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At P.S. 234, Thanks for the Memories
When the building happens to be Tribeca’s P.S. 234, turning 20 this year, it is with a Jungle Bounce and DJ, old news clippings and school pictures, traded memories and hugs. It’s a 24-year-old recalling her bread study and a 9-year-old perusing photos of children her age, taken before she was born. On Sept. 20, past and present merged in a party attended by many of the students, teachers, parents and administrators who have passed through the school’s red double-doors over the last two decades. And all four of its principals over the years were on hand to celebrate: Blossom Gelernter, Anna Switzer, Sandy Bridges, and the current leader, Lisa Ripperger. “I’m very happy I’m not Lisa right now, though I really do miss this place,” said Bridges, who preceded Ripperger and is now at home with a 2-year-old. “Returning here is always bittersweet,” said Switzer, the school’s principal for 13 years. “I didn’t realize how much I would miss the privilege of being around children all the time.” Former PTA president George Olsen, whose son Clay is a P.S. 234 graduate, fondly recalled morning drop-off time during the school year. “It was like the meeting place of the community,” he said, “And I think it still is.” “You feel a little disjointed when your kid’s not here,” Olsen added. “But everyone moves on in life.”
The P.S. 234 building turned 20 this year, but the school’s roots go back to 1976, when it opened on the third floor of Independence Plaza, at Greenwich and Jay Street, where P.S. 150 is now located. At last month’s anniversary celebration, the Trib spoke to the school’s first two principals, Blossom Gelernter (1976- 1989) and Anna Switzer (1990-2003), about those early days. Below are excerpts from that interview. Blossom Gelernter: Independence Plaza had just been built and the kids there needed a school. The school district first sent them to a school in Chinatown. That didn’t work out so Independence Plaza gave the kids the school space, a small space to be sure, but there weren’t that many kids, anyhow. And they were pretty much on their own. I was working for the school district at the time. The superintendent asked me to come and help them out. The parents and the teachers there were really sort of free-floating. I came down to help and I never left. This was a time when the Board of Education didn’t always know what one was doing. First I came two days a week then I came three days a week and then I was spending all my time there. I had never considered being a principal. I was a fierce union member, principals were the enemy and if they weren’t the enemy then they were ridiculous. It was a little school with three or four teachers. The parents were very supportive, and we were able to carry out ideas that all of us had been nurturing. We were able to do it because it was small and nobody watched us. We didn’t have an assistant principal before then and it was a coup that we got the superintendent to give us one. Anna and I were friends before and we wrote our master’s thesis together And I really wanted her to come here If we could sit in that little office for a year and not kill each other then it was clear that we would be able to work together. I wish I had the picture that we have of the two of us in our office in the little school. It was about the size of this table. Anna Switzer: The first day I remember Blossom took out some furniture polish at the end of the day. I had never seen anybody wash like Blossom washed. And I think it was a real message to me about how things were done in this school. All of those very strong administrative skills—returning phone calls, answering mail, staying on top, spending every cent of your money and knowing where it was. And on the other hand we had a very collaborative, cooperative, individualistic, informal, door-open approach.
This school was always different. First of all we had multi-age classes. Kids were in K-1 together, they spent two years together, the teachers all called each other by their first names, the kids called the teachers by their first names, everybody at school called us by our first names, so it was an immediate sense of informality based on a notion of democracy. This is the most enfranchised neighborhood I have ever known. I think it started because people here had to build everything for themselves and as a consequence got to know everybody personally. You could go and talk to any elected official, you could go to the community board, you could have a voice and people get used to treating each other very well. That was particularly important after 9/11 because there were so many dissenting points of view about things like when we should go back, when it was safe, but we were able to always cooperate and be collaborative. I was very lucky that I had been a principal a long time and so I had the trust of the community. I was used to leading, although I had never really known the people at the Board of Education. I was at a stage where I wasn’t afraid to do that. I’m very proud of how much we accomplished and what we did for kids. It was an extraordinary time, but I think the whole history of the school has been rather amazing.
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