News & Events
City Tech Takes New Look at Brooklyn Waterfront with NEH Support
City Tech's 'Work and Work' project director Richard Hanley (second from left) with, from far left to right: Professors Paul Broer (English), Stephen James (African-American Studies), Mark Noonan (English), Robin Michals (Advertising Design & Graphic Arts) and Monica Berger (Library). Photo credit: Michele Forsten.
“Water and Work: the Ecology of Downtown Brooklyn,” a year-long faculty development program being undertaken by City Tech, will offer special events on campus, open to the public, examining the role of the waterfront in Brooklyn’s past, present and future.
Starting this month under the auspices of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), City Tech faculty will study the history and ecology of Downtown Brooklyn -- the immediate environment of the College -- and its integral relationship to the waterfront. To kick off the project, three prominent scholars will speak about the Brooklyn waterfront from their unique perspectives on Wednesday, February 27, 3 to 5 p.m., in the Atrium Amphitheatre, 300 Jay Street (at Tillary) in Downtown Brooklyn.
On hand will be Professor Joshua Freeman (CUNY Graduate Center), author of Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II, who will discuss the history of Brooklyn waterfront labor since the 1940s. Professor Betsy McCully (Kingsborough Community College), author of City at the Water’s Edge: A Natural History of New York, will focus on the environmental history of the waterfront. And Professor Karen Karbiener, (New York University), author of Walt Whitman and New York, will discuss Whitman’s close relationship to the waterfront and its presence in his poetry. For more information about this free event, the public may call 718.260.5130.
In addition to attending public lectures like the February 27 event, the 18 City Tech faculty from a range of disciplines will attend a year-long seminar for which they will read and study the works of scholars who specialize in urban literature, history and ecology. The project's partners, the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Center for Urban Environment, will make their resources available to the faculty and lead them on field trips to the Brooklyn waterfront.
According to Dr. Bonne August, City Tech provost and vice president, City Tech is one of only six institutions chosen from throughout the country to receive this NEH grant, targeted to faculty at institutions with a high Hispanic enrollment. “We anticipate that this project will lead to the development of a model for interdisciplinary studies that will enrich our students' academic experience,” she says.
According to Dr. Richard E. Hanley, the City Tech English professor who is directing the “Water and Work” initiative, the immersion of the faculty participants in issues of sustainability and renewal of urban life, as they affect the culture and traditions of the Brooklyn waterfront, will bring a new perspective to their teaching.
“For much of the College’s history, its academic programs in English, the social sciences and philosophy were considered ‘service’ disciplines to the technological and vocational departments," says Hanley, who is the founding editor of the international Journal of Urban Technology (JUT), which frequently publishes articles on urban sustainability, and also serves as chair of CUNY's Institute for Urban Systems. "The humanities,” he continues, “are now coming into their own at City Tech as providers of critical intellectual skills needed by all students.”
Following the inaugural February 27 event, the work plan for this semester's activities, grouped under the title “The History of the Brooklyn Waterfront,” will have the participating City Tech faculty members studying the development of the Brooklyn Heights esplanade and the Brooklyn ferries, Walt Whitman’s writings about the borough and the effects of the change in maritime technology from labor-intensive break-bulk shipment to containerization. A walking tour of the Brooklyn Navy Yard will focus on its history and current use.
The fall 2008 semester sessions, themed “Brooklyn’s Waterfront: Today and Tomorrow,” will explore the connections and disjunctions between African Americans and the Downtown Brooklyn environment and the impact of new residential construction there. A boat trip will show faculty members Brooklyn from an angle most have not experienced. The culmination of the project will be presentations by the faculty that synthesize their “Water and Work” experiences, with the goal of expanding a newly enriched interdisciplinary curriculum for City Tech students.
During the year-long "Water and Work" project, five City Tech "lead faculty" will each lead teams of two or more NEH faculty fellows. One of these more seasoned professors, Dr. Stephen James, brings to the project actual experience working on the waterfront. “Two years after I dropped out of high school,” says James, who received his PhD from Harvard and teaches in the College’s Department of African-American Studies, “I needed a job to support my new family and signed up for a program that prepared members of under-represented groups to take and pass tests for entry into the various construction unions. By the luck of the draw, I went into the dockbuilders union.”
As a dockbuilder, James worked from 1972 to 1977 on the Hudson River on what is now called the North River Sewage Treatment Plant. He worked aboard a floating platform creating temporary constructions and also as a member of the "rubber crew," providing a sealant to the bottoms of concrete forms to protect them from the salty water.
James will draw on some of his experiences and academic interests when he serves as moderator of the discussion next fall, focusing on the question of African Americans’ concern with issues of environmental justice, conservation and pollution.
City Tech's “Water and Work” project is a follow-up to a 2006 NEH faculty development grant project conducted by City Tech in partnership with the Municipal Art Society. Entitled “Retentions and Transfigurations: The Technological Evolution and Social History of Five New York City Neighborhoods,” it entailed readings and discussions linked with walking tours of each of the designated communities. The program received extensive media coverage and, for all involved, served as an example of the synergy that occurs when institutions with overlapping educational missions collaborate.
2/13/08
