Charting Forgotten Spaces: This particular project was in some ways an outlier for Green Map – set in a Catholic Church on a block of Harlem (East 129th Street) which the NY Times had designated as the “most hopeless” in all of New York City and investigated by young people who were hoping that their findings would inspire some accelerated positive change in a neighborhood which had not experienced much of that in their short lifetimes.
The Green Map icon which this map used almost exclusively was the icon for “opportunity site.” There were certainly plenty of opportunities for change and renewal in the neighborhoods surrounding the church, though at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic it was a leap of faith to think that the vacant lots with more rats than flowers, food-desert bodegas doubling as narcotics dens, and buildings in ruins providing temporary shelter for long-term unhoused, could possibly be transformed into places of safety and abundance that these kids needed and deserved.
Sr. Virginia Dorgan was the de facto leader of this Green Map project, and she was able to convince some of our young people to dream just a bit, to imagine ice cream parlors in place of tire repair shops, parks that were green and didn’t double as war zones, and clothing stores selling things that kids would be eager to wear to school. Virginia’s efforts were complicated by the fact that violence and parental concerns severely limited the movements of these kids. For them, Central Park was an outing even though they lived less than a mile away. Given such discouraging restrictions, the “opportunities” on the map were largely generated through images from television, images of a life that clearly some people, somewhere, were living with the hope that these kids might be able to dream into reality themselves.
Although it wasn’t always apparent to these young people, Harlem was always a series of neighborhoods in flux, people of specific cultures and economic arrangements making way for the next ethnic group or investment opportunity. Indeed, once the crack cocaine epidemic waned, the banks and other investors who held title to the land of vacant buildings and crack houses, swooped in to reassert their entitlement. Buildings were repaired and resold. There were more cars on the streets, more fenced-in gardens for the people lucky enough to possess keys, more diverse restaurants and shops on the main thoroughfares. Things were clearly “better,” at least for some.
For the young mapmakers, some of the “opportunity” they imagined had come to fruition if not in the way they had anticipated. Through mapmaking, they certainly had acquired skills and improved their attentiveness in ways that might otherwise have eluded them. But they also grew up and out of their home community as young people tend to do. But many of their families left also, forced out by shifting economics that did not and would not ever honor the efforts of those who had kept the neighborhood from spilling over into endless violence from gangs and drug merchants, who preserved enough neighborhood humanity that children could still find ways to grow and smile and learn, even if that meant that the community they Green Mapped would no longer be home.
There are many motivations for making a Green Map, some to chart and even celebrate achievements and assets, others to yearn for them. This was clearly a “yearning Map,” a statement by young people investigating a community that could give them no more than a portion of what they needed to thrive.
Contributed by Dr. Robert Zuber.
An earlier version of this story appeared online, download the PDF here.
