesting. Even though we had to carry a lot of mosaics to the park, when the only entrance was on Grand St. although we came up with a method for carrying a lot of blocks at once, it was a workout. There were a lot of people involved with not on the Parks department but coalitions, organizations, and commisoners. The majority of the crowd is kids from the Y, but the rest were people recognized in the community for their efforts. The speakers did a fine job and Dylan made a really nice speech on Annie’s behalf. Something especially fun was when Mike, a student at NYU was showing George and I the ropes of recording. It was really cute when the kids helped out with the groundbreaking. It was definitely a memorable day.
There are still a lot of loose end projects like taking down lanterns at Columbus Park. The back room still needs a lot of reorganizing, stuff needs to be put back in place.

Week Five of Hester Street Collaborative Internship (:

2009-07-30T15:32:00.001-04:00

Projects of interest floor map, t- shirts, and garden.
The floor map is coming along really well! In the beginning of the week we bought paint and mixed it to the shade of gray we decided on last Friday. Then we strategically painted parts of the room. The first of the room to be painted was the chalkboard wall, then into the back rack and shelf and under Jess O’s, up to Annie’s desk, back to Jess P’s desk, and then finally Dylan’s desk after he left for a meeting. The gray on the floor looks really great. Yesterday we started to grid the floor with chalk with Larry’s technique. The floor then got a layer of masking tape to mark off the streets. With just the masking tape it’s shaping up. I like the angel/ice cream cone/exclamation mark like taping that Alex and I worked on towards the end of the day. The real streets are a public plaza. This morning the clutter of stuff in the chalkboard corner got moved and the painting began. The blue looks like an atlas sea blue but it looks really great. I can’t wait till the masking tape (carefully) comes off to reveal the blocks. The map shows from the lower East Village down to the curve of the river at the Cherry St. housing. The curve of the map has a lot of river so that will be painted soon as well. The parks will get a layer of green after the blue dries. The bridges will also be painted another color. The floor map is really turning out well. The sad part is the today is Cassie’s last day and she won’t be able to see the full map completed ):
The surveying t-shirts won’t be screen printed since Sadie is probably the only one attending. But Dylan said we might screen print next week. I would really like to see the design come to life.
We haven’t spent much time at the garden sadly this week. Although there is a lot of rain so the plants aren’t suffering. Yesterday we went for an hour before it started to rain…really hard. We mostly swept the garden clean and George was playing with a cricket. Sadie started a bet about the time it was going to rain; Cassie won with the closest bet of 2:17. It severely thunder stormed that afternoon until about 5o clock.
It was a really great experience to work with you, Cassie. Good luck on your SATs and college stuff ~

"It's Week Four"by George

2009-07-29T11:30:00.002-04:00

Hey it’s George. This is my fourth week here. We finally started to paint the map of the community on the floor, after we decided on a color scheme. The street will be gray, the blocks will be light blue, the parks are light green, and the river will be dark blue. We brought four gallons of white paint and mixed them to create different colors. We painted a light gray as a base coat. Then we use a chalk line and started to grid the whole office. It took one hour just to grid one third of the room. After we finish the grid we will start painting the streets and blocks on the floor for the map.
Last week we carried over fifty mosaic blocks and grouted them. The mosaic blocks will go into the wall of the new playground in the Sara Delano Roosevelt Park. We also started to make the stencil that we will use to silkscreen the t-shirts that everyone in the office will wear on August 2nd for the AAFE Chinatown Summer Street Festival. Sadly I won’t be there because I will be performing at a concert. The t-shirt design is a tree with many different types of leaves. In the middle of the t-shirt it says “Talk to me About Your Park” in English and Chinese. On the back it has the Hester Street Collaborative Logo.
On Friday someone broke into the garden. They threw the water buckets everywhere. They opened the shed and took the shovels out and they dug a hole in the mud pit which is very strange. The kids left a basketball and a baseball. At the office I planted a jasmine plant in the garden bed in front of the office and I water all the plants and then suddenly after I finished watering it started to rain. Today we are suppose to go to the garden but it’s suppose to rain at 1pm so we might not go.

Cassie's Fourth Week

2009-07-28T11:49:00.001-04:00

Hi, this is Cassie on my fourth and final week at Hester Street Collaborative. We’ve worked on some interesting projects in the past week. We finished grouting the mosaic blocks that will eventually be part of the walls in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Some of them had to be grouted several times, so it took us a few days to finish them. Also, we finalized the design for the t-shirts for surveyors at the AAFE street festival on Sunday in Columbus Park. The surveyors will be there for people to talk to about the parks in Chinatown. These suggestions will hopefully be taken into account when fixing up the parks. Our design for the shirts has a tree with many different types of leaves and says “Talk to me about your parks” in English and Chinese. To make the design we traced leaf images from the computer onto a piece of paper that already had the words printed on it from the computer. We then translated this design onto tracing paper with a dark pen so we could scan it into the computer. Once the design was in the computer, we sized it to the size of the shirts. George traced it onto contact paper which we’ll use for the silk-screening to make the shirts. Larry and Alex, two of the college interns, created a stencil by cutting out the parts of the design where we want the color to be when we silk-screen the design onto the shirts. When we silk-screen it, we’ll use a squeegee to drag the colored ink through the stencil onto the shirts.
Another big project we’ve been working on is painting the map of the Lower East Side on the floor. Last week we chose an orientation and color combinations for the map. The colors we chose are grey for the streets, light blue for the blocks, and green for parks. Yesterday we bought paint, cleared off the floor, and started painting the floor grey. We painted a huge amount of the floor in just a short time in the afternoon, and we’ve continued to paint it grey this morning. We have yet to paint under the desks because we need to finish taping up the wires and edges of the filing cabinets before painting. After we paint everything grey, we’ll tape off the grid for the map and then we’ll paint everything blue. The parts that we tape off will be the streets, so when we remove the tape they’ll still be grey. The floor is going to look very cool when we’re done painting everything.
Hopefully by the end of the week the floor will be done so I can see it before I stop working here. It’s been a really fun and interesting experience working at HSC and I hope to keep in contact with the organization and hopefully help out a few times in the fall.

Second Postings ~

2009-07-23T13:36:00.000-04:00

So this is Megan again and my second blog posting. The past week has been pretty busy with many projects going on. The map on the floor has to have the orientation finalized if we were to paint it the week Annie is gone. The t-shirt design for the Summer Street Festival has to be finalized and the shirts have to be made before next Sunday. The garden is in pretty good shape although all the fruit on the trees have disappeared…and the peach tree may be sick): On Wednesday, when we went we saw the lower branches were oozing sap that was a yellow-orange-amber color. The eggplant patch has an eggplant though! And there are more and more cherry tomatoes growing (one is almost red)! According to Jess O. there will be strawberries if the flower growth keeps up…that’s what I’m secretly hoping for the most.
With the floor repainting project, it’s been more difficult. The North/South orientation has to be somewhat accurate, with the East River at the front of the room. Also having to systematically move all the furniture and tape off a grid may be problem. Not only would I like to paint the floor, which I must say is the fun part, I’d also like to learn a bit about large spaces and how organizing such a project is done.
The Summer Street Festival is coming up soon. It’s going to be next Sunday at different locations but mainly Columbus Park on Mulberry St. Since I was little I been going to that park but less and less nowadays. It would be really cool to see something I helped design in the public eye. In the process of making the shirts, I also get a chance to use what I been learning to make a simple phrase in Chinese to go on the shirt. Though I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to go home tonight and double check with my grandparents to see if I used the right words :x
So far this week I have been enjoying laying out the mosaic tiles for the walls along the path in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Carrying the mosaic tiles wasn’t the best part…it was a workout to carry them from the school back to the office, then grouting some of them. I must admit it was nice to do something hands on but the grout really dried out my hands… I’m hoping there won’t be enough tiles and then we could make some. It would be fun to learn one more new artsy thing.

George's Second Blog

2009-07-22T11:53:00.001-04:00

Hey it’s George again. This is my second blog. I have been here in Hester Street Collaborative for about 3 weeks. Yesterday we carried about forty mosaic blocks from M.S.131 to the office so we could document them by taking pictures of them and grouting them so they could go into the wall of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park. We also started making patterns for the layout of the mosaics on the brick wall. At the office we’ve been using adobe illustrator which is software that helps make advance sketches. We used adobe illustrator to help make a grid of the office which appears over an aerial picture of the lower east side, so we would have a specific floor plan of what we would paint on the floor of the office. We are also trying to find a good color scheme for the map that is going to go on the floor of the office and we also made a calendar out of the chalkboard using painting tape. Last week we finished hanging the signs and we picked three apples and on Friday we had our first visitor in the P.S.134 garden. I didn’t catch her name but she was a nice person. She helped sweep up all the leaves and branches and throw them into the compost bin. Today we are going to go to the garden to fix the chairs and water the plants and sweep up again.

Cassie's Third Week

2009-07-21T10:25:00.002-04:00

Hi, this is Cassie again on Tuesday of my third week at HSC. Last week we started a few projects. We painted one of the office walls with chalkboard paint, finished hanging the signs at the P.S. 134 community garden, and started working on the “map-on-floor” project. Right now the floor is just grey, so we wanted to paint a map of the lower east side on it. To get started on this project, we took all the measurements of the office and drew a plan. We chose one of the sketches to use and scanned it into the computer and drew a grid over it to create a scale so we would be able to accurately paint the map on the floor. The next step was to put an aerial picture of the lower east side into Adobe Illustrator and put it behind the grid. We had to make sure to get in a few key spots, such as the HSC office, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and P.S. 134. Yesterday we made different versions of the prospective floor by orienting the map and grid differently, and changing the size of the map. We then chose potential color schemes for the floor by using different paint, mixing colors, and seeing which colors looked best together. In the afternoon yesterday, we went to the garden where we did some maintenance, such as sweeping leaves and bark into the compost bins, picking up trash, watering the plants, and turning the soil. Then we came back to the office and Annie took us across the street to M.S. 131 and showed us to the classroom where a ton of mosaic bricks were being stored. We went back and forth between the school and the office, bringing the bricks to the office so we could document them today.

George's First Blog at HSC

2009-07-16T11:51:00.001-04:00

Hi my name is George and I going to become a freshman in Fort Hamilton high school. I’ve been here for about 2 weeks now. I don’t really know what I should write about but I think it goes like this. On the first day everyone went to the P.S.134 garden to help water the plants and sweep the floor and Dylan taught us how to use the watering hose. Days later we started painting the signs with varnish and hanging them up. The other intern and I also created four signs that tell the people in the community when the community garden of P.S.134 is open. To make the signs we had to print stencils and cut them out. I know this sounds like an easy job but it wasn't because the ink on the stencils never really dried. It took about two hours to cut the stencils out and then we use paint and stencil brushes and stenciled the letters into the sign.
Back in the office other interns Megan and Cassie and I helped make step by step sketches and 3D examples for students in the summer school program from NDHS (New Design High School).The purpose of the summer program is that students from NDHS have to make up credits and were trying to make a deal with the community so they could build a boarding school in the parking lot across the street. The students have drawn floor plans and made 3D model showing the plans. When Friday came it was time for the students present they’re structure they had created.
This week we turned one of the walls in the office into a chalkboard, we started to make designs for shirts that we will wear when we ask people questions about they’re parks, and we started to survey the office so we can paint a map on the floor. The map will show all the project sites that Hester Street Collaborative has worked on. Yesterday we finished drilling and hanging up the signs at the P.S.134 garden. The word MUDPIT was the hardest. We had to use a ladder but the signs kept falling onto the ground. It took about 30 minutes just to hang it up.

FiRsT bLoG~ mEgAn~

2009-07-16T11:26:00.002-04:00

Hey, this is Megan and this is my first blog entry of the summer. I have been assigned to write an entry on Thursday and so far my mind is full of questions. I’m not entirely sure of how to write this entry except that there’s a lot to talk about in the past week and a half. Even though the time seems short, a lot has been done. On the first day, we jumped into the work after a tour of the workshop. Dylan took us out to the garden and taught us the ropes of the work out there. George started off by watering the plants, Cassie was sweeping, and I was picking up inorganic litter. As simple as that sounds, I was a bit tired by the end of all that. We did a lot in the times we been at the garden including refilling the barrels of water, painting the signs with polyurethane to keep the signs protected from the wind and rain, and much more. With Jess O. George and I started to work on the compost. Although compost breaks down over time, the compost bins had a twigs and branches which didn’t break down as quickly. We watered and broke down the matter more so that decomposition occurred faster. The other day at the garden with Sadie, I found a small apple that had fallen between two branches. It actually tasted like a Granny Smith! I hope by August that the apples will be ready with the weird weather.
Throughout the first week was the second week of the credit recovery program at NDHS (New Design High School). They were working on a project called SPURA which they were proposing ideas for a campus for their school on two current parking lots. The process started out with making models to scale (as much as possible) with an aerial image of the parking lots as a base. George, Sadie, Cassie, and I worked on a sample model the afternoon before. It was interesting to see all the students’ designs and their ideas for the use of the space. After modeling the space, we photographed the models. After all the pictures were uploaded to the computer, they were printed in black and white. Afterwards, trace paper was used to trace out the basic foundation lines of the structures. I chose to draw the space of a fountain that was on Alex and Larry’s model. I pictured it to be a three tier fountain with space for the community and students. I drew a couple of sketches of the area. With one of the trace paper sketches, I made it into a collage with ideas of how the space was going to be used and how it was going to be. With all the color and details, the sketches were scanned into the computer and placed into folders with students’ names. The photographs, sketches, and plans were placed into a template in InDesign, which is the layout program used this time. I learned the basics of the tools. Along with ourselves, the interns, working through the whole process, we helped out the students with their work. It was an interesting experience since they were…unpredictable at times. It was a noisy week but it was full of learning experiences.
I also learned a lot on top of SPURA and the garden. George, Cassie, and I worked on signs for the garden that showed the garden was open for the public. There were color schemes, stenciling and placement involved. It was messy to cut out the letters for the stencil…I had printer ink on my hands for a few days. On Monday, I used a bit of what I learned during the school year to help me draw a scale plan of the workshop. I didn’t think that technical drawing techniques would come helpful. I used a lot of what I learned about dimensioning as well. The plan will be used to help layout an aerial map that will be painted on the floor. I find that ongoing project really interesting since it’s so big and it should be a lot of fun. On top of the heavy lifting and gridding methodically that will need to be done.
So far there’s been a lot done and already a few ongoing projects. Yesterday, we started on t-shirt designs for the Summer Street Festival surveyors. My idea is pretty simple. On the back is a generic phrase that says “Ask me about YOUR PARK” to distinguish the surveyors. The capitalized words are to show some emphasis and importance of a park for people’s needs. Then on the front it says “Park Surveyor” with a hibiscus because it shows that it’s not only summer but its fragile beauty. Even in such a crowded and congested place—there is still beauty to be found.

Cassie's First Blog Entry

2009-07-14T14:09:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone, I’m Cassie and I’m going to be a senior at Riverdale Country School. I’m interning at Hester Street Collaborative for five weeks this summer. So far we’ve worked on a few projects. Last week the other interns, Megan and George, and I went to the P.S. 134 Community Garden with Dylan and helped clean it up and watered the plants. A few days later we went back to the garden with Sadie; we painted a clear top coat on wooden signs, made by the students at P.S. 134, so they could be hung up on the fences surrounding the garden.
There was also a summer school session last week at HSC. Students from New Design High School, who had to make up credits, were to create their idea of a boarding school. The project would be built on the SPURA (Seward Park Urban Renewal Area) parking lots across from their school. For years, a multitude of community members have been lobbying to build something on this land instead of just using it as a parking lot. The teachers and administrators at New Design High School thought that a boarding school would be a good use of the land, as many of the students who attend NDHS do not have stable home lives. Having a boarding school in the neighborhood would allow students to focus more on their schoolwork than on their living situations.
We helped the students by making examples for each step of their process in designing their buildings. The first step was making a model using cardboard, construction paper, wood figures, and clay. Once the models were done, the students picked an aspect of their design to focus on and then they drew detailed sketches of what the insides/outsides of parts of their schools would look like. They also sketched a plan (a bird’s eye view) of their schools, and a 3-D image as well. Megan, George and I scanned all of their sketches so the students were able to input them into an InDesign layout on the computer. Finally, each student presented his or her work, explaining why they chose to include certain features in their designs. The designs were all different; however there were many recurring features, such as study areas, gardens, basketball courts, and of course housing.

My time at Hester street part 2

2009-02-02T11:04:00.006-05:00

Wow I’ve been here for 3 months I think and this is only my second post ha. Well that means this blog is going to be a big one. A lot was done over the course of the past 2 months. We started a new project which involved making lanterns out of re-used materials such as plastic bottles and bags. It was a rather long project which included lots of testing and innovating. Laquin who’s another intern and I help with the testing for the project. We began by cutting plastic bottles to use as a base for the lanterns. We then worked on the plastic bags by ironing them together to see how well they stick, and also to make them easy to fold over the bottle but we soon found out the bottles wasn’t the best base so we went on to look for something more sturdy yet flexible. We then started experimenting with wires which was much easier to play with.
So sticking with the wire as a base we then tried various shapes such as squares, triangles, and small triangles. That ended up being a success and was used as the permanent base of the lanterns. We then continued to iron the plastic bags and iron them onto the wired shapes giving the various sizes and colors. However these completed lanterns where just used for reference for the neighboring school students to use as a guide to building their own. After words our job became to supply the students with pre ironed bags and pre shaped wires. That part wasn’t the most exciting but at least the project was drawing to an end. Finally it was time have them strung on a wire and hung. Sadly I didn’t get to hang any because I was helping Anne string the last batch of lanterns, but I’m positive they look awesome hanging and all I can say is FINALLY hah. Now I’m just curious what project is next. Oh and excuse the lack of enthusiasm I’m just sleepy lol I’m honestly really grateful to be working this internship. This Abdur-Rahman btw Later xD""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298251431005964450" />

a new experience at hsc

2008-11-17T14:22:00.005-05:00

Hi, this is Isabella Wong. I've been here around three weeks. During this period, I'm learning a lot of different stuffs and skills, especially the block design that I'm working on right now. I've find it is fun to play with different colors of blocks, its like a professional verison of "lego", lol.
I'm also learning how to do a design on computer by using graphic design software which is pretty cool. Basically, I like all the projects that I've been doing.
Above this, the most exciting project is designing my high school's cafeteria.
My school is planning to redesign our cafeteria, so me and my intern- partners are working together to design the whole new looking cafteria. In the process, we did documentary which is taking photos from different angles and combined it together by graphic design software. We also created a survey for our student, so that we can know more about their ideal cafeteria. In the survey, we've created about 10 questions which are all about the environment of the cafeteria. This is the first time for me to make a survey and it is also a really nice experience. I see that the software program is very useful and important which can suitable for many projects, including our cafeteria survey.
Even though we are still working on on the project but I feel happy to work with a project thats related to us and our school. I can't wait to see the "new cafeteria!"
Btw! I'm absolutely glad that I can be an intern in Hester Street! lmao" :)

wats goin on at hester st.

2008-11-17T13:03:00.008-05:00

Hey Abdur-Rahman here :D. I guess I can consider this my second week here and so far so good. Bin playing with blocks for a while I gotta say it’s not the most entertaining thing to do hah but its for a good cause. First of all the reason I bin messing with these blocks is because I’m trying to put together a mosaic for a project HSC is trying to put together for a near by public school. It’s more complicated then you think but we tried multiple ways of doing it. We tried different sized blocks at first to see which fits together and is able to show the image more clearly. Also colors played an important role we decided to stick with more vibrant colors rather then dull ones because they tend to blend into each other. Second thing we tried was using symbols. African symbols gave us a good idea how to simplify the images at the same time carry some sort of meaning. Last of was the paper cut outs we used to make chalazas that version simplified it the most. So using those experiments I came up with a theme for my mosaic that was inspired through my cut out test drive hah. I chose to go with a step pyramid. My reason for doing so is that I wanted the steps in the pyramid to represent a person taking steps to go higher and higher in his/her life to final reach the top therefore achieving his/her goals in life whatever that maybe. Still the concept of my mosaic was easy to come up wit but getting it to look decent is steal a pain in neck hah -_- but I’m betting the school students will figure out some way to breeze through the whole complex world of the mosaic *dum dum dum* hah. But for now I’m just gonna do my best to make a mosaic that’s actual useful to HSC. I’m not really to found of not being able to complete any task I’m given
On the other hand there’s one other project were doing over here. One I’m very interested in seeing the out come of. The project is a renovation of my schools cafeteria my schools MCNDHS by the way. Isabella, Jun and myself are working together on this project. So far we’re still beginning but we have a decent draft so far of our survey :D. We made sure the survey covered the most important questions such as what the students think of the cafeteria how it makes them feel. Also what is it that they dislike weither it be the color of the walls or the long cramp lunch tables. I personally think this cafeteria was crying for a face lift hah. The survey is important because not all the students eat there only its also used for other things. Some people have art classes there others have tutoring sessions. So I’ think they’d appreciate more comfortable surroundings. So hopefully we can start as soon as possible but for now we still need to finalize the survey.
Now for the last activity I participated in at HSC was the stripping of the signs at the Allen st. malls. I found that pretty fun because I didn’t have to sit in place and play with the blocks hah but it was a shame they had to come down. They looked better hanging there then nothing at all. But they had to come down Maybe HSC will put something up again. So ya that was pretty much my first couple weeks at HSC and I’ll update again some other time when there’s more to write about. LATER xD

Introducing SPURA to me and you

2008-11-03T15:41:00.001-05:00

Hi I’m Kashawn Henry, a new intern here at HSC. The other day Johnathan, another intern, and I went to a community meeting with Anne about Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA).It has been 40 years since the city took ownership of a piece of the lower east side known as SPURA. Bordered by Essex, Delancy, Grand, and Willet Streets, SPURA is the biggest plot of undeveloped land south of 96th street which is perfect for this new project for our principal. We went to this meeting because our brilliant principal Scott Conti envisioned a project; he calls it, New Design House (NDH). New Design House is a home for children who have unstable home environment. We went to the meeting because we needed an idea for where NDH would be located. In the meeting we did this Activity which involved money. They gave us 20 stickers and each sticker represented 1 million dollars, they also gave us this paper that had a bunch of different things we would want in the neighborhood such as affordable housing and new schools, day-cares, new movie theaters and markets. Half of my money went toward affordable housing and new schools because if you think about it NDH is a combination of both of those. We are currently still working on where to put it and a design for the interior of the building.

my Experience with (SPURA)

2008-11-03T15:35:00.001-05:00

For the past two weeks kashawn and I have been developing our skills on making floor plans on paper. We need this skill to help us plan out the floor scheme for new design housing. NDH is a project that kashawn and I are developing for our principle and his idea of housing several students to help and support them through high school.
Last Wednesday kashawn, Anne, and I attended a community meeting for the Seward Park Urban Renew Area (SPURA). The SPURA site is a part of the lower east side that is government owned; meaning that the community can have a say on what they would like to see in the area. SPURA is located between Essex and Delancey; willet and grand.
When participants arrived they were all given separate numbers depending on where they lived in the L.E.S. because I live in the les I was at table 3 while kashawn and Anne were at table 4. After receiving a number we sat with our groups and introduced ourselves to one another. When the group introductions were done we sat and listened to two speakers talk about the S.P.U.R.A site and its background history from two different points of view. Hearing all the information about the history got us to thinking about what this area can be used for since it hasn’t been used in almost 40 years. When the speaker’s were done with their presentations we participated in group activities in which we had to do as a group and no one was left out.
For first activity was look at a bird’s eye view map of the S.P.U.R.A site and the surrounding areas and mark off what ever you know on the map such as convenience stores or schools and parks etc.…
The second group activity we all were given 20 yellow dots which represented a million dollars each. We were given a list of potential things we can do on the site and added what ever wasn’t on the list that we felt should have been on it. They told us to use up all your money on what we thought we would want to spend it on. So I added the project that kashawn and I are working on the NDH and other stuff. When every body spent there money we were told to calculate the total and report out to everyone what were our top three money makers.
My group’s top three money makers were NDH, affordable housing, and mixed income housing each have a specific reason for being chosen.
NDH was chosen because I explained that NDH is going to be a housing complex for students that have unstable houses or live in foster care. To change the statistics of teen’s dropping out all they need is a strong foundation to stand on. That is what this house is going to be the rock of support under the 60 selected students of new design high school. So everyone thought that the project was a good idea and altogether 15 million dollars was spent on it.
The affordable housing was chosen because honestly who doesn’t want affordable housing and we spent at least 10 million on that. Mixed income housing was chosen because it would be able affordable housing for everyone. No one has to feel like there getting kicked out of there homes because they don’t have the money for it. For example if you charge one person 2500 for rent, then charge a single mother with four kids 800 on rent to work with living situation and leaving enough money for food to be on the table. My group and I came to realize if mixed income buildings were built that it would balance itself out cause of the mixed income being brought into the neighborhood.
It was fun being there even though at first I thought I was going to be board but learning more about the area I live in interested me a lot. Doing the activities I just lost track of time I even forgot for a second that I was with Anne and kashawn. When the night was coming to an end we meet at the front entrance and expressed how we thought the whole thing went and kashawn and I both said that it was fun. Also nerve racking because we both had to stand up and present our top three choices to a room of people we have never meet before but at the same time a learning experience.

lequin's 2nd blog Its My Park Day

2008-10-29T10:01:00.004-04:00

Hey this is lequin again here to tell you about what’s been going on here at Hester Street collaborative hmmm where to start well I guess you can say Sara D. Roosevelt Park is watched by its community to assure a better park. Also we as a whole help rejuvenate the park. How one might ask this is being done well first advocated for money, next they created a plan to fix the park, and then we did some creating for example we did stencil project which was making a design for the kids to paint with. The process was complicated yet easy. The first step was to Google search for leaf images and then traces them on thick card stock. After that I laminated it with contact paper then cut the shape out. That wasn’t really a slice of cake, and whoa was it dangerous. This was all for a big event called Its My Park Day on October 25. More on what happened during it’s my park day from what I hear it was great people were helpful, and they did lots of activities like scavenger hunts stenciling, bulb planting for spring, also it’s a semi-annual event that bring together the community. Oh yeah the shirt design if your wondering what happened. The t shirt design is being looked at by the school. Also in the future I will be learning how to print the design on to the shirt once it’s been checked.

T shirt design

2008-10-20T09:53:00.003-04:00

Hi there this is Lequin Robinson here with news on what I’ve been working on for the past six weeks. Now where to begin lets see ill start from week 1 man was that week pretty rough trying to draw the letters for the p.s.134 community garden (t) shirt design and also trying to make it almost perfect. Then after that week 2 was even more exhausting doing the lettering that says (at the p.s.134 community garden) that took me at least 25 tries, but it was completely worth it cause I get to improve and learn something new. Soon after that I got to the computer and that was a whole other level of work although it was my first time using adobe Photoshop and illustrator, and just struggling to learn the keys and tools but that too is pretty fun, and this is weeks 4-6. But if I learned anything this past 6 weeks it would be that you shouldn’t be quick to want to give up on something that may help you on the long run.

Building the Tool Shed

2008-08-14T11:45:00.002-04:00

Hi, this is Mandy and Connie. We are volunteers here at Hester Street Collaborative. Yesterday, we brought long beams from the P.S. 134 Community Garden to Hester Street to measure and cut them into smaller beams so that they can fit into the tool shed in the garden. Jess cut the wood into long rectangular pieces and small square pieces. Each rectangular beam had to have 2 square pieces to support it. Mandy and Claire drilled holes into these beams. The holes on the beams were all in different places because we had to eyeball where the holes should go. Because of this, there had to be sets of 3 pieces of wood. We created a system where we had to label each set of wood with a letter of the alphabet.

Today we went to the garden to work on installing shelves and hooks to organize the tool shed. In the center of the shed, there will be many hooks to hold shovels, trowels, and rakes. There will also be a total of 8 shelves, 4 on each side. On the right side, the first shelf will be 3 feet from the floor and the others will be 1 foot apart. On the left side, each shelf will be 1 and a half feet apart. Today we (with another intern, Claire) worked on creating the support beams needed to hold the shelves. We had many problems in putting the nails into the beams. Two beams split in half because to too much pressure. Later on today, we will be returning to the garden to continue to work on attaching the support beams to the shed.

Today will probably be our last day posting a new blog (Mandy and Connie) because tomorrow will be the last day we will be working here at Hester Street Collaborative this summer. Good bye and have a nice summer. :]

Finishing our designs

2008-08-07T10:40:00.004-04:00

Hi, my name is Helen, i am one of the interns in Hester St Collaborative Design. Yesterday I've been working on t' shirt design and figuring out how to draw the letter H for "WatcH Us Grow". The design for the letter H was suppose to be a butterfly on a branch to make it look like an letter H. I tried out different ways to draw the butterfly and the branch together. It didn't work out because it doesn't look like an H or the butterfly is too big. My co workers, (interns); Melissa, Angela and Vivian were also drawing out the design and finishing the sketching as fast as we can because Vivan and Melissa last day of work is tomorrow. I am going to missed them a lot because we always have fun together and helped each other out.

So yesterday, i finally drew out a nice butterfly on a H instead of a butterfly trying to look like a H on a branch. I feel so proud of myself and my co workers. We basically gather our thoughts and design together and even our supervisor put in their designs. Its our master piece and the best design ever made. I had a lot of fun working in Hester Street Collaborative because i get to experienced a lot of things and doing something crazy such as working on the garden. I've never done that before and I'm glad i did. Afterward, we put all the letters together and scan it on the computer and print it out. This process sounds easy but its not from hours of drawing then we have to put it together. I'm glad we're finally finished with the design. Now we have to trace the design on a contact paper so we can silk screen it on a shirt. So I'll have to go and trace now!

t-shirts and shed plans

2008-08-05T14:45:00.004-04:00

Hey, this is Connie and I'm a volunteer at Hester Street Collaborative. Other volunteers are Mandy, Daniel and Alex. Here at HSC, we are learning a lot of new things. For one, I have never made a t-shirt design before and here I experienced the process of silk screening. Everyday HSC is filled with something new to do.
At the P.S. 134 garden, there is a tool shed. Over the time, supplies and miscellaneous objects were piled and thrown in. Right now everything in it is a mess. So, one of our projects is thinking of a way to organize the tool shed. We had to draw out plans and side-views of the interior shed. Using our plans, we decided to put three to four shelves on the three sides of the interior shed. To organize everything, we will buy tubs or crates and label them.
This is Vivian. As with the silk screening, a design was picked out of the interns' and volunteers'. We worked on the design and finalized it. Everyone's been working hard and the table is now covered in layers of tracing paper.
For me and Melissa, this is going to be our last week at HSC. I'm going to miss all the fun projects we did and going to the garden. But, before I leave, I have to finish a research project. My project will be planning a proposal to build a stage at Sara D. Roosevelt Park. On every other Friday, there are performances at the park. The first one was a puppet show and I went to a Chinese Culture Dance Performance. I noticed these events are done on a soccer field. Therefore, I want to design a stage for these events because they seem to have this every summer. If there is a stage, it can be more presentable and not blocking children from using the soccer field. The stage will have to be versatile and able to be used for any kind of performance. I will show a plan of my design using Illustrator.

Silk Screening! :D

2008-07-31T14:43:00.001-04:00

After weeks and weeks of sketching, we finally silk screened our designs on paper, wood, and cloth. All of the designs came out better than we thought it would. All the work must had paid off from drawing our design on contact paper and cutting them out with exacto knife. We were so excited silk screening our designs and getting paint all our fingers. Throughout the process, we felt that we have achieved and learned a lot about designing. It also brought back our childhood memories, and for us to think once again like a child. As a child we think things simple and adorable, so our main theme is all about the kids. We had to focus on the phrase "Watch Us Grow" at the P.S 134 Community Garden. Even though the thinking part required a little brainstorming, seeing our designs come out nice made our day!!
Yesterday we started to brainstorm about our research projects. We split up into two groups. Melissa and Vivian went to SDR to take pictures of the part to build a stage for the performances. We, Angela and Helen, went to SDR to take notes of everything that takes place in the park, like the different activities that difference ages groups do. The park was long! It was about 6 blocks long. While walking from the beginning to the end of the park we noticed a lot of things we didn't know about the park. Theres a community garden that is taken care of by communtiy workers. We also learned that the houses from Grand going down to Delancy, the 6 blocks, there are different types of people living on each block. While we were exploring around the park, we saw people performing in front of the kids and the parks are open for everybody. We also saw a huge garden; which took up a whole section of the parks. But no one really takes care of it. And Helen thought of an idea to write her research project on the community gardens that no one takes care of. And as of Angela, she took notes on the different activites and different age groups in the park. Now we should get started on the project. We only have 2 more weeeks!! :(

Meeting in Queens

2008-07-24T14:46:00.003-04:00

Hi, this is Melissa. This morning I went with Dylan and Kayan to a meeting with the Immigrants and Parks Collaborative in Jamaica, Queens. A main goal for today's discussion was to address language on signs in parks. Two days ago, Mayor Bloomberg signed an executive order that would improve language access for immigrants. It stipulated that essential public documents would have versions in the six top languages spoken in the city and that interpretation services would be available in these same languages. Unfortunately, logistics for achieving this level of communication has been slowed down by bureaucracy. The Parks Department claims that it shares the Collaborative's interest, which is in favor of the immigrants, but if there is no result to show for their supposed good will, no one is satisfied. The Immigrants continue to suffer from the inactivity of those with power. Today's discussion was often directed towards how they could impress the importance of actually translating important documents and signs. This meeting made it all the more clear to me exactly how slow the process of actually getting things done in this city is. The tiers of power always get in the way because it takes such an effort for advocates of impoverished New Yorkers and immigrants to get their point of view across to those with money and authority.
Perhaps halfway through the meeting, the guest speaker showed up. Christian DiPalermo from New Yorkers for Parks. He orally presented some of the history behind what Parks has done until now. The agency grades parks and beaches in the five boroughs and assesses safety, cleanness, and the condition of facilities. He brought up the issue of tracking crime that takes place within parks, as this is a fairly recent development. Some people presented ideas they had for there own parks in order to lower the crime rate, but it was merely brainstorming.
I found the meeting insightful. I was in a unique position because I came into the meeting knowing very little about the topics of the conversation. As someone who grew up going to many of the parks that were addressed, I found it very interesting to hear what the politics behind them are. So little is concrete because of the complications of working with the city. It was not exactly comforting to learn how much crime still exists in New York's parks, but at the same time, the rate has decreased due to all of the work that organizations for parks have done over the past decade and more.

THE GARDEN

2008-07-21T12:38:00.010-04:00

The garden is used by students from the elementary school located next to the garden. It is a place for the students to learn and do hands on activities in an outdoor environment. The garden is maintained by volunteers daily. So far they had helped to water the plants, clean the floor of fallen leaves & trash, and pull out the weeds and perform other gardening work. Not only do volunteers maintain the garden, they also help design ways to draw the community’s attention. The garden needs to attract members of the community.

Currently, we are working to make the garden more community friendly. We are trying our best to develop ideas to make the garden much more noticeable. One suggestion is to make signs. The signs will bring attention to the people walking by the garden. Some thoughts are

the use of colorful and seasonal signs. We also want these signs to be kid friendly yet are still appealing to adults. Another idea of attraction is to make tracks leading into the garden so it would lead curious children who follow it right to it. Hopefully these signs and attractions will bring the community to visit the garden more frequently.

One recent problem was an intrusion of delinquents in the garden. These delinquents had climbed over the door, and had vandalized the garden. Red paint was splattered on trees. A couple of chairs made by the student of the elementary school were also thrown and smashed. To prevent another intrusion, an idea was formulated to prevent future cases. One idea was to hang a sign over the entrance of the garden. The entrance to the garden had a lower fence than the surrounding areas, which delinquents can easily climb over and enter during the night. The signs would not only attract members of the community - it can be used to block delinquents from entering.

Keep in mind that none of our current ideas are final, and that we will continue to work to improve this garden.

Allen Street Pedestrian Malls

2008-07-18T15:46:00.002-04:00

One of the projects we are in the middle of is renovating the Allen Street Malls. Funding for this project began in 1996 and planning began in 2003. This past Wednesday, HSC hosted a scope meeting to get suggestions from people who live in the neighborhood and find out what they would like to see in the new malls. Those who came to the meeting were split into groups and given line drawings of panoramas of different malls on Allen Street. They could draw all over them to give visual aid to their suggestions about how to renovate specific blocks.

For the local residents’ benefits, there were ideas of creating a peaceful area for relaxation or an area for events such as dance performances, holiday festivals, etc. To make living in the area more comfortable, local markets would benefit from their long walks to buy groceries. As for residents that walk their dogs in the morning or daily joggers, their own greenway would really benefit them. Families would be able to go to the malls and take a stroll.

There is a safety issue around the Allen Street Pedestrian Malls. On each side of the malls are wide roads which can cause a hazard to pedestrians. People hope that there will be a way to decrease the amount of traffic and lessen the pollution. In effect, it can also minimize potential accidents. There is also an idea of putting bike lanes around the malls, which can also minimize the traffic. However, it might not happen because by law, all bike lanes have to be on the right of the road.

There was a scope meeting with people from the DOT and Parks Department to discuss ideas about renovating the malls. Representatives from each group shared their ideas.

David Byrne’s "Playing the Building"

2008-07-14T14:35:00.008-04:00

David Byrne’s new art installation is quite the auditory experience. It plays with the sounds already present in the former terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. A single organ is situated in the center of an empty room that has hardly been restored since the building was used for its original purpose. Byrne used wires to attach each organ key to fixtures located all around the room. The wires are connected to different aspects of the building that can make sound. When the building is “played,” sounds are produced that simulate those of conventional musical instruments from woodwinds to strings to percussion, except that the sounds are more primitive in nature. When a key is played, vibrations are sent to the connected wire and travels to the motor. Each motor produces a different sound and pitch. When multiple keys are played, a gathering of clanks, whistles and booms rise up the empty room and echo off. This piece of art is something that you must hear with your own ears to understand. The beauty of this installation is its interactive quality. Visitors can play the organ and actually create the clanking sounds of an ancient building. The installation is like an art gallery, but it is at the same time very unique. To get the complete experience, it is beneficial to walk around the room and hear the sounds from different angles. Unlike in an art gallery where walking around allows for a different perspective of the visual display, the location in which the visitor stands gives a new perspective on the sound as well.

We have referred to the other interns for ideas on what to do with students on a class trip to the exhibit. We have played with the idea of having students respond to a drawing or writing prompt. As far as the drawings go, we came up with ideas such as the students drawing what they think the space might have used to look like, drawing an imaginary instrument that they think could produce a certain sound they hear, or designing some sort of basic design inspired by the clean lines of the room. A writing activity would allow the students to pay more attention to the sounds they hear, rather than the visuals. Prompts included the question of whether what they hear is music and what they believe music to be. Another prompt questioned whether they consider the exhibit to be art. We also like the idea of students simply listening to the sounds. If they spread out and sit alone in different parts of the room, they will be able to better appreciate what they hear. If students are not with their friends, they will listen to the sounds rather than talking, and there will be less miscellaneous noise that may distract people from hearing the clanks, rings, and whistles of the installation.

Done Cleaning...

2008-07-10T14:10:00.002-04:00

Today, we did the usual going to the garden and watering. It was good weather, not too hot and a bit breezy. We're just about done with the cleaning, but still have the tool shed to clean. In the future, the garden will be easier to handle.

We're thinking about ideas with the signage in the garden. We want to make the garden more appealing and want to attract more people to come in. As of now, we're just brainstorming and throwing out ideas.

vivi signing off...:]

First day of work

2008-07-07T16:45:00.003-04:00

Hey, we are the 2008 summer interns. Our names are Angela Huang, Helen Liu, Melissa Gollance, and Vivian Kong. Today is our first day of work in Hester Street Collaborative. It was such a great experience. We first went to the P.S. 134 garden. There was a lot of work to do because people from the neighborhood have thrown lots of trash through the fence. We had to sweep up all of the dead leaves, pick up trash, organize the tool shed, water the plants, and weave the vines through the fence. We were there for hours, but there is still so much work to do that we will be returning each day to make it presentable for the children who will be learning in this outdoor classroom.

After lunch, we passed out flyers around chinatown. The flyers were about a design meeting on Wednesday night. Posting the flyers around chinatown made me(Vivian) understand how tiring it was. I sympathize with people who pass them out in the streets under the sun.

we cleaned out the planter outside the building. We had to weed the whole thing. We only left behind the marigold plants. Later on we will plant flowers and other plants. Hopefully this will discourage people from throwing trash into our planter in the future. We are looking forward to the next weeks of our internship and sharing it with you!

Great Experiences Will Always Be Remembered

2008-02-12T17:33:00.001-05:00

Hey this is Tracey. I started out as a volunteer during the summer and became an intern when school started. Well today is my last day at HSC so this is my first and last blog. Anyway, I have had a great experience interning here. One of the first things I learned was to help maintain the garden. My favorite part about going to the garden was the pick cherry tomatoes. It was exciting that a bunch of new tomatoes ripped each time I went there (once a week). I didn’t like going to the garden so much when fall came because then it got cold, the garden looked lifeless, and there were endless amount of leaves to sweep up.

I also learned how to silkscreen which reminded me of my printmaking class in LaGuardia HS. We silk-screened tees as a fund raising project for P.S. 134. It was fun (until we encountered problems but we always managed to solve them) and inspiring. For Halloween, Mindy and I silk-screened our own costumes. We were (defected) Crayola crayons.

Chinese New Years was just last week. Happy Chinese New Years everyone =). It’s the year of the rat and here in HSC we helped students at M.S. 131 make lanterns with rat prints on them. The students came up with some really interesting and funky lamps. Now they are hung all over the ceilings at the office and at the nearby park. They look great at night with the lights illuminating them.

Rat pattern made by me. Well, it has been a fun half year spent at HSC. Good-bye!! I will come back to volunteer/visit in the future.

Lanterns In The Making...Jellyfish Style

2008-02-12T16:57:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! This is Mindy again. It has been almost half a year since the last time I have posted. Well, sadly to say, this will be the last day I will intern at HSC but I will come back to volunteer.

Well, what have we been doing at HSC lately? We helped with a lantern installation at Sarah D. Roosevelt Park with students of M.S. 131. This project was done in relation to the celebration of Chinese New Year. According to the lunar calendar, 2008 is the year of the rat. Using this point, both HSC and students of M.S. 131 used stamps of rats and printed them onto different colored large plastic sheets. Then, we cut these plastic sheets into smaller and more manageable sizes for the students to design and create their own lanterns. They used different techniques in designing and creating their own lanterns. The students twisted and bent the sheets around, used different colors, used various pins and tools to attach pieces together, and used many other ways. After the creations were completed, Dylan and Annie, Leroy Street Studio, and we interns helped attached small battery lights in each lantern. We helped tighten pins, reassembled lanterns, and etc.
Before:

After:
The M.S. 131 students who worked on the lanterns:

The materials we used:

Hanging lanterns at Sarah D. Roosevelt Park:

In addition, Tracey and I designed our own lanterns. I wanted my creation to be different and unique and came with an idea of creating a lantern in resemblance to a jellyfish. It was a fun and interesting process. I cut, folded, and attached strips of clear plastic sheets together with pins. Here are a few photos of my creation:

Steph's Last Day! Again?

2007-08-22T15:40:00.000-04:00

Today is officially my last day at Hester Street Collaborative, so I will sum up my experiences here. I discovered HSC through the Summer Youth Employment Program at CPC last summer. Alex, our supervisor, assigned us (the interns) three different projects: build a work table, find ways to improve the playground at Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and help reconstruct the P.S. 134 community garden. While doing such hard work on our projects, I learned how to use many tools in the workshop and some design programs on the computer. By the end of August 2006, we finished the table, gathered plenty of research/data on SDR Park, and began work on the garden. I had such a great time working at HSC that I wanted to come back during the school year as a volunteer.

In September, Jennifer and I came back to see Annie with some recruits. Our first project was to continue the research on SDR Park. We extended that research to other parks around the city, allowing us to compare them to SDR. Instead of doing boring data charts like we did that past summer, Fiona came up with the brilliant idea of filming the parks and creating a documentary. By the end of November, our project was complete and presented to the New York City Parks Department. That didn’t leave me feeling as accomplished as building a table, but it came very close.

During the next five months or so, we mastered the art of silk screening (thanks to Dylan) and made t-shirts to fundraise for the P.S. 134 garden. Using Winnie’s design of “cartoony” vegetables, we made over $300. When Spring came around, it was time to go back to work at the garden. There was a lot of cleaning up to do. Since then, the garden has taken an entirely new form. Some of the plant beds were rearranged; new plants were growing; and a new, bigger shed was built. (Actually, two new sheds were built since last summer, but a second one was built because we needed a bigger shed.)

At the beginning of this summer, new interns from SYEP and LaGuardia began working here. They learned how to silkscreen like pros in a matter of days! …Well, maybe weeks. They worked on the design camp and individual research projects (see previous posts). Now, everyone’s gone =(. This has been an awesome fourteen months at Hester Street Collaborative. I hope all the other interns had as great a time as I did, if not better. Enjoy the rest of the summer, everyone!

- Steph

Amanda's Research Project

2007-08-20T14:27:00.000-04:00

In my research project, I connected three factors of the Chinatown community: history, social issues, and the usefulness of open spaces. I did this by internet research primarily based on the Rebuild Chinatown Initiative website, an interview with Chinatown Progressive Associate member, other websites containing information on Chinatown environmental issues, and a memoir of Chinatown history called Tea that Burns. I wanted to learn more about the history of Chinatown because I felt it would benefit my understanding of Chinatown and the effect of history on present day. Chinatown has an interesting history; for example, when Chinese men first arrived many married and had children with Irish women because both were seen as an unwanted class in American culture. Many were also opium addicts. In relation to its history, Chinatown has, in many ways, remained unassimilated due to the need to survive in a community that has denied acceptance towards Chinese cultural practices.
There really has been no need to change; everything anyone needs to live is available in relation to Chinese culture. With these problems come problems with health and the environment. Obviously, Chinatown has poor sanitation and smells funny, traffic is congested, and the air is polluted. In a survey done by the CPA, “a five person household, already has at least one member with asthma.” Living conditions are extremely cramped. These are issues that can be changed through developing opening spaces such as the East River Waterfront, an area used for parking and garbage. This project incorporates different parts of Chinatown that if changed, could relieve pollution, traffic, and make use of public land. I visited the East River Waterfront. It was a long walk, the back of my shirt was filled with sweat, and everything basically looked the same. It is a desolate area that the occasional pedestrian passed by, and the constant silence was broken up by the sounds of moving cars up on the FDR. Basically, it is not a place people consider to hang out.
The East River Waterfront development will incorporate that area and the areas that directly influence it most, such as Pike Slip, Montgomery Slip, and Catherine Slip. These areas are important to connecting the Waterfront to the Chinatown area. There are plans to beautify these areas, decongest traffic, and increase parking in the project. The influence of green spaces towards decreasing pollution rates is undeniable and will positively affect the Chinatown problem with pollution. Trees cool down areas by blocking out the sun, filter pollution from traffic, soot and dirt, cleaning the air. It will benefit the community by bringing people together in an unassuming public area.

Where it's "AT" one last time

2007-08-17T15:59:00.000-04:00

Good morning for the last time this summer, because this is Annie and it’s my last day here at HSC as a “citizen design” intern. This will be my last blog in this HSC weblog, and I guess it really hasn’t hit me yet. I’m going to miss working here, coming downstairs and chillin’ (sigh) with my coworkers, and doing the relatively easy work we interns do.

Anyways, as a last day thing, we all presented our research projects that we’ve been working on since the beginning. I collected a lot of information and went to about ten gardens, so you can imagine how much work I had ahead of me. I worked hard on my presentation, and messed with the animation features a lot in my very first Powerpoint presentation (shocking, seeing as I’ve been in school for twelve years and never touched Powerpoint). I am proud of my work on community gardens in New York City, particularly in the Lower East Side, which I reported on so diligently. After doing my research, looking at the huge amount of history of community gardens, costs (real-estate space) and benefits (which are countless), and looking at different gardens, I concluded that the gardens are worth being in the city because they preserve the humanity of the communities they reside in. It was a long presentation, though: it took me an hour and ten minutes to finish presenting, much, much longer than everyone else. It was exhausting, but in a good way, as Dylan said haha. Although Dennis, Eric, and pretty much all my coworkers say it was too long, I know it was good.

Working so hard on the project is getting me back into the school mood, which I will definitely need for Columbia. It’s a good end to this job, which I have been working at for the past six weeks. From the silkscreening (and making t-shirts for myself) to the exhaustive design camp to the weekly blog entries (which I’m used to because I have my own blog somewhere haha) to the laughing with coworkers to saying “Good morning!” everyday and generally being enthusiastic, I am going to miss this job. It’s been a great summer with you all, and it successfully completed my goal for the summer before college: to have a fun, lazy summer with friends and earn some money at the same time. Thanks to everyone, Dylan and Anne, to all my coworkers, Dennis, Eric, a-Mindy-ah!, Carmen, Ming, Amanda, the Brooklyn Tech (!) interns we occasionally worked with, and just to everyone and everything for my wonderfully laid-back and even educational summer. Till whenever, this has been where it’s AT. (get it now? A.T.? Annie Tan? Gosh, I’m corny haha).

Good Bye HSC, hope to see you soon!!

2007-08-16T18:36:00.000-04:00

This is Ming here, writing my last blog of the summer for the HSC blog. Today is also the last for the CPC SYEP interns, including me. A series of presentations by each of the HSC interns, also took place today. First up was Dennis, who talked about the facts on energy usage, and also steps people can take to save energy use. After Dennis was Mindy, she presented on an organization known as CYI, the Chinatown Youth Initiative. In her presentation, she mentioned the history of CYI, its projects, challenges it faces, her interview with the former board executive, and her suggestions on how they can improve CYI. As soon as she had finished we rushed out to lunch, as we get ready for Annie’s 27 pages PowerPoint presentation. Annie who did her research on community gardens in the downtown area had an extremely long but detailed presentation. In her presentation she mentioned the history behind the existence of community gardens in NYC, along with descriptions of different gardens she visited. Even though it was an interesting topic, we were still glad when we finally finished. After a dew minute break, Eric did his presentation on Teardrop Park. And what a odd and funny presentation it was. In his presentation he mentioned the history of the park and described the different parts of the park. Also he mentioned how the park users felt about the park and how they used it, all according to the result he got from his survey. Last but not least was Carmen, who presented about the Van Cortlandt Park. Using the park handbook that she made, she described the history of the park and the different facilities that the park offers to the park users. Also she mentioned 2 group/organizations that help keep the park in shape. Then she finished up the map of the park that I thought should have been in the front.
After hearing all the presentations, I would say that my favorite presentations were Annie’s and Dennis’s. I like Annie’s because I though the history of how community gardens in NYC came to be was really interesting. Her presentation was also really organized especially the yearly timeline of the events that happen through out times. Also I though the many different types of effects that community gardens have on people was really interesting. However I also liked Dennis’s presentation, one was because the way he presented it. The presentation demonstrates humor and it was short and straight to the point, which I liked. Also the topic he presented on was quite amusing, the little notices that he gives really made me want to do something about this problem. Like how when too much rain falls in to the sewer, all the sewer water would be pushed out into the sea, instead of the filtering plants.
As we each finish up our final blog entry, we cherish out last chance to hang out at HSC’s basement workshop. Some would be coming back to work soon, other would be going off to college. Even though we can still meet up sometime we would still miss each other. We will miss all the good times we shared and all the bad times we push through together. So I here by say good bye to everyone and HSC for the summer, and hopefully I can come back and work here again, soon…

^In memory of al the good times we had....

Again, Eric is my name..

2007-08-16T18:26:00.000-04:00

Hi, my name is Eric Yuan. This is my last week working at Hester Street Collaborative and I will miss the workers at Hester Street Collaborative. During these workdays I have learned a lot such as silk-screening that was really fun and how to take care of the garden. I have to give my thanks to Dylan House.
Today we presented our research project. It is my first time presenting and I was a little shy. I did not make eye contact while I was speaking; I was looking at the paper so I messed up my first presentation. The other workers keep giving me tips that I need to know so the next time when I do my presentation I will rock it! Well the best presentation I think was the best today was Annie Tan and Dennis Chen because of their great work and a great way to present their research project with power point. For my project I did some hardcore research. I made some surveys for the people in the park to fill out and I found out that most of the users love the park.It’s free time for me now. I will be chilling with my friends and doing what a teen is suppose to be doing and I hope I will get picked next year so I can come back and work. Bye Dylan and Annie and all the good workers that helped me out.

Hello everyone out there!

2007-08-16T18:15:00.000-04:00

This is Carmen speaking. This will be my last post on the Hester Street Collaborative blog. I have finally presented my research project on Van Cortlandt Park. Through all the researching and surveying, I gained a great deal of knowledge. Because the Van Cortlandts donated their property to NYC to be used as a public park, we now have numerous recreational facilities available to us. This public park has been around for years and continues to develop today. We are very fortunate to have many different organizations such as the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, Van Cortlandt Nature Center and The Fellowship Group to maintain and enhance this park. They also offer various programs to educate the public about local environmental issues and gain sense of park stewardship. There are some problems in Van Cortlandt Park that the public and I thought should be taken into concern. We thought that there should be more bathrooms, lights, and trash cans scattered throughout the park. These things are pretty important in places where a lot of people attend. The park’s visitors will always need to use bathrooms. Lights will help them find their way and trash cans will remind people not to litter. Hopefully we will see some beneficial changes in the future.

As an intern at Hester Street Collaborative, I learned many new skills such as silk screening, gardening and working with kids. I also learned about product design which is something that I have great interest in. I plan to further explore this area in the future. If it is possible, I would like to come back to Hester Street Collaborative during the fall. I looked forward to coming into work everyday this summer. This program was not only a terrific working experience, but was also very enjoyable. Let’s hope that I will be back soon so until then, good bye my friends! Go out and do something good for your community!

Woh! This is going to be my last blog entry

2007-08-16T18:14:00.000-04:00

Today was a pretty long and productive day. Today we presented all of our individual presentations. My internet died yesterday so I had to finish putting the final touches on my presentation in the morning. Soon it was eleven and it was show time.

Being the lucky person that I am, I was selected to present first. But presenting first wasn't so bad for I got it over with and the feeling was pretty liberating. Anyway, my presentation was about how the individual can make a difference in conserving energy. As well all know, global warming is real and it is happening. People think that the individual cannot make a difference but on the contrary, individuals add up together and a big difference can be achieved.
During my presentation, I just told the group simple and effective ways in which we can save energy, whether it is saving water, electricity, or gas there are tips for conserving everything. My presentation was about 10-15 minutes long and I felt that it was pretty decent. After my presentation was over, Dylan gave me a review about my presentation and the criticism was pretty constructive.

The other members of the work group also presented their projects and their projects were pretty successful as well. Some presentation were oral, and others were on powerpoint. No matter what method was used, each one of them was able to convey their ideas effectively. There was also a q and a session after each presentation as well.
Overall the internship here at Hester Street Collaborative was pretty successful. From the silk screening project to the design camp, everything ran ever so smooth. This is all because of the endless efforts of Annie and Dylan. Their support and help was great and none of this would have happened if they didn't do a partnership with Summer Youth Employment Program. Even though I'll be leaving this establishment, I will be taking good memories from it. All in all. This internship is worth doing. If you are ever accepted into SYEP or if you are looking for a place to volunteer your time, Hester Street is the place to be.

Guess what? Mindy is back!!

2007-08-16T18:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry I lied about my last post on my last entry. I will continue posting. Hope you guys didn’t miss me too much! Well today I presented my research project on Chinatown Youth Initiatives (CYI) to my fellow co-workers. Basically, CYI is a non-profit volunteer-ran organization. It serves as a guide for high school students to develop skills to articulate needs of local communities through community projects. Volunteers are all high school to college students who are from different parts of NYC (such as Chinatown, Long Island, and Coney Island). On August 12, I participated in CYI’s Chinatown Beautification Day. Chinatown Beautification Day is an ongoing clean up event that takes place every once a year. About one-hundred teenagers volunteer each year to clean up the streets of Chinatown using brooms, dustpans, tongs, gloves, and garbage cans. Two volunteers counted the number of cigarette butts they picked up and resulted with at least ninety butts each. Do people smoke a lot or what?! I also interviewed the former executive director of CYI, Jennifer Chang. The interview provided much personal understanding of CYI than online research.

Interesting things I learned from the interview were:
- 1999, CYI was found by Gloria Chan who wanted to promote realization and improvement of the ‘forgotten parts’ of the community.
- CYI is named after Chinatown because Chinatown is used as a lab for young people to practice leadership and community work skills.
- CYI does not have a permanent office space, therefore it is difficult for CYI to stay organized and put.
- All projects are based on ideas of the youth participants. (Chinatown Literacy Project, Interschool Film Forum, and Chinatown Beautification Day)
- Advertisements were mainly through the word of mouth but also through by handing out flyers, and sending emails.
So besides my research project, this will be my last post on this blog for this summer. I had a great working experience here at HSC. Met a group of wonderful people and learned useful skills that would definitely help me in the future. Now I know how to silkscreen, use Illustrator, garden and work with young kids. Hopefully I would keep in touch with the people I’ve met here and develop more skills. Well it’s almost time to end work. Tata! I will be back soon!

AYUDA for the Art

2007-08-15T14:10:00.000-04:00

Ming here, and yesterday when I was surfing the web, I founded the AYUDA for the art site. The AYUDA for the art is an organization that is dedicated to helping the creative young minds from the urban neighborhoods. The mission of AYUDA for the art is to not only help the artistic ones that need help, but to increase the public interest in the art field in general. By offering scholarships to future artists who have financial difficulties for their college education, AYUDA for the art give those with artistic talent, the opportunity to have a brighter future. These scholarships of course are targeted for high school senior and full time undergraduate students, who majors in art and design in a U.S college or institute. Applicants must also be a New York City resident, and a U.S citizen or a legal permanent resident. In addition, applicants must demonstrate financial needs and have a grade point average of 85(B or 3.0 out of 4.0) or higher. I myself am looking forward in taking up this scholarship, since I am looking to major in the communication design field. AYUDA for the art also offer mentoring program for the scholarship recipients, giving them the opportunity with work with professionals already working in the field that the student are interested in. AYUDA for the art feels that it is important to have mentors, because the mentor serves as positive role models.

To apply for this scholarship program, applicants must have been accepted into a college program and majoring in one of the following disciplines:

Fashion Design
Interior Design
Jewelry Design
Advertising Illustration
Theatrical Set Design
Special Events/Show Production
Visual Arts
Culinary Arts
Music
Painting and Sculpture
Dance
Drama and other performance arts
Graphic Design (emphasis on electronic media - television, video, or computers)

AYUDA for the art has hosted many great events that gather together many influential designers together in one place, such as the Fashion Show in 2003. Also 5 fundraising events took place in the last four years to help AYUDA for the art in their mission. AYUDA for the art would be hosting it's 6th fundraising event this fall, on Monday, November 12. This event is known as “A Fashionable Taste of New York”, which would take place at Cipariani, 200 Fifth Avenue between 23^rd and 24^th street. Twenty of NY’s top restaurant will be providing their signature dishes for this event, also auctions and casinos would also take place in this event. For more information visit the AYUDA for the art site, provided for your under the link section to the left of the page.

"The Product Design Research Mission"

2007-08-14T14:35:00.000-04:00

Hey, Ming here and lately we interns have been all working on to our product design research. Hester Street Collaborative is looking to create a product, or a line of products that would create extra income. And the product that HSC would produce, would have to serve the purpose of what HSC is doing. We as interns were to first do research on different products, their cost, how they packaged, and so on. And our mission on this trip was to profile products that we think would help inspire us in creating our product.

Early morning Tuesday we set out on our research mission, but before we left we split up in to two groups. One group is to visit various shops in the downtown area, while the other group visited various shops midtown. I was in the group that visited the downtown shops, and our group consisted of Dylan, Dennis, Annie, Amanda, and me. The first shop we visited was the Moma design shop; there we saw many cool products. Most of the product there are over price, but I still bought this little voodoo doll thing, which cost 10 dollar. Also at the Moma store, I found this product call the staple free stapler, a stapler that can stitch up to 5 pieces of papers together without the need of staples.
Then we continue on to the scholastic store near by where I found this cool book on how to build a solar car. The price is high but it is really interesting for little kid to see how solar car works.

As we press on, we stopped by the center for architecture on our way to a store call mxyplyzk. When we finally got to mxyplzk, we found ourselves wondering in this small crowed store. Despite the sized of the shop, the amount of items there are overwhelming. We found this set of cups with pictures of a variety of noses on them. The purpose of the pictures is for when the cups are used, the nose picture would overlap the drinker’s nose making it look like the nose is the drinker's.

The next stop was Flight 101, a store that sells packaged items for mainly travel use purposes. But before we visit the store we stopped by for lunch at a hot dog store, where I got 2 hot dogs and a soda for $3.50, not bad… Anyway moving on, Flight 101 like mxyplyzk was a small store. However the products in there make up for the size of the store. It is at this store where I found my favorite product of the day. The Survival Kit in a can, a small can that contain all the tools you would need to survive for when you get lost or something. The can looks like a canned food can, and it’s packaged again with a plastic bag with air sucked out of it to make it easy to pack in to all places.

Then after that we visited the Books of Wonder, a huge library like book store. After looking at all the expensive books and paintings in the store I found myself on line, buying an ice cream from a restaurant inside the book store. Then all of a sudden, camera flashes started to hit my face from the right. As I turn right toward the entrance, I see some cameramen, taking pictures of this lady as she walks in to this book store. As the cameramen continue to flash at her, she lined up behind me, emotionless as she waits for her turn. After I got my ice cream I sat down with the rest of the interns, watching as the lady got her ice creams and left. As we exited the store, Annie couldn’t resist wondering who the lady was. So she went up to one of a cameraman, who told her that the lady was Mischa Barton. WHO?!......I still didn’t know who she was, but she turned out to be this star who was in the show the OC.

Anyway the last store we hit was a toy store call Kidding Around. As we entered the store I immediately walked toward the pile of hand puppets we saw. As the others looked around for products, Dennis and I picked up puppets with play with. But we moved on, and walk toward the back of the store. There we found board games, costumes, musical toys, etc. There as so many things in there, I didn’t know what to choose for our research. After playing around with more toys and finding the staple free stapler at a lower price then the Moma store in this store, I finally found this kit on painting you own tile. I thought of the stepping stone we made in the design camp, that is this pretty similar. After profiling this product, we got ready to leave. As we wait for Dylan to buy the things he wanted to buy, we played with the puppet some more.

Our mission is finally complete, now we can go back. As we walk, tired and out of breath, we came to the near by train station. We got in the train station, and waited for the train to come. And when the train finally came we got on and went back to the office. The next day we had a discussion on the products that we profiled on our product research mission, and what a discussion it was. Each of us took turn talking and describing about the various products we found. Even though everyone seemed to be bored, the ideas that we’ve produced was quite interesting. Like how the product we were going to make should target urban environment, in helping to improve the environment. Also we had an idea like how the packaging of the product can be a product as well, that way there would be less trash.

Aside from our product research project, I’ve been working on this blog as the blog master. My responsibility is to expand the blog, and making contact with the online communities. To improve the blog, I first started to create links with other sites and blogs that serves a similar purpose to our organization.

This is Dennis signing on!

2007-08-14T14:33:00.000-04:00

Ah yes, week six was an interesting week as well. I guess we can sum it up as product design week. On the first day, we split up into two groups and took Manhattan by storm. I working with Dylan, Ming, Amanda, and Annie.

The first stop we went to visit, was the MoMA store. At the MoMA store, I found some very nice dolls. Yes, I still play with dolls, but theses dolls were different in the sense that the doll was made from one piece of continuous string. The continuous string makes this doll unique and it gave me an idea for what product that we can do. And the first thing that came to my mind, was that we can use it for our design camp. The campers would be given a metal skeleton and then we would give them string and let them wrap it around the frame. After they are done with wrapping the string around the frame, they can paint their new doll.

The next store that we went to was the Scholastic store. At the Scholastic store, we found a lot of do-it-yourself kits. I found a window art kit in which we use a type of paint that we paint on a plastic sheet and then after the artwork dried, we can peel it and then paste it on the wall. I feel that this is also an excellent product for the design camp as well because it allows the campers to create any design they want.

After a few hundred blocks and then some, we went to Mxyplyzyk. The store is very similar to the MoMA store and it is just as expensive. We didn't really find anything interesting at the store, so we moved on. The last store that visited was the Kidding Around store. As the store implies, we kid around a lot. We all took turns to play with hand puppets and explore the store. Dylan found a garden tool tote bag and it was very cute. All of the tools were miniature and design especially for kids. This would be a valuable product for the design camp. It would make gardening much more friendly for the campers.

After a long and tiring day, we went back to HSC and called it a day. The next day we came back to the office and we had a conference about all of the products that we selected. It was very productive.

Now we are working on our individual projects. Lately I have been working slowly on it because I was sick all week long. It was hard to focus and I was very tired all the time. I'm feeling a bit better now. Time to finish my project! This is Dennis signing off!

The "Where It's AT" Finale

2007-08-14T14:31:00.001-04:00

Good morning once again from the always (of course) graceful Annie! This week was much more relaxing than last week, which was the exhausting but fun design camp with the kids. On Monday we had a post-design camp discussion, and I, the “secretary” for the day, took a lot of helpful notes about how to improve the design camp next year.

After that on Tuesday we went to do a product design study, which meant “discreetly” going to different stores and looking at products that we could possibly get ideas from to make a HSC line of products. I seemed to gravitate toward “DIY” stuff, like these cool cardboard speakers that came in a pretty flat plastic bag; you would have to fold the cardboard and follow the instructions in order to make the speakers. I also found a cool little “How to make your own little book” in the Scholastic store, which consisted of a spiral-bound book, foam pieces that you could use to form different shapes, and a gluestick. I think what would be perfect for HSC would be something “DIY”-like that could educate kids and that came in economical packaging.

And today, as in Thursday, I, Carmen, and Eric, went off to different destinations to do our research projects. I explored the Lower East Side and, using a map I found online, found a total of ten different community gardens in the neighborhood and was able to acquire four in-depth interviews about four different gardens. It was a very enlightening experience: from what I could see, the gardens were not built necessarily for the environment, but to improve the community around them. I think I’m going to have an awesome project to show next week.
Next week is my last week here at HSC. I can’t believe how quickly the summer passed, and a little more than two weeks from now I’ll be at college, wow. For now I’ll try to enjoy what little time I have left here, hanging out with my awesome coworkers, perhaps making some t-shirts for myself before I leave, and just learning some more. Until my last entry, this, as always, has been where it’s AT.

"The Design Camp"

2007-08-08T15:48:00.000-04:00

Hey this is Ming, I’ve been away these few days, but now I’m back. Last week we’ve been working at the design camp, which took place in the garden we’ve been maintaining for the past few weeks. At this design camp, we’ve met 10 wonderful campers between the age of 7 and 10, Jonah, Eoin, Eamon, Shea, William, Jack, Abby, Maia, Ethan, and Elan.

In this camp we’ve helped them in creating their own designs for their T-shirt prints and stepping stones. They would also be working on their note book sometimes, filling it up with their beautiful experiences and memories of this camp. When they are not working on their design projects, they are helping us around with the garden. They got to plant flowers, pull the weeds, pick the beans, and other garden maintenance.

And when they weren’t doing any work, they get to have free time to play. They would play in the sprinkler, or the mud to keep cool from the heat. We interns would have to look after them as they played in the sun. However besides from doing that, we also joined them in their activities. We hosted baseball games, badminton, and water fights. During lunch time we would join the kids as they swallowed down food that they’ve been longing for all day. We had all kinds of food in this camp, we had pizza, egg rolls and dumplings, sandwiches, and so on.

On the third day of the week we went on a field trip where we visited the Noguchi Museum, where the kids got to explore and find their favorite sculptures. After seeing all the artistic creations by Noguchi, we took a break and had lunch at the Socrates Sculpture park. We played tag, capture the flag, chased Eric around, and all kind of fun games.

On the last day of design camp, I along with all the interns came to the park early in the morning to prepare water ballon for our revenge on the kids. Later in the day we waited patiently for the right time to attack the kids, as the kids were finishing up their stepping stone. When the time came, we took all the kids out to the park and blasted each and everyone of them with water ballons. Surprised, the kids attacked back and we had the water fight of the century. As day approached night, we get ready to leave for the day. After saying goodbye to the kids, we walked out of the park and never looked back.

...Leaving behind an experience that we will all cherish, forever. ^^

Where it's "still" at...

2007-08-08T15:23:00.000-04:00

Hey, this is Annie, and you’re returning to “where it’s AT!” (a sad smile on my face emerges now haha.) For the past week the Hester Street Collaborative held its first (ever!) Design Camp for kids. It was a greatly tiring and fun week for us interns, who basically watched and played with the ten kids. We took care of a lot of business this week: making concrete stepping stones to be put into the ground in the garden, silk-screening with the kids (and making t-shirts and book covers), taking care of the garden, painting, making models of the garden, and, most of all, cleaning! And on Wednesday, we went to the Noguchi museum where we saw a lot of sculptures and designing, and then to Socrates Sculpture Park nearby.

Besides all the work, though, I think I really enjoyed the camp, mostly because I was able to have fun with the kids, and the kids were able to roam around and explore their imaginations. (And the food and cold drinks weren’t too bad, either.) We even had bottle fights with water. On Friday, to get back at the kids for all their “evil” efforts at getting us interns soaking wet, we came in early in the morning to make water balloons, and we proceeded to give them their “present” later on in the day (imagine some evil laughter right now). I think the best part of the week for me was when I got Maia to eat part of a turkey sandwich, even though she originally turned down my generous offer. I guess part of me wants to realize that I DO have the potential to become a teacher one day, and I feel I have those instincts, to “manipulate” kids into eating and having fun while learning at the same time. (It’s also nice to know that after taking a career test the other day for CPC orientation that teaching would probably be the best career for me haha).

Last week was great; I’m going to miss making the kids laugh at my super-duper corny jokes (because they’re the only ones that will), playing in the mud pit, and generally having fun as a kid again (now that I’m 18, those days will soon be over, and I’m quite sad about that). There are definite things that we discussed today that can be changed about the design camp, mostly changes in the organization and structuring of the camp, but overall it went really well for the first camp ever. And this week, although we are finished with design camp and feeling TAN-tastic, we still have a lot of work to do, and onward we move! So until my next blog entry, this has been where it’s AT.

Hey everyone!!!

2007-08-08T14:43:00.000-04:00

This is Carmen speaking again. I am exhausting from last week’s design/build boot camp, but it was a great experience and a lot of fun. Each day was filled with creative activities and noisy children covered in mud. Every morning, the campers would start their day by watering the plants and pulling out weeds. Then they would start on their projects such as texture rubbing, silk screening, scavenger hunting, t-shirt making, stepping stone making, and model building. After lunch, the campers had several hours of free time. Guess what took place during this period? WATER FIGHT!!! Yes, all the campers attacked the interns so we decide to get them back. We purposely arrived early on the last day to fill up water balloons. In the end, the interns went against each other.

In this past week, we also spent a day at the Noguchi Museum and the Socrates Sculpture Park. The kids found their favorite sculptures and drew them. At the park, all the kids chased Eric around until his shirt and book bag were torn. Poor Eric! Anyways, I had a great time with these adorable, energetic kids. I look forward to working with others in the future.

This week is my last week at Hester Street Collaborative. I hope to accomplish as much as I can in this short period of time so I must get working. I’ll be back before you know it.

See you later!

Ahhh yes, Design Camp…

2007-08-08T12:20:00.000-04:00

If there was one word that can describe that week, it would be crazy. It was organized chaos in a sense because there were so many things going on at once. At one point it was pretty hard to keep track of the campers. Even though they were a handful, every moment was worth it.
We had many activities that we did to carry us through the day. We did silk screening, painting, water fights, and stepping stones. And on top of all of those activities, we also had to maintain the garden. All in all, it was a week well spent.
On the first day that I was there (Tuesday), I was working with the kids to silk screen their t-shirt. They came up with extremely good designs. Some of them were snakes, worms, bears, etc. Considering the fact that they were silk screening for the first time, their prints came out pretty well. Even their t-shirts look professional. They really did a good job. The only thing that would’ve been better was if there was more room so that more people can do the silk screen at the same time. The tables were too small to support a lot of people at once.

Besides the silk screens, we also did some relief drawings by rubbing the piece of paper on some leaves and when we were at the Socrates Sculpture Garden, we did a rubbing on the shark fin. Speaking of the garden, we had a lot of fun there. We played freeze tag, capture the flag, and watched Eric getting beat up. I think they took a liking to Eric because that would explain why they kept on beating him up. While we were at the park, the kids also did a sketch of their favorite sculpture at the park.
While the rest of the interns are describing their week at the design camp, I on the other hand feel that is important to talk about how we are going to improve the design camp. The camp went very well considering the face that this was the first time that we were doing it.

At the meeting that we had today, we discuss some of the ways in which we can improve the design camps. Some of the ideas that we came up were that we should be more organized, more activities. We said that we have to be more organized because there were a few days in which we were confused in what we were suppose to do. To fix that, we are planning to hold a meeting each day after the design camp ends to plan for the next day. Even the design camp was successful this year, we feel that there should be more activities because that would give the children more options on what they would like to do.

Now that the design camp is over, it will never be forgotten because of all of the great times we do. For now, we are resuming our own individual projects that we later are going to present to each other. Currently, I am doing a photo essay/book on how the individual household owner can live a life that is environmentally friendly.
See you next week!

Mindy's Last Post

2007-08-08T12:05:00.000-04:00

Mindy is here again! This will be the last week working for this summer. Work at HSC has been a blast and a great learning experience. Just from a few weeks, I learned how to silkscreen, work on Illustrator, basic gardening, work with kids, create stepping stones, and so much more. Time sure flies by! Hopefully I will be able to work here during this fall!

We helped supervise a Design Camp last week. The cute little campers were all from ages of six to ten-years-old. They were adorable small designers, architects, and artists. The creative campers built a ‘river’ in the mud pit, getting mud all over their bodies. They basically took a mud bath! Besides building a ‘river’, they dug for worms. There were at least seventy worms found. How often do you find a mud pit in NYC? Pretty awesome for the Design Camp to have a mud pit for the kids. I would have loved to play in one if I were younger.

Well time to return to work!

I’m working, learning and “sparkle”-ing haha.

2007-07-26T17:16:00.000-04:00

Good morning from the office; this is Annie again! Soo this week we’ve been getting ready for our design camp with the kids from P.S. 134. We’ve been getting supplies from a huge number of places so we’re ready for the kids on Monday. We also got ready to make stepping stones with the kids by learning how to make them on our own. We made our own mold of a dragonfly out of precut pieces of wood, and on Tuesday we put in cement mix so we could start learning how to do it.
For me though, this week was predominantly about finishing up my silk-screening process with my Mr. Sparkle design from “The Simpsons.” I was the last one to go, and it took me two days to finish because of all the different colors. Each stencil looked somewhat misplaced (like shifted puzzle pieces), but it looks like it was meant to be that way, so it worked out perfectly haha. It looks a lot better and greater than I thought it could become. I even put my design on a gray t-shirt; I can’t wait to wear my shirt tomorrow when I go watch “The Simpsons Movie.” Yay! And making t-shirts for the kids at P.S. 134 for their gym uniforms should be a snap now.
We also heard a presentation on Tuesday from a volunteer here, Emily, about urban development in some places she visited for her study abroad program. We learned about the javelas in Rio De Janeiro, the huge amount of racism in the society of Cape Town, and the battles of the indigenous peoples of Auckland, New Zealand. It was a very interesting presentation; I didn’t know that kind of stuff was still happening around the world.
Today we’re going to continue our design camp preparation; we’re going to go to the garden, check out our concrete stepping stone mold and put in some mosaic tiles. And next week will be busy work with the kids, but design camp should be fun. With the kids, we’ll be silk-screening shirts and book covers, making stepping stones, playing some scavenger hunt games, etc. Till my next entry, all, this has been where it’s at. (Get it? A.T.? Annie Tan? =D)

Eric's preview for upcoming week

2007-07-26T17:14:00.000-04:00

Hey, this is Eric Yuan. Today I am going to give you a sneak peek on what we are going to be doing next week. We are going to be baby-sitting little kids for this year’s camp at P.S.134. We are learning how to make stepping-stones so when we teach the kids it will be as easy as making cake, if that is how it goes.
Dennis and I went on a little trip to pick up five silk-screens and five squeegees for the camp at P.S.134. We will be making t-shirts for the kids. The camp will be starting next week on Monday so we are preparing. We all came up with our own designs for the stepping-stone, and then we had to pick one out of all the designs. We chose the dragonfly. We brought the design to the garden to mold it, but we didn’t want the cement to stick to the side of the box, so we put Vaseline all over the box. It was a little nasty; it was stuck on my hand even when I washed it down. When we were at the garden we saw that the peach tree was still sick; slime was coming out from the trunk, so we cleaned the slime off the tree and are hoping that it will heal.
Do not go away; I will be back next week, so remember to tune in on my next blog, or you can check out the other blogs the workers have written. Next week it will be a little crazy with the kids; I will be telling you what crazy things we have been doing, so again, remember to tune in on my blog.

Carmen Speaking!!! Shhh

2007-07-25T17:10:00.000-04:00

Hello! This is Carmen speaking. It is my 3rd week at Hester Street Collaborative and we interns are busier than ever. Next week, the design/build boot camp will begin so this week we are making preparations.
Yesterday, Dylan showed us how to make a stepping-stone. This is a project that all the kids will be working on. It is actually quite interesting. First, we had to create a design using wooden geometric shapes. This took a while since everyone was so indecisive. When we finally decided to use a dragonfly design, we glued it onto a wooden board and placed it into a small wooden box. At the garden, Eric and Ming put Vaseline on the inner surface of the box. This will help us remove the cement, which we poured into the box, after the concrete mix completely dries. Drying will take about two days so until then we will be working on other preparations.
This week, I helped sand down the wooden geometric shapes that the kids will be using to make their design. I also gathered more information for my research project. I spent many hours researching and thinking of how to present my project. My final decision is to create a magazine concerning Van Cortlandt Park. It will consist a brief history of this park, public’s opinions, descriptions of the park, information about groups that help maintain the park, details about current projects, a map and many photos. Also, as a group, we spent time in the garden cleaning the diseased peach tree that has been oozing out a sticky substance.

Eric found a rather large yellow caterpillar while cleaning. This was the 3rd caterpillar we spotted this week. Caterpillars, they just LOVE us! JToday we will be picking up supplies that will be needed for the design/build boot camp. Yes, that is the aim for today. Okay, it is time for me to go sand down more wooden geometric shapes. See you next week!

Dennis here, yet again...

2007-07-24T17:05:00.000-04:00

Hey! This is Dennis here! And yet again, I am reporting from the workshop again. One week has passed and there is much to explain. If you can recall to last week’s post, I said that I was going to start a project on PlaNYC 2030. But unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. Now, I’m planning to start a project in a photo guidebook to how individuals can make lifestyle changes that is more environmental friendly. So far that idea is brewing in my head and it appears to be more interesting that PlaNYC.
Besides changing my project, the week was pretty eventful because there is always something to do at Hester Street Collaborative. Next week we are about to start the design camp for the young kids and to prepare for the design camp we were instructed to create boxes that will be used in the stepping stone project. The boxes will be used to hold the design and the concrete mixture until it is dry. We also cut out geometric shapes and sand it down so the kids are able to us it to create a creature that they found in the garden. There is a lot of sawdust down here from all of the sanding. I have a feeling that we are about to clean the workshop again.
And when we are not preparing for the design camp, we are at the garden as usual, tending to the many plants that inhabit it. We were removing the weeds from the vegetables and then we were cleaning up the peach tree. It turns out that the peach tree is infected with a type of fungus and so we were removing the stuff that was oozing out from the tree. It was pretty fun. That is all that I have time to write about, so until next time have fun without me.

Mindy is back...

2007-07-23T18:15:00.000-04:00

Hey this is Mindy again. This will be my third week working at HSC. I just finished my first silkscreen. It came out the way I wanted it to. I like the strong contrast in color and the use of only primary colors.
Last week, I worked on Illustrator for the first time, which I had always wanted to do. I learned how to use the pen, smoothing and anchor tools. It was easy to catch on. I also started researching on Chinatown Youth Initiatives, a non-profit organization that helps the local community through community projects similar to HSC’s.
At the garden, I helped take out the goo from the peach tree. A lot of ants were crawling all over it. Poor tree. Now we need to go buy fungicide to help save it. I also picked out the dead leaves off the sunflowers. Hope those sunflowers will bloom brighter!
We are up to our next project, to create a stepping-stone as a group for the garden. It is hard deciding which design to use. We’re all contemplating whether to use a tree, a bee, a squirrel, a chick, or a spider as our design. This project will be very fun. We get to work with cement! Time to get messy!

Amandaaah!!~_~

2007-07-20T18:22:00.000-04:00

Hello my name is Amanda Wong. I am seventeen years old and am an art major at LaGuardia High School. Things I enjoy doing include eating, painting, going to the beach, procrastinating my research project work, and crowdsurfing. I have been interning through the LEARN program at Hester Street Collaborative for two weeks; it has been my 7^th job this year (something I take pride in). I am glad to have the opportunity to have such hands-on and involved work, and that my jobs no longer involve licking hundreds of envelopes or serving overpriced ice cream while singing for a little extra cash. During my time spent at HSC, I have already learned how to: silkscreen, think carefully before acting, sand down baby pieces of wood, and write a research project.

Now that everything important is known about me, I will discuss my research project and the difficulties of doing a research project. I have done two research projects before: one was a twenty page paper about slavery done with four other people and the other was a six page paper trying to convince my Republican U.S history teacher that George W. Bush’s War on Iraq was an unjustified decision. My current research project will discuss how cultural and lingual differences affect the Chinatown community and the importance of new open space projects such as the East River Waterfront, the Allen and Pike Street Initiatives, and HSC’s work in the Hester Street Playground in Sara Roosevelt Park. Such developments are important in creating places for the community to freely exist and for its people to enjoy open spaces. By bringing people together in a specific area, solidarity will inevitably follow. Community existence through open space is important in a place like Chinatown, where many people are living and working in mainly overpopulated cramped conditions and cultural and lingual differences cause socially restrained interactions. It has the ability to ignore the hardships and differences faced in a community and bring everyone together.

Obviously there will be many challenging parts of my research project. First of all, I am procrastinating and will honestly do whatever I can to not do to the work. Secondly, I feel finding the information and statistics related to my project will need to be accurate and detailed, and I will have to do much work finding somewhat esoteric information (it will be difficult finding information relative to the social and cultural critique with my work). However, this will probably be made easier through the internet, and I just like to complain much. Another problem I am facing at this moment is hunger. I am also nervous that I will not be able to prove my point and will end up with a horrible boring and useless paper no one will read. Wish me luck. Also the photo up there is my first ever silk screen and I think its cute.

Ming's Blog Entry Volume 1

2007-07-20T17:38:00.000-04:00

Hello this is Ming here, being isolated in the soundless office, force to write a blog entry for the HSC web log. Yeah just kidding about the “force” thing, but I am writing a blog entry as you can clearly see. Anyway, I am one of the last interns that will be introducing ourselves through the web log. I first learned about this organization through a SYEP job fair hosted by CPC. After roaming the crowed fair, for a while I came to find Dylan and Annie waiting patiently for people who are interested in their job offer. I eventually approached them and got my summer job.

For the past few days we’ve been working on our silk screen project. Our supervisor, Dylan has taught us how these delightful pieces of arts are forged. I was the first one to start the silk screening experience. The silk screening process was really painful, due to the high temperature outside. However I was able to defeat the heat with a few laughers and “JAZZ”. When I finally finished I was so relieved, but I was also disappointed because my silk screen picture turned out really ugly. Even though my silk screen picture wasn’t as nice as others, I though it was still a really cool experience. Being able to learn hands on, how these colorful designs can be form within a short period of time, and without complicated machines.

I’ve also learn how to use adobe illustrator, that which I used to make animal name tags for our design camp that we are about start in a few week. I used this pen tool that make tracing an image on the computer, simple and hassle free. (The image on the right is an example of the Name Tag)

Did I mention about the garden that we have been managing? Well it’s a really cool garden, especially the stepping stones all over the garden, I thought was really cute. This garden has all kinds of things, from tomatoes to peaches, to roses. The lists goes on and on, just trying to and name everything. You can almost smell the fragrance of all these plants in the polluted city air. Also it is really rare to see such a diversity of plants in an isolated area, within the city. This garden in a way reminds me of a book I read before, call “Seed Folk”. This book talks about how a neighborhood built a garden out of an empty lot, which improved their neighborhood. That is kind of similar to what we and the many supporters out there are doing for our neighborhood, and it is what we should be doing. Because who will make conditions better for us then ourselves. Exactly!!

Anyway I’ve wrote too much, its time for me to go home anyway. Do mine the small mistakes; I just scribbled this with a limited time I’ve got on my hand. So I here by say good bye to the fellow views out there, and wishing all a good day.

P.S: I was stung by the rose thorn in the back, because I wasn’t paying attention, and it was really painful. Just though I mention it, and to warn people out there to pay attention when you do things and to watch your back.

The beginning of where it's at...

2007-07-19T17:14:00.000-04:00

Hi, my name is Annie and this is my first entry in this blog. I’m one of the “Citizen Design Interns” hired from SYEP, and today is the end of my second week working wit h Hester Street Collaborative. I just graduated from Brooklyn Tech, and going on to Columbia in the end of August, baby. And I’m liking this job so far.

Basically, in the past two weeks we, as in us many interns, have been learning about the organization, how it’s trying to help Chinatown represent itself in the city, and how we can help out the local schools and neighbors. In a quick synopsis, we’ve gardened at P.S. 134, cleaned the whole workshop, silkscreened for future t-shirt printings for P.S. 134, drawn, and done a lot of research. All us interns have to do a research project related to HSC’s mission, and over a period of two to three days I’ve been looking at a huge variety of environmental issues and have tried to find a local organization or issue to research and find out more about. After looking at a huge number of sites, like treehugger.com, a site which reports on a wide range of environmental issues, greenthumbnyc.org, the site for the largest community gardening program in the country, and a program online called “Freecycle™” where New Yorkers give away and trade items online. (I’m now a member of that haha.) Yesterday I finally narrowed down my topic to the study of community gardens and green roofs in New York City, and if the benefits they reap outweigh the costs.

Today, me, Dylan, and Eric went to the garden once again. Some of the sunflowers are starting to bloom, and we have some pretty cool strawberries growing, but they’re not ripe yet. But the big problem was with the peach tree, which is leaking out sap through certain parts. Dylan and I took pictures of the poor tree and hoping to look for answers. I looked it up online before we went, and I think it’s something called Cytospora Canker, which weakens tree barks and eventually kills peach trees. It could also be something called the “Peach Tree Borer,” but we won’t really know until Dylan’s tree “expert” responds back. I hope our poor tree doesn’t die, but it won’t under our capable interns’ hands.

Next week I get to silkscreen my “Mr. Sparkle” design (from “The Simpsons”). I’m excited! I’m going to bring my own t-shirt to print it on. Also we’ll be working more on prepping for design camp and the garden. Till next week, guys, this has been where it’s at.

My First Blog

2007-07-19T16:52:00.000-04:00

Hi, my name is Eric Yuan. This is my first blog. I have been working at Hester Street Collaborative for 2 weeks. I worked at Hester Street Collaborative last year. I am a freshmen from John Dewey High School. We have been learning how to silk screen. I have been working in the garden and found out about the tree that is sick. Before I talk about this, lets begin from the beginning.

The first day at Hester Street Collaborative was a dusty day. We have extreme cleaning going on at the basement: dust was flying everywhere and every one was sneezing, but I thought it was a great day. I have talked to the workers. We talk about ourselves and we have become good working buddies. These one and a half weeks we have been learning how to silk screen. Each of the workers has to come up with a design to use for silk-screening. My design is a tree and 2 fruits on it and the print did not come out as bad as I thought it would. It was really fun I mix different color of paint so I can get the color I needed for my design. I have been at the garden a few times. It has changed a lot since last year. The plants have been moved around and tiles that were made by the kids at P.S.134 are on the floor. Today when me, Dylan and Annie went to the garden we noticed that the peach tree was sick. It has this slime coming out of the trunk, so we took some pictures and some slime back to the office so we could find out how to save the tree from dying. Don’t worry; we will do what we can to save the tree.

I have been doing research on a park named Teardrop Park. It is named Teardrop Park because of the shape of the space. The park was built in 2004. To build the park it took close to 20 times more than other NYC playgrounds to be built. On the research I found out that the park is not really what the people want. Beside sitting there is not much to do. The spot you will find most used by the children is the slide.

First Week at HSC

2007-07-18T16:30:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! This is Carmen Wong. Like Mindy, I am an intern from Fiorello H. LaGuardia H.S. of Music & Arts and Performing Arts. I discovered HSC through the LEARN program in my school. This program offers students the opportunity to experience what it is like to have a full time job and to enhance our skills and knowledge. When I heard that HSC is a design/build organization that helps communities improve their physical environment, I knew that I wanted to take part in this program.

Within the first week, I learned how to properly tend a garden and create prints by using the silk screening technique. Silk screening is simple and fun, but its process takes a great deal of time. I have already completed my design. I can’t wait to print! In the meantime, I am working on my research project about Van Cortlandt Park. I plan to go up there one day to continue my research. It is the LAST stop on the 1 train, so far away! I chose to investigate this park because I am familiar with it. It has many great facilities and a large forest. It is usually overflowing with many local people and visitors. I am interested in learning what others think of the park, which facilities they use, any problems they find and if the park has any significant meaning to them. I think Van Cortlandt Park is a wonderful place to exercise, relax, spend time with family or hang out with friends. It is also very accessible. Right now, I need to think of a thesis for my project.

In a week or two, HSC will be having a design/build camp for kids from ages 6- 10. The other interns and I will be helping them make stepping-stones. I think it will be fun. This will be different for me since I’ve never really worked with kids before. Anyways, I am looking forward to it. Well, times up. I must go. See you all next week!

Dennis's First Post

2007-07-17T16:22:00.000-04:00

Hello! This is Dennis Chen reporting from the workshop of Hester Street Collaborative. I am a Brooklyn Tech graduate and currently, I am attending Binghamton University this fall. This is the second week that I am working here and it is been a blast working for Hester Street Collaborative. We started with a little bit of summer cleaning and it was interesting. There was no dust to be found at the workshop per se but instead there was a lot of sawdust (there was construction going on down here). Cleaning was hard since there was sawdust everywhere but it was bearable because there were a lot of people helping me.

Then the next day, Dylan introduced us to silk screening. At first it looked a little complex but it turns out that it was really simple. Basically, silk screening is just creating art by using stencils. The stencils create the silhouette of image. Then you place the stencil onto a porous polyester material. You tape up the rest of the mesh so that the paint will not pass through and the frame is now set.

Then you attach the frame onto the table via a hinge and then you are ready to print. First you place a generous amount of paint above the stencil and you use the squeegee to move the paint over the stencil. The place where there is an opening, the paint will bleed through and transfer itself onto the material that is below it. It is pretty fun. It is almost like finger painting, almost. For the demonstration of silk screening, we did a since landscape picture of a sun, a blue sky and white cloud. We each had a turn to move the paint across the stencil with the squeegee and it was an interesting experience.

Besides silk screening we also tend the garden. It is also pretty enjoyable. Dylan showed us how the garden looked like and now the garden is more class friendly and the school that is adjacent to the garden will finally be able to utilize it in its school curriculum. There are many types of flora present at the garden. Such as cabbage, corn, sunflowers, oregano, tomato, peach and many more. Even though I just started to work at the garden, it has always been a work in progress. Now it is my turn to carry the torch and take care of the garden. This summer we’ll been doing a summer camp in which kids will be able to create stepping-stones for the garden. I am looking forward to that project.

Speaking of projects, we are also required to do a research project at Hester Street Collaborative. We were given a wide range of choices to do our project on, such as PlaNYC 2030, blog research, and product design. Since everyone showed extreme interest in the product design everyone will be working on that one and then another project independently. So far, for my project, I am leaning towards doing research on PlaNYC. PlaNYC is a project that was started by Mayor Bloomberg in an effort to develop NYC more carefully by addressing some of the problems that is happening right now. One such problem that he plans to address is the housing crisis in which New Yorkers are forced to pay higher rent just because there are not enough housing for everyone. To make matters worse. We predict that by 2030, the population will increase to nine million residents. Well this is enough about me. Until next week, stay cool.

Mindy's First Week

2007-07-16T15:36:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! This is Mindy Tom (People call me Mindy Tomboy), a summer intern from LaGuardia High School, class of 2008. Woot Woot! I first learned about this internship through the LEARN program from school, a program that introduces students to the real world, similar to the Summer Youth Employment Program. I grew an interest to HSC because the work is very hands-on and tactile.

I just started working since last week and so far, everything has been very fun and new. Dylan taught us how to silk screen and garden (things I do not usually do). Silk screening was an interesting process. We started designing our own stencils to practice silk screening. I made three different stencils, for three different color layers just to complete my design. I had to plan out the color applications carefully since overlapping one color on another made a different color. I am still in the process of completing my design. I hope it will come out right!

Once, while waiting for the screen to dry to silkscreen, us interns got silly and started playing with contact paper cutouts. I made myself a Pringle mustache. It was very foolish looking and hilarious. So far the work is very laid back, but it still wasn’t all fun and games. Then again, we had a lot of fun doing all of this stuff.

One time, we were attacked by a flock of pigeons while walking to the garden. They just swooshed right above our heads! Thank goodness we knelt down. If we didn’t, the pigeons would have rammed into our heads.

Under 90+-degree weather, our hard work and constant sweating paid off. We made the garden nice and tidy. The strawberry bushes, cabbages, cherry trees, apple trees, carrots, lavenders, and other plants were all watered and rehydrated. Tree barks, and loose garbage were all picked up and thrown away. I even found a plastic superhero toy under the soil!

Well it is about time to get back to work! See you guys later!

Our Last Day :(

2007-05-25T17:15:00.000-04:00

Hey guys it's Yanely,

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post, but we were having some technical difficulties with our blog! But now that's all over, and sadly so is our internship here at Hester Street! I sure will miss taking the downtown B train to Grand Street everyday after school! I must say that I have had an amazing time interning for Hester Street. I have learned a great quantity of skills that I am sure will come in handy when I enter college. All of the projects that I have been a part of have been enjoyable and informative, and the entire internship has been an exciting learning experience. I am glad to have had the opportunity to work with people who truly care for improving and serving communities through art and design. Simple projects, such as lantern-making, can make students and teachers smile, and bring joy to the community. Working in the garden has been amazing because I’ve been able to see the transformation of the space over the past two years. The most current project has been creating pavers and stepping stones with the children from P.S.134, that will serve as pavers and decoration in the garden!(I made the bird paver on the upper right corner) The pavers will add color and artwork to the garden and will allow the children to feel proud of their contribution. It is amazing how much change we can produce with just a little bit of community support. I am happy to have been able to participate, even in the smallest events and projects, because I know that it is contributing to a bigger and better cause! Since I have had such fun here at Hester and I have learned so much I feel honored to remain a part of the organization. I will soon become an honorary board member for Hester Street Collaborative. I feel like the organization has such an amazing program for all generations of people, and I really want to inform my generation and share with them, not only my experiences, but also allow them to be able to create experiences of their own here at Hester Street. I hope that you all reading this post will feel inspired to do something good and productive in your neighborhoods because it's something great that everyone can achieve!

Here's a picture of two of my younger brothers and I working in the garden on a volunteer day.

the weather is getting warmer!

2007-05-25T17:14:00.000-04:00

Xing here! Summer’s here!

With the weather getting warmer, we started to do some major garden work at P.S.134. A couple of weeks ago, Anne and Dylan took us to the Storefront, to view some architecture works presented and it has become one of my favorite days here. It was especially fun and very inspirational for me because I am going to major in Architecture! We brainstormed afterwards and did some paver designs that would best suit the garden and its new look. We decided on “garden creatures” and used the small geometric shapes that the kids at P.S. 134 are learning in class. I started with a tomato but it soon developed into a mosaic green ant. Yanely designed a bird and Wawa made a water pot design. I had a lot of fun with experimenting/mixing concrete and the designing part of the process but cutting the mosaic to pieces to fit the design nicely was quite challenging for me. The small mosaic pieces never come out right for me when I try to cut it but nevertheless, the outcomes came out looking GREAT! We then use these pavers as examples for the children of P.S.134 to make their own design using the geometric shapes Dylan cut out. And for the past two weeks, we have been making form works and cutting shapes for these new pavers so that they will look great! It was really fun seeing the cool designs little kids were able to come up with. While the pavers are being casted, the garden is also starting to look organized on its own.

before and after mosaic. and there's MY ANT!

we're all working hard at the garden. Thumbs up =D

It’s my last week here interning at Hester Street Collaborative. Very sad to leave but it has definitely been a pleasure to work here. I gained many new skills and great experiences at Hester Street Collaborative. Very thankful to Dylan and Anne and the opportunities given at HSC =D

Pavers

2007-03-23T13:02:00.000-04:00

Hey it's Yanely and Xing here! We are at Hester Street early today since we had a half-day at school, and the project that we'll be working on today consists of creating pavers for the P.S.134 Garden. Xing has an idea where she will try to design a paver with a clear resin part in the middle where she will place some kind of object, most likely a seed or leaf, so that it can be seen in the concrete. I am going to create a design for the form work of a "board game" paver that will consist of several pavers that come together to form a tic tac toe board. This project has been a lot of fun so far and it will be really cool to see our designs for the frameworks be made into real pavers that the kids can take part in at their garden.

Ok that's it for us today and we'll be back to write again soon!
As Xing says CIAO!

Waeeny's Chinese New Year experience :)

2007-02-28T16:44:00.000-05:00

Hey! Its me, Waeeny Dessources, a fairly new Hester Street Collaborative intern. Recently, Yanely, Xing and I have been working on the Chinese New Year party activities and projects for the children. At first, we all sat down and brainstormed about which activities we would create that would interest a younger audience. Certain youth activities that we came up with included making masks, name tags, finger puppets, stamps, and lucky red envelopes; which were created to resemble the Chinese Zodiacs, especially the Golden Boar. The masks along with the nametags, envelopes, and fortunes were created using an Illustrator Program. For the masks, I drew half of the animal’s head on a sheet of paper using Adobe Illustrator, and created indicator lines so that the person making it would know to fold it in half and cut along the lines. Second were the stamps. After Yanely and I took a walk to Pearl Paint in search of linoleum and cutting tools, we returned to the office and copied the animal templates onto the linoleum. Soon after the pieces were carved out, wood was glued onto the back surface and therefore; creating a stamp. We created several of each animal so that the supply would be sufficient. It was quite an allusive experience due to the fact that so many children participated in the event and it caused me to realize that all the hard work paid off. As the festivities commenced, waiters and waitresses served exquisite Chinese cuisine as everyone took park in the tasting of the delicious dumplings. Planning the party and watching it become reality was undoubtedly a momentous experience for me. Not only did I learn about Chinese New Year while creating the activities, but I also had a load of fun taking part in the event. :)

Xing here!

2007-02-28T16:36:00.000-05:00

Hey, Xing’s first posting here =D. We have been very busy at HSC lately because there were so many preparations that needed to be done for the Chinese New Year Celebration. Yanely, Wawa (Waeeny), and I were assigned series of projects to do before the big celebration. We had to come with different ways of fun things to do in relation to Chinese traditions, such as activities dealing with ancient Chinese zodiacs. Yanely worked on making finger puppets templates, Wawa did really cool masks, and I made many animal zodiac sketches that were later turned into labels and stamp designs. The stamps were really fun to make! Anyways, we also had lantern making, envelope making and cool facts about every single zodiac animals. We finally pulled everything off at the last minute and the party began. Very fun party! Most of the kids enjoyed the craft-making that we had prepared for them and the kids liked bunnies and dragons the most, which I thought was odd because all the others were very good too! The kids were hard to communicate with at first because they didn’t know what Chinese New Year was about and so we had to elaborate on that. Yanely was really good with the little kids but I don’t have much luck with them so this was a very good experience for me. It was frightening at first because I have never dealt with so many kids at once but nevertheless, it ended up fine. Phew =]. At the party, I helped the kids with making their own name tags and lucky red envelopes; and at the end, most of the kids knew their birthdays’ relation to what zodiac they are assigned to and the personalities of their zodiac signs. Our party with the kids went really well and one of the kids even made a name tag for Wawa =D. Wells, here are some pictures! Enjoy~

The room setup and our hard work on putting up the pretty lights. and look! there’s the minicake stand that everyone enjoyed eating. oh and there’s the kids making crafts =D
Sam making some lanterns….and a lot other crafts. She didn’t want to go home lol
the craft making station...there's alot of stuff going on there
US at work. (wawa, yanely, xing)

alrighty, ciao for now =]
-Xing

2007-02-12T18:14:00.000-05:00

Hello! It's Fiona again! (booooooo! Where's Raymond?)
Waeeny, Xing, and Nelly prepared for the Chinese New Year party by making finger puppets.
Fiona ran an errand to the post office to deliver an important mail, while Stephanie and Kevin were silk screening T-Shirts samples. Zhoudi and Winnie were working on the fliers that will be handed out for the T-Shirts. Jennifer and Jeffery were cleaning up the basement and throwing out garbage.

Now here are some pictures :D

Yay we're back again :D

2007-01-29T17:45:00.000-05:00

Hello it's Fiona again :D
So it's almost a new month, and we're finally back to give you an update!
We split up into three groups for our agenda. Stephanie and Kevin went to the garden to inventory tools, while Jennifer and Jeffery ironed the finished T shirts, and Raymond and I continued to work on our designs.
We did a lot of progress for our designs. We decided what size the design is going to be for the T shirt.
After Jennifer and Jeffery ironed the T shirts, they've also inventory them. They also counted how many T shirts were already made, and placed them into the boxes.
Kevin and Stephanie came back from their trip to the garden, and went back downstairs to invetory the tools there. After they were done, they headed over to the computer to database their inventory.
Pictures will be up soon :D Farewell!
-Fiona

It's a new year, time to get back to work!

2007-01-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm Raymond. =D Today, we split up our work and I was assigned to work with Kevin to pick out the designs and colors for the T-shirts we're planning to use for fundraising and then we were suppose to confirm the sizes for the colors we picked.
Stephanie, Dylan and Jennifer practice silk screening with messed up T-shirts, they will later on have enough experience to help make the T-shirts to sell.
Fiona ironed the T-shirts so that the ink that's on the T-shirts won't fade. Winnie prepared the t-shirts with cardboard panels. Yanely and Zhoudi (later joined by Winnie) were working on the images [in photoshop] that will be used for printed on the T-Shirts. While we were working on our tasks, Jeff was taking pictures of us so we could show you guys :D ^_^

Dududu.

These are the assignments that we had!

Silkscreening fun :D

Ironing Station

Colors for the T-shirts

Preparing the T-shirts

Yay! Everyone go look at the documentary!

2006-12-26T20:54:00.000-05:00

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!

December Update

2006-12-23T21:58:00.000-05:00

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

Whoosh finally a update!

2006-11-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

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

A Documentary? No way!

2006-10-09T15:52:00.000-04:00

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.

Last Day ='(

2006-08-17T18:01:00.000-04:00

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

bye bye...

2006-08-16T16:40:00.001-04:00

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.

This is the last time you'll see me

2006-08-15T16:38:00.000-04:00

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...

LAST WEEK?!?! NO WAY!

2006-08-14T16:08:00.000-04:00

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)

WHEEEEE

2006-08-08T22:13:00.000-04:00

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.

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

2006-08-07T19:45:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-08-03T16:35:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-03T12:08:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-03T11:40:00.000-04:00

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 =)

water please!!!

2006-08-01T14:21:00.000-04:00

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...

2006-08-01T13:39:00.000-04:00

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.

THE LAST DAY OF JULY? ALREADY???

2006-07-31T19:01:00.000-04:00

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.

the power of the key

2006-07-28T10:48:00.000-04:00

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.

a short fun-filled day

2006-07-27T17:55:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-27T15:25:00.000-04:00

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|-|!

2006-07-27T13:45:00.000-04:00

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. =)