FINAL EXAMINATION ESSAY
JACKSON HEIGHTS AS AN EXAMPLE OF MANY CHANGES IN NEW YORK CITY
SSE 125 1845
06/12/06
Dr. Arturo Ignacio Sanchez
Viviana Duran
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New York City is a unique place where many people come to strive for a better future. It is recognize as a “melting pot” with many ethnic population. The City it’s made up of five boroughs: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. It’s interesting to see that each borough is made up of different ethnic groups giving New York City a special uniqueness. For example, in Jackson Heights Queens population consists of a various mix of Latinos, mainly from Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay. Jackson height also consist of Asian American communities, these are people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Korea, and Philippines. These people trough their ambitious and hard work has greatly contribute to the success of New York City. Because of ethnically diverse mass migration, New York City has and continues to transform the physical and social character.
It is interesting to see how depending on where you go in Jackson heights, you can socially experience and take part of the culture of a specific ethnic group. For example, if you get off on 82nd street Jackson Heights in Queens you can participate and become part of the Colombian culture and its style of life. In this area there are many Colombian restaurants where people gathered to eat their country style food as well as engaged Spanish conversations making them feel at home. There are many stores where they sell Colombian styles of clothes, music shops such as Nivel Musical; this is great for checking out Colombian vallenatos and cumbia. Chibcha, the cavernous Colombian club-disco- sports bar restaurant-travel agency, are social places where you can experience the Colombian culture. Another location in Jackson Heights where you can experience a different social way of living is on 74th street. This area consists of mostly Indian population. This is a major center of Indian and Pakistani commerce in America. Here, families brightly dressed in the fashion of New Delhi or Bangalore, stroll past Indian restaurants and shops selling bright silk saris and fine Indian jewelry. The smell of curry hangs in the air. Jackson Heights has quietly and gracefully transformed itself into a multiethnic, multiracial, multinational community. Jackson Heights is transforming New York City in the way that many people from different cultures accommodate their living in places where they can find assimilation with their own culture. Such people’s desire to come and strive for a better future in a place that offers many opportunities has allowed the country to grow in a positive way. This allows Americans to open their horizons to different perspective, learn and acquire new qualities. In addition, such people have great things to offer to Americans, such as their unique products and values of life where you cannot find in the United Stated.
If we take a look Jackson Heights is not only a neighborhood where all these different cultures can interact with each other, but also Jackson Heights over the years has been showing a lot of improvements, transportation being one of the major reasons. Immigrants were extremely attracted to Jackson Heights due to major accessible transit and bus lines that could be taken. The development of transportation attracted immigrants to all the commercial establishments that prospered around the area, where many thought they could find jobs or become entrepreneurs themselves as many starting businesses flourished in the area as well. The emergence of transportation upon Jackson Heights proves how it came to be so ethnically diverse, especially to today's # 7 train, as it passes through than 120 cultures on its seven-mile trek from Times Square to Flushing, Queens. When riding in the # 7 train it is typical to see people from different background engaging in their own language conversations as they head to their successful jobs.
Most of the neighborhoods are a National Register Historic District and about half is a designated New York City Historic District. As an example of physical transformation character of New York City, we can mention some of the large Garden Apartment buildings in Jackson Heights and many groupings of private homes. It was a planned development laid out by Edward A. MacDougall’s Queensboro Corporation in the 1920’s, following the arrival of the Flushing Line elevated train. There are beautiful private parks historically called gardens by the residents within walking distance of each other. They are tucked in the mi-blocks, mostly hidden from view by the buildings surrounding them. Most people especially immigrants have considered Jackson Heights as a home to some many houses of worship from a wide array of religions. It has the highest density of trees and greenery in New York City along its residential streets. As we can see, these changing factors are continually transforming the physical and social character of New York City.
Jackson Heights has developed an enormous diversity in its population as well in its demographic factor in 2000. For instance, in community board 3 the total number of population in 1980 was 122.091, in 1990 128,924 and by 2000 169,083. Income Support in 2000 Public Assistance 5,471 and by 2004 3,984, Supplementary Security income in 2000 5,919, and by 2004 5,362, Medical Only in 2000 26,583, and by 2004 54,147, Total Land Area, Acres: 1,811.4 and Square Miles: 2.8. Racial Balance: White 63%, Hispanic 42%, Black 4%, Asian 17%. US Department Census Indicates 42% of residents, including portions of the other racial groups, were of Hispanic origin. Foreign Born: In 1995, US Immigration & Naturalization Service reported over 9,700 new immigrants to Jackson Heights, including 1,000 from former Soviet Union countries; more than 1100 from China and over 900 from India and Bangladesh, as well as 6,000 new residents from South American countries. Citywide data for the period 1995-98 suggests continued immigration along same patterns. Median Income: $35,310, Age: 10-12 years = 2,087, 13-20 years= 4,521, 21-29 years= 5,409 plus as many as 15,000 new immigrants in this age range, who arrived during1990-1998. Education: over 25% of elementary high school age children private schools, more than 20,000 persons over 25 years of age have a college education. The census figures report that Queens is currently the most diverse county in the country with over one hundred different nationalities making up its population. Nearly half of its residents speak another language besides English at home and that’s not likely to change.
Finally, I think that residents of Jackson Heights beam with pride and are proud to live in one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Queens. People say that Queens is a melting pot of many different cultures. Jackson Heights is a shining example of this as a part of New York City. This borough as well as all other boroughs in New York City, is full of people from completely different backgrounds who come together to form one diverse community. Because of their devotion to their community, the inhabitants of Jackson Heights are granted with a setting that gives them a sense of pride and history. Over the last quarter century, Jackson Heights, which was a middle-class community in Northern Queens, has become one of America’s most culturally diverse neighborhoods. Today, people of nearly all ethnicities are working side by side in the community of Jackson Heights to make of this neighborhood such as an extraordinary place where very different people live together in peace and usually civility. There is not doubt that over the years Jackson Heights has become rich and blessed with a strong sense of community identity, is perhaps a model of how a diversity that no one planned, or even anticipated, can however be made to work.
One of the first buildings built in 1909 when MacDougal bought Jackson Heights
Jackson Heights started in the 1910s and 1920s as a planned community of novel cooperative apartment buildings designed to let in plenty of light and air
A Columbian area of Jackson Heights
A typical residential Street in Jackson Heights
The window of a patriotic Jackson Heights apartment
This picture shows the magnificent gardens of Jackson Heights
A floral garden in the Jackson Heights neighborhood
This picture shows the magnificent gardens of Jackson Heights.
Jackson Heights’ residents this picture shows the
Shopping for groceries great and diverse
Community
Renovated Transit Hub Roosevelt Avenue in
Jackson Heights
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