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Digital Project Proposal History of Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park _________________________________________________ |
Inspirations
Websites of Urban Parks
(Because all servers connected to the Department of the Interior have been taken down last week because of a court order - in connection with a lawsuit of the Native American Rights Fund against the Department of the Interior --, I could not review any of the sites run by the National Park Service).
There are quite a few web sites on urban parks on the Internet, many run by communities or cities with information on attractions and sometimes history of the parks. Here are some:
Washington Parks and People has a clearly designed web site on the park (http://www.washingtonparks.net), with a digital map and background information on the history of the park and a description of its features and attractions - photographs of the park are included in the site, which gives a nice impression what the park looks like during the day. In addition, the "Friends of Meridian Hill Park" give information on their projects and contact information (http:// www.dcregistry.com/users/washingtonparks/). A nice feature of the site is the possibility for visitors to add comments. The "washingtonparks" site doesn't give so much information on the history of the park - therefore, the proposed web site would not be an alternative to that site, but a complement.
The Central Park.org Web site (http://www.centralpark.org): The Central Park.org web site is a web site which was developed by two people (Jay and Liana Fayloga), who "love the park" - the web designers are not affiliated with a government agency. The Central Park web site has a history section (http://www.centralpark.org/history/menu.html) that includes an overview of the history of the park, and sections on "statues" in the park and "movies." As opposed to other park web sites, which mostly concentrate on the architectural and design histories of urban parks, the text focuses on the social history of Central Park and its relationship to the city. The section on "statues" includes brief descriptions of some of the statues in the park with some photographs. Another nice feature of the Central Park web site is the "guestbook", where people can post impressions or stories of the park. Some of the entries are really short, such as "great park, great site", but others are more detailed. The stories focus, as one might expect, on squirrels, joggers and camera teams and some are quite funny.
The Prospect Park web site includes a history section with four features: park history, park geology, architects and sculptors, archive exhibit: (http:///www.prospectpark.org/hist/prk.html). The "park history" gives a brief history of the park with some historical pictures, focusing on the early planning and design history of the park and its development by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmstedt. The section on "architects and sculptors" just gives information on Vaux and Olmstedt, and the section on "park geology" gives short information on the geology of the park. The "archive/exhibit" section contains quite a bit of information - currently, they have an online exhibition with photographs and texts on the history of the park - the sections of the exhibition are, among others, "people", "events" and "lost Prospect Park." On a navigation bar on the left hand side of the web site, the visitor may click on a folder, f.e. the folder for "lost Prospect Park" - here, a couple of links will show up, for example a link to "aerial view of Mount Vernon" from 1932 and, after clicking on that link, the photograph will show up with the option to read "more text." The text then explains that a replica of Mount Vernon was erected in Prospect Park at the celebration of the 200th anniversary of George Washington in 1932 - the replica was taken down after the event. The online exhibition is a nice feature and it allows the visitor to explore little bits of park history via photographs.
The archivist Julie Moffat told me (on the phone, Dec. 12, 2001), that a variety of people visit the site and ask questions about it) - these are history buffs interested in park history, people doing genealogical research and park lovers - she has noticed that many of the online visitors seem to come from the U.K, maybe because of the English tradition of great natural parks, or because Calvert Vaux was English. Being online as a park archive , she points out, gives people the possibility to visit the park, even if they are living overseas and would otherwise never be able to come to Brooklyn. In the future, they hope to attract more landscape architects and historians as their audience. They are currently working on their web site and are planning to further expand it.
Community web sites
An interesting and very clearly designed community web site is "milkbar.com" (http://www.milkbar.com.au) - a web site of an Australian historian/ media designer on a suburb of Melbourne, Fitzroy. The site contains some theoretical reflection on "history and new media" and also video-oral histories with residents from Fitzroy. Craig Bellamy, the author, wrote me that the site hasn't been really launched for the community yet, so he couldn't answer my question on how the community uses the site (via e-mail, Dec. 9, 2001). He also adds that placing video-oral histories will take up an incredible amount of server space and is not so easy as far as access is concerned. Another web site which I liked and which is very close to my subject is the community web site on "Columbia Heights" (http://www.innercity.org/columbiaheights/station.html) - the web site has a history part, with an historical overview of Columbia Heights, and it presents some oral histories with local residents via real player - the interviews are not transcribed and indexed but of good quality and very audible. Connected to the Columbia Heights web site is a very busy community listserv, which is run by Dave McIntire, who has also runs the Columbia Heights site since 1997, as he told me via e-mail (Dec. 10, 2001). As a tip he told me to "keep the organization simple and easy for others to navigate. Also try to organize the site in a way that will allow expansion without having to re-organize everything."
Oral Histories
After reviewing a number of oral history sites, I found that it is most web user friendly to display oral histories in more than one way -- as a summary of the interviewee with a picture and some biographical background information and as a transcript; or as a summary (or story) and a real audio recording a.s.f. The web site "The Whole World Was Watching" (http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968) gives the option to listen to a full-time audio recording and at the same time to read the transcript. Even though this is a great resource for researchers, it is questionable whether people really listen to the one hour interviews on the web. A compromise for the Meridian Hill/Malcom X Park web site would be to put short, approx. 5 minute recordings up on the site, and add an additional description of the interview and the interviewee (with photo) to it. Then, the real-time recording (and possibly the transcript) might still be put up as an option for people who really want to listen or read the entire interview.
Maps
The presentation by Judy Gradwohl from the Smithsonian Without Walls in our class gave a good introduction to the power of maps on the Internet. Even though the terrific interactive map for "History Wired" (http://historywired.si.edu/index.html) developed by Martin Wattenberg would be ways too sophisticated for the online project on the history of Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, the idea to enter a web site via a map to give the visitor some orientation, just like in a foreign country or city, is great. Other interactive maps on web sites, which I liked, was an interactive map of Paris in the 18th century in an article by Robert Darnton, allowing the visitor to narrow down the location and look at some cafes (4). Unfortunately, when clicking on the location, it doesn't add any more information on specific cafes and its visitors. Interesting are also historical maps on a web site on the history of Coney Island (http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/coneyisland) - here, the visitor may click on little red dots of a historical map, which will bring up another picture as a close-up, but, again, no more information.
Guestbook and Survey
Even though the Central Park web site (http://www.centralpark.org) has a busy guestbook, the entries mostly aren't very long and substantial, more like "I love the park -- great site!" Obviously, visitors need additional inspiration to put some more time and effort into their guestbook entries. One example of a more substantial guestbook is on the web site on Brainerd, Kansas, developed by by Kevin Roe (http://www.rootinaround.com/brainerd). His guestbook contains quite a few, longer and detailed entries with memories of people on Brainerd. Therefore, it seems as if the visitors of a web site need additional encouragement to put some time and effort into their web entries -- Kevin Roe seemed to have put a lot of effort into making his site known and into networking with people. In addition to networking, a set of more specific questions might also help people to put down entries -- such as the survey like questions on the "Blackout History" site (http://chnm.gmu.edu/blackout/main.html). The guestbook on the Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park web site, therefore, will have a survey like format, which includes the option for people to get in touch with someone from the "Friends of Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park" to conduct a face-to-face interview.
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