essay
Return to the future: Puerto Rican vernacular architecture in New York City
Re-presenting the city : ethnicity, capital and culture in the 21st century metropolis • New York • Published In 1996 • Pages: 60-92
By: Sciorra, Joseph.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this essay Sciorra describes how Puerto Rican residents of the South Bronx (also East Harlem and the Lower East Side) appropriated municipally owned property where multi-storied buildings once stood, cleared the debris from the site, cultivated gardens, and constructed wood-frame structures known as CASITAS. This 'unauthorized' use of municipal lands obviously created problems between the Puerto Rican inhabitants and the city government which are discussed to some degree in the text. Much of this document, however, deals with the functional aspects of the CASITAS not only as shelter but also as a focus for socialization between friends and family, and perhaps more significantly as a memento of the lives they left behind in Puerto Rico.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- History and culture change
- Functional and adaptational interpretations
- Land use
- Architecture
- Dwellings
- Housing
- Urban and rural life
- Cities
- Ethnosociology
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Puerto Ricans (Mainland)
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2002
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Regional, Ethnic and Diaspora Cultures
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Sociologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 2000
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1988-1990
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1946-1990s
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- South Bronx, New York, N.Y., New York
- NotesAdditional notes
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 95037010
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Puerto Ricans--United States