Street Games Of The Lower East Side

Something I really enjoyed doing. A nice piece of work from 2002 that I recently found and converted for this blog format. The principal of PS 20, Dr. Leonard Golubchick, who was interviewed here, teased me that anyone growing up in Knickerbocker Village was considered middle class by the lower east side standards of the 1930's-60's. He grew up
near Delancey Street in tenements. I'm sure, however, that his dad (a union official) made a better living than mine and he didn't live with his family in just a one bedroom apartment. His school, coincidentally was where my father atttneded when it was housed on Rivington and Eldridge. The current PS 20 was built in the mid 1950's. The original PS 20 was famous for having as its attendees, George and Ira Gershwin, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, Irving Caesar, Harry Golden and Jacob Javits. Meyer (Mike) Sosinsky and his brothers (sisters?) went there as well. Mike was the father of the Sosinsky brothers who lived in Knickerbocker. The schoolyard of PS 20 was used for a scene in Naked City in 1949. It's visible in the clip above at about the 2:10 mark