FOODS, FOLDS, AND FAÇADES:

COMMERCIAL COMPLEXITY IN THE MULTIETHNIC CITY

​

In the crowded, bustling streets of Queens, immigrant entrepreneurs have developed a thicket of small niche retail operations optimized around new economic conditions, cultural practices, and social relations, all to meet the demands of a large population with varying needs.

 

To accommodate the needs of immigrant small businesses, building owners and landlords have countenanced a range of spatial reconfigurations in commercial architecture.  Through fieldwork and interviews, we want to identify the range of typologies of fine-grained commercial adaptation, describe their spatial features and elements, and document their effects on the urban landscape.  

 

Some of the typologies we encounter might be unique to Queens, while others are shared across a variety of geographies and contexts both in the United States and beyond.  However, the frequency and concentration of their use in Queens render them conspicuous elements the streetscape, and a key feature of peoples' contact with the flow of goods and services in the everyday commercial life of the borough.

​

Researchers on this project: Noah Allison, Yeon-Joo Kang, and Joseph Heathcott

​

Check out a selection of ongoing photographs from our fieldwork here!