Patrick Machado

Essay 1 Peer Interview

ENGL 21002

09/14/20

I was fortunate enough to interview David Khafizov in his father’s barbershop around my neighborhood. While giving me a haircut, I had a meaningful conversation with him. When I was interviewing David, I learned that we both have the same passion for art throughout the Harlem community. David has been part of this community for ten years. Thanks to the fine arts, I was able to pursue my career as an architect and guide him to be a future architect. Although he was born in a Flushing community, he felt more connected with the Harlem community. David mentions that he is connected with his clients, and his connections in Harlem made him a diverse person. David mentions poverty, drugs, and crimes as the conflicts that his community is facing.

At the beginning of the interview, I started asking him questions that would help me understand more about his community or his daily routine as a barber in Harlem. The first question I asked him was how his job as a barber helped him connect with the people in this community. He responded that even though he was born and raised in Flushing Queens, he feels Harlem is his home because of the reason that he made a lot of connections in this community and he does not feel alone like Flushing. He is happy working with his father in the barbershop and he soon realized that all of his clients go to local universities. He told me that a lot of them are international or from out of state. Based on his response to my questions, I was able to analyze how many people from other boroughs often visit the Harlem community. I did not know that the majority of his clients were from Columbia University and the City College Of New York (CCNY)  in the past four years. In the middle of the interview, he was expressing how there are a lot of significant problems throughout the community such as poverty, drugs, and crime. David explained that the negative factors of Harlem are high crime rates, old residential buildings, and poverty. He knows Harlem should have a better representation and should not live in poverty. He explained to me that Harlem is not just a black community, many cultures come to his father’s barbershop to express their cultural backgrounds. We both connected on the fact that we do not discriminate against any race and all lives matter. At the end of the interview, we talked about how two great colleges from Harlem such as Columbia and CCNY motivated him to be more than just a barber. We bonded more in our interests of architecture. He mentioned that his clients in Harlem influenced and motivated him to go to CCNY in hopes of his dream of being an architect finally coming true.

Personally, after he finished my haircut, I was surprised that David’s community is treated poorly in comparison to other neighborhoods because of the experience of poverty, drugs, and crimes. To summarize David’s experiences, he told me that there are a lot of homeless people living in the streets. Therefore those people form a group to steal money from others which increases the crime rate. Also, they form a drug business and selling to innocent individuals in the streets of Harlem. His father’s barbershop is called Columbia Barbershop located at 121st and Broadway. He does not understand how Harlem is the condition that it is in when there are two prestigious universities in that community. Before I studied at CCNY I thought that Harlem was being plagued by drugs and crime above 125 street. Since I lived in the Upper West Side, individuals have made rumors that the Harlem neighborhood is dangerous and they tend to rob any Middle or Upper Class individuals. My parents told my brother and I to not ever walk alone since they believe that we would be kidnapped. I was scared to go to study in Harlem because of my parents’ influence. However, David explained to me that the majority of Harlem is a chill space except for 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, 110th Street and Madison Avenue, Second Avenue between 122 and 123 street, and especially East Harlem. 

Meanwhile, in the Columbia Barbershop, his interview changes my perception of Harlem because I did not think it is culturally diverse and it is not just black individuals living and walking through Harlem. Even after he finished my haircut session, I saw a lot of people with different backgrounds waiting in line outside just for a haircut. Those turned out to be David’s clients from Columbia and CCNY. David told me that those people are mostly Middle Class and they do not believe the rumors of Harlem being the most dangerous place. I was aware of the rumors before I went to the Columbia Barbershop. But I never knew that my partner was a barber and he is social with everyone in the shop. Many cultures, gave him the advice to go to CCNY and hopefully one day I will be his mentor in The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. Throughout my haircut, I asked him the issues that Harlem is facing, and if their issues can be solved. During the session, he wished that Harlem can have a better representation besides drugs and crimes. The first resolution that can fix the issue in this community is to build better residential buildings. When I was walking around CCNY and Columbia Barbershop, I saw an abundance of old fashioned buildings. The design does not look appealing like my buildings in the Upper West Side. The second resolution that can fix the issue in this community is to decrease the crime rate. This community has too much crime such as murder, robbery, and burglary. To resolve this, I believe there have to be more police stations in this community. The last resolution that can fix the issues in this community is to decrease poverty. Individuals in Harlem need to have better wages and more wealth fare programs.

My peer’s community is different from the Upper West Side for instance poverty, drugs, and crime. I consider them to be part of a marginalized community because of the fact they are being ignored by other communities. All the neighborhoods in New York City do not want to be involved with Harlem’s problems. Besides, they fear that if they get involved then their neighborhoods will disrupt their peaceful life.