Nico Daswani on "hidden places," BKG responds
I am thinking about a project for this class. I have been reading a book by Steve Zeitlin, whom I think you know, a book called Hidden New York. What is interesting to me is that some of the sites are not necessarily very hidden, such as Coney Island, however the type of experiences he offers are unique- and in this sense hidden. This raises the question for me about how we give meaning to sites and as a cultural programmer I think about how to facilitate a deeper exchange between people and between people and sites. One of our goals with the World Festival of Sacred Music in LA was for angelinos to take their city more seriously and discover its wealth of people and places--and redefine their relationship to their city-- is there such a thing as internal tourism?
On a completely different subject, I am also interested in the Israeli backpacker phenomenon. I met many on my travels to Northern India this past summer, and was stunned to see that there was a Jewish Center in Leh in eastern Kashmir. I wondered about what kind of experience these people got and how that would be different from mine, and wondered about the need for comfort and sense of home that some travellers have, when others want to rough it and feel like they are on the other side of the world!
BKG responds:
Time Out New York also does a little column each week about an overlooked detail of the city. It is an interesting (and actually venerable concept) of a hidden or secret city, with specialized guidebooks to the secrets.
Here is a 3-D version of Hidden New York, billed as an online documentary film, and the Place Matters website. Sign up for a weekly email about a place that matters.
Here is Forgotten New York, Lost in Place, .
There is also Urban Explorations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_exploration. These (and the Situationist projects to which they are related) find adventure at home through various strategies and practices, whether through the idea of "hidden" in "full view" (i.e. unattended), trespassing (going places you are not supposed to), or randomizing the routine ("organized alienation of tourism") and otherwise taking an experimental approach.
See, for example,
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/article/2005/may/22/observerescapesection2
http://www.spacing.org/writing_abstract.html.
Very different from various forms of enshrinement, as discussed by MacCannell.
The NYC bloggers' map is interesting too: http://www.nycbloggers.com/
Comments
Nico,
I mentioned this post in class today, so i think i will resend my comment out into the ether and maybe it will stick. I think that we have had similar experiences. years ago i was in la paz and was struck by the number of israeli resturants in one part of town. or, once i was on a bus with a friend crossing into bolivia and the guard, noticing his passport, asked him in perfect hebrew how long he would be staying in the country. when i signed up to take this class it was that moment that i thought of first. (though i never have thought of myself as a backpacker...i am clearly pretty invested in having a story to serve as my postcard.) Almost more interesting to me that the backpacker phenomena per say is how similar groups of people (nationality-wise...generalization though that may be) seem to gravitate to certain places and others to different places.
Posted by: Lydia Brawner | February 12, 2007 05:13 PM