In the broke New York City of the 1970s, P.S. 41, on West 11th Street, was a lot rougher than it is today.
Parental involvement was minimal. Big yellow school buses, not nannies, ferried kids back and forth from their homes in the Village, Soho, and Lower East Side.
It wasn’t uncommon to have your brown-bagged lunch stolen and eaten by a hungry classmate before you got to it. And 30 kids to a class with one teacher? Totally normal.
One thing probably hasn’t changed though: class pictures are always pretty goofy. What became of these first graders from 1975, who are now in their early 40s?
Tags: class picture 1970s, class picture PS 41, funny class pictures, growing up West Village 1970s, New York City class photo, PS 41, public schools New York City, West Village 1970s
November 12, 2012 at 7:15 am |
Really? That radical a transformation in only one decade? In the early to late 1960s I lived on the Lower East Side where the schools were not very good academically and people in my area were always scheming to get our kids into P.S. 41 in the Village. That’s because it was such a good school (per test scores, reading levels, culture and reputation). The student body was a mix of middle class, upper middle class and bohemian. The demand was such that the school was vigilant about admissions and it was just about impossible to fake one’s way in. What happened? This is just a guess, but this could have happened as a result of the Board of Educatoin dropping this school out of the district that ran from the West Village up through the Upper West Side. This was often employed as a strategy for keeping a “good” district exclusive.
November 12, 2012 at 7:37 am |
Oh, I’m sure it was still considered a good public school in the 1970s. This is the West Village, after all. Yet by today’s standards, it probably would be considered iffy. Part of it was cultural; parents weren’t so involved in smoothing out every facet of their kids’ lives. You were expected to take a bus to school and deal with bullies.
But also, the city was broke, middle-class residents were moving out, and the teachers union went on strike that September. The school board had decentralized school districts in the late 1960s. I think it had to have made schools rockier, even PS 41.
November 12, 2012 at 9:39 am |
I do remember those general conditions in the 1970s. By then I’d lost touch with what was going on at P.S. 41 and anything outside of District 1. If kids were coming to P.S. 41 in school buses, I think something must have changed with the districting. I remember the 1968 teachers strike. It was an incredibly difficult time for everyone. Decentralization, however well intentioned and politically correct and so forth, was in practice a horror show–at least as I experienced it. But I experienced it in District 1 (on the LES), not in the district which at the time included P.S. 41. Interesting post, anyway. Thanks. Those children are adorable!
November 12, 2012 at 2:38 pm |
I went to PS 41 until I graduated in 1963. My brother and I walked alone to school from Bleecker and Sullivan Streets, quite a long distance for elementary school kids. I do not recall any of my classmates coming to school via school bus, but I did know three kids who lied about their addresses to come to PS 41 because it was such a good school. They took the subway long distances alone to get there.
November 15, 2012 at 2:57 am |
I went to PS 41 in the late 70′s. I will never forget Principal Tsefura(spelling?) His famous mantra in the cafeteria, “ALRIGHT, EVERYONE GIVE ME YOUR RIGHT HAND!!!” He sure whipped us into shape. I would love to grab a photo composite from back in the day. My teachers were Lacks, Mandell, Lazarus, (something that begins with H), Weinberg, and my all time favorite Mr. Smith. Hit me up if you have any leads: atlanticbounty@gmail.com
November 15, 2012 at 3:03 am |
I had Mrs. Lacks!
November 16, 2012 at 3:01 am |
So, Wildenewyork….does that mean that one of those adorable first-graders is YOU?
November 16, 2012 at 3:09 am |
Close! My sister is the fourth kid in the bottom row.
November 18, 2012 at 5:23 pm |
Love this picture