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 of Sy .;: 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 ..~ ~'I vy vLec COTTO N g- $24 1 I107 South University - Across from Ann Arbor STORE HOURS 9 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. :"' "x :x . :A...-.. ,. . I 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. A 4... - - ._ -~ .4 -A44 I-