Public Schools in East Harlem

Miss Block was my first grade teacher at P.S. 102.  She was the same first grade teacher both my sisters Ann and Rose had and believe it or not, my mother had her as well.  Miss Block was the epitome of a spinster teacher.  I can still see her in my mind’s eye.  Short silver grey hair with practical comfortable shoes.  I also remember Mrs. Battista from sixth grade who was a stern looking woman with short red hair.  They are the only two I remember.  I lived at 113th Street First Avenue and the school was located in the block on 113th Street.  I walked to school every day.  I really can’t recall anyone walking me there, except maybe for the first day or so (I really can’t even remember).  We had lunch in school and I came home at 3:00 o’clock.  I started school earlier than most kids.  I was supposed to be enrolled after I had turned five years old or at least four years and nine months old for the upcoming school year, but I started Kindergarten when I was four years and 6 months old.  My mother fought to get me enrolled early and when my mother wanted something….look out!!!

When we were ready to move into the new housing project in 1955, my mother wanted a particular apartment. It was ground level facing First Avenue between 114th and 115th Street so she could see what was going on in the neighborhood and didn’t have to use the elevator. The apartment was across the street from some of the local hangouts, the Sugar Bowl, Nick Sicarotta’s Club and Harry’s Candy Store where Muzzie took his bets. Yes he was a bookie who smoked a huge Bering cigar.  Although Muzzie and my mother never married, I considered him to be my stepfather.  He was the one who walked me down the aisle when I got married. Anyway, mom went to the housing office every single day until they got so sick and tired of  her, they gave her the apartment she wanted. After we moved in, she would park her chair in front of the window and watch everything that was happening on the avenue.  She could also see Muzzie who was usually walking up and down the avenue. During the New York City blackout in 1965 I was working in the Pan American Building. We tried calling our families but the lines were tied up.  I finally got through to my mom after trying a few hours to tell her I was okay.  Of course everything was black on the street and she said “All I can see is the light from Muzzie’s cigar walking back and forth.”

P.S. 102 was for grades Kindergarten through 6th grade.  When we moved, I was in the middle of 6th grade so I had to finish the year out.  That was the year I took Economics and learned to bake an apple pie. You could say it was the start of OMG Cakes, Inc..  My mother and her family were very big sweet eaters. When I brought the apple pie home, my mom ate it. Never said a word. God forbid she would give me a compliment, but a few weeks later she asked if I would bake an apple pie for her. At last validation!  I learned many years later that she told my aunts the pie was delicious.

Seventh through ninth grade was P.S. 159 which was on 119th Street between Second and Third Aveue.  This is where I met some of the girls from 115th Street through 122nd, First and Pleasant Avenues.  We hung out at Mangini’s on 116th Street, Char-ko-lette on ahun16th Street between the FDR Drive and Pleasant Avenue (had the best egg cream sodas), and at the corner candy store on Pleasant Avenue across from Benjamin Franklin High School. We also hung out behind Benjamin Franklin High School.  It was an all boy high school at the time. We would squeeze through an opening in the fence in the back of the school.  We would smoke, (yes we started smoking around 14 or 15 years old) and we would have our teenage dates back there too, making out on the concrete benches in between the large pillars (see photo).

After Junior High School we had to pick which high school we wanted to go to. We had a choice of either Julia Richman or Central Commercial.  I chose Central Commercial. Actually my mother chose. It was where my sisters Ann and Rose went to high school. Didn’t mind going there, but I had to choose commercial courses rather than an academic course because, you got it, that’s what my sisters took. At least I got to go where my best friend Lorraine was going. She was one grade above me. We became fast friends in May of 1955 when we moved into the project. Central Commercial was on 42nd Street in Manhattan between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.  It’s not there anymore. It was replaced by one of  Leona Helmsley’s hotels.

We made a lot of new friends from our neighborhood…two Josephines from 108th Street, Elaine from 120th Street, and a few others whose names I can’t recall.  There were about four stops where we had friends getting on at the bus stop. One of us would put our arm out of the window waving so our friends would know we were on the bus and it was okay to get on.  We had so much fun on the way to school as well as on the way home.  We would all meet up after school and take the same bus home.  What pranks we played on the people in the bus.  Lorraine was the biggest prankster and would come up with some doozies.   I’ll never forget the day she brought a bottle of liquid farts on the bus.  When she opened the bottle in the back of the bus, everyone cleared out.   She would laugh so hard she would tear up.

Wow every time I write a blog, my mind takes me back to a time I wish I could revisit for just a little while.