14 April 2024

I don't understand why all the community garden areas and park spaces with benches and trees and flowers are almost always locked around here. They often have outhouses/port-a-potties in those spaces too, but they are also locked. What is the point of having public outhouses and community spaces if people cannot use those spaces? Who are they for? I often see employees in there gardening and keeping it looking nice and clean, but no one gets to enjoy the spaces. Also, why are almost all the parks and community gardens and outdoor gathering spaces, and even many of the big apartment complexes with kids play areas and trees and nice grass areas and benches all behind big metal fences? It doesn't make it feel like a nice and welcoming community space that peoples from any community would really want to hang out in. Why all the barriers and big ugly metal fences seperating all the "community and family spaces"?

I noticed the same thing in the cemeteries. Many of them are seperated by fencing... like in the Evergreen Cemetery area. There is a big Catholic only area (Most Holy Trinity) where all the tombstones are the same grey color and the inscriptions are all essentially the same. Then, I crawled under the fence to the other part of the cemetery, which was very pretty and had a variety of types of tombstones with many different religious symbols, and cultures. Like the military cemetery at Cypress Hills, all sorts of races and religions and cultures are buried side by side.

Anyhow, the section of the big evergreen cemetery that I really enjoyed being in and wandering through had Jewish tombstones and "monuments" and Catholic and other Christian tombstones, and even "secular" tombstones and monuments of remembrance. Many of them had beautiful portrait "drawings" inscribed (or however they do those) and many photographs and lovely memorial messages dedicated to those who are buried there. There is a mostly Chinese section too, though it is not separated by fences and barriers from other sections and some tombstones/monuments are mixed in with other races/religions/cultures. There is also an "older" section too that I plan to go back and spend more time with as many of the grave markers are from the 1800s and early 1900s. I think many of them get lonely and feel like their contributions in life, to the city of New York, and the USA have been forgotten about. I am sure that many of the families associated with that section have either moved on and away from the area, or perhaps the gravesite locations were not communicated or told to the younger generations. Or, perhaps the younger generations see no value in visiting or paying attention/paying homage/respects to those who have been dead for so long, and perhaps they don't recognize the value or potential worth of the contributions of our ancestors to this world we all share and live in.

I think it would be interesting to do some research at the library downtown in New York where they filmed the Ghostbusters (original) movie and see what I might be able to find out in regards to some of the people and families who are buried there. I feel quite certain that those buried there, and those that linger, would really like that a lot.

Someone did a bunch of research on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/uncovering-the-history-of-the-triangle-sh...

I posted about it on my Tik Tok account, along with photos I took of the graveyard and trees there:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMCJKXcE/

also on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5hP7N9LhHW/?igsh=MXgxenV2dDNibXphOA==

I became curious about it after coming across the big stone marker commemorating the many people that died in the fire. There were many that were not commemorated by name as many of the names were unknown. I am betting that the factory owner didn't bother to learn most of their names or to look at them as human beings. Unfortunately, that attitude still persists to this day in many businesses, large and small. Some people just look at their employees as bodies and not as individuals. So any employee is just a body and can simply be replaced by another body. I have had a few employers like this. One owned a large company with many employees and one owned a small business with very few employees. I have had more than just those 2 employers who didn't view their employees contributions as noteworthy or worthwhile or truly see or acknowledge them as unique and individual human beings who added value to their businesses.

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: March 25, 1911

🕯 #remember 🕊🌹🪶

The Triangle factory: Asch BuildingGreene Street and Washington PlaceManhattan, New York City A true sweatshop, employing young immigrant women who did not speak English. They worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, sewing in cramped quarters.Full details, including survivors' testimonials:

https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/