Field notes
• I choose to look at Buttonwood Street Reading, Pa. I went April 22, 2018, to take these pictures and do my notes too. The Weather was around 70 degrees out it was nice and sunny and it was around 2:00 pm. My first thought was driving across the bridge I remember back when I was 5 years old seeing a good amount of people working there but now no one seems to walk around there. At first, I took the pictures in my car because I didn’t want to walk around with my phone because it would make it noticeable. I parked the car and at in there every location, I decided to take notes. The first stop was near houses and a grocery store. The trees around there still looked dead and most of the plants there. The sidewalks looked a bit destroyed by overtime damage. The only people I saw around there were people in their cars or the people coming and going from the grocery store. The houses where the paint looks to be very old and chipped and wearied down over time. There’s a church on this street which some people were going into. Right across the church is a beautiful painting alongside a house wall and below it, there is a garden that some seems to use. Along this road, no one seems to be outside if they were outside they were just sitting on their porch. Some parts area was a lot of litter. I didn’t smell much as I was walking around the area. One place that seems to have a lot of people in the area was a place called House of food near the church. The most I have seen was one person walking outside of the hundreds of people who live there. People just seem to travel in one if they just walk around the area I haven’t seen no one travel in packs. There’s a lot of little restaurants on street comers and not much people go to them either if it was the time I went or never busy. There are more cars than people around here coming and going. Seems to be a heavy populated area but people don’t go walking outside at all. Mostly I saw a lot of Hispanics in this area. Overall, I feel like people don’t go out because of the heavy crime Reading has.

Field Notes:

My field research began in a stone lot for the LH Companies building on the corner of North 3rd and Buttonwood streets, several blocks away from the Goggleworks.  Due to the chilly air I stayed in the car while observing the area.  The first point to draw my eye was the Citgo gas station across the street.  As cars and trucks stop to fill up and go, there are only two constants; a man standing near the corner of the building and a broken down ice cream truck near the sidewalk.  The man stands in a grey hooded sweatshirt smoking a cigarette. The ice cream truck sits empty, its doors closed but its serving window open.  Across Buttonwood sits a nice looking building, clearly built to look appealing.  Taking some time to read the sign on, I dust off my rusty Spanish skills and translate the sign as a Jehovah’s Witness temple.  Continuing to turn my gaze counterclockwise I see a large mural painted on the building across the street.  Back at the gas station 2 more men arrive to meet up with the smoking man in the sweatshirt.  They exchange handshakes and begin to converse.  At this point a truck drives through my lot, then across the street and into the gas station, bypassing the stoplight on the corner.  Looking around at the cars there is a mix of nice new cars and older, more run-down cars.  A mostly empty school buss passes by, school must have let out a while ago.  Only a few people walk by, most of them in pairs or groups. One person stands out as walking alone however; a young boy no older than 10.  He walks with a backpack over one shoulder, yelling at passing cars as he goes.  Before I leave I see a truck backing up to park along the side of the gas station.  The three men from earlier had left without me seeing.

Mapping: Reading, PA and Trenton, NJ

Average Home Values for Reading, PA (Red indicates low value, Blue indicates high value)

Average Home Values for Trenton, NJ (Red indicates low value, Blue indicates high value)

Unemployment Rates for Reading, PA
(Red indicates high unemployment, Blue indicates low unemployment)

Unemployment Rates for Trenton, NJ
(Red indicates high unemployment, Blue indicates low unemployment)

Unemployment Rate for Males in Reading, PA

Unemployment Rate for Females in Reading, PA

Unemployment Rate for Males in Scranton, PA

Unemployment Rate for Females in Scranton, PA

Field Notes:

Around 3pm on April 12th, my group and I went to take field notes on a section in Reading. We first parked the car that overlooked the intersection of Buttonwood Street and N 3rd Street. I made many observations here. In the one corner of the intersection, there was a gas station. There was about 2 men just standing on the side of the gas station. One of them was wearing a hoodie. Also at the gas station, there was a ice cream truck that was open. Since we did our observations during the time school ended, there were many yellow school buses driving around. There were a bunch of other vehicles driving around. There was a small amount of people walking around. One of the people walking on the sidewalk was a very young child walking home from school. He was wearing a red shirt/polo shirt with tan pants. It seemed like his backpack was the same size as him. The conditions of the roads were poor. When driving in Reading, it feels like you are constantly going over potholes. On Buttonwood Street, there were a couple painted murals on the buildings. There is a picture of them under the field notes. The buildings with the murals were a company named United Refrigeration and another company named GMI First Inc. The corner where we parked the car was a company called L&H Companies. They had a large empty parking lot which was in need of repair. You can see the damaged lot in the bottom of the pictures. There was not a bunch of trees in the intersection. There was about two or three trees around the gas station. When moving down the road, I saw many residential houses. These houses seemed small and looked old. Some houses were in need of more repairs than others.

Intersection of Buttonwood St and N 3rd St

Murals on the Buildings

On 4/18/18 at about 11:30 AM, I observed everyday life in Reading with a few classmates. We started our observations at a small restaurant called Taste of Crepes. The restaurant is located on the Penn Ave in West Reading. There was a narrow door leading into a tiny, tightly packed room with about ten tables. Most people that came in first tried to pull the front door open, despite the clear sign that said “push”. There were eleven other customers inside with us, varying in age, gender, and race. There was a nice ambiance about the room with the classy decor and calm, relaxing music playing. The waitress came to our table and engaged in some polite conversation before taking our orders. As I was looking around the room, I noticed 5 security cameras throughout the room, not including any that might be in the back of the restaurant. There was very little foot traffic outside due to the cold weather. It was only about 40 degrees while the sun was out, and naturally got colder as the clouds intermittently blocked the sunlight. Our table was directly next to the heater, so the cold weather didn’t really bother us. Even though it seemed like there were relatively few people around, the street was lined with vehicles and there was a steady stream of vehicles driving down Penn Ave. It seemed as though everyone around us was encapsulated in their own lives, not taking notice to anything else around them. After leaving the restaurant, we walked towards the West Reading Center parking lot. Everyone was either inside of one of the buildings along Penn Ave or in a vehicle, as we didn’t pass anybody on the walk. The street was clean, with little to no litter in sight. There was not very much vegetation along Penn Ave. It was quiet except for the sound of vehicles passing by. The parking lot was about halfway full with assorted types of vehicles. All in all, it was a relatively quiet and uneventful day.

Level of education in Scranton, PA

Poverty in Scranton, PA

Poverty in Reading, PA

Level of education on Reading, PA

For my field research assignment I went to the intermediate school in Reading. I sat across the street at the park right in the middle of the round about, so I could observe the facility as a whole. I went around the time that the school lets out their students. The buildings that I could see from where I was sitting were the tall buildings in downtown Reading, to the left of me. There was also a small cottage looking building to the right of me that could be where things are kept to maintain the park. To the back of me there was a building that was similar to the structure of the white house. When it came to roads, as previously said before I was sitting in the middle of the round about. There was a big circular road that I could see directly in front of me, there were two exits to leave. One going down and the other going up towards Reading high. If I turned to my left there was another exit to the round about that lead to the lower part of the park where the playground, tennis, and basketball courts were at. The condition of the road varied depending on where you were looking. There was also a concrete path for people to walk on or where people ran like I saw some people do. At the time that I went there, there were too many people to count since it was a let out, there were hundreds of students.. I came to this conclusion because they were wearing uniforms and there were many parents picking up their kids and a lot of regular pedestrians with either their younger kids or just taking a walk in the park. There were also a decent amount of cop cars, I counted a total of four troopers. During my time there I witnessed a lot of people just having genuine and normal conversations. They were walking home from school or where ever they were headed but then I saw a couple of altercations, only two of those became more then pushing and actually lead to a fist fight but they were quickly broken up. There was also a police statue to the corner of my left eye with three flag poles, the two outer poles had one flag each half way down the pole and the one in the middle had two flags. They were also half way down the pole. Those were the observations I captured from the half hour and forty five  minutes that I was there.

Reading – Income in Below Poverty

Scranton – Income in Below Poverty

Reading – Population 16 Years and Over: Not in Labor Force

Scranton – Population 16 Years and Over: Not in Labor Force

Field notes:

On April 19, 2018 my partner (Joel) and I went into the city of Reading around three in the afternoon.  It was not that beautiful of a day, it was cloudy and windy.  We started walking around the city and it was pretty empty by the streets going off Penn Street but once we started walking down Penn Street we started to see more people.  We got down to the I-LEAD Charter School and the kids started to come out of classes.  There were walking out and getting into their parents cars or they were walking to their houses.  Joel and I then walked by a place that looked like it was closed and what was interesting was that the doors had a thick chain on them.  I wonder why they would put that there.  Is it because someone already tried to get in?  Or is it just for extra security measures?  There are other places that are closed but they don’t have a chain, why this one?  We then crossed the street and we went back up Penn Street.  We walked down 6th Street and before we got to the intersection with Washington Street we saw that there were two cops standing next to a red pick-up truck.  There was a young mom who locked her keys and her couple month baby in the car.  She was very worried and was trying to make her kid laugh and distract him/her.  After talking to the two police officers we kept walking around.  We came to the conclusion that we didn’t see as many people as we were going to because of the weather.  If it would have been a nicer day, we think we would have seen more people.  We finished our walk back at the car and we were done by four in the afternoon.

This is a map of Reading families that live under the poverty line who have children under the age of 18.

This is Reading, and the amount of children that we have 16-19 that did not graduate high school or are not enrolled in high school

This is Erie, and the map shows the families living under the poverty line who have children under the age of 18.

Park near the Citadel

Picture of Citadel

Kids playing in the park at the Citadel

This is the population in Duluth of people 16-19 that either did not graduate high school, or were never enrolled in high school.

I chose to observe the area around the Citadel around the time the kids got out of school. The kids come out all at once and it really is a mess. There were 2 officers in blue uniforms meaning that they are the SRO’s from Reading Police Department. There were about 7 security guards from Reading Citadel and they were trying to walk around and monitor what is going on. Lots of High School kids were walking around the area too, not just the middle schoolers. Lots of people yelling and there were a lot of cars backed up. There was a fight in the park and a cop and two security guards went to go break it up. There were kids climbing in the trees around the citadel after they got out of school. It was really cold out, but still kids were wearing shorts and t-shirts. There were hundreds of kids coming out of one main area, but two separate sides of the street. There were 4 school busses ready to pick up the kids. There was also a ton of trash on the ground and there was a used needle on the sidewalk when I was walking up the the citadel. Young kids were smoking cigarettes and the cigarettes littered the group. Rocks from berks rocks were also in the park. There were a lot of young kids yelling inappropriate things that they shouldn’t have been. A lot of kids stayed in groups of approximately 5-10 kids. Everyone was on their cell phones walking around but still holding conversations.

Scranton: Male Householder, No wife present. Income below poverty line.

Reading: Male householder, No wife present. Income below poverty line.

Scranton: Female Householder, no husband present. Income below poverty line.

Reading: Female householder, no husband present. Income below poverty line.

Citgo Gas Station at the corner of 3rd and Buttonwood

Intersection of 3rd and Buttonwood

United Refrigeration and GMI First Inc. on Buttonwood St.

Field notes:

On April 12, at approximately 3:00pm, my group and I conducted our field observation in the Historic Queen Anne District of Reading City. We parked at the corner of Buttonwood and N 3rd St. It was a cloudy, yet warm day and the streets were busy with elementary aged children starting to come home from school. We saw several people, comprising virtually every age group and ethnicity, walking by themselves or in groups on the side walks. Traffic was heavy around the intersection that we parked at and the gas station on the corner was continuously crowded with cars and people. The roads were not in great condition and probably have not been repaired or repaved in several years. Obvious trash and litter was not a problem in that area. There was grass at the edges of several of the properties we passed with the Jehovah’s Witness property looking like it was the most well maintained. There were also trees lined sporadically around the gas station as well as other areas in that part of the city. Other buildings at or around that intersection included a Spanish Jehovah’s Witness center, a refrigeration business which had that mural you can see in the pictures on the side of their building, a electrical installation service, a tire shop, beauty salon and a dollar store which was up the street from the gas station. As we went west down Buttonwood St. we came into a heavily populated residential area with numerous rows of townhouses. The townhouses were all older as we were in the Historic Queen Anne District, with many of the buildings being close to 100 years old. Making a left on 2nd St. we passed Lauers Park elementary school where the kids were being released for the day. Back at the Citgo Gas station on the corner of 3rd and Buttonwood there was an old, run down ice-cream truck that was parked on the corner of that gas station. Several vehicles stopped and the drivers, who were all young males, got out and looked into the truck, talking to whoever was inside I am assuming. This looked a little strange, but no one else seemed to care or notice.  Overall it seemed like a typical Thursday afternoon with everyone going about their days as usual.

Camden NJ
foreign Born

Reading PA
Foreign Born

Reading PA
Income Less then 10,000

Camden NJ
Income less Then 10,000

Reading Field Notes:

On April 19, 2018  I entered Reading with Hannah, my group team member at around a ten – forty in the morning. The weather was dark with heavy overcast it seemed rain was coming. It was very cold and slightly windy the temperature may have been roughly around 40- 45 degrees.  Where we walked 5th and Penn, Court street and Penn, 6th and Penn. As we began our observation of the people of Reading we  started to see people dressed professionally what we assumed was them walking to work. These people were possibly business men. Some people hand coffee in hand others with suit cases. We decided to check out the court house on 5th and Penn. We saw a man out side the court house in a wheel chair using explicit language. There were lots of sirens from police vehicles driving down court street while during our observation. In general during our observation there was a high patrol of police cars along  5th and Penn Street. We made our way down walking Penn street walking down to 6th and Penn, people were sitting at the buss stop relaxing on there phones or smoking a cigarette. People walking in and out of shops as traffic and buses are passing by.  There were also people walking there dogs around accompanied by a friend, in one instance was two females one a blonde and the other a brunette walking what appeared to be a lab. The other instance was two men one white male and one black male walking there dog together which was a pit-bull. There was plenty of taco stands, there was a one stand almost every block. We observed a mother and a child order from the stand both the tenant of the stand and the customer speaking Spanish. People were ridding there bikes and skate boards down Penn Street. We noticed in our observation that many of the people we saw were Hispanic men. It wasn’t really super crowded in our block radius we observed. My guess was it was due to the Dark cold rainy weather we experienced at the time of our observation. Hannah and I concluded our observation of the people of Reading at approximate eleven-thirty.