Items

• 
  2023-02-28

  Aquilino House

  This is a photo taken sometime during the stay of the Aquilino family in the house that can now be seen on the sight of Historic Richmond Town. The house's name since becoming a part of Historic Richmond Town has been called the Edwards-Barton House, after two prominent families that lived in the house during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. When Historic Richmond Town originally named this structure they excluded the Aquilino family in the naming of the house, but during the lockdown caused by Covid-19 it allowed for a quiet period of introspection where these families of different cultural backgrounds outside of the Anglo-centric founding could be honored. Staten Island is a very diverse place and the institutions that operate on its soil should reflect that aspect. Photo credit goes to New York Public Library.
• 
  2020-06-04

  Guerrilla Gardening in the Time of COVID-19

  The operation will take only a few minutes. I don my mask and slip the gloves and pruning shears into my back pocket and take to the streets. Walking briskly, I pass a row of 1900s brownstones, each with a small garden plot in front. On this block the specialty is roses, and every home seems to have a different variety growing. Towards the corner, there is a house with its iron gate ajar, and an overstuffed mailbox by the front door. I had already removed two small bags of garbage and moldering cardboard and a crushed toy fire helmet from the front yard, and also ripped out a row of mugwort that was blocking the big rosebush. I don’t know what variety they are – a peach-colored hybrid, with massive blooms that bent the rose stalks down. I deadhead the big old roses and the stalks spring up, attempting to gash my face. One does nick my arm, and I wipe the blood off on my mask, not thinking that I have left a red splotch of blood in its center, like a tiny pair of lips. Pretty soon I have collected about thirty roses – all massive and past their prime and bring them home in a plastic bag I brought with me. I don’t think anyone would mind, and I am sure the person who planted these roses doesn’t mind. A hybrid rose plant like this needs a lot of tending, but the blooms are enormous. As part of my quarantine routine, I take walks in the early morning. After a while, I got tired of seeing weeds hiding the “nice” plants and began reflexively pulling them. It was fun! Especially after a rainfall, when the weeds pulled out so effortlessly. After a few minutes work I would have a sheaf of shepherd’s purse, lambsquarter and mugwort under my arm. Fortunately, there is always an empty construction yard in our rapidly developing neighborhood, and that’s where most of my weeding crop ends up, lobbed over the green construction fence. Nobody has ever bothered me, except for the times older women will ask if I eat the weeds. Since the trees planted by the city have little tags on them that give tips on how to take care of them, including one that instructs citizens to keep the tree pits free of weeds, I consider that my carte blanche. “I work for Bette Midler!” I want to tell somebody, but nobody asks. Some houses show evidence that they were owned by gardeners that took a lot of pride in their plants but abandoned them this year. I see mugwort and lambsquarter cropping up in beds of well-tended plants –gardens that might have received some care earlier in the season but, for some reason, have been untouched these past few months. I reach over and – yank –problem solved. I know they would do it, if they were able. One home I pass by regularly had an infestation of mugwort that covered some nice lilies and other shrubs. After a few days I had cleared all the mugwort out, and stopped by every so often to rip the tiny mugwort sprouts that persisted – some of the roots are tough, baseball-sized clumps that live for years, and you often find odd things wound up in them like bottle caps and corks. This past week, our local news had the notice of the death a Haitian doctor in our neighborhood of longstanding repute, who had died of COVID-19. For the obituary, they showed not a photo of the man, but of his doctor’s office, which was the old house where I had been waging my war against mugwort. So many have died in our neighborhood – so many gentle people who once sunned themselves in front of their houses and apartment buildings and maintained the cheery tradition of saying hello to all neighbors. When they moved here, Flatbush was cheap, and a family from Trinidad or Guyana could buy decent homes for an affordable price, in what was then a highly unfashionable neighborhood. The untended gardens of my older neighbors are hard to miss, when you know what to look for. “Maybe they just went out of state, you don’t know,” say my kids, when I showed them the peach-colored rose bush I had been surreptitiously tending. They were horrified, and nervous that I was breaking a law. My daughter even closed and latched the small iron gate, while sternly looking at me, warning that I could get arrested, or worse. But I’ll be back. Those roses need me.
• 2020-03-30

  Rules

  The first really big change that happened was the masks. For the first month or so it was really hard to breath but I have gotten used to it. I also couldn't leave my house for a couple months and the only time i left my house was to go to the grocery store and I couldn't leave the car. I felt very happy to even just go into the car. Staying in the house for that long got kind of boring though.
• 2021-01-07

  What was Christmas like for you this year, and how was it different?

  Christmas was little different for me this year. Normally, on Christmas Eve, my family and I go to my Aunt's house to celebrate. All of dad's side of the family is there. This year we wanted to do Christmas Eve at our house outside so we could be social distance. But that didn't happen because the weather was very bad. It would have been cold and not an enjoyable Christmas Eve. Instead we moved it to Christmas Day, so we could have some nicer weather. It was perfect. We played lots of games and enjoy delicious food.
• 
  2020-01-01

  My 2020

  2020 was rough from the start. My birthday is January 29th, So the first bad thing that happened was I got the flu on my birthday, and couldn't go back to school for almost 2 weeks. The second thing was my birthday party was pushed to February 29. The third bad thing that happened was when quarantine happened. So for a couple of weeks, I was with my dad, then five of my family members got covid including my dad. So I stayed at my mom's house for about 2-3 months then my dad was clear so I got to stay with him again.
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  2020-12-07

  The Home Within My Head: My Experience of COVID-19 In Prose

  I have always been acutely aware of how poetry connects people across places and time. Today, more so than ever before, humans are grasping for a connection as intimate as physicality without having to be in the same room. This poem speaks to that struggle. I hope it helps others out there, suffering from isolation, to feel a bond across the deep chasms COVID-19 has cultivated in our new world.
• 
  2020-08-29

  Building of the house next door: progression

  These are two images of the house being built on the block behind us. Due to us being home all of the time, we have been able to see the slow progress of the house being built. I was looking at this house being built so often, to the point where it wasn’t until two months later that I actually noticed just how much progress had been made. To me, these photos signify the daily repetition of our lives during the pandemic, especially during the lockdown periods. The picture showing the least amount of progress was taken on August 29, 2020 and the one showing more progress was taken on October 30, 2020. HIST30060
• 
  2020-10-23

  Life Lives On

  The story is titled, “Today, In the midst of all of the covid-19 and 2020 madness, we purchased our first home!” it specifically highlights the durability of Humans and the positivity that will emerge from this horrible pandemic.
• 
  2020-10-21

  Meanwhile in Ohio

  Scrolling through Facebook I came across this on my feed. A home in Ohio has been decorated for Halloween COVID style. I thought this was a hilarious way to showcase how COVID has affected every aspect of our lives. I love seeing the humor during this time when we need it most. It looks like the biggest and scariest skeleton is playing dodgeball with COVID balls. I’m not sure which skeleton I loved most, the one with the Lysol or the one with the toilet paper.
• 
  2020-09-17

  Covid Blues

  With the introduction of Corona to my daily lifestyle I was forced to reflect a lot about the choices I made and also my general day to day routine. Everything was turned upside down on its head and everything I once knew was now unrecognizable. Gone were the days I would spend hecticly trying to rush to and from school running past people to catch a train. Now the only running I was doing was to and from the kitchen because my tv show was going to start and I needed a refill on my drink. Covid introduced a introverts dream and an extroverts worst nightmare. Confined to their houses like a turtle to its shell. Leaving the house became an escape but not before the 30 layers of disinfectants and masking products. But nowhere fun. Only the supermarket and back. But it was still better than nothing.
• 2020-03-15

  Staying Strong

  A couple of months leading to the COVID-19 pandemic, my wife and I were paying off all of our consumer debt and saving for a down payment on a house to purchase in late 2020. 2019 was very stressful on us, working all the time, did not take any time off, or any vacations; we did not go out like we used to; we just worked and paid off the debt. We started 2020 debt-free, and we kept on working and saving, in March 2020, I went to Turkey for a week to visit the family that I had not seen in 4 years. Two days before my return to the United States, the president decided to ban travel from all European countries due to COVID-19. I was terrified to be stuck in Turkey away from my wife and kids for months. Thankfully, Turkey was not included, I came back to the US, and life was not as healthy as it was. The following months were some of the toughest we have been through. When the Stay at Home restrictions began in our state, my wife lost her job while I stayed employed as an essential worker. My wife stayed with the kids teaching them as schools were shut down for the rest of the school year. COVID-19 impacted us not just financially, but emotionally as well. I believe we are in a better financial situation, considering what the pandemic has done to so many people worldwide. We are in an unprecedented time, and we are all in this together, and we will get through it sooner or later. I am looking forward to what the future holds for us.
• 
  2020-04-01

  Wine tour around the house meme

  Meme showing route of a wine tour inside the house during quarantine
• 
  2020-03-20

  world through a window

  My cousin was beginning to have anxiety about going outside, as he thought he could catch Coronavirus merely by stepping foot outdoors. After my family figured this out we explained to him that he wasn’t going to catch it playing in the backyard, and were able to get him out of the house.
• 
  2020-03-29

  Reclaim Our Homes: Rent/Mortgage Suspension Now!

  Petition addressed to the Governor of New York State and the state's congressional delegation that calls for the suspension of rent/mortgage payments and for the housing of homeless New Yorkers. #HIST5241
• 
  2020-03-26

  COVID-19 and the Biggest Uprooting of my Life

  At this moment my partner and I are packing up our lives because of the COVID 19 pandemic. I think if we weren't both students we would feel a bit less anxious, but now with no work and no income to support ourselves, it's time to minimise and Marie Kondo this tiny unit and move an hour and a half away from our lives here in the South-East suburbs. While I am grateful to be moving away from what could become a more dangerous place to live, I'm remorseful and not really ready to leave my first house. It's quaint and while we are staying at home the garden is enclosed and peaceful. Here's hoping the spread will be slow enough so that we can move before we have issues getting food. Hopefully it doesn't get as bad here as it has in other countries.