Sense of place and take action projects
essential questions
1) How does energy production impact place?
2) How do your sense of place, environmental ethic, and your understanding of our energy needs influence your of human's use of Earth's resources and your own lifestyle decisions?
2) How do your sense of place, environmental ethic, and your understanding of our energy needs influence your of human's use of Earth's resources and your own lifestyle decisions?
sense of place essay
Abstract
I have always felt a disconnection to my home in Durango. I feel that if I were to call this place home, I would be lying to my own identity. This is why I decided to write about the one place that I have felt a strong attachment to the moment I first got there. New York City is a huge cultural hub of the globe and is one of the few cities in this country that has it’s roots back to the colonies. I hope to convey the fact that the city has a conscience and personality. Humans are just another mammal and just like any other animal, we have a habitat. But humans are unique, we have more than just one habitat and cities are the largest of them all.
Stranger to My Home
Chris Niles
The lights of Times Square are mandatory. At night it is as if you are in the midst of a neon battle, where every direction sends out a thousand shots of bright, colorful light to distract from where you are. Behind the super cars parked on the street for show, and behind the police station highlighted with the strength of blue neon, is something else. You see the foundation of the city, the grid from which it was formed and the spirit that holds up the buildings. It is like a grand system of invisible strings, tied to the roof of every structure so that they may stand in their garden with an enlightened sense of pride. This pride is seen, still within Times Square, on the advertisements that hang seemingly without help on the dark buildings. Animations dart back and forth to strangle your senses with senseless messages leading you to think that this is what the city is about. But it is not. The city is much more than loud noises, lights, people, and crime.
Walking now, down E 74th street to Lenox Avenue, I can see the business of this place. It’s residence dart back and forth like flies - swarming towards the nearest cart to get their coffee. The entrance to the subway system reveals a waterfall of slush and snow cascading down the set of stairs leading into the shallowest level of the bowels of the city. The stepped flow leads into a lakebed made of cement that opens up to reveal the platform. The many different kinds of city-dwellers can all be seen in this area, bustling around gracefully, trying to find their way through the crowd to the turnstiles in a public display of an unrealized ballet.
My place amongst this is in the center of it all. My desire to take in every aspect of life here overrides any desire to return to where I came from.
*****
As I step out of the airport doors I am hit with an unwavering strength, an indescribable sensation where the tourist finds his home in the splits of grey wood that make up this concrete forest. I am in the east. This is the front door from which the sun walks along the sky morning after morning, leading the animals of this place so that they may die as part of the earth and city.
Amongst the swarms of pedestrians and the hives of buildings, a piece of myself can be glimpsed just through the window of the hundredth floor in an office building as the evening glow illuminates the space my future will some day occupy. My bag weighs heavy on my shoulder during my trek to a taxicab and invokes my sense of wonder. The lights and noises speed by, too fast to know what they mark but just fast enough to have them welcome me to this place that I somehow know.
The door is opened curbside and I slide out in one motion, taking my backpack with me. The air is heavier here. It pushes on your hair and clothes as if the palm of the city were nudging you closer to it’s heart for an embrace of friendly intimacy. The sweetness of the breeze flows throughout my body and sugar-coats my nose to announce that I am welcome here.
The light flicks on to reveal where I will be spending my nights for my stay here. It’s a small room with one big window carved out of the south wall of this 14th floor apartment.
It’s dark now and I am tired. The bones of Central Park are made visible to me by the subtle illumination of streetlights, masked by the cold white fragments scraped from the surface of the sky by the towering entities that make up this constructed habitat.
My eyes are growing heavier and I pull the thin woolen blanket closer to my chin. I can feel my heart beat slow to the thump of train cars passing over breaks in the subterranean rails.
*****
The soul of the city represents more than just the people and where they live, it tells my favorite story of humanity. Buildings built on top of old, long lost service tunnels meant to ease the workload of subway construction workers, metropolitan rooms designed to deceive in the face of prohibition, and sewer hatches that lead to ancient underground gambling rings. The secrecy of the city puts an emphasis on the solitude you experience while there. You are constantly surrounded, in the train, on the sidewalk, and even in the taxi but you are almost always by yourself. The word stranger there carries a much heavier weight than it does here.
It is because of this profound secrecy that the city has been able to survive for so long. It’s cars pass by, transporting people back and forth from place to place without communication and the speedy network of trains allows for anything to be shared across the city with complete anonymity.
The lonesome buildings breathe through their steel air shafts and a whisper can be heard, ushering the resources the city needs to survive into it’s waterways and power lines. They exhale to the roofs where miniature gardens of eden can be found, supplying their human counterparts with food and energy. Gardens exist in the sky here because it is the most suitable location to take root. Rain and sunlight come in meal-sized quantities to feed the buildings as the sea breeze brushes against their sides and ruffles their hair.
*****
The light turns green. Tires squeal and horns honk. I see swarms of yellow taxis attempt to take off from a red light but the rivers of slush that flow through the street and clog the drains keep them from gaining traction. Finally they start moving and my gaze shifts upwards to the rooftops illuminated with a god-like constitution. Sunlight beams through the leaves of the buildings, creating an elevated curtain of green and casts this color to the windows across the street.
Sharp pains of cold puncture through my layers and slide along my skin, billowing out and sweeping away any trace of heat. My shoes squish at every step, soaking my socks and wrinkling my feet. The crinkle of my paper donut bag rubs against my frozen fingers and the steam of by breath blows back in my face. Today it is colder than usual.
Just like everyone else at this hour, I am opening the door to the daily routine that occupies my mind for the entirety of the day. The city, as seen from it’s inside, resembles the character of a chaotic ant hill; with pedestrians scrambling to cross the road before a storm of cars hails upon the intersection. Construction blocks sections of the road but this hill is efficient, alternate routs provide easy passage through the barrage of dust and exhaust fumes. I look forward to the rest of my stay here, living in the city and realizing it’s inert nature as part of the earth, not just civilization.
*****
The blue and purple peaks have their beauty augmented by the halo of white dust circling the crowns of each mountain. They are lined up as if in salute to the plane for reaching higher in the sky than could ever be hoped of their stone summits.
At this point I can start to see the roads below knit closer and closer together, embracing the idea of converging into a highway and eventually a town. Steel insects dot the landscape far and wide, scarring the earth with petroleum spewing bites. There is a lot more room for mistakes to happen out here. The tightness of the city doesn't allow for much of a footprint to be made, whereas in a rural environment, you step with the weightlessness of a giant.
Buildings here do not have any hair, their scalps are lined with shingles and their brows with gutters. The sidewalks are wide but empty as everyone takes to polish the skin of the earth with spinning rubber. There is no beat of life to this place. Where we have taken nature from Manhattan we have given other means for the system to stay balanced, but we have not done so here. I cannot help but feel like a stranger as I step out of the airport doors. There are no lights and sounds to accompany the dry and thin air that blows outside save for the rumble of motors where there should be feet.
I have always felt a disconnection to my home in Durango. I feel that if I were to call this place home, I would be lying to my own identity. This is why I decided to write about the one place that I have felt a strong attachment to the moment I first got there. New York City is a huge cultural hub of the globe and is one of the few cities in this country that has it’s roots back to the colonies. I hope to convey the fact that the city has a conscience and personality. Humans are just another mammal and just like any other animal, we have a habitat. But humans are unique, we have more than just one habitat and cities are the largest of them all.
Stranger to My Home
Chris Niles
The lights of Times Square are mandatory. At night it is as if you are in the midst of a neon battle, where every direction sends out a thousand shots of bright, colorful light to distract from where you are. Behind the super cars parked on the street for show, and behind the police station highlighted with the strength of blue neon, is something else. You see the foundation of the city, the grid from which it was formed and the spirit that holds up the buildings. It is like a grand system of invisible strings, tied to the roof of every structure so that they may stand in their garden with an enlightened sense of pride. This pride is seen, still within Times Square, on the advertisements that hang seemingly without help on the dark buildings. Animations dart back and forth to strangle your senses with senseless messages leading you to think that this is what the city is about. But it is not. The city is much more than loud noises, lights, people, and crime.
Walking now, down E 74th street to Lenox Avenue, I can see the business of this place. It’s residence dart back and forth like flies - swarming towards the nearest cart to get their coffee. The entrance to the subway system reveals a waterfall of slush and snow cascading down the set of stairs leading into the shallowest level of the bowels of the city. The stepped flow leads into a lakebed made of cement that opens up to reveal the platform. The many different kinds of city-dwellers can all be seen in this area, bustling around gracefully, trying to find their way through the crowd to the turnstiles in a public display of an unrealized ballet.
My place amongst this is in the center of it all. My desire to take in every aspect of life here overrides any desire to return to where I came from.
*****
As I step out of the airport doors I am hit with an unwavering strength, an indescribable sensation where the tourist finds his home in the splits of grey wood that make up this concrete forest. I am in the east. This is the front door from which the sun walks along the sky morning after morning, leading the animals of this place so that they may die as part of the earth and city.
Amongst the swarms of pedestrians and the hives of buildings, a piece of myself can be glimpsed just through the window of the hundredth floor in an office building as the evening glow illuminates the space my future will some day occupy. My bag weighs heavy on my shoulder during my trek to a taxicab and invokes my sense of wonder. The lights and noises speed by, too fast to know what they mark but just fast enough to have them welcome me to this place that I somehow know.
The door is opened curbside and I slide out in one motion, taking my backpack with me. The air is heavier here. It pushes on your hair and clothes as if the palm of the city were nudging you closer to it’s heart for an embrace of friendly intimacy. The sweetness of the breeze flows throughout my body and sugar-coats my nose to announce that I am welcome here.
The light flicks on to reveal where I will be spending my nights for my stay here. It’s a small room with one big window carved out of the south wall of this 14th floor apartment.
It’s dark now and I am tired. The bones of Central Park are made visible to me by the subtle illumination of streetlights, masked by the cold white fragments scraped from the surface of the sky by the towering entities that make up this constructed habitat.
My eyes are growing heavier and I pull the thin woolen blanket closer to my chin. I can feel my heart beat slow to the thump of train cars passing over breaks in the subterranean rails.
*****
The soul of the city represents more than just the people and where they live, it tells my favorite story of humanity. Buildings built on top of old, long lost service tunnels meant to ease the workload of subway construction workers, metropolitan rooms designed to deceive in the face of prohibition, and sewer hatches that lead to ancient underground gambling rings. The secrecy of the city puts an emphasis on the solitude you experience while there. You are constantly surrounded, in the train, on the sidewalk, and even in the taxi but you are almost always by yourself. The word stranger there carries a much heavier weight than it does here.
It is because of this profound secrecy that the city has been able to survive for so long. It’s cars pass by, transporting people back and forth from place to place without communication and the speedy network of trains allows for anything to be shared across the city with complete anonymity.
The lonesome buildings breathe through their steel air shafts and a whisper can be heard, ushering the resources the city needs to survive into it’s waterways and power lines. They exhale to the roofs where miniature gardens of eden can be found, supplying their human counterparts with food and energy. Gardens exist in the sky here because it is the most suitable location to take root. Rain and sunlight come in meal-sized quantities to feed the buildings as the sea breeze brushes against their sides and ruffles their hair.
*****
The light turns green. Tires squeal and horns honk. I see swarms of yellow taxis attempt to take off from a red light but the rivers of slush that flow through the street and clog the drains keep them from gaining traction. Finally they start moving and my gaze shifts upwards to the rooftops illuminated with a god-like constitution. Sunlight beams through the leaves of the buildings, creating an elevated curtain of green and casts this color to the windows across the street.
Sharp pains of cold puncture through my layers and slide along my skin, billowing out and sweeping away any trace of heat. My shoes squish at every step, soaking my socks and wrinkling my feet. The crinkle of my paper donut bag rubs against my frozen fingers and the steam of by breath blows back in my face. Today it is colder than usual.
Just like everyone else at this hour, I am opening the door to the daily routine that occupies my mind for the entirety of the day. The city, as seen from it’s inside, resembles the character of a chaotic ant hill; with pedestrians scrambling to cross the road before a storm of cars hails upon the intersection. Construction blocks sections of the road but this hill is efficient, alternate routs provide easy passage through the barrage of dust and exhaust fumes. I look forward to the rest of my stay here, living in the city and realizing it’s inert nature as part of the earth, not just civilization.
*****
The blue and purple peaks have their beauty augmented by the halo of white dust circling the crowns of each mountain. They are lined up as if in salute to the plane for reaching higher in the sky than could ever be hoped of their stone summits.
At this point I can start to see the roads below knit closer and closer together, embracing the idea of converging into a highway and eventually a town. Steel insects dot the landscape far and wide, scarring the earth with petroleum spewing bites. There is a lot more room for mistakes to happen out here. The tightness of the city doesn't allow for much of a footprint to be made, whereas in a rural environment, you step with the weightlessness of a giant.
Buildings here do not have any hair, their scalps are lined with shingles and their brows with gutters. The sidewalks are wide but empty as everyone takes to polish the skin of the earth with spinning rubber. There is no beat of life to this place. Where we have taken nature from Manhattan we have given other means for the system to stay balanced, but we have not done so here. I cannot help but feel like a stranger as I step out of the airport doors. There are no lights and sounds to accompany the dry and thin air that blows outside save for the rumble of motors where there should be feet.
take action project Documentation
reflection
In the class time leading up to the exhibition of this project, we spent hour after hour looking at all the different energy needs of America, the world, and ourselves. We spent days here and there examining the means of producing energy and how to transport it so that it could be enjoyed by the masses. Finally we spent some time examining the different types and sources of energy that are used around the world. The Sense of Place essay was assigned so that we could write freely about a place - whether it be physical or not - that resonates deeply with ourselves and values. The take action project required us to group together and come up with a community project that could benefit people or raise some kind of awareness.
During the conjuration of my essay, I gained new traits that allowed me to look more in-depth to my love of the city than I even knew was possible. After spending so much time thinking about one place, I began to feel an emotional attachment to the idea of the city that my writing would have to halt so that I could bring my focus back to the assignment. I found that I wanted to write about all the beautiful things in the city that make up the feeling you might get while walking through the narrow gaps between buildings or speeding under the lights of an underwater tunnel. The takeaway from feeling such an attachment is that the writer is able to draw forth the sensations they get while they are actually in that one place. I found that I was able to feel the air rush under me as a train passed by and that I could hear the moan of garbage trucks late at night. For the first time, I had learned to recognize a connection to something significant in my life.
I am most proud in my Sense of Place essay. I am proud in this because I feel that it is one of, if not the best piece of writing I have ever created. I feel that this piece is the one that comes the closest to being able to really express my thoughts in a way that people can understand and welcome it’s impact. Descriptive writing has almost always been a skill of mine and that can certainly be seen within even the first paragraph of this writing piece.
“It is like a grand system of invisible strings, tied to the roof of every structure so that they may stand in their garden with an enlightened sense of pride.”
My answers to the essential questions have not really been changed, challenged, or expanded over the course of this project because I have been relatively aware of my environmental ethic and sense of place for some time.
During the conjuration of my essay, I gained new traits that allowed me to look more in-depth to my love of the city than I even knew was possible. After spending so much time thinking about one place, I began to feel an emotional attachment to the idea of the city that my writing would have to halt so that I could bring my focus back to the assignment. I found that I wanted to write about all the beautiful things in the city that make up the feeling you might get while walking through the narrow gaps between buildings or speeding under the lights of an underwater tunnel. The takeaway from feeling such an attachment is that the writer is able to draw forth the sensations they get while they are actually in that one place. I found that I was able to feel the air rush under me as a train passed by and that I could hear the moan of garbage trucks late at night. For the first time, I had learned to recognize a connection to something significant in my life.
I am most proud in my Sense of Place essay. I am proud in this because I feel that it is one of, if not the best piece of writing I have ever created. I feel that this piece is the one that comes the closest to being able to really express my thoughts in a way that people can understand and welcome it’s impact. Descriptive writing has almost always been a skill of mine and that can certainly be seen within even the first paragraph of this writing piece.
“It is like a grand system of invisible strings, tied to the roof of every structure so that they may stand in their garden with an enlightened sense of pride.”
My answers to the essential questions have not really been changed, challenged, or expanded over the course of this project because I have been relatively aware of my environmental ethic and sense of place for some time.