Everyday Environmentalism

In this episode we sit down with Everyday Environmentalism’s own Maddy Aubey! Maddy is a PhD archaeology student at UCLA who tells us about her undergraduate thesis: “Visions Underfoot: Seneca Village and the Poetics of Remembrance.” It’s an interdisciplinary project that combines archaeology, history, and poetry. Maddy used physical objects found by archaeologists at the Seneca Village dig site as a way to creatively ponder the interior lives of the individuals who called it home.

This is Part II of our series of episodes on Seneca Village. If you want a more traditional history about the facts and origins of Seneca Village, listen to our previous episode with Dr. Nan Rothschild if you have not already.

Here are the resources we discuss in this episode:

“Seneca Village Unearthed,” The NYC Archaeology Repository: https://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/collection/digital-exhibitions/seneca-village-unearthed

“Venus in Two Acts,” Saidiya Hartman (on critical fabulation)

My Seneca Village, Marilyn Nelson

Black Feminist Archaeology, Whitney Battle-Batiste

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Everyday Environmentalism is a podcast that tells past and present stories about "urban nature" in New York City. We interview current activists in tandem with environmental historians to produce a long history of the ways ordinary New Yorkers have experienced the urban outdoors and created more sustainable relationships with their environment.

This podcast is hosted by Amanda Martin-Hardin, Maddy Aubey, and Prem Thakker.

Did you know before Central Park was built a rural community of African Americans owned property & built homes there?  They were displaced to build the park & it took well over a century for New Yorkers to rediscover Seneca Village.

This episode features Dr. Nan Rothschild, a historical archaeologist and Professor Emerita at Columbia University who worked on the team that excavated Seneca Village, a predominantly African American community that was displaced to build Central Park in the nineteenth century. We discuss why Seneca Village is a historically significant site and what it took to convince the reluctant NYC Parks Department to allow an excavation to take place, among many other fascinating topics.

Dr. Rothschild has done archaeological work in New York City and the American Southwest, and most of her research concerns the expression of social realities in materiality, focusing on gender, ethnicity, race and social class.To learn more about Dr. Nan Rothschild's work, visit this link: https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/nan-rothschild

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Everyday Environmentalism is a podcast that tells past and present stories about "urban nature" in New York City. We interview current activists in tandem with environmental historians to produce a long history of the ways ordinary New Yorkers have experienced the urban outdoors and created more sustainable relationships with their environment.

This podcast is hosted by Amanda Martin-Hardin, Maddy Aubey, and Prem Thakker.

This episode features a conversation with Lena Tibebe, the founder of Ride to DC, which is a NYC-based organization that aims to diversify cycling.

Last year, Ride to DC began hosting an annual group bike ride from NYC to DC--hence, the “Ride to DC”--as a way to recognize the existence and significance of Black Lives. During the inaugural 2020 ride, 127 cyclists joined the week-long, 306-mile journey.

We discuss the origin and inspiration behind Ride to DC with Lena, as well as providing more context about her own personal relationship with cycling in New York City. Lena is also an ESL teacher in the Bronx and a Bike New York board member, so she brings many different perspectives to her understanding of bikes in the city.

This conversation was such a delight because it covered so many topics--from fun places to bike in the city, to inequitable bike infrastructure across different boroughs, to why bicycles became such powerful tools of protest last year.

If you want to learn more about Ride to DC, or even join the 2021 ride, visit www.ridetodc.com. You can also find and follow them on Instagram @RidetoDC.

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Everyday Environmentalism is a podcast that tells past and present stories about "urban nature" in New York City. We interview current activists in tandem with environmental historians to produce a long history of the ways ordinary New Yorkers have experienced the urban outdoors and created more sustainable relationships with their environment.

This episode features Dr. Evan Friss, a U.S. urban historian who teaches at James Madison University. He researches the intersections between bicycles, people, and cities.

In this episode we discuss the long history of cycling in New York City, including its liberating potential (from a tool for mass protests to an escape for suburban kids), as well as the way access to bikes has often been impaired by race, class, and gender. We contemplate the many forms of cycling in NYC, from Citibike, to food delivery cyclists, to competitive athletes training in Central Park. We also speak about when and where we’ve personally had the most fun riding bikes in NYC!

Dr. Friss has written two books: The Cycling City: Bicycles and Urban America in the 1890s and On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City. He also co-curated an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York called Cycling in the City.