P.S. 1: Old School (Literally)

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architecture, Charles B.J. Snyder, children, Chinatown, DeWitt Clinton, education, Henry Rutgers, history, immigration, Manhattan, schools, Two Bridges

There are four public schools in New York City with the moniker “P.S. 1”, but only one school can claim to be the oldest public school in New York City. Located on Henry Street in Manhattan, the school began its existence in 1806 as an immigrant school in a “small apartment”, predating the establishment of New York City’s Board of Education. In early 19th-century New York City, education was primarily the domain of private schools and church-sponsored charity schools. By 1805, there were 141 teachers for a growing population of 75,770 and then-mayor DeWitt Clinton began to recognize the urgent need for children of poor immigrant families to be educated.

DeWitt Clinton, 1823. Painting by Rembrandt Peale.

The Free School Society of New York was founded as a response to the “multiplied evils which have accrued, and are daily accruing, to this city, from the neglected education of the children of the poor”. The Society embarked on a mission to provide a free education for the children of New York City in the areas of reading, writing, arithmetic, and morals.

Italian Schoolchildren in 1892

In May 1806, “New York Free School No. 1” opened with 40 pupils on land donated by Henry Rutgers. The school quickly outgrew the donated space and a brick schoolhouse was built in 1809. In 1897, the school moved to its current building designed by Charles B.J. Snyder, the Superintendent of School Buildings for NYC’s Board of Education from 1891-1923. Snyder was responsible for designing many school buildings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in New York; the old Stuyvesant High School building on East 15th Street was one of his projects.

Charles B.J. Snyder, 1900.

The front facade features separate boys' and girls' entrances.

The building has roof parapets and wide windows for maximum light and ventilation. Upper and lower yards provide space for recreation.

Schoolboys in a toy-making class at P.S. 1, 1900. Courtesy of New York State Archives.

Schoolgirls in a nursing class at P.S. 1, 1900. Courtesy of New York State Archives.

Children at ballroom dance practice in the large and updated indoor yard. Courtesy of World Journal.

P.S. 1 has educated generations of immigrant children. In addition to academics, boys were taught trades like carpentry and girls were taught needlework and nursing. Now approaching 115 years of age, the building’s narrow hallways continue to reverberate with the sounds of schoolchildren, many of whom are now of Chinese descent.

Tiger Gods and Butterflies

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Chinatown, history, immigration, Manhattan, Manhattan Bridge, New York City, Peking opera, theater, Two Bridges

The rumble of trains on the Manhattan Bridge is a constant reminder that you are in the Two Bridges neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. What used to be a traditionally Jewish, Irish, and Italian neighborhood has now become homebase for many newly-arrived Chinese immigrants from Fujian Province.

In the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge on East Broadway lies a bustling mini-mall of sorts with noodles, candies, and dried seafood spilling out onto the sidewalk. Red envelopes and scrolls with good luck wishes are displayed as Chinatown readies itself for the Lunar New Year.

It wasn’t so long ago that a movie theater was in this very spot. Built in 1911, the Florence Theater was a popular locale for Yiddish vaudeville and motion pictures. In 1942 it was rechristened the New Canton Theater and became popular for Peking opera. A Hong Kong opera group, stranded in the US during World War II, persevered by staging elaborate numbers every night for ten years. An issue of LIFE magazine from 1950 touted the New Canton as the “only Chinese theater in America.”

An actor performs as a Tiger God in the opera "The Beautiful Butterflies". From Life Magazine, May 1, 1950.

A ticket stub from the New Canton Theater found in between the pages of a book.

In 1950, the theater was renamed again, this time as the Sun Sing Theater. Shortly after, Peking opera ceased production and the Sun Sing began to show Cantonese films. In the 1970s, the city needed to build an additional deck to the Manhattan Bridge and Sun Sing Theater was in danger of demolition. With many Chinatown residents working long hours day after day in restaurants and sweatshops, Cantonese cinema was one of the few affordable and pleasurable escapes they had in the community. Theater fans rallied to save the building and engineers were able to compromise by eliminating some theater seats and adding supports so the structure could remain intact.

Considered the grandest of all Chinatown theaters and known for showing double features (a rarity these days), the Sun Sing Theater presented Cantonese films, occasionally with English subtitles. During the theater’s sunset years, a marketing effort was made to reach out to English-speaking fans of Asian crime and martial arts movies; moviegoers were provided with a short, typed-up synopsis of each film after paying for admission. In fact, real life mirrored fiction as Sun Sing became the location of Chinese gang-related shootings and activities.

Nonetheless, Chinatown residents, coming from an urban Hong Kong tradition steeped in Cantonese cinema, continued to patronize the theater. The Sun Sing Theater was one of five theaters in Chinatown; all are gone now, with the last one, the Music Palace on Bowery, closing in 1998.

Knickerbocker Village

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Chinatown, Frederick Fillmore French, history, immigration, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Knickerbocker Village, Lower East Side, Lung Block, New York City, tenements, Two Bridges

Covering two whole city blocks, Knickerbocker Village is one of the largest middle-income housing complexes in Manhattan. Located in a non-touristy area of Chinatown, this behemoth mass of brick is located on Monroe Street between Catherine and Market Streets, and is made up of two twelve-story buildings each surrounding a well-maintained courtyard.

Tenement slums originally occupied the area upon which Knickerbocker Village stands. Other buildings that once stood here were handsome and fashionable houses, subdivided into smaller units to accommodate the neighborhood’s growing low-income population. 650 mostly-Italian families paid an average of $5 per room.The area became known as “Lung Block” due to its high number of reported tuberculosis cases; most apartments had few windows and inadequate ventilation. In addition to the crowded housing stock, Lung Block also had eight barrooms and five brothel houses and was considered just as notorious as nearby Five Points.

Lung Block, 1933. The street to the right of the island of tenements is Monroe Street. Hamilton Street, now gone, is to the left of the island. From New York Times photo archives.

Map with letters indicating reported cases of TB on Lung Block. a represents a reported case in 1894; b is a case from 1895, etc. Shaded areas are undeveloped land.

Razing entire tenement blocks was the favored method of urban renewal at the time, although current medical science today suggests that a thorough disinfecting and greater access to ventilation could have saved these buildings. In the late 1920s, developer Frederick Fillmore French slowly began buying up individual lots on Lung Block; by the time French was ready to build Knickerbocker Village, he had acquired fourteen and a half acres of real estate in the area. As part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, federal funding became available for private developers to build housing and French’s plans for Knickerbocker Village took advantage of this financing opportunity. As city planners and developers alike began to predict the arrival of the middle class in the Lower East Side, French envisioned Knickerbocker Village as housing for up-and-coming “junior Wall Street executives”. Rent was an average of $12.50 per room, an amount that was out of reach for many former Lung Block residents and resulted in a mass exodus to other slums.

Lung Block razed.

Almost two-thirds of the units in Knickerbocker Village are one-bedrooms with parquet floors, small kitchens, and tiled bathrooms. Many early tenants were socialists and organized clubs centered around hobbies like photography and fencing. The award for Knickerbocker Village’s most infamous residents would probably go to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were executed as spies for the Soviet Union and it is very likely that some of their clandestine activities occurred in their 11th-floor apartment.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, 1951. From the Library of Congress.

In the 1970s, Knickerbocker Village was sold to new owners. The building employs a horticulturalist to maintain the flora in the courtyard gardens and surrounding grounds. Peeking through the security gate, one can catch glimpses of a calm oasis unlike the cacophonous streets of Chinatown. The residents are indeed lucky to have such an affordable sanctuary in an increasingly gentrified neighborhood with rising prices to boot.