This summer I have been interning with the Neighborhood Design Center in the Station North neighborhood of Baltimore City. NDC is a nonprofit with offices in both Prince George's County and Baltimore. They specialize in providing pro bono design, architectural, and grant assistance for individuals and communities looking to revitalizing blighted or dilapidated spaces in their neighborhoods.
NDC has been around since 1968. The company was actually founded after the Martin Luther King riots of that same year, in the aftermath of the profound damage done to large swaths of Baltimore City. Given the recent unrest of 2015 and the systemic and institutional failures which precipitated the Uprising, it goes without saying that there is still much work to be done. I've only been at NDC a few weeks but I have already gotten a strong sense of just how important their role is in undoing these historical inequities, regardless of the relative size and unique scope of any individual project they have taken on.
Given their nearly 50 year existence, NDC has worked with quite a lot of people in the city. To that end, my specific role has been primarily focused on documenting the lives and work of those who have more recently partnered with NDC. These range from individuals who were looking for design assistance to construct unique and aesthetically pleasing urban gardens in their respective neighborhoods, to community efforts like the Duncan Street Miracle Garden which is a lovely year round multi-acre public farm in the Greenmount East neighborhood of Baltimore City.
My first task was to develop an oral interview protocol which essentially lays out a set of goals and guidelines for acquiring a successful oral interview. I drew up an equipment checklist, tutorials for the equipment, consent forms for interviewees, questionnaire, contact spreadsheet, and overview of basic techniques for an effective interview. At this point I have basically laid a solid groundwork for the process, one which would be easy for another intern to pick up and quickly go out into the field to conduct interviews. My first actual interview is actually scheduled for this friday!
It's been pretty interesting interning for them since pretty much everyone who works at NDC comes from a strictly urban planning, design, or architecture background. At first I felt a bit out of place as an historian. However I quickly realized that in a similar way to how Baltimore's diverse multidisciplinary art/music scene (which I am so very familiar with) is so engrained within the larger social fabric of the city itself, the people at NDC sort of fold into that larger tapestry of individuals looking to move Baltimore forward without succumbing to any of the pitfalls of irresponsible urban planning, so much of which has been plaguing Baltimore for generations. In this sense, I feel very much at home.
My primary role this summer has been to develop a new section of their website which will be devoted to profiling the lives and work of the various peoples and communities that NDC have partnered with over the years. My boss Jen basically explained it to me as a mechanism for those who don't necessarily live in Baltimore, or do live here yet have a very myopic image of the city,
to get a better idea of the important community building work being done on the ground everyday in neighborhoods often written off and derided as bastions of crime and poverty. Given the complex legacies Baltimore's traumatic past and present, it goes without saying that there is obviously still much work to be done on this front. However, it's important that the good work done thus far not be lost in the predominant narrative of Baltimore as being a dysfunctional and broken city.
My first task was to develop an oral interview protocol which essentially lays out a set of goals and guidelines for conducting a successful oral interview. I drew up an equipment checklist, tutorials for the equipment, consent forms for interviewees, questionnaires, contact spreadsheet, and an overview of basic techniques for an effective interview. At this point I have basically laid a solid groundwork for the process, one which would be easy for another intern to pick up and quickly go out into the field to conduct interviews. My first actual interview is actually scheduled for this friday!
It's been especially fun interning at NDC because it's sort of made me realize how small Baltimore is and how so many people I've known for years are actually pretty civically engaged. For instance, I've had at least three experiences thus far of learning that people I usually only see at parties, shows, or bars have also worked in some capacity with NDC. It's really reaffirmed in me a sense of local community and obligation to help that community.
My tasks at NDC have not been limited to the community partners interviews. I have also been brought on in various support roles for a number of other projects that NDC is currently working on. These include documenting the usage and role of public urban spaces in an effort to properly identify how these spaces currently function and how they could be amended to more properly function as inclusive and welcoming public spaces.
One such space is the Ynot Lot, which is conveniently located 2 blocks from my house. Here the goal is create a comprehensive collection of anthropological data on the usage space so we can submit the findings to the renowned Gehl Institute. The eventual hope is that Gehl will lend their expertise in developing beautiful and engaging public spaces to further develop the Ynot Lot in a conscious and responsible manner.
This also underscores a larger point and issue which has recently become a concern as parts of Baltimore begin to redevelop. Specifically the recent waves of outside capital which has begun flowing into the Station North neighborhood of Baltimore City, which houses the Ynot Lot. Interning at NDC has really made me aware of the importance of working with the people who actually live in neighborhoods to develop spaces according to their needs and desires. Furthermore it has made me aware of the fact that just blindly throwing money at something is hardly ever the right course of action. Thoughtful urban growth requires comprehensive and deliberate consideration.
In this sense I see many parallels to doing effective, and responsible, social history. For example it's important to really get invested, or immersive, with the peoples and communities you are documenting rather than just assuming the awkward role of the ambivalent outside observer, which is an oxymoron in the first place. If we are not careful, we run the risk of vacating the community's voice and superimposing our voices and our desires, despite our noble intentions. The latter perspective is the kind that assumes that whatever I would want to see in a neighborhood is what is best for the neighborhood. To give an actual example, who wouldn't want a big white tent over the Ynot Lot?
After all no one is ever truly impartial, so why pretend to be. To this end, historians possess a powerful tool in the form of narrative. We have the ability to create and crystallize a lucid image of the past, one which can impact the way that past is utilized, or in some cases weaponized, in the present. If we fail to adequately hear the voices and concerns of those individuals who have to actually keep living in the places we merely write about, we run the risk of interpreting their stories in ways that might make sense to us but ultimately does damage to them. All of which is to say, interning at NDC has made me acutely aware of the responsibility incumbent upon any historian, especially those whose work deals directly in the often opaque and complex realms of social justice.
NDC has been around since 1968. The company was actually founded after the Martin Luther King riots of that same year, in the aftermath of the profound damage done to large swaths of Baltimore City. Given the recent unrest of 2015 and the systemic and institutional failures which precipitated the Uprising, it goes without saying that there is still much work to be done. I've only been at NDC a few weeks but I have already gotten a strong sense of just how important their role is in undoing these historical inequities, regardless of the relative size and unique scope of any individual project they have taken on.
Given their nearly 50 year existence, NDC has worked with quite a lot of people in the city. To that end, my specific role has been primarily focused on documenting the lives and work of those who have more recently partnered with NDC. These range from individuals who were looking for design assistance to construct unique and aesthetically pleasing urban gardens in their respective neighborhoods, to community efforts like the Duncan Street Miracle Garden which is a lovely year round multi-acre public farm in the Greenmount East neighborhood of Baltimore City.
My first task was to develop an oral interview protocol which essentially lays out a set of goals and guidelines for acquiring a successful oral interview. I drew up an equipment checklist, tutorials for the equipment, consent forms for interviewees, questionnaire, contact spreadsheet, and overview of basic techniques for an effective interview. At this point I have basically laid a solid groundwork for the process, one which would be easy for another intern to pick up and quickly go out into the field to conduct interviews. My first actual interview is actually scheduled for this friday!
It's been pretty interesting interning for them since pretty much everyone who works at NDC comes from a strictly urban planning, design, or architecture background. At first I felt a bit out of place as an historian. However I quickly realized that in a similar way to how Baltimore's diverse multidisciplinary art/music scene (which I am so very familiar with) is so engrained within the larger social fabric of the city itself, the people at NDC sort of fold into that larger tapestry of individuals looking to move Baltimore forward without succumbing to any of the pitfalls of irresponsible urban planning, so much of which has been plaguing Baltimore for generations. In this sense, I feel very much at home.
My primary role this summer has been to develop a new section of their website which will be devoted to profiling the lives and work of the various peoples and communities that NDC have partnered with over the years. My boss Jen basically explained it to me as a mechanism for those who don't necessarily live in Baltimore, or do live here yet have a very myopic image of the city,
to get a better idea of the important community building work being done on the ground everyday in neighborhoods often written off and derided as bastions of crime and poverty. Given the complex legacies Baltimore's traumatic past and present, it goes without saying that there is obviously still much work to be done on this front. However, it's important that the good work done thus far not be lost in the predominant narrative of Baltimore as being a dysfunctional and broken city.
My first task was to develop an oral interview protocol which essentially lays out a set of goals and guidelines for conducting a successful oral interview. I drew up an equipment checklist, tutorials for the equipment, consent forms for interviewees, questionnaires, contact spreadsheet, and an overview of basic techniques for an effective interview. At this point I have basically laid a solid groundwork for the process, one which would be easy for another intern to pick up and quickly go out into the field to conduct interviews. My first actual interview is actually scheduled for this friday!
It's been especially fun interning at NDC because it's sort of made me realize how small Baltimore is and how so many people I've known for years are actually pretty civically engaged. For instance, I've had at least three experiences thus far of learning that people I usually only see at parties, shows, or bars have also worked in some capacity with NDC. It's really reaffirmed in me a sense of local community and obligation to help that community.
My tasks at NDC have not been limited to the community partners interviews. I have also been brought on in various support roles for a number of other projects that NDC is currently working on. These include documenting the usage and role of public urban spaces in an effort to properly identify how these spaces currently function and how they could be amended to more properly function as inclusive and welcoming public spaces.
One such space is the Ynot Lot, which is conveniently located 2 blocks from my house. Here the goal is create a comprehensive collection of anthropological data on the usage space so we can submit the findings to the renowned Gehl Institute. The eventual hope is that Gehl will lend their expertise in developing beautiful and engaging public spaces to further develop the Ynot Lot in a conscious and responsible manner.
This also underscores a larger point and issue which has recently become a concern as parts of Baltimore begin to redevelop. Specifically the recent waves of outside capital which has begun flowing into the Station North neighborhood of Baltimore City, which houses the Ynot Lot. Interning at NDC has really made me aware of the importance of working with the people who actually live in neighborhoods to develop spaces according to their needs and desires. Furthermore it has made me aware of the fact that just blindly throwing money at something is hardly ever the right course of action. Thoughtful urban growth requires comprehensive and deliberate consideration.
In this sense I see many parallels to doing effective, and responsible, social history. For example it's important to really get invested, or immersive, with the peoples and communities you are documenting rather than just assuming the awkward role of the ambivalent outside observer, which is an oxymoron in the first place. If we are not careful, we run the risk of vacating the community's voice and superimposing our voices and our desires, despite our noble intentions. The latter perspective is the kind that assumes that whatever I would want to see in a neighborhood is what is best for the neighborhood. To give an actual example, who wouldn't want a big white tent over the Ynot Lot?
After all no one is ever truly impartial, so why pretend to be. To this end, historians possess a powerful tool in the form of narrative. We have the ability to create and crystallize a lucid image of the past, one which can impact the way that past is utilized, or in some cases weaponized, in the present. If we fail to adequately hear the voices and concerns of those individuals who have to actually keep living in the places we merely write about, we run the risk of interpreting their stories in ways that might make sense to us but ultimately does damage to them. All of which is to say, interning at NDC has made me acutely aware of the responsibility incumbent upon any historian, especially those whose work deals directly in the often opaque and complex realms of social justice.
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