ankit's second derive
March 19, 2018, by Ankit
9/11 was an event that put New York in shock and changed the way we perceive national threats as a whole. The city, and the nation for the most part, were transformed both physically and mentally, strongly evident in Manhattan’s Battery Park. Starting my Derivé around the 9/11 memorial on a brisk New York evening, it was evident that the toll that the incident took on the city was one never felt before. Seven years ago former mayor Michael Bloomberg highlighted the importance of what occurred in Battery Park that faithful day seven years ago. “Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights. Since then we’ve lived in sunshine and in shadow, and although we can never unsee what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born and good works and public service have taken root to honor those we loved and lost,” Bloomberg said. Walking around, there was a clear feeling of the sheer magnitude of what I was looking at, but at the same time, the commercial effect that New York is somewhat known for was clearly in play as tourists regularly posed for photos in front of a monument dedicated to a tragic event in the history of the world. Walking down Greenwhich Street, I could see that 9/11 truly impacted the area, as memorials for FDNY as well as a host of tribute museums arose while walking down. As I approached Rector Place I began to feel as if I was close to Wall Street. The hustle and bustle was characteristic to what one associates with the city as businessmen cloaked in pea coats dodged one another en route to what, judging by their walking speeds, was the most important meetings of their lives. At this point in my experience, the Derivé app designated me to find graffiti or street art at which point my trails led me to West Street, right by the Hudson River. Alongside the up-scale apartments such as 30 West Street, the sides were covered in street art as urban New York culture clashed with the upscale condominiums encapsulating much of Manhattan. Despite the skyscrapers taking up much of the sky in the city, the residential feel of the area was clearly more evident than it was in other areas such as SoHo and Midtown. Despite Wall Street being a stones throw away from the area, much of the commerce is limited to chain stores, resulting in a neighborhood feel with the Four Seasons Hotel being the only form of non-residential living on West Street. Ending my Derivé on Broad Street, I noticed another core element of how residential the neighborhood was as Lemán Manhattan, a private school, was located in a skyscraper. The school, which boasts a high tuition, gave a further image into the socio-economic background of the area as much of the residents lived lavishly. As students walked out of the school, you could feel a sense of community that the school provided, tying together the commercial and business element that Wall Street represented, while also exhibiting the residential feel of West Street and the streets around it.
