My final project is about the long term residents of Johnsons Park. Those people make the neighborhood what it is and have contributed to its history through their residency and experiences there. I felt that the people in the neighborhood are the most important aspect of JPNA. There were four interviews conducted by JPNA Group Project and I attended three. The timing was convenient because most of them took place on the weekend. I was not able to get to the interview with Ms. Evans but I did attend the interview with Ms. Otis, the Jacobs and Ms. Craft. Attending those interviews and asking the residents the same questions, I noticed a pattern in their answers. They all seemed to come to the same point and frame of mind concerning the neighborhood. They all said that in the past Johnsons Park wasn’t the greatest place to live and whenever they told people where they lived, people thought they were nuts. All these residents are now happy with the neighborhood and the direction it is headed. It is because of the residents of Johnsons Park is starting to become a better place to live.
In each interview the residents talked about memories they had of living in the neighborhood that just stuck with them. They shared their favorite memories along with positive and negative experiences in the neighborhood. At the first interview with Ms. Otis, I learned of how she fought to keep a jail from being built in the neighborhood and how she was almost tricked into buying her land for more then it was going for. I walked away from that interview seeing Ms. Otis as an advocate for the neighborhood, she seems to always be fighting for it or as she said “Getting out of one fight and getting into another,”. The Jacobs have lived in the neighborhood for over thirty years and have been married just as long. They are apart of the neighborhood block watch and their kids live close by but they don’t see them because that would be a bit too much. Their favorite memory is of the first time they came out to see the digging start for their plot of land. Ms. Craft is a real smart lady as soon as we got there to interview her she asked us to take off our shoes and offered us coffee and pound cake. She then went on to show us pictures of her family and telling us a little about herself before the interview actually started. She wanted her family’s history within the neighborhood to be documented and this was the perfect opportunity to do that and she has a lot of respect for the residents in the neighborhood who are making it a good place to live.
I have run into some complications throughout the semester. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy when I started so I was expecting complications but it’s really hard to work around some problems. One complication was figuring out how to get my hours in because I have a busy schedule like the rest of the class. The interviews turned out to be a great way to get hours done because a lot of them took place on the weekends. On my way to the first interview my dad got a speeding ticket. During the second interview I had to get equipment from the equipment room and it wasn’t until a week later that I learned that the microphone didn’t pick up any sound, which did not help when it came to editing. The third interview I attended went by smoothly without any problems. Since I had to edit the Jacobs Interview which was completely mute I had to borrow footage from another student. Most of my problems came from my ignorance to technology and Macs. I could not find a tape deck in any of the labs on campus except the closed lab. So I had to get a camera from the equipment room and when they gave me a camera that would not connect to the computer they would tell me to use a tape deck in the lab. However, the problem was the lab with the tape deck was closed. So when I finally got a camera that did connect to the computer I learned that it would not connect to my computer at home. This led me to do all my work on the final project on campus with Macs. I got help here and there to familiarize myself with Macs but it still turned out to be a difficult process. I ran into many problems loading the Jacobs interview then creating transitions and photo montages and sending and posting the clips. I spent most of two weeks editing two minutes. Now that it is finished I do feel kind of proud of what I’ve done. I’ve familiarized myself with something I had never approached and learned skills that may be useful in the future.
An important lesson I learned from the experience is that the best way to learn something is to struggle with it and push yourself until the project is finished and you meet your goal. When this semester started all I knew how to do was turn on a computer, write papers, get on the internet and e-mail people. Now I know how to write and post blogs, use a camera and mic, load footage onto a computer, use iMovie and iPhoto. I’ve acquired some useful skills from this class and I’m glad I was a part of it. Another reason I’m glad I was in this class was because I got to go through service learning. Before each interview I was nervous because I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never gone up to strangers in a neighborhood I’ve never been to and interview strangers and take pictures of their homes. I was forced to go outside my comfort zone because I’m a shy, quiet guy but I felt perfectly comfortable in the neighborhood and I ignored all the negative stories associated with the area and I felt safe. One thing I will remember from this experience is that how the neighborhood was not the best place to live but thanks to its residents and the Johnsons Park Neighborhood Association and the Zilber Initiative, a group of people started to act to change there home, change its image and do something that is only seen in movies or the news in places far from here. The neighborhood changed for better and is being revived and this doesn’t just contribute to the history of the neighborhood but the city too. While there are areas that talk about changing and try to change and fail, JPNA is in the process of making the area an even better place to live then any other area in Milwaukee. I think that because of what they are doing and all their hard work whenever the North Side is talked about there won’t be any negative associations with it, thanks to this organization and the people living in it. If it weren’t for the residents who care about each other and their homes enough to change it, an important part of the city may have just gotten worse but it really is getting better.
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