Sukhpreet Singh's American Landscape and Sights

When it comes to ethnic landscapes there are two in particular that come to my mind. One of them is Jackson Heights in Queens and second is a ethnic landscape that is developing and is quickly becoming a center for Indian people and the various cultures that descriptor defines, Hickesville in Nassau county. Hickesville is interesting because I personally have witnessed the development of Hickesville into a "Little India". When I first moved to Levittown, Hickesville was already beginning it development into an ethnic landscape, some of the first Indian stores in the town are still there, though the building they were in have changed quite a bit. This little shopping plaza is home to some of the first Indian stores in the area, Patel Brothers in particular is a fairly important store as its one of the best places for Indian groceries. From here it only expanded. Restaurants, boutiques, salons, more grocery stores moving in to compete for business and perhaps most im

So this weekend I ended up heading back to Levittown, my cousin was getting married and it was an event that I couldn't miss. So I decided to use the opportunity to reexamine Levittown with the a different perspective and perhaps try to keep my first experience with Levittown from coloring this evaluation.  So starting off in the area that I live there is one particular house design that is most prevalent. The majority of the other houses are mostly a variation of this design in one way or another. For example My home pictured below is also variation of the same design as well, The exterior in particular was completely renovated. Just looking down the street there are at least three houses lined up that are also a variation of the same design. But I will say that looking at these houses now compared to when my family first moved here that the variation has grown more distinctive. Different kinds of windows, sidings, doors, some houses have awnings, oth

This song is in someways very similar to my thought process when my family moved Levittown. We moved to Levittown around the time I started high school and I still remember the eerie feeling of discomfort I had when my parents drove me and my little brother to our new home. The two of us had not once seen the house or the neighborhood, the only thing we knew was that we were moving to Levittown and that was it. So when our parents drove us through this neighborhood the only thing that came to my mind was why do these houses all look the same? They were just this surreal nature to the neighborhood that I couldn't place. Now the houses weren't all the same they were variations in small details and there was the occasional house that had been remodeled and stood out from the crowd of sameyness but wow I will probably never forget that feeling and the song sort resonated with me because of that. So in many ways this post may be a little bias because the song's criticism feel

The garage feels like such an integral part of car culture, but is something I have personally never really experienced. Growing up I lived in an apartment complex in Queens, New York and when my family moved to Levittown we moved into a home that did not have a garage, it used to, but the garage was actually converted into an extension of the house and was basically turned into a family room. And surprisingly this is the case for many of the houses on the block that I lived on, but in general the typical Levittown home is a two floor house with an attached garage, and the second floor generally does not extend over the garage. These are the garages that I have been exposed to the most, attached one car garages. Some people used these garages as purely for storage electing to leave their cars parked in the driveways, some actually used their garages as a place to park their cars and some like the previous owners of the house that my family moved into elected to close the garage off