Week of October 1-5, 2001
 

For Monday, October 1

Read, in, Lopate, ed., Writing New York, a Literary Anthology,
From A History of New York (Washington Irving), pp. 1-7
"The Stranger at Home, or, A Tour in Broadway" (James Kirk Paulding) pp. 8 - 15

The two short pieces which I've assigned from Lopate give us a chance for our first vicarious experiences... living with our authors American Urban life. This is the first work we've had which is not supported by visual materials. You'll have to supply some of your own. I hope to add some others to the website as time allows. Paulding especially gives us a chance to exercise our imaginations because of the impressionistic, sketchy style in which it is written.

Read, In Girouard,
Chapter 12, "Manchester and the Industrial City," pp. 257- 270
Chapter 13, "London and the Growth of the Suburb," pp. 271 - 284

Chapter 12 marks the beginning of the third section of Girouard's book, appropriately entitled "The Exploding City." Technology drives the expansion and also feeds upon it. The greatest stimulus is the railroad, which moves both people and goods and thus allows cities to expand in size and at the same time grow more dense in numbers. The result is not exactly pleasing either from a humanitarian or aesthetic perspective. Compare the skyline pictures of earlier cities with the picture of the Manchester skyline, 260-261. Our industrial revolution follows closely on the heels of the British one, and we'll observe that ideas and practices move much more quickly from country to country and place to place than heretofore. This is again a product of the revolution in transportation.

Another technological invention also makes an impact, not so much on the cities themselves (at least at first), but on the ability of historians to study cities later. Photography gives new forms of evidence about what cities were like. "Pictures don't lie," or so we've been told. They may very well fib a little, however. As you look at the early pictures of Manchester, think about how the technological limitations of early photographs may color our ideas of what cities were like.

The suburb quite clearly reacts against the industrial city. I want you to focus on the forms this reaction takes. How are suburban residences different from urban ones, for example? How did real estate developers create street patterns which deliberately counter those of the city. How is life in the suburb organized differently from city life.?

For Friday, October 5

No new readings. We'll be watching a video which places the information from chapter 14 into an American context. American suburbs develop almost simultaneously with English ones, and in many instances are more revolutionary and innovative in design. The video we'll watch is called "Suburbs: Arcadia for Everyone" from the Pride of Place series conceived and narrated by Robert A. M. Stern. Watch closely, you might see your house.