This picture is from the graduating class photos taken in 1940. The guy in the middle, L. Moskowitz, is my father. The picture is from P.S. (Public School) 30 Junior High School in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. My father was 18 at the time, and he was just graduating junior high.
My father came to this country four years earlier (1936) from a small town of what was then Czechoslovakia. He spoke no English. At home he and his parents and siblings spoke Hungarian, because their town was in Hungry before World War I. (It's now part of Ukraine.) From an Orthodox Jewish upbringing, he was initially sent to a yeshiva in Brooklyn for his education. He rebelled and insisted that his father let him go to the local public school. His family lived on 82nd Street; the school was on 88th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. When I was a kid, I lived on East 88th Street and I remember walking by. By then the school was closed and abandoned. Later it was torn down entirely to make way for an apartment building.
Let's take a look at a larger picture of the entire graduating class. All boys, because I assume it was a boys school. Or at least the classes might have been segregated by sex. From the looks of the picture, my father wasn't the only older kid in the class. Some of those other boys look pretty old for junior high as well. And the names are the names of immigrants. Szabo, Tkacz, LoPresti, Viskupic, Fedorico. Given the neighborhood, I'm assuming most of them were Hungarian, Czech, or Slovak, with Polish, Italian, and other immigrants thrown in for good measure. There's was a large German population in Yorkville at the time. Yorkville was known for it; there were breweries and famous food establishments like Schaller & Weber (opened in 1937) In those days, students were not allowed to advance in public school unless they could speak English and keep up with the work, which is why there were older kids in junior high.
After my father graduated PS 30, he went to Seward Park High School on the Lower East Side. He rode the public bus with a kid named Bernie Schwartz, who later became known as the actor Tony Curtis. The country was still recovering from the Depression and the city had a huge influx of immigrants from all over, many fleeing Nazi Germany. The reason my father was able to learn English, in spite of the fact that it wasn't spoken at home, was that he desperately wanted to be American. The school assigned him, and all the other immigrant kids, individual tutors to help them along.
After graduating from high school my father enlisted in the Air Force. In 1943. He ended up as a mechanic on airplanes, mostly B24s. He did a lot of maintenance on the Norton bombsight in Italy. He was the youngest in his family and the only one to go to college. He attended City College on G.I. bill. (City University says that nowadays 45% of its students are immigrants or the children of immigrants.)
I mentioned the story for two reasons. The first is that my father's Junior high School picture has been sitting next to my desk since he passed away. The second reason I mention this is because it reminds me how we're a nation of immigrants. In my father's day and beforehand, like my wife's family, the immigrants came mostly from Eastern Europe and Southern Italy. Before that, Irish. You could go on like this for a long time. I am continually reminded that if grape harvest had not rotted on the tracks because of a rail strike in Czechoslovakia in the late nineteen teens, my grandfather would never have emigrated. He came to New York City in 1922 and became a blacksmith, working on the ironwork at the Cathedral of St John the Divine. He never would have gone on the in the grocery business thereafter. Once he was established, he called for his wife and younger children to join him, and they did. If there hadn't been a rail strike and resultant desperation, they would not have left their home, and my grandparents and my father and some of his siblings would have instead been murdered in Europe, like all my relatives - aunts, uncles, and cousins - who remained.
My father was always grateful to have been able to immigrate here, and to serve in the US army and to work as a NYC civil servant. In spite of his enthusiasm for the United States, he was always nostalgic about the Old Country. "You never saw so many types of wonderful apples at the market!" was a sample recollection. He also said to me that paying taxes was a privilege: it meant you were successful.
Happy Father's Day to all. PS 30 in the 1940's - from the NYC Municipal Archives
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06/17/2026 Tom Podnar
That is a beautiful testimony. Thanks for writing it!
06/17/2026 Bruce Mack
Amen to that, Joel. My mom emigrated as a young Lithuanian and my dad came from the Ukraine. Both would have died in the Holocaust. God bless America.
06/17/2026 Brian Barney
Unless we’re Native American we are all immigrants, thank God. My ancestors were forcibly moved from England to Scotland by Cromwell and their descendants forcibly moved to Ireland.Then thanks to the potatoe blight we ended up in America. Bring back open boarders, our best genetics come from our racial mix.
Thanks for that thoughtful post, Joel. Though you don't say it expressly, I hope there was/is love between you and your father, or his memory. There certainly was and is with my Dad, who died too young at 65 in 1980.
And thanks for reminding us how important immigration has been, and continues to be, to the USA.
As a 47-year resident alien (overdue for dual-citizenship), I think of the USA as my home and worry about whatever threatens it, as much as any American.
06/17/2026 Gary Coyne
Beautiful story. There are far too many folks in this country who, now that they are here, want to close the door. Stupidest thing on earth.
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And thanks for reminding us how important immigration has been, and continues to be, to the USA.
As a 47-year resident alien (overdue for dual-citizenship), I think of the USA as my home and worry about whatever threatens it, as much as any American.