St. George's Ukrainian Catholic School on East Sixth Street at Taras Shevchenko Place will close after this school year in June, Scoopy reports in this week's issue of The Villager. The reason: Low enrollment. There are reportedly just 90 students from pre-K to 12th grade. La Salle Academy, who moved in a few years back, apparently uses the majority of the space.
However, a source tells Scoopy that La Salle will "eventually" return to their former home on Second Avenue and East Second Street. And then what happens?
"We think probably it will be taken over by N.Y.U. or Cooper Union," the St. George School source told us of the E. Sixth St. school building.
From the school's website, a few photos ... no exact date is given on these two...just some time in the 1950s...
9 comments:
I recall that in the 1st photo was Father Patrick who used to be the Principal of the school, walking along with Pani (Mrs.) Knish who taught the Kindergarten. It was in the procession for the new school at the time, probably the middle 50s or so.
"We think probably it will be taken over by N.Y.U. or Cooper Union" and my place and your place. This is news?
And in the last pic the kids are walking past the old Cooper Union on 7th Street & 3rd Avenue. What a difference from today.
So the next time Eva Moskowitz or Michelle Rhee or Joel Klein or any of the mayor's pro-school privatization buddies tell you our public schools are failing and must be tested to death and replaced by charters, consider this: K-5 schools in the neighborhood are packed to the rafters and turning away kids for Pre-K, while private (well, religious, anyway) schools are closing due to insufficient demand.
Also see my book about St George's School in the 1950s-60s, "Holy Communion," it won me the Lambda Award as Best Bisexual Fiction 2009
One friend of mine describes her entire time going to school here as "looking for opportunities to sneak off and get high".
This makes me very, very sad. To all the assholes who posted negative crap comments here on EV Grieve about St. George's School: Go fuck yourselves along with the whiny,self-entitled bastards who go to Cooper Union & the obnoxious NYU dicks.
RIP Lesia Pupshaw. You are always in our hearts & our thoughts. We have never forgotten you & never will sweet girl. We are so sorry that circumstances made you feel that Tompkins Square Park & abusing drugs was your best refuge. You never really had a chance given the poor support system you were dealing with as a young teen. We miss you & love you always Lesia. Love, Bianca & Lisa (Bianca's mom)
St George was the BEST thing that happened to me as a child growing up on the LES; the nuns were strict but kind and truly loved teaching children, singing with us, teaching us Art like no others; I was taught that God is a loving father not a cruel master; they never once told us that we'd burn in hell, like my Irish & Italian Catholic friends told me later in high school; MOST importantly, when I got into high school, I was two years AHEAD of everyone else in Math & Science. The priests were tremendously strict and as I recall the really awful-bad bully-type kids got punished. Also, the times were very challenging; I used to witness beatnik junkies hang out on my street then later came the stoned-out hippies who were NOT as peace-loving as you might think. Crime, drugs, mafia hoodlums, & violence were everywhere. Try raising kids in THAT kind of environment - St George was a haven of culture, safety, sanity & great education.
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