Tourist Productions 2007

Today, I went on a surveillance tour through the New York Surveillance Camera Players in the Upper West Side. Bill, the tour guide, made an important distinction between surveillance cameras and security cameras. He said, in terms of rights to privacy, when entering a building, citizens are leaving the public domain, so on his maps he does not consider cameras inside of buildings to be intrusive. This tourism experience was much different from going to the museums or visiting Harlem, since we were in a group of about fifteen and taking up a large amount of space on the sidewalk. Being on a tour about being constantly under surveillance while also knowing that anyone in the street was going to stare at us, even just to walk by, was somewhat nerve-racking.
The dynamics of the tour-guide were also interesting. While I believed many of the things he said, especially from the cameras he was showing us and the inevitable risks of abuse that 24-7 surveillance can produce, I wondered how he dealt with the paranoia he was trying to spread to us. He doesn’t own a cell phone or a credit card due to the risk of being tracked by the government, and has been commissioned by various cities and organizations to map the existing cameras. While on tour, I wondered about the community members—each tour in each location is only scheduled to happen about once a year, so it is not completely intrusive—but do people realize they are being filmed? And by their neighbors?
While Bill pointed out many reasons to be afraid of Big Brother, I became more concerned by the cameras that are set up outside of apartment buildings. Bill pointed out a camera that is aimed on the front door and can be viewed by all of the residents of the apartment in order to see who is buzzing their bell to enter. Only, the camera is non-discriminating between apartments, so any “busybody” within the building is able to watch who is visiting who. Similar to my reaction in Harlem of who owns a community…surveillance cameras add an entirely different level to that question for me. For those who haven’t visited the site and seen the homemade maps with all the cameras, especially the number around Washington Square Park, it’s worth a gander. Either way, the tour made me think much more about space as 3-D instead of linear…that while my experience through the city is walking in a certain direction, I may have “visitors” inside walls tagging along with me through cameras. Just think…if you ever thought no one saw you pick the falafel out of your teeth after a trip to Mahmoods—think again!
Afterwards, I went back to Harlem to meet Johnny—first stop, Columbia University to get a better idea of gentrification, then to Jumel Terrace Books. It’s a great place to visit—Kurt Thometz, the owner, will talk your ear off, but is also really helpful in directing you to any sort of literature on Harlem as well as some great African literature as well. I’m going to keep in touch with Kurt—he has a wonderful access to events/people in Harlem…however, Kurt is also a little quirky. While there, Kurt talked about some of the benefits of tourism to Harlem, how stores like Target and Home Depot did great things to give back to communities, how he hopes that black academics will stay or come to Harlem, that white costumers are less likely to buy books when entering the store, and that white populations are having a damaging effect by moving into Harlem. If I wrote down Kurt’s words, one would assume that he was black and from Harlem. Kurt is white and grew up in the mid-west. Johnny and I laughed about this afterwards, and Johnny said that as far as he can tell, Kurt is very well-liked in the community, but the question still pops into my head as to how someone can be judgmental of whites moving into an area when one is in fact, white. Johnny and I decided that his use of the description “white” was of a very specific demographic, however, I did feel a slight pressure to buy a book so that I wouldn’t fall into his categorization. It was very curious…
Next thing we knew, Kurt is telling us about a wonderful event we missed out on to which a very interesting professor from California attended—Fred Moten. Johnny and I went nuts thinking PS Discuss failed us and why hadn’t we been there 24 hours earlier! He apparently teaches Kurt’s book and we explained that he had been with our department until a few years ago.
At this point, I am reading a book called “Listening to Harlem: Gentrification, community, and business,” which so far has a lot of oral history, and I am planning on making some visits to Kurt, a nearby art gallery, and other recommended spots that I stumble upon. My difficulty in finding a project based in Harlem has been due to being a tourist very specifically within a community, and also through my “whiteness,” especially due to articles I have read online about the influx of tourism and gentrification. The comments Kurt made as a white man who moved to Harlem as a now integrated individual that are essentially hypocritical seems like yet another way of approaching the question of who has ownership of a community and a space…I think the more I read and visit, the better sense I’ll get of my thoughts and final outcome for this project.