It’s about that time of year for the annual school ritual known as picture day.
In 1976, these adorable second graders from P.S. 41 on West 11th Street posed as a class. (This is before class size was an issue in schools, of course—there are 35 kids in that photo!).
Colored tights, prairie skirts and dresses, bowl cuts, and Michael Jackson iron-on shirts were all the rage among mid-1970s downtown kids—or at least their parents, who went to local discount stores like Mays for their offspring’s stylin’ wardrobes.
Get a kick out of city class photos from the 1970s and 1913 here.
Tags: 1970s clothes, class photos, class photos from the 1970s, Greenwich Village in the 1970s, growing up in the 1970s, P.S. 41, public schools in New York City
Ephemeral New York 
September 29, 2011 at 9:01 am |
When I attended school in the 1950s there were more then a hundred kids who lined up and posed on the steps of the old St Georges Church on 7th Street of the East Village (gone now and replaced by a newer St Georges). How the teacher handled us I have no idea? But I can only imagine the camera that took our picture that day, probably a big box with a cover for the photographers head shielding him from any light. No wonder that many of the faces are smudged from bored kids just looking around as the photographer kept yelling over and over, “Don’t move! Don’t move!” How easy it is nowadays…
September 29, 2011 at 1:14 pm |
This looks a LOT like my old class photos – same era, other end of Manhattan! Thanks for the laugh –
September 29, 2011 at 5:20 pm |
those kids are still today younger than i am.
October 1, 2011 at 11:41 pm |
I had you beat in 2nd grade… 37 kids in this pic from Queens, 1978-79.
October 2, 2011 at 12:17 am |
Oh my god, the height of the disco era too!
October 3, 2011 at 11:30 am |
The parents may also have purchased the kid’s clothes here, not far from the school.
http://mrbellersneighborhood.com/2002/02/gee-the-kids-need-clothes
October 3, 2011 at 2:39 pm |
I love this, thanks for sending it! My parents definitely opted for the cheap polyester clothes along 14th Street or the clothes my mother made for us on her Singer in the living room.
October 12, 2011 at 5:47 pm |
children…
[…]A goofy 1970s Greenwich Village class photo « Ephemeral New York[…]…
May 28, 2023 at 11:16 pm |
That was my school PS 41. I was in the first grade that year but Mrs. Ackerman was my 2nd grade teacher 77-78. What a great school. Loved growing up in the city. Especially in Greenwich Village.