Introduction to Everyday History
Greetings! I’m really excited to be starting this blog, where I intend to post everyday observations that relate to the history of a place—usually New York City. I’m going to start with selections from a trove of many, many documents that I have brought up from the basement of my school building at 610 East 12th Street, between Avenues B and C in the East Village. There are many years of student registration cards, principals’ memos, teachers’ record books, and quite a lot more, many of which highlight both the surprising differences and the striking similarities between school “back in the day” and now.
Most of these documents are from P.S. 61, the school that was originally housed in our building, which was built in 1913. P.S. 61 closed in the 1990s, one of many East Village elementary schools that have shut down as the population contracted. Interestingly, the basement also holds many student registration cards from P.S. 104, which is now known as M.S. 104 or Simon Baruch Middle School—including ones that predate 1913. When I investigated the mystery of how they landed in our basement, I learned that P.S. 104 had once been located at 17th Street and Avenue A, an intersection that no longer exists. It was in the Gas House District, a neighborhood that was razed in the mid-1940s in the name of “slum clearance” (or more palatably, “urban renewal”), and replaced with Stuyvesant Town, which does not follow the Manhattan street grid. Our principal, Maria Velez-Clarke, explained to me that when a school building closes, its documents are often moved to another building for storage. This is what happened to the registration cards from P.S. 104.
At a glance, materials like these may seem trivial. Who cares where some random kid lived in 1910? What difference does it make if someone’s parents got angry about a dress code misunderstanding in 1958? And so what if a 9-year-old hurt his wrist in 1944? While none of these may have the obvious broader importance of (for example) an air raid instruction poster, each of them can lead to really interesting information and questions about life in the past, as well as reflections on life today. In my following posts, I plan to explore each of the documents posted here in order to demonstrate how even a seemingly insignificant piece of paper can become a portal to history.
I would love to read any relevant comments!
The bow tie controversy - page 1
Richard’s accident report - page 1
Salvatore Giacopelli’s registration card (front)
Air raid instructions
The bow tie controversy - page 2
Richard’s accident report - page 2
Salvatore Giacopelli’s registration card (back)