Students show off their work!

UMP students proudly show off their hard work at the Secondary School for Research Performance Night -- an opportunity for the school community of parents, teachers, administrative staff and community residents to gather and and gain information from the students' semester-long research and documentation of Brooklyn.

UMP students in exhibition --Gentrification in Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks

Some Secondary School for Research students who just finished a UMP will have their work displayed alongside professional artists grappling with gentrification in Brooklyn in the exhibition Gentrification in Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks.
The exhibition will be held at the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts in Fort Greene. See the link to the museum's flyer and click on exhibitions. All are invited to the exhibition opening on Thursday Feb. 4, 2010.

Courier Life newspapers published an article about the exhibit. In addition to the work in the exhibition, 5 of the students will be part of a MoCADA public program as a panel who discusses the impact of gentrification on themselves and their communities. This panel will take place on February 24, from 6-8pm at the Secondary School for Research in Park Slope. For more information on the event, check out the MoCADA calendar . Hope to see you soon!

Students Photographs 2009

In the fall of 2009 UMP students at the Secondary School for Research closely examined the neighborhoods of Park Slope and Gowanus, both of which continue to be impacted by the trends of migration, development, and gentrification. The students took photo walks, read articles, researched the neighborhoods’ histories and argued their opinions in seminars and debates. The students then applied what they learned about trends and history in these two neighborhoods to a close examination of their own communities.

At the end of the semester, students organized their work into a formal exhibition of photographs, texts and multi-media pieces demonstrating their connection to, and observations of, their borough. Opinions on what is the Greater Good for Brooklyn are as varied as the students in the course, but regardless of their point of view, the students’ observations reflect an awareness that daily changes are erasing the Brooklyn the students might have imagined to be permanent.

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Final Projects 2008/2009!

Check out the work created by Urban Memory Project students at the Secondary School for Research and the Brooklyn School for Global Studies. The blog Keepin' It Brooklyn documents an oral history project and collaboration with long-time Park Slope residents, and “Our Brooklyn is Changing” is a short film documenting the impact of gentrification on several Brooklyn communities through street interviews. Both projects were components of a larger study that researched, documented and presented changes occurring in the borough.

Documenting a Disappearing Coney Island

The future of Coney Island is in the balance. Organizations from the Municipal Arts Society's "Imagine Coney Island" to the City of New York, to Joseph Sitt's Thor Equities to Charles Denson's Coney Island History Project are trying to figure out what is best for this much beloved amusement area at the edge of Brooklyn. For the past four years, students of the Urban Memory Project have been trying to figure out the same thing. Visiting the neighborhood in rain and shine, winter and summer, their images capture what they believe to be the heart of the community's history and appeal. As Astroland comes down, not to reopen this summer, the students' images present the Coney Island they grew up with – a bit tired, at times overlooked, and still engagingly colorful, compelling and fun.

Learning from the Park Slope Oral History Project

The Park Slope Civic Council's Civic News has just published a piece about its collaboration with UMP, the Secondary School for Research and the Old Stone House around interviewing Park Slope "old-timers." Students from the school will be transcribing and editing the interviews to post on the Civic Council and Brooklyn Historical Society web sites, as well as for inclusion in their upcoming exhibition in January. Stay tuned for more information on when and where this exhibition will take place!


Check out the article here.

Check out the UMP interview on All Day Buffet

Ashley Friedman interviews Rebecca Krucoff, UMP Director, about the origins of the Urban Memory Project, its goals, and student responses to recording the history of their community at All Day Buffet.