Mr. Robert Sandler shares that his NYC History class explored the legacy of slavery in New York by touring Saint Augustine Episcopal Church on the Lower East Side where enslaved churchgoers worshiped without being seen by white parishioners. They also studied the rise of SoHo with gorgeous 19thc shopping palaces and how the neighborhood after deindustrialization became known as “Hell’s Hundred Acres”, and then explored how starting in the 60s and 70s artist pioneers illegally squatted and transformed the area into an artistic and cultural mecca. The class had just studied how Jane Jacobs stopped Robert Moses’ LoMex expressway that would have destroyed all of this landmark cast iron architecture. It was incredibly meaningful for the students to see the area they learned about in person!
The class also toured the gorgeous artwork of the Bialystok and Eldridge Street synagogues to see how Eastern European Jews created beautiful houses of worship during the Gilded Age. Students ate pastrami at Katz’s deli and Chinese bakery treats like egg tarts! It was a great day! (photos courtesy of Mr. Sandler) See a full size collage here.
