MOSES GATES
What’s Your City Horoscope?
Date: Saturday 9.19
Start Time: 4:00pm
Location: Rosenberg Gallery, Barney building
Workshop Requirements: Participants must email their name and birthday by or before September 12 to Moses Gates at mosesgates [at] gmail [dot] com
Max attendees: 20
Most people know the 12 basic horoscope signs. Most people also know the 5 boroughs of New York. But just as astrologers use the Sun, Moon, and Rising combination to take these 12 signs and create 1728 different possible horoscopes, the United States Census Bureau divides up the 5 boroughs of New York City into 2217 separate geographical areas, called Census Tracts. A typical census tract is approximately 10 square city blocks, but can vary greatly, including such areas as Central Park, JFK Airport, and two abandoned islands of the coast of the Bronx. By converting your time and place of birth into one of the these census tracts, you will have your own personal section of New York, called a “City Horoscope.”
Participants will give their date, time, and place of birth in advance, which the facilitator will numerically translate into a City Horoscope. Participants will also provide a short self-description. At the beginning of the workshop, participants will be given a map and directions to their specific Census Tract. Participants will return with their impressions and a (possibly) a photograph of the area, which will be displayed at the conference, along with their astrological horoscope and their self-descriptions.
Moses Gates is an Urban Planner and Tour Guide who has written extensively about travels to the hidden and unknown areas of New York, as well as Paris, Rome, Sao Paulo, Moscow, and other world cities. In this capacity he has been profiled in the New York Times, consulted for books and television, and have appeared as an on-camera guest host on the History Channel.
He is extremely skeptical about the American Community Survey’s ability to replace the Census long form as an acceptable source of micro-demographic data. For his birthday he’d like an expanded and separated bike and pedestrian path on the Pulaski Bridge. Three of his ongoing projects in New York City are to walk through all 2217 census tracts, visit every abandoned subway station, and climb every bridge in New York. He is 37%, 63%, and 41% done respectively.
