Along with the school, we also got a massive complex of playgrounds, basketball courts and a full sized football field with real grass -- that part took almost a year to finish.
While the JHS 109 rep was not good, the JHS 166 school with mostly the same kids - well, probably much more white - was considered one of the best in Brooklyn at the time. There were 16 classes on a grade -- I was in 7-16 -- they reversed the numbers that year - so 7-1 was the tough class. Generally, there were two top level performing classes on each grade -- the school fed into Thomas Jefferson HS -- the only kids who didn't go on to there were the ones who passed the Brooklyn Tech and Stuy tests -- and we were given after school prep for those tests - which I still bombed out on.
Decades later, as even that new at the time white neighborhood began to experience white flight, the poverty in the area increased and the school by the Bloomberg era was considered a failure and charter schools, including the UFT middle school charter (which ultimately failed) were installed and the JHS 166 school was replaced. So the very promising George Gershwin JHS disappeared into history a half century after it began.
Today is the birthday of the composer George Gershwin, born Jacob Gershvin in Brooklyn, New York (1898). He was the middle child in a tight-knit family of recent Russian Jewish immigrants. When his father bought a piano for his brother Ira, George sat right down on the bench and started to play. At 15, he left school to work on Tin Pan Alley as a song plugger, a sort of house musician for the music companies. Gershwin had an ear for arrangement, and before long, he was writing his own songs. His first one earned him just $5, but soon he was turning out hits such as “Swanee,” which sold in the millions.
Encouraged by this early success, Gershwin partnered with his brother Ira and began composing full Broadway operas. The two produced popular musicals, including Funny Face (1927) and Strike Up the Band! (1930). At the age of 25, Gershwin premiered his “Rhapsody in Blue,” and later “An American in Paris,” which featured accompaniment written for taxi horns. These compositions became orchestral standards. In 1935, he composed his folk-opera, Porgy and Bess, which features such classic songs as “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” In 1936, at the end of its original run in Washington, D.C., the cast successfully protested segregation at the National Theatre, leading to the venue’s first-ever integrated performance.
10 comments:
I was in the first graduating class and was thrilled to no longer have to walk from Williams and Sutter. Nobody seems to remember Mr Sirisky who conducted the orchestra. I attended Jeff for 1 year before moving to Far Rockaway
I was in 7-16, 8-2 and 9-1.
First grad class too. 59.
My walk was from Alabama and Riverdale.
The big field wasn’t finished till the second year I think.
Mine was the school’s first graduating class, 6/24/1958, with the ceremonies held outdoors in the spacious field. The date is particularly etched in my memory for my Mom attended very pregnant, to my embarrassment around classmates, and that evening gave birth to a brother and a future pediatrician, Daniel. With fraternal affection, Prof. Asher J. Matathias, Woodmere, NY
So I went there moved from Strauss jhs in Brownsville with the school unfinished I was in 7th grade. You must have been in the 8th grade
I transfered to Gershwin in 1970 from a JHS in BedSty. I experienced white flight from the other side being in Mr. Schwartz homeroom with a few white students. One by one, they left. Jimmy Smits was a year ahead of me and I graduated moving on to Music & Art. I loved my time at Gershwin. AngelaB
I was in the 7th grade in 1963 and remember my English teacher Ms. Kennedy. I also remember the one piece gym outfits the girls had to wear. Fond memories at 76 years old.
So you were 5 years behind me. I don't remember Kennedy nor the names of any teachers -- wait - a Miss Schits? Music or Guidance. Mr. Ashford for wood shop.
I taught art at JHS 166 from 1956-1958. The school was then 1/3 White (mostly Jewish), 1/3 Puerto Rican, and 1/3 African American. I'd been shocked to discover that some students in the less gifted classes had not yet learned to read. I loved them all, my home room kids especially. They had so much vitality and vigor. Problem students were sent to an "800" school, and often returned calmer, more amiable, and better able to focus on learning. Drugs were a problem for some.
Those were the years I went there. I don't really remember a lot of teachers but I do remember a great music program. The school building was new but not the school itself as students and staff were transferred from JHS 109 in Brownsville which was closing.
I lived on Georgia Avenue, between Dumont and Blake. During my first two years of Junior High School, I attended PS 109. After the Spring semester of 1955, I was transitioned to the newly built George Gershwin JHS. My recollection of PS 109 is that of a chaotic environment, hardly conducive to obtaining a meaningful education, at least for those easily distracted. If you were able focus while some students rolled dice in the back of the room, you could learn something. Some teachers ignored that sort of activity while others took a firm stand against such disruptive behavior. Mrs. Vesper (Killer Vesper) was an enforcer of orderliness. I once witnessed her throw a bunch of keys at a disorderly classmate and hit him square in the chest. At the time, I thought that the spot where the keys landed, may have shown the imprint of key cuts. That type of chaotic environment was prevalent at the time in some NYC public schools. Coincidentally, the Hollywood film Blackboard Jungle, Starting Glenn Ford, was released in March 1955.
I had a bus pass that covered a portion of the fare for the one mile ride to George Gershwin, which was less than 10 minutes. The walk to the school was just over 20 minutes. I preferred to walk when it snowed, just to play in the snow along the way.
George Gershwin, was a different environment altogether. I will not speculate on whether the positive culture at George Gershwin was due to the new and more inviting structural environment, the teaching staff or the composition of the student body. I do remember a feeling of being in a safe space that fostered more meaningful school community connections.
Mr. Greenstein was my homeroom and algebra teacher. I was in group was 9-13 and the student composition consisted of 22 jewish kids (12 males and 10 females), seven black (4 females and three males), one female Native American Indian, and one Puerto Rican, which was me, for a total of 31. I still remember most of my classmates, many of them by name. We graduated in May 1957 and the commencement was held at Brooklyn College, a couple of miles from Ebbets Field, where I would got to watch the Dodgers play. Upon graduation, I attended Jefferson High, just a block from my home. I was so close to the school that I spent much of my free time playing stickball and handball in the school yard. In November 1958, I had to drop out due to my mother's frequent Asthma attacks, and returned to Puerto Rico after having lived eight years in NYC.
I attended high school in a small mostly agrarian, West central town of Puerto Rico in 1960. From there, I attended the University of Puerto Rico and obtained a business degree, and later a juris doctor degree, thanks to a scholarship that I received.
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