I hear the phrase 'melting pot' used fairly often when it comes to New York. Are you in an area where there are several different cultures (or could you find them)? Perhaps one part of this project could be showing a piece of how the cultures are different, and then another part showing how the different cultures are similar and linked.

Maybe even expand/narrow it to the different generations in each culture: how the older generations are culturally different from one another (sometimes not even speaking English), but as the generations go down all the cultures mix together.

Don't know how you could do it in photography, but I'm not the art student :P

Edit: Thanks, the acronyms make sense now upon further investigation. I R clueless.