elve
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, Februory 26, 1956
Sunday, February 26, 1956
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
... _ _,. _ . .......I S..nd.... Jury 26 ..9 6 - -- --, -
THtIHGA AL
Work ...
Common Denominator
BIT OF THE BEST, BIT OF THE WORST
By SVEA BLOMQUIST
WHEN YOU TALK about spend-
ing a summer in a "work
camp," most people look at you
with a kind of puzzled expression
on their faces. Sometimes they,
just laugh and say, "Oh camps are
for children," and let it go at that.
But to anyone who has been a
member of a work camp group,
whether for a weekend, or two
weeks, or two months, a work
camp means many more things-
and none of them vague at all.
To one it might mean school
rooms freshly painted in Philadel-
phia for under-privileged children;
to another, the sound of excited
boys when they are given a new
baseball lot to play on.
To me it means a new building
and the smiling faces of a people
whose language I do not under-
stand.
LAST SPRING I heard of a work
camp that was being sponsor-
ed by a board of the Presbyter-
ian Church. I inquired about it
and was told that the Presbyter-
ian Board of Missions was going
to send a group of young Ameri-
cans to a town in Puerto Rico.
Their job would be to help the
people of the town to improve
their community. Under t h e
encouragement of a friend who
was already enrolled in the groupt
I joined.
What it cost me was the price
of an airplane ticket and $60.00
for room and board, which am-
mounted to about $1.00 a day.
WE LANDED at the ultra-mod-
ern airport in San Juan very
early on a Sunday morning in late
June.
We were to work in the town
of Mayaguez on the western coast
of the island and we then got into
cars to finish our journey. There
were about 13 of us Americans. We
were joined by several Puerto
Rican young people who lived and
worked with us for all or portions
of our stay.
We arrived in Mayaguez about
4 p.m. in the afternoon, and moved
into our "home." Our "home" was
the Marina Neighborhood House
in a poor section of the town.
Our first week was spent in
painting a dispensary next door
to Marina, and in getting to know
each other and the children from;
the neighborhood who stood and
watched us.
THE NEXT week our real job
began. Our work camp was to
build a day nursery behind the
neighborhood house for the pre-
school children of the community,
whose parents work during the
day.
(continued from page 4)
-Photo Courtesy of Gordon Putnam
THE AREA IN WHICH THE PUERTO RICAN GROUP WORKED
It was then that we were intro-
duced rather abruptly to cement
blocks and sacks of cement and
lime, and the art of laying blocks.
We worked every weekday morn-
ing, 4nd several afternoons a week.
Two of our other afternoons dur-'
ing the week were spent in two
seminars.
BY THE SIXTH week our build-
ing was nearly completed, and
we began painting it. It felt good
just to stand and look at it. Not
another Mason Hall, no, but a
yellow building that we had built
with our own hands.
All work camps are for the most
part church sponsored. The jobs
may be of a physical nature, such
as repair and building; or they
may be of a more concentrated
social type, such as working in a
community center, or organizing
recreational programs.
IN ADDITION to the task that
the work camp has set out to
do, there is the educational side.
Members of the work camp get to
know and understand each other,
while they are developing an
awareness of the people and com-
munity, or the country in which
they are at work.
the more than 1,800,000 people whc
live within its limits and make
New York what it is.
MOST of them came to Manhat-
tan from other places-small
towns; farms, industrial centers
--and settled there because they
liked it, or had to stay, and then
began to appreciate it.
The lives they lead are not very
different from those led by people
throughout the country. The dif-
ference lies in the never-ending
variety that their city offers to
them.
Of course, all this leads to a
rather patronizing attitude on the
part of the New Yorker when he
visits other cities.
If he goes to Chicago, he is not
impressed by the six legitimate
theaters there, for the Broadway
area alone has more than 30.
In New York, he can choose
from more restaurants in which
to eat; more stores in which to
shop; more museums, entertain-
ments and frustrations-more of
everything.
A ND there are other parts of
the city he can see and enjoy
which lead to a fuller appreciation
of Manhattan.
He can drive along Riverside
Drive and look out over the Hud-
son River. He can stroll through
sprawling Central Park on a warm
spring afternoon; he can wander
through an art exhibit in Wash-
ington Square or go down to the
Battery and take a ferry ride
across to Staten Island on a swel-
tering night.
In most cases, he ventures down
.to Wall Street only if he works
on the stock market; he pushes his
way along Seventh Avenue only
if he manufactures women's clo-
thing; he goes down to Chinatown
on rare occasions, preferring the
numerous Chinese restaurants on
Fifty-Second St.
He stands on Broadway and
Forty-Second Street only if he's
waiting to cross, and he usually
goes down to Greenwich Village
for a more specific purpose than
to observe the Bohemian way of
life.
"The Village" of the past is in
the past, for since the war it has
been settled by a large number
of families, and the curious visitor
will find himself dodging more
baby carriages than canvases of a
Sunday afternoon.
Neither is the native of Man-
hattan very impressed by Park
Avenue, for he knows that a great
deal of the wealth of the city has
moved off that street. Increasing
numbers of office buildings are
rising out of the rubble of dis-
mantled former luxury apartment
houses.
BUT the New Yorker has many
things in common with the
out-of-towner. During the day,
he is subjected to the same scream-
ing horns and side-swiping taxis
and the same one-bite lunches that
the visitor must endure.
For from nine to five the com-
mutors invade, entering the city
from the "metropolitan area"
which includes Long Island, West-
chesterCounty, Connecticut west
of Darien and Stamford and a con-
siderable portion -of New Jersey,
not to mention the other four
parts of New York City.
But probably, most of all, the
New Yorker shares with the visi-,
tor the feeling of wonder at the
great variety that makes up Man-
hattan-the frightening deteriora-
tion of the men of the Bowery
against 'the elegant sophistication
of Fifth Avenue; the paradox of
Park Avenue, which startles the
traveler by all too suddenly plung-
ing him from the lush fantasia of
the rich into the misery and
wretchedness of the poverty-
stricken; the niarrow, winding
streets of lower Manhattan, eter-
nally darkened by the mountains
of sky-scrapers which line them
and the bright,' airy green of Cen-
tral Park's rolling acres, a refresh-
ing oasis in the middle of the gi-
gantic concrete desert.
-M
NOW- 7 DAYS for as low as$I4O'
Rates Include:
j-' ROUNDTRIP TOURIST TRANSPORTATION t
Pan-American from New York.
.' ROUNDTRIP TRANSFERS by motor car frc
hotel.
W HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS with meals as it
v USE OF SWIMMING FACILITIES and privab
your hotel.
v"FIVE-HOUR CRUISE including barbecue lunch
island, calypso entertainment and rum s
uThAV Un BUvrsEAty
1313 South University
Newest tour
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Two days-One night.
only $9.80 per person
DOWNTOWN HOTEL (one night)
BREAKFAST IN YOUR HOTEL
CHOICE OF
A four-hour or two-hour sight-seeing 'tour
of Chicago, or
A three-hour tour of public museums, or
A tour of Chicago's Chinatown and Chi-
cago by night.
TICKET to television show or radio broadcast
TRAVEL BU REAU, INC.
1313 S. University NO 2-5587
.ra......,........2,...,
T-PHoEo Courtesy of Co EYHliHKABaUl
THE DAY NURSERY THAT THE WORK CAMP BUILT
Study
By VERNON NAHRGANG
A PROGRAM of interviews with
government officials and politi-
cal leaders is featured in a summer
study tour sponsored b§ the
Americans for Democratic Action.
Cost of the tour abroad is $850
to $1150, and applications should
be sent -to ADA, 1740 K'Street, N.
W., Washington 6, D.C.
Various American colleges coop-
erate in sponsoring European and
Latin American study tours at
costs ranging from $950 to $1300.
Applications for summer study
abroad under American colleges
should be sent to American College
Council or Bureau of University
Travel, 11 Boyd Street, Newton,
Massachusetts.
For information on study tours,
work camps, and summer schools,
write Council on Student Travel,
179 Broadway, New York 7, New
EUROPEAN.HOLIDAY'
Via the Mediterranean Gibralter and Palermo, Sicily
ITALY, AUSTRIA, SWITZERLAND, GERMANY,
NORWAY, DENMARK, SCOTLAND, HOLLAND,0
ENGLAND, BELGIUM, FRANCE 11 COUNTRIES 4150
OMITTING SCANDINAVIA . . . $1165.00
SAILING New York, June 27 RETURNING New York, August 29
FIFOO-------------------
FOR INFORMATION
-IMRS. MARIE NETTING
CALL: WRITE: 1004 OLIVIA, ANN ARBOR
MRS. MAE UFER
NAME
ALPHA DELTA PI, NO 3-1813
" Address
Itinerary Planned 8B Rersma Travel Service 1
York, or in care of Office du Tour-
isme Universitaii'e, 137 Blvd. St.
Michel, Paris V, France.
Another study program takes the
student to Israel where he studies,
tours and works for a short time
under the Israel Summer Institute.
Applications, to be sent to 16
East 66 Street, New York 21, N. Y.,
must be in by May 15,. Cost is
$800 and various scholarships are
available.
European theological and eccle-
siastical life in relation to Euro-
pean culture is studied by the
Lutheran Student Association of
America, 327 South LaSalle Street,
Chicago 4, Illinois.
Scholarships are also available
under this program. The cost runs
to $750.
National Education Association
(Division of Travel Service, 1201
Sixteenth Street, N.W., Washing-.
ton 6, D. C.) offers study tours to
Europe, Mexico and South America
for its members.
Study tours to Europe and Hol-
land in"architecture and technol-
ogy are offered by the Netherlands
Office for Foreign Student Rela-
tions, 29 Broadway, New York 6,
N. Y.
Students spend 56 days during
July and August at a cost of $555
to $645. Also available are one
week tours in Holland in other
fields of study.
CityOf Vill1ages
(Continued from Page 3) a healthy, open hill-top, where the
judges came to walk and discuss
which may add the words "by their cases away from the plagues
appointment," indicative of service which ravaged London in 1665.
to the Royal family. Here is the Georgian villa where
Not far, in Pall Mall and Picca- the prosperous tradesman brought
dilly are the clubs. The Athe- up a boy who would write poetry-
naeum, the Travellers' Club, the John Keats.
Carlton Club, the Cavalry Club,
and so many more of mounting THE THAMES is lined with vil-
degrees of exclusiveness. Women lages which are part of Lon-
cannot be members. 4 don - Chelsea, Putney, Mortlake,
London has none of the open Hammersmith and Chiswick. They
air cafes or luxurious patisseries are all distinct and individual
and restaurants where women can communities, situated next to the
meet and talk. The most common river where the lines of small
places of refreshment are the pub- boats stand moored; some homes,
lic houses. Heavily Victorian redo- some the absorbing hobby of ama-
lent of leather, plush and brass, teur yachtsmen, some derelict
they offer beer, meat, cheese and hulks, but all contributing to the
pickles. The talk is quiet and spirit of the place.
relaxed, usually of weather and In fact it can be said that Lon-
gardens, of sport and hobbies. don is a city of villages, some for
the great like St. James, and some
BUT London is not just the City, for the small, like Hoxton, and
Westminister and the West they, all have equal respect for
End. 'It is besides an agglomera- each other.
tion of towns and villages appar- The only threat which this way
ently unified, but really separate of life has to fear is that of indus-
and distinct. trial progress leading to conform-
Soho,. with its narrow streets, ity. This in the '19th century pro-
passageways and sudden staircases, duced the wastes of West London,
its busy street markets by day streets of solid domestic. mansions
with barrows of fruit, vegetables, of appalling ugliness, behind stone
clothes old and new, hardware, walls and high hedges which killed
and multifarious and exciting social life and hid the passing of
junk, its countless cosmopolitan many sad and lonely lives. In the
restaurants by night, is individual, 20th century came surburbia to
personal, and a town whose in- surround and strangle these com-
habitants belong to Soho first munities.
and London second. This is the unreal city to which
On the hills of the northern Eliot refers in "The Waste Land"-
fringes of London are the villages, depersonalization and ugliness. But
Hampstead and Highgate, where it -is still possible to leave a main
the tide of Suburbia has rolled street and find a backwater where
round, but not over, and left an people are still living individual
existence which has changed little lives. This is the reward .for the
fundamentally ii two centuries, person who sets out to find Lon-
Here is Judges' Walk still, along don, and it is a great satisfaction.
aE
-TOP
IN
:k VACAT
WEA
.44
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COTTO N
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$24
1 I107 South University - Across from Ann Arbor
STORE HOURS 9 A.M. to 5:30 P.M.
:"' "x
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STUDENTS International Travel
Association offers study and
adventure trips in Europe, Latin
Applications must be made by
April 1 to SITA, 545 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N. Y. Cost ranges from
$450 to 2250.
Study tours to most of the world
are featured under an extensive
_I
program sponsored by the United
States National Student Associa-
tion, Educational Travel Inc., 48
West 48 Street, New York 19, N. Y.
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