Book Review- Crossing Broadway- Its’ Importance for Educators

I recently finished reading Crossing Broadway- Washington Heights and the Promise of New York City by Robert W. Snyder. This book traces the history of the various ethnic groups that inhabited this neighborhood –Irish, Jewish, Greek, Puerto Rican and Dominican. For many it was the first stop on the immigration train and became a springboard, for some, to a better middle class life in New York and its suburbs. Snyder, a professor of Journalism and American Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, takes a detailed look at this neighborhood near the George Washington Bridge, and the collage of cultures that made it both unique and familiar in the American immigration experience.

One topic, of particular interest to me, is the discussion of public education in Washington Heights. George Washington High School was the epicenter of public schools in the neighborhood and had a fine reputation. Not that far away, the public schools in Harlem, still a part of the New York Public School system, had a less stellar reputation. The schools represented the aspirations of the families that that sent their children there. Get an education- be the first in the family to go to college- get a good paying job- and move out of the Heights.

Crossing Broadway also traces the trials of the teachers unions, in this case the American Federation of Teachers, and their quest for better conditions for their students, reducing overcrowding and the defacto segregation that existed in New York public schools.

Readers  are also introduced to Mrs. Ellen Lurie, mother of two school-aged children, who became an activist for integration and the plight of minority children in the school system. She was also at the forefront of an effort for community control of schools.

Professor Snyder also weaves in the politics of the neighborhood and the city and the roles of its various mayors, Lindsay, Dinkins, Giuliani, and Bloomberg.

While much of this book deals with cultural, economic and political issues, it is a worthwhile read for educators to wish to understand the ongoing struggle for better public education in minority neighborhoods and what parents and teachers can do to empower themselves.

Crossing Broadway By Robert W Snyder

C.2015

Cornell University Press

C.2016 J. Margolis