Field Trips | AAG Annual Meeting

AAG Field Trips 2012

Online field trip registration is now closed. On-site registration located in the Second Floor Lobby of the Hilton New York will begin Thursday, February 23 from 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

All field trips will depart from the Lobby Level of the New York Hilton, near the exit for the parking garage.

Thursday, February 23

1. The Hudson River Valley – “The Landscape that Defined America”: History, Culture, Environmental Conservation and Urban Waterfront Revitalization
Thursday, February 23, 8:00am-7:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Harvey K. Flad, Vassar College
Co-Leader: Robert Henshaw, State University of New York Albany and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Trip Capacity: 35
Cost/person: $118 (includes transportation, coffee, lunch, admission fees, handouts)

The Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, declared by the U.S. Congress in 1997 to be the “Landscape that defined America,” has recently been proposed as the country’s next National Park. This trip will travel north along the Hudson River from New York City to the middle Hudson Valley and the home, presidential library and museum of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park, NY. There will be ample opportunity to discuss the Hudson’s many environmental challenges, including urban sewage disposal; transportation infrastructure; and electric power production, including nuclear. The valley’s landscapes have been seminal in environmental conservation history as exemplified by Storm King Mountain and its legal case as the birth of the nation’s environmental movement. The valley’s history was a crucible of the American Revolution in the 18^th century, while the landscapes and artists of the Hudson River School in the 19^th century helped create America’s cultural identity. After lunch at the FDR National Historic Site participants will have the opportunity to discuss many of these issues of land use conservation and national park planning with representatives from a number of non-profit preservation and environmental research organizations, as well as to visit FDR’s museum, home and library. The trip will conclude with a stop in the City of Poughkeepsie to consider its revitalization activities on its Main Street and waterfront, and an end-of-day social hour. Bring: comfortable footwear, a warm jacket, camera and some change for drinks. For further information, see “The Hudson River Valley and the Geographical Imagination” in the May 2011 AAG Newsletter.

17. NOAA CREST program -- Cooperative Remote Sensing Science and Technology Center at City College of New York, CUNY
Thursday, February 23, 8:15am – 5:15pm
Organizer: Tom FahyLeader: Dr. Louis Uccellini, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction
Trip Capacity: 50
Cost/person: Free

Scholars and students will visit the CREST Center led by Dr. Louis Uccellini, Director of the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction and President of the American Meteorology Society. Attendees will see a LIDAR demonstration from the Optical Remote Sensing Lab that focuses on the development of new technologies for remote sensing, and on the improvement of algorithms for the retrieval of geophysical parameters from the environmental monitoring of land, atmosphere and ocean, using remotely-sensed and ground-based data. Additionally, researchers will discuss the development of a global land emissivity product from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) data.

33. Layered SPURA: Spurring Conversations through Visual Urbanism
Friday, Februrary 24, 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, Buscada Projects
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $8 (includes handout, bring money for metrocard)

Please join us for a tour and gallery talk at the Layered SPURA exhibit with exhibition curator Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, a New School Urban Studies faculty member and co-founder of the interdisciplinary practice on place + dialogue, Buscada.

The exhibition, a culmination of four years of student, faculty, and community collaboration, emerges from Bendiner-Viani's City Studio, a part of the New School’s Urban Programs, and explores the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), a complex site of failed urban renewal and community concern on New York’s Lower East Side. This exhibition does not suggest solutions for a place beleaguered by top-down planning, but rather hopes to spur new conversations amongst people with different points of view about SPURA’s past, present and future. This field trip will include a tour of the exhibition and a discussion of the exhibition's hybrid art, urban geography, pedagogy and community collaborative approach. Each field trip attendee will also receive a takeaway artist's object for a self-guided tour of the contested New York neighborhood explored in this exhibition.

More on the exhibition:
http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/subpage.aspx?id=77296
http://buscada.com/project/visualizing-spura/
http://buscada.com/layered-spura-spurring-conversations-through-visual-urbanism/

18. Black Rock Forest: Ecological and Geographic Education and Research in the Hudson Highlands
Thursday, February 23, 9:00am – 4:00pm
Organizer/Leader:Allan Frei, Hunter College Department of Geography
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $58 (includes bus transportation)

BRF (blackrockforest.org) is a nearly 4000-acre natural living laboratory for field-based scientific research and education. Managed by a consortium of educational, scientific, and cultural institutions, projects in the forest include students and researchers at all levels, from K-12 through professional scientists. We will tour the green building architecture in the lodge and science building, and walk through the forest, where we will visit sites of ecological and geographic research, discuss the local ecology, and see evidence of how succession processes in the forest have been affected by disturbances such as ice storms and hurricanes.

28. Fresh Kills in Transformation: From Dump to Park
Thursday, Februrary 23, 10:00am - 2:30pm
Organizer/Leader: Deborah Popper, College of Staten Island and Graduate Center, CUNY, Carrie Grassi, Fresh Kills Park
Trip Capacity: 20
Cost/person: $5

At 2,200 acres, Fresh Kills Park will be almost three times the size of Central Park and the largest park developed in New York City in over 100 years. The transformation of what was formerly the world’s largest landfill into a productive and beautiful cultural destination will make the park a symbol of renewal and an expression of how our society can restore balance to its landscape. In addition to providing a wide range of recreational opportunities, including many uncommon in the city, the park’s design, ecological restoration and cultural and educational programming will emphasize environmental sustainability and a renewed public concern for our human impact on the earth.
While the full build–out will continue in phases for the next 30 years, development over the next several years will focus on providing public access to the interior of the site and showcasing its unusual combination of natural and engineered beauty, including creeks, wetlands, expansive meadows and spectacular vistas of the New York City region. Tour guides will discuss the site’s history, engineering and landscape design, including the abundant flora and fauna that are returning to the area. The tour will take visitors to the tops of two of the site’s four large landfill mounds, offering spectacular vistas of the expansive site as well as views of downtown Manhattan and all four of the Staten Island bridges. Participants should bring $5 for subway fare (not included in registration fee).

30. Gallery Tour of Torn in Two: the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War
Thursday, Februrary 23, 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Ronald E. Grim, Curator of Maps, Boston Public Library
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $0

Friday, February 24

2. Challenges and Opportunities for Agriculture in a Rural-Urban Fringe Area
Friday, February 24, 7:00am – 6:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Dawn M. Drake, Winona State University
Leader: Peggy Jackson, University of Tennessee
Cost/person: $106 (includes bus transportation, lunch, handouts, admission fees)
Trip Capacity: 25
Sponsored by the AAG Rural Geography Specialty Group, Geographies of Food and Agriculture Specialty Group

As cities and suburbs continue to grow they threaten the viability of agricultural operations in expansion zones, but also provide new markets. This field trip will take participants to eastern Pennsylvania, allowing them to experience firsthand both challenges that farms face and opportunities they seize to grow their businesses. Stops will include Klein Farms, a producer of raw milk cheeses, the Farmhouse Restaurant for genuine farm-to-fork cuisine and a presentation from the Penn State Agricultural Extension, and Clover Hill Winery for a tour and tasting. Participants should dress to spend up to an hour in unheated areas during farm tours.

3. Queens County Farm Museum
Friday, February 24, 8:15am – 3:00pm
Organizers: Jesse Abrams, Whitman College, Jill Clark, The Ohio State University
Organizer/Leader: Gina K. Thornburg, Kansas State University
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $27 (includes admission fees, tasting fees– bring your own lunch and $5 for public transportation)
Sponsored by the AAG Rural Geography Specialty Group, Geographies of Food and Agriculture Specialty Group

The museum sits on the longest continuously farmed site, dating from 1697, in New York state. The property houses historic farm buildings, a greenhouse complex, livestock, farm vehicles and implements, planting fields, an orchard, a vineyard, an herb garden, a wine shop, and a gift shop. The trip includes a one-hour farm tour, a farmhouse tour, animal feedings, and wine and cheese tasting. Bring a bagged lunch and beverage for consumption at the farm. Only 17 miles from the conference, this tour will provide a glimpse of the only working historical farm in NYC. For more information see http://www.queensfarm.org/pdf/map.pdf.

5. Jackson Heights: Where the World Comes Together
Friday, February 24, 8:30am – 12:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Ines Miyares, Hunter College
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $15 (includes subway fare, handouts)
Sponsored by the AAG Ethic Geography Specialty Group, Latin America Specialty Group, and CLAG

Originally developed in the early 20th century as an exclusive community for white non-immigrant Protestants, Jackson Heights in Queens has become one of the most ethnically diverse immigrant neighborhoods in New York City and possibly the US. This subway and walking tour will examine the distinct ethnic economies along the route of the #7 train that serve immigrants from approximately 120 countries. The tour will focus on the contrasts between the economic landscapes of Latin America, the Indian Subcontinent, Korea and the Philippines, all of which radiate from the same intersection and subway station in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens.

31. Gallery Tour of Torn in Two: the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War
Friday, Februrary 24, 10:00am - 11:00am
Organizer/Leader: Ronald E. Grim, Curator of Maps, Boston Public Library
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $0

Ronald E. Grim, Ph. D. in historical geography and Curator of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library, will provide gallery tours of the Map Center’s map-focused exhibition, currently on display at The Grolier Club. This unique exhibition explores and illuminates the causes, conduct, and historical record of the Civil Ear through maps and other historic items. The display showcases 50 objects including maps, photographs, prints, diaries, political cartoons, music, and newspapers of the period. The overarching theme of the exhibition is the central role geography played in the causes, conduct, consequences, and commemoration of the American Civil War.
Directions: The Grolier Club is located at 47 East 60th Street. It is a fifteen minute walk (0.7 miles) from the conference hotel. Walk north on 6th Avenue, right on West 54th Street, left on 5th Avenue (notice the Gen. William T. Sherman memorial between 58th and 59th Streets on 5th Avenue), right on East 6th Street).

4. Flushing’s Chinatown
Friday, February 24, 10:30am – 12:30pm
Organizer/Leader: Jack Eichenbaum
Trip Capacity: 20
Cost/person: $5

This immigrant destination and commercial center has come to rival its Manhattan antecedent. Taiwanese rather than Cantonese at its core, Flushing’s Chinatown plays host to a variety of overseas Chinese groups and is adjacent to a Koreatown. Rezoning and greater land availability support unusual real estate developments including office buildings, hotels, residential condos, specialty shops, cultural institutions, and malls. Dine in more than 100 Asian restaurants. Participants will be provided with directions to the trip meeting point; please allow 45-60 minutes travel time.

Weather Advisory: Late February in NYC can be invigorating or downright nasty! This tour will be outdoors more than half the time. Wear layered clothing. Consider hats, scarves, gloves, footwear and umbrellas appropriate to weather conditions on the morning of the tour. Cold weather meeting point- second floor of New World Mall on Roosevelt Ave. (Main St. last stop on #7 train)

21. New York Public Library: The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division
Friday, February 24, 11:00am – 12:30pm
Organizer/Leader: Matthew Knutzen, New York Public Library
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $5

With more than 433,000 sheet maps and 25,000 atlases, The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division is the premier map research library collection in New York. This behind-the-scenes tour will highlight some of our most treasured collections as well as the division's glorious architecture.

32. Gallery Tour of Torn in Two: the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War
Friday, Februrary 24, 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Ronald E. Grim, Curator of Maps, Boston Public Library
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $0

33. Layered SPURA: Spurring Conversations through Visual Urbanism
Friday, Februrary 24, 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, The New School & Buscada
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $8 (includes handout, bring money for metrocard)
Please join us for a tour and gallery talk at the Layered SPURA exhibit with exhibition curator Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, a New School Urban Studies faculty member and co-founder of the interdisciplinary practice on place + dialogue, Buscada.
The exhibition, a culmination of four years of student, faculty, and community collaboration, emerges from Bendiner-Viani's City Studio, a part of the New School’s Urban Programs, and explores the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), a complex site of failed urban renewal and community concern on New York’s Lower East Side. This exhibition does not suggest solutions for a place beleaguered by top-down planning, but rather hopes to spur new conversations amongst people with different points of view about SPURA’s past, present and future. This field trip will include a tour of the exhibition and a discussion of the exhibition's hybrid art, urban geography, pedagogy and community collaborative approach. Each field trip attendee will also receive a takeaway artist's object for a self-guided tour of the contested New York neighborhood explored in this exhibition.

More on the exhibition:
http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/subpage.aspx?id=77296
http://buscada.com/project/visualizing-spura/
http://buscada.com/layered-spura-spurring-conversations-through-visual-urbanism/

Saturday, February 25

26. Biting the Big Apple
Saturday, February 25, 8:00am - 8:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Kevin Patrick, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $120 (includes lunch, admission fees, subway fare)

This full-force feast on New York City is all about biting off more than can easily be chewed in a single day. Kevin Patrick offers up a platter full of Manhattan sights, sounds, smells, and tastes, covering the city from Central Park to Ground Zero by subway, foot, and fork. The trip highlights New York’s cultural landscapes, built environments, and historical geography between bites of classic Big Apple cuisine that will include a traditional Irish breakfast, an impossibly stacked pastrami sandwich lunch, and a Little Italy pizza and wine supper, with some between meal bites of bagels, oysters, and cannoli. The trip will cover Midtown Manhattan with astounding views from the top of the GE Building at Rockefeller Center (weather permitting), and a walk-through examination of Times Square, 42nd Street, and Grand Central Station. The expedition will move on to explore the romantic landscapes of Olmsted and Vaux’s Central Park, visit the Lower East Side origins of New York’s modernist, mid-20th century housing projects, and then head Downtown to witness the World Trade Center rebuilding at Ground Zero. Our walk through the Financial District will briefly occupy Wall Street, the South Street Seaport, the Civic Center around City Hall Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge before crossing Chinatown for a sunset supper in Little Italy. The trip runs from 8am to 8pm, although subway bail-out points exist for those who have to leave early. Dress for the weather. The cost covers subway fares, meals, and a trip up to the Top of the Rock.

6. Pollution, Redevelopment and Gentrification: The Gowanus Canal on Foot
Saturday, February 25, 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Jessica Miller, CUNY Graduate Center
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $15 (includes handouts, subway fare)

This field trip will walk the group along and over the bridges of the Gowanus Canal, a man-made, formerly industrial canal in Brooklyn. It will focus on the history of the canal, from when the Dutch settled until now, a place in transition between an industrial zone to housing and commercial space. The tour will also discuss the extensive pollution found there, redevelopment plans, and gentrification currently taking place in the area.

7. The City by the Sea: An Immersion of Recreational Geography and Coastal Engineering in Long Beach, NY
Saturday, February 25, 11:00am – 3:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Chelsea Gross, Frank Buonaiuto, Hunter College
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $76 (includes bus transportation, lunch)

Long Beach is a high density, residential barrier island. The excursion will explore the coastal vulnerabilities facing this community as well as the interaction of the community from a recreational geography perspective. In September 2011, Long Beach hosted the largest professional surfing competition motivating the residents to preserve the current state of the coastline. However, Long Beach has historically been prone to coastal flooding and there are specific high cost recommendations by the Army Corps of Engineers to reduce storm impacts. Recently, during Hurricane Irene a forced evacuation was combined with surfers engaging in large swell events. An interesting infusion of nature, the community, and the purposeful engineered state of the shoreline.

Sunday, February 26

8. Birding and Nature Walk in Central Park
Sunday, February 26, 7:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
Organizer/leader: Cathy Cooper, Texas State University-San Marcos, Gil Schrank, former President of The Linnaean Society of New York
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $15 (includes honoraria, taxi)

Come join an expert birder as we look for winter birds of Central Park. We will taxi to 72nd Street and Central Park West and walk back to the hotels through the park. We will scan the lake and linger at the bird feeders and investigate various habitats. All skill levels are welcome. We’ll talk a bit about the history of the park. Walk is about two miles on paved trails. Bring binoculars and dress for the weather.

27. Sopranoland Suburbia
Sunday, February 26, 8:00am - 6:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Kevin Patrick, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $87 (includes transportation, meals, handouts)

While telling the tale of a fictitious North Jersey mob family, The Sopranos -hit HBO series from 1999 to 2007- was inadvertently presenting a reasonably accurate portrayal of the New Jersey suburbs that lie in the shadow Gotham in all their gritty, glorious, sprawling splendor. The fictional exploits and family history of The Soprano characters are deeply woven into the real place fabric of metropolitan North Jersey. This sojourn through Sopranoland mixes geographic fact with faux-mob fiction in telling the story of North Jersey. The trip highlights deindustrialization and gentrification in working class cities like Hoboken, Jersey City, Paterson, and Newark (where Tony Soprano grew up in the Ironbound section). It then crosses the (Soprano hit-victim filled) Meadowlands to follow the story of Jersey out-migration through streetcar, railroad, and early auto suburbs like Bloomfield, Radburn, and Montclair (where Tony was nearly whacked), through the postwar, plebian sprawl of Route 46, to the Soprano manse in the upscale Caldwells. Along the way, we’ll eat breakfast at the Jersey diner where Christopher Moltisanti was shot, drive by the Badda Bing, have a slice of Ralph Cifaretto’s Lodi Pizza, and an egg cream with onion rings where the Sopranos had their last supper.

9. Cultural Stones of Central Park
Sunday, February 26, 9:45am – 1:45pm
Organizer/Leader: Gregory Pope, Montclair State University, Patricia Beyer, Bloomsburg University
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $42 (includes box lunch, handouts, park donation)

Central Park is America's most famous urban park, with broad appeal to all ages in all aspects of nature, recreation, education, history, and the arts. This field trip touches on all of these aspects through the landscape architecture and geology of its "cultural stone": the natural and faux, the rustic and refined. The guided walking tour from the hotel is possible in all but the worst weather. Do as New Yorkers do and take in the park, but dress accordingly for the elements.

29. Landmarks of Brooklyn’s Industrial Waterfront
Sunday, February 26, 12:00pm - 4:00pm
Organizer: Richard E. Hanley, Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center, New York City College of Technology, City University of New York
Trip Capacity: 50
Cost/person: $70 (includes boat transportation, handouts, narrator)
By now everyone knows or should know that Brooklyn has been called the “Hottest City in the Country,” even if it hasn’t been an independent city since 1898. Nevertheless, a visit to New York can no longer be complete by simply staying in one New York City borough, Manhattan. For more than half a decade tour buses have been traveling to Brooklyn, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, cruising through DUMBO, and maybe even venturing to Red Hook, the birthplace of Al Capone. What visitors don’t often see is a view of the borough from the water. This field trip will be a two-hour sail that will allow us to trace both the borough’s industrial history and its recent development. Our trip will start just north of the Brooklyn Navy Yard—an historic treasure that is simultaneously being preserved and transformed into a “green” industrial park. As we make our way south, we will pass the derelict piers and renovated warehouses of what is now called DUMBO that were central to sugar refining and coffee distribution into the twentieth century. As we proceed south, we will also pass the new Brooklyn Bridge Park, and then we will see the grittier, contested, and still working waterfront areas of Red Hook and Sunset Park. The emphasis of the trip will be on the industrial history of Brooklyn’s waterfront and the ways in which it is, and might continue to be, a working waterfront. The trip will be narrated by Captain John Doswell, executive director of the Working Harbor Committee. You will be able to buy beverages on board, but you will have to bring snacks with you. The trip will occur rain or shine. If the conditions are dangerous, the captain will cancel the trip and payments will be refunded. The boat is wheelchair-accessible. Transportation to the boat: We will meet at the Hilton and take public transportation to the pier ($2.50, not included in trip price). Some might prefer to take a taxi (about $15).

Monday, February 27

23. Lower Manhattan, A Walking Tour of New Amsterdam
Monday, February 27, 9:00am – 12:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Richard Quodomine, NYSDOT, Joyce Gold, Joyce Gold History Tours of New York
Trip Capacity: 40
Cost/person: $29

Walk along through the history of America, in the Old Dutch portion of New York City known as New Amsterdam. See South St. Seaport, Wall Street, and the building of Freedom Tower! A must-see and as run by Joyce Gold History Tours, expect not just a tour of the architecture but an understanding of the depth of history in this great city.

10. Waterways / Commodity-Ways
Monday, February 27, 9:30am – 2:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Elizabeth Sibilia, City University of New York, The Graduate Center, Elizabeth Knafo, City University of New York, Hunter College
Trip Capacity: 30
Cost/person: $65 (includes boat transportation, handouts, honoraria)

Waterways / Commodity-Ways is a field trip designed to elucidate connections between the production and trade of commodities such as: coffee, sugar, oil, natural gas and grains with the development and use of New York City’s waterways and waterfront. The production and shipping of these goods illustrate the larger mechanisms and geographies of colonization and imperialism and reveal the importance of waterways to facilitate the transformative patterns that ensue. Traveling by waterboat, we will share a three hour tour detailing the history and use of various NYC waterways and how the waterways, the commodities that were transported connected seemingly distant spaces to form a specific geography of development. Using interviews, images and maps along with anecdotes and personal research, we will discuss the connection these waterways have to the agricultural, mineral and energy products of the North American continent, the Caribbean, and the world. We will stop for bagels/coffee before heading to the boat; bring extra money if you would like to purchase.

24. The Backbones of New York: How New York's Infrastructure Came to Be
Monday, February 27, 10:00am – 2:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Andrew Sydor, Freelance Tour Guide
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $39 (includes bus transportation, honoraria)

This tour will demonstrate how a pair of American Indian hiking trails over the course of seven hundred years became the backbone for the complex network of New York City’s roadways, highways, railways and subways. A bus will transport the group to three locations in Manhattan: City Hall Park, Grand Central Terminal, and the High Line Park. There, participants will be taken on walking tours that explain the significance of each of these locations in the making of New York City, and in connecting the City to the entire country beyond.

25. Yankee Stadium Tour Excursion
Monday, February 27, 10:00am - 2:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Lee Schwartz, US Department of State
Trip Capacity: 30
Cost/person: $20 (includes admission fee)

Visit the "New" Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and take in the sites of the surrounding neighborhood. Official tour includes Yankee lore, field access, a dugout visit, the press box, and Monument Park. For those who want to extend the visit, there is a lunch option (not included in tour price) at the venerable Yankee Tavern, on 161st Street in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. Transport (not included in tour price) by subway to and from the Stadium.

11. GIS in action! A Field Trip to the GIS Unit of New York City Fire Department
Monday, February 27, 12:30pm – 5:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Chung Chang, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $10 (includes subway fare)

A unique chance for AAG members to network with the specialists of the New York City Fire Department’s GIS Unit. This field trip will start with a historical review of how the GIS Unit started, and how 9-11 changed the GIS Unit from an administrative unit to an indispensable branch of the Department's daily operations. Attendees will also have the rare opportunity to see how some in-house GIS applications being used live and 24/7 at the Department's Operation Center.

12. Tasting the Wines of Slovenia
Monday, February 27, 2:00pm – 5:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Conrad “Mac” Goodwin, Independent Scholar, Maja Djorev, University of Tennessee
Trip Capacity: 50
Cost/person: $40 (includes subway fare, wine tasting fees)
Sponsored by the AAG European Specialty Group and Wine Specialty Group

The central European country of Slovenia produces many fine wines, few of which are known in the United States. On this fieldtrip/workshop we will walk or take the subway to LeDu Wines, (Zagat's #1 wine store, NYC 2011/2012), where we will learn about Slovenia's winegrowing regions. Mr. Emil Gaspari, a wine expert from Slovenia, will preside over the tasting of 15 different wines from Slovenia. We will be able to talk with him, Mr. Jean-Luc Le Dû, and other Slovene wine experts and have the opportunity to order or purchase the wines.

19. Visit to the Korea Society
Monday, February 27, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Jeffrey Gower, University at Buffalo - SUNY
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $5

Sponsored by the AAG Asian Studies Affinity Group and Graduate Studies Affinity Group

The Korea Society aids in offering resources for in-depth explorations of the social, cultural, economic, political, historical and security dimensions of the U.S.-Korea relationship. Its objective is to foster a greater awareness, appreciation and understanding of the complexity of these underlying factors, which fuels the power of imagination that is the indispensable wellspring of the capacity for empathy. While divergences of perspectives between Americans and Koreans on many fundamental issues may be inevitable, it is equally inevitable that these divergences must be brought within the realm of imagination to be channeled toward productive engagement based on mutual respect.

20. Food Cart Tour of Midtown
Monday, February 27, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Andrew Gustafson, Urban Oyster Tours
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $27 (includes meals, handouts)

Take a strolling lunch in Midtown with geographer and Urban Oyster tour guide Andrew Gustafson to sample international cuisines from six different street vendors, observe the constructive genius that cram full kitchens into improbably small carts, and even talk to some of their proprietors. We will explore the history of the industry, the regulations affecting it today, how street food shapes public spaces, and the challenges of running these thriving but feverishly demanding small businesses. This is a special offering for the AAG Annual Meeting, and space is limited to 15 persons. To learn more about Urban Oyster, visit www.urbanoyster.com.

Tuesday, February 28

13. All Day on Transit Tour
Tuesday, February 28, 8:30am – 4:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Rich Quodomine, Jason Greenberg, Andrew Ryder, NYSDOT
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $25 (admission fee, MTA Subway and bus fare, bring money for lunch)
Sponsored by the AAG Transportation Specialty Group

Come see New York's transportation past, present, and future! See the current Penn Station and the Farley Post Office Building, which gives a glimpse into this railroad hub's past and future. Visit the rebuilt PATH World Trade Center terminal, get a sneak peek at the new Fulton Street Interchange (under construction), and take a train from the new South Ferry station. We will also visit historic Grand Central Terminal and check out New York's version of Bus Rapid Transit on 2nd Avenue. Finally, we will have our own guided tour of the New York City Transit Museum in Brooklyn. We will travel on one of the world's largest transit systems to get from place to place, including portions of the original 1904 line that started it all. New York City's transit system is a story of the building of a city. Lunch is on your own at one of many local Brooklyn eateries near the Transit Museum.

14. Tour of New York City’s Emergency Operations Center
Tuesday, February 28, 9:00am – 12:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Lynn Seirup, New York City Office of Emergency Management
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $10 (includes public transportation)

New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is the coordinating agency for emergency response in the city. During a large scale event, the city opens its emergency operations center (EOC) at OEM’s headquarters in Brooklyn. This field trip will include a tour of the EOC and OEM’s mobile mapping vehicle, as well as a discussion of how the city uses spatial data and analysis for emergency management, with an emphasis on unmet needs and challenges. Please note that for security purposes, participant names and affiliation will be provided to the Office of Emergency Management for prescreening.

22. Reimagining the Bronx: A Walk Down the Grand Concourse
Tuesday, February 28, 11:00am – 3:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Bradley Gardener, CUNY Graduate Center
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $5 (bring cash for subway fare)

The Bronx lives in infamy. It has been maligned as an urban nightmare in both academic and non-academic circles. Researchers have provided many explanations for the Bronx's perceived downfall. Most famously, Robert Caro and Marshall Berman have blamed the disinvestment of the Bronx on Robert Moses and the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
On this field trip, we will go to the Bronx and walk down the Grand Concourse. Currently a middle class Latino neighborhood, this area was once two thirds Jewish in the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s. On this walk we will pay close attention to how the landscape has changed over time, and contextualize disinvestment in the Bronx. We will see pastel colored art deco buildings, graffiti art, and synagogues that have been transformed into churches. The walk will end at Yankee stadium, where we will discuss how the relationship between the Yankees and the Bronx has changed over time.
Weather Advisory: February can be very cold in New York! We will likely be outside for about an hour. The organizer insists that you dress in the following fashion for this trip. Please wear a warm winter coat, or at the least several warm layers. You should be wearing a warm hat and gloves. Boots are recommended, but not necessary for the amount of water/snow that will be in the streets.

15. Science for Sustainable Development: A Tour of the Lamont Campus of Columbia University
Tuesday, February 28, 1:00pm – 6:00pm
Organizer: Robert S. Chen, CIESIN, Columbia University
Co-Leaders: Mark Becker, CIESIN, Columbia University and Elisabeth Sydor, CIESIN, Columbia University
Trip Capacity: 40, depending on bus
Cost/person: $30 (includes transportation, handouts, afternoon reception)

More than a hundred years ago, John Torrey, the famous botanist, discovered abundant plant life atop a granite cliff overlooking the West side of the Hudson River, near Palisades, New York. Torrey Cliff, and the rolling landscape surrounding it, would later become the Lamont campus of Columbia University, home to four major research centers of the Earth Institute at Columbia University focused on developing and applying scientific knowledge to sustain the planet. Purchased in the 1920s by Wall Street financier Thomas Lamont and later donated to Columbia University, the campus provides an idyllic setting for world class research facilities just fifteen miles north of Manhattan.
The tour begins enroute to Lamont from Manhattan, with a glimpse of the lower Hudson Valley in winter via a woodsy stretch along the Palisades. A walking tour of the research facilities on campus (winter coats and footwear suggested) will be accompanied by short presentations by scientists and staff from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO, www.ldeo.columbia.edu) and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN, www.ciesin.columbia.edu) on some of their work on topics such as hazards, soils, climate change, remote sensing, poverty, and data and indicator development.

The tour will conclude with an informal reception with Lamont staff. Tour members may take the free shuttle bus back to the Morningside Height campus of Columbia University or return via the tour bus.

16. A Night at a Private New York Jazz House with a Private Supper
Tuesday, February 28, 5:30pm – 10:00pm
Organizer/Leader: Rich Quodomine, NYSDOT, Gordon Polatnick, Big Apple Jazz
Trip Capacity: 25
Cost/person: $160 (includes dinner, jazz show, bus transportation)

A rare New York City experience. Go to the historic Sugar Hill district, the Home of Harlem Jazz, and experience a private session with some of the world's best Jazz Musicians and a privately cooked meal.