Historian Kathy Jolowicz remembers like it was yesterday when she couldn’t walk down 86th Street without hearing people speak German.

 She remembers when she could get authentic German food at mom-and-pop shops and when Christmas time meant the streets were ambushed with music, the polka and the waltz. She remembers when the Upper East Side was Yorkville, where everything from the old country was either imported or recreated to feel like home.

“It’s my passion, its my heritage, it’s my childhood,” Jolowicz said, who was born and raised in Yorkville. “It was my Disney Land.”

Jolowicz lived the memories that are now in picture frames on her walls and are written in massive books on her shelves.  But she shares those memories in exhibits and lectures and displays over 40 pictorial panels that are 30 by 40 inches wide, decorated with Yorkville facts and photos.

During her lectures, her topics shift according to what her audience wants to know.

“If it’s a young group, they all want to know about the war, what was it like for Germans in the war,” she said. “If I have an older group, they reminisce.”

Jolowicz has been writing a book that covers German roots in New York City from the 1600s to the 1960s. It also covers the German’s contributions to New York City and the Upper East Side when it was German Town, or Yorkville/Kleindeutschland.

When she started the book in 1988, she originally wanted to write a six-chapter book about Yorkville. However, the book has grown to 20 chapters as she continues to research and add information about Germans in the city.

“It’s not that you just sit down and write a book,” she said.  “There are so many details that have never been put together and that’s what I’m trying to do now. It’s not easy.”

She also writes about her family. Her parents Ruth and Paul Jolowicz were Yorkville pioneers and moved to New York City in 1932 from Leipzig.

“When you write from the head, the chapters about my family and my experiences, and how they adapted to this country and how I grew up in the adaptation of their life, that was easy,” she said.

Another topic she touched on was her family’s experience adapting to America during World War I and II. At the time of the World Wars, Jolowicz said Jewish kids picked on her for being German American when she was younger.

“Germans still have a bad connotation, not so much the younger ones, but the Holocaust is kept alive, and rightly so,” Jolowicz said. “I would have never condoned such a thing. What I’m trying to do with my book is to bring out the positive side to Germans.”

Jolowicz started the German Language Learning Club in 1990 where she teaches children and adults German at P.S. 169 between Park and Lexington Avenues. Her students and their families march in the German American Steuben Parade every year. Jolowicz, who has two Bachelors of Fine Arts degrees, is currently working on her German Language Certificate from the Goethe-Institut in Germany.

She holds a Stammtisch that meets once a month in Yorkville to eat, drink beer and speak German whether native or non-native. Since 1973 she has run the East 83rd/84th Street Block Association. And she’s a member of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District.

“My memories are still in my heart of walking 86 Street, the music, everybody knowing everybody,” she said. “This was a community, it was a family, it was a village. And it was all I knew.”

Fast-forward to today, and you can see how MTA public transportation is still one of the best bargains in town.
—Larry Penner

DEFYING COMMON SENSE
To the Editor:
It defies common sense that any municipality would place a transfer station of this scope in a densely populated residential neighborhood. The number of garbage trucks alone will overwhelm the narrow streets. No other facility of this kind is anywhere near a New York City neighborhood, especially one with so many children and schools. This area of Yorkville is a beautiful, quiet corner of the city with Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion only a few blocks away. Has the mayor or Christine Quinn ever really spent any time here? The existing facility has been closed for years because of its negative impact on the community. No amount of modernization can deflect its impact. I feel that the community is actually being victimized because there are no powerful development interests here. Can you imagine the mayor trying to place this facility in the “hot” Tribeca area or near the new West Side developments? In addition, trying to paint this neighborhood as part of the elite Upper East Side is disingenuous. This is a working-class Manhattan neighborhood. Not that it matters. This does not belong near anyone’s home or school. Everyone needs to continue to remind our mayor that this facility is unacceptable, and to remind Quinn that we vote.
—Sharon Wolf Horowitz

Gomez’s letter was one of around 1,000 testimonials delivered by schoolchildren to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s official residence at Gracie Mansion last Thursday, Dec. 13. Led by adult protesters, several of the young letter writers marched to the mansion to oppose the controversial construction of the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station, a $240 million project that will renovate an inactive station at the far end of East 91st Street to transfer Manhattan’s garbage onto barges for transport along the river.

The city’s administration proposed the transfer station—which technically is not a dump—as part of its Solid Waste Management Plan in 2006, with the aim of reducing garbage truck emissions and street traffic by allowing more trash to be moved by barges. Proponents praise the future station’s state-of-the-art technology and potential for decreasing the city’s pollution, and have argued that Manhattan, which currently is the only borough without a waste transfer station, must share the city’s burden of waste management. Opponents in the Yorkville community that will host the station, however, contend that the station’s supporters have overlooked a key factor: the station’s proximity to Asphalt Green, the popular sports complex next door between East 90th and 91st streets.

“Putting a garbage dump near Asphalt Green will not only ruin the atmosphere of this place, but it will also serve as a health and safety hazard to all its users,” said Michael Domagala, 16, reading from his letter to the mayor at a rally in the green before the march. Domagala, a prodigious swimmer, trains at Asphalt Green, and recently set the national record in his age group for the 200 meter freestyle.

Matthew Resnick, a 17-year-old senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, said that when he moved to New York five years ago, he thought it was “a city where leaders put the demands and health of a people before politics,” but today he “question[s] the values and intentions of the city administration.”

“I insist, Mayor Bloomberg,” he read, “that you do not put our futures out with the trash.”
Other students from around the city who use the park submitted letters at the request of Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, a volunteer community-based organization that has filed a lawsuit against the city for the approved construction project. Asphalt Green has filed a separate lawsuit with Assembly Member Micah Kellner and City Council Member Jessica Lappin against the city and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who approved the project’s safety.

“This is about the worst place you could put a dump,” said Carol Tweedy, Asphalt Green’s executive director, before she led the charge to Gracie Mansion. “Kids have little lungs. Until the age of 10, their lungs aren’t fully developed. They breathe more heavily than adults, especially when they’re physically active. So the diesel emissions and all the other pollutants that would come make this a very dangerous site [for a transfer station]. We can do better. The city can find a better place. This is a bad choice.”

Tiffany Bolling, after-school program coordinator at Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood Center, a social service agency two blocks away on East 93rd Street, shared Tweedy’s concern for the health of the children in the neighborhood.

“Our kids are thinking very critically about their environment, and about their neighborhood and their community,” she said. “Places they’ll play and places they’ll grow up, their friends—they’re thinking about more than just themselves.”

Jamil Brown, a 7-year-old in one of Bolling’s programs, said that the station “is a bad idea because it pollutes the air.” He scrunched his face. “And there will be lots of rats.”

Jackie Peu-Duvallon, a historic preservation consultant, and Tara Kelly, Executive Director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, check out buildings on East 83rd St.

By Paul Bisceglio

If you live in Yorkville, don’t be surprised if you see Tara Kelly or one of her volunteers standing on the street, notepad in hand, staring at your building.

“As soon as people know you aren’t a developer, they usually don’t mind,” Kelly said. “I tell them I’m from Friends, and they say, ‘Oh, I love Friends!’”

Kelly is the executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, a nonprofit on Lexington Avenue whose mission is to keep the Upper East Side’s—and, right now, specifically Yorkville’s—diverse history intact.

“What we aim to preserve is any place that has a distinct sense of place,” Kelly explained. The organization, which was founded in 1982, primarily goes about preservation through architecture. The Upper East Side’s buildings have been built, rebuilt, torn down and altered for centuries, so Friends’ job is to sift through miles of architectural variety along the city’s streets to find what is worth holding on to.

To do so, Friends performs “cultural resources surveys,” which is a fancy term for walking through neighborhoods and taking notes on buildings—all buildings. In Yorkville, the organization is currently cataloguing every lot in the neighborhood. Since 2010, the project has been recruiting volunteers throughout the Upper East Side to fill out survey forms for every building on a block, accounting for things like each building’s style, materials, window type, similarity to others in the neighborhood and overall perceived historical value.

Jackie Peu-Duvallon, a historic preservation consultant who lives at East 89th Street and Madison Avenue, has volunteered with Friends for about a year. She joined Kelly last week to survey East 83rd Street from Third to Second avenues.

“I want to maintain a sense of place between what my husband [who was born on the Upper East Side] experienced and what my son will experience,” Peu-Duvallon said of her motivation for participating in the survey. “As a resident, it becomes disconcerting when you see things like Second Avenue becoming a canyon of glass towers. You wonder, is this the neighborhood that people used to know and love, or is this becoming something else now? Are we losing character in giving up historic buildings that may have gone unrecognized?”

Peu-Duvallon and Kelly overlooked no door, step or windowpane as they surveyed each building along East 83rd Street, chatting architecture, snapping pictures and cracking jokes about a couple of less-than-sound aesthetic choices. Kelly explained that Friends seeks out buildings of individual cultural importance—like St. Elizabeth of Hungary, an attractive old Catholic church on the block—and that contain details reflecting the neighborhood’s overall historic character.

Friends ultimately does not decide what buildings are preserved, though. That is the job of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, a governmental agency with the legal power to designate single structures or entire districts as historical landmarks. Roughly 30,000 buildings in New York City—about 3 percent of all buildings—are landmarked either individually or within historic districts.

Kelly wishes there were more. A significant part of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts’ resources are devoted to identifying and recommending landmarks worth of designation—an approval process which, according to Kelly, takes from three months to multiple years depending on feasibility and the commission’s interest in the proposed site—but Kelly says that her organization is also dedicated to exploring ways of teaching communities about their cultural landmarks when designation is not practical. If a neighborhood has historic door fronts, say, or interesting signage, Friends notes these details in their surveys, and may use them to create a photo exhibition on their website.

Kelly also noted that regardless of how many buildings are landmarked, her job will never be done. “The city is ever evolving,” she said. “Buildings built now are landmarks of the future. As long as there are new buildings, there will be landmarks to be designated.”

“I certainly speak for the group when I say it’s a misguided plan and we’re going to do everything we can to fight this plan,” said Jed Garfield, a local who is also the president of Residents for Sane Trash Solutions (RFSTS).

The grassroots nonprofit was formed last year in response to the city’s pressure to get the MTS up and running, as more and more residents became aware of just what that might mean for their community. Garfield said that over 7,000 people have signed on to join their cause, with hundreds of active members like him who volunteer their time to get the word out to their neighbors and advocate against the MTS.

“I have at least a dozen individuals in the group who are prepared to chain themselves to the fences if the city tries to move ahead with this thing,” Garfield said.

He and the other opponents are quick to point out that the people who will be affected by the MTS aren’t the stereotypical Upper East Side residents that many people call to mind automatically.

“Those who support it say that it’s only fair that the Upper East Side should do its share. It’s not the Upper East Side; the Upper East Side is where Mike Bloomberg lives on 79th Street and Madison Avenue,” Garfield said.

Dale Cohen, an architect who lives in the neighborhood, said she felt like outsiders don’t understand who is actually living near the proposed dump site, which is why there isn’t more outrage from the rest of the city.

“It’s not impacting the wealthy part of the Upper East Side, it’s impacting the middle class,” she said. “I was told directly by real estate agents that I work with to move, because it will completely devalue my apartment. [But] I have no interest in moving, I love Yorkville, I like being close to East End and the park; it’s a very quiet and affordable neighborhood.”

Some people in the area are seeing this latest development as a sign to cut their losses, said Garfield, but most aren’t prepared to or don’t want to leave the neighborhood they call home, even if it means it will drastically change.

“Residents are very concerned—they were very disappointed that the Army Corps granted the permit,” said David Mack, another local who founded RFSTS. “The way the city is portraying it, and I guess it’s their right to do so, is as if this is a done deal and shovels are going to get set to dig. This is definitely not the end of the fight.”

Some are banking on legal channels to work against the city. Garfield said that RFSTS has raised over $500,000—much of it from small donations—that is being focused on public relations to get the community’s message out to the whole city and on legal efforts. They are looking into filing lawsuits and are also supporting the lawsuit that Assembly Member Micah Kellner currently has before the courts, which alleges that the city has to revise its environmental impact statement for the MTS based on increased estimates of trash capacity before they can move forward.

Garfield said he’s encouraging people not to lose hope.

“You’re always losing until you win. That’s part of the battle that I deal with,” he said. “Bloomberg says it’s going to get built. Well, it’s definitely going to get built if you don’t do something about it.”

rep. Maloney Hails Benefits of all
Last week, Rep. Carolyn Maloney met with local health care providers, patients and advocates to tout the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as it was recently upheld by the Supreme Court.
“It’s important to remember that, because of the ACA, insurance companies can no longer remove young adults under the age of 26 from their parents’ health care policies, refuse to provide coverage to kids under age 19 with pre-existing conditions or place lifetime limits on coverage, all of which have been pushing families into bankruptcy when facing a catastrophic illness or condition,” Maloney said. “Already, the ACA is offering significant tax credits to thousands of small businesses in our congressional district access to help insure their workers.”
Jeff Gold, chairman of the board of directors of the Metro New York Health Care for All campaign, an Upper East Sider and a general partner in the JI Associates tech firm, joined Maloney in praising the ACA’s benefits to small businesses like his own.
“With the United States paying more for medical coverage than any of our industrial/commercial competitors, we must ensure that small businesses and their employees have access to high-quality, affordable medical coverage,” Gold said. “The ACA will allow millions to get affordable coverage instead of going to the most inefficient hospital emergency rooms for basic coverage, and remove the burden of shoving small businesses like mine into stratified risk pools that make coverage harder to buy, afford or even evaluate.”
Other local residents joined in to voice their support and explain how the ACA has personally affected them. Kenneth Davis, president and CEO of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, also expressed his support for the law.
According to data from a 2012 study prepared by the House Energy & Commerce Committee minority staff, the ACA has saved 10,200 seniors in Maloney’s district $7.7 million in drug costs and allowed 6,100 young adults in the district to retain their health insurance, among other local benefits from grants given to local health centers and hospitals and provisions that prevent patients from being denied coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

Hunter Renovation recently Completed
Last week, Hunter College president Jennifer Raab and City Council Member Dan Garodnick cut the ribbon to reopen historic Thomas Hunter Hall. The 1913 Tudor-style building, which was named after Hunter College’s founding president, has been newly restored, with historically consistent new windows and stones. The renovation cost nearly $12 million and included replacing the roof, repairing existing wood window frames and leaded-glass windows and stone replacement and restoration. The building at one time held Hunter College High School and will be available again to house student clubs, lounges, classrooms and the college’s dance program.

Yorkville Historic Resource Survey
Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts is holding a survey of Yorkville to catalogue the neighborhood’s unique historic elements and is looking for volunteers to help with the efforts. The group will be studying a section of the Upper East Side from East 59th to 96th Street, from Lexington Avenue to the East River, encompassing a neighborhood known for its history as a center of German, Hungarian, Irish and Czechoslovakian immigrant communities.
Those interested in helping can contact Matthew Coody at 212-535-2526 or mcoody@friends-ues.org to sign up. Volunteers will get an introduction and instructions at the Friends office, then go out with clipboards and cameras to document building information (address, types of windows, characteristic features, construction material, architectural style) to add to the survey report.

The proposed garbage dump that will go next to Asphalt Green.

Opponents of the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station (MTS) planned by the city are joining forces with a seemingly unlikely ally, the Friends of LaGuardia Airport. What residents against a trash facility in their neighborhood have in common with a group that advocates for safe conditions at an airport in Queens is that both groups want to halt the transfer station in its tracks.

Air safety experts have begun to speak against the Upper East Side transfer station, as well as another planned for College Point in Queens, pointing to both planned facilities as wildlife attractants that will increase the number of dangerous collisions between flocks of large migratory birds and airplanes taking off from and landing at LaGuardia Airport. Last week, a Delta flight leaving JFK made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff when it struck a flock of birds and one of its engines was damaged, an incident that has reignited attention to this particular avian problem.

“This is a known risk, one that the aviation community has been dealing with for decades,” said James Hall, a transportation safety consultant and former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “The New York airports sit in the middle of an area that is surrounded by water. They are already an area that provides wildlife attractants and challenges in order to provide for safe flight.”

Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, the now-famous pilot who safely landed his plane on the Hudson River after a bird strike crippled its engines in 2009, has spoken against both transfer stations. He told CBS This Morning last week, “It’s a bad idea to build near an airport anything that’s likely to attract birds, including trash facilities,” mentioning the East 91st Street and College Point stations by name.

While locals and politicians in Yorkville have been fighting the transfer station for a myriad of reasons, it seems like their best hope for actually stopping it lies with the lawsuits that the Friends of LaGuardia airport have filed against the FAA.

“Most people don’t associate our community in Yorkville with LaGuardia Airport in Queens,” said David Mack, one of the founders of the group Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, formed to oppose the Upper East Side MTS. “But as the crow flies, literally, the FAA has a mandated perimeter where they don’t want any wildlife attractants, and we are within that distance.”

Ken Paskar, president of Friends of LaGuardia Airport and a former lead representative for the FAA safety team, said his group is only asking the FAA to do what their own regulations require them to enforce.

“The FAA is very specific about what it means to be a fully enclosed transfer station, and the transfer station at East 91st Street does not meet that criteria,” Paskar said. The FAA recommends that any potential wildlife attractant be located at least five miles from any airports to protect their approach, departure and circling airspace, and has strict requirements that those located within that radius must meet that essentially prohibit any trash or odor escaping the enclosed station.

City officials have said that the transfer station will be built to ensure minimal exposure of the trash to the outdoors, and that its operations will be conducted under the covered facility. The state Department of Environmental Conservation, which has issued permits for the facility, did not respond to request for comment on this story.

Opponents contest that there is no way the city can guarantee that the transfer station will operate without attracting additional birds.

“This is not rocket science here, this is something that everyone understands—birds and airplanes don’t mix,” Paskar said. “When you build something on the water with a new food source, which is garbage and waste, for birds, you’re going to have a hazardous situation.”

State Sen. Liz Krueger and Assembly Member Micah Kellner, who have both been vocal opponents of the transfer station along with other East Side elected officials, released a joint statement pointing to the recent bird strike as another reason to halt the East 91st Street facility.

“While this bird strike occurred on a flight path out of JFK, it’s a reminder that we need to work on mitigating the risks for all our airports,” read the statement in part. “We agree with the Friends of LaGuardia Airport, former FAA officials who think that putting bird-attracting sanitation facilities in major flight paths is a bad idea.”

Bird strikes have been increasing over the past several decades, a phenomenon that experts attribute to changes in migratory patterns due to climate change. According to the FAA’s database, there have been 960 wildlife strikes near LaGuardia Airport in the past 10 years, 10 of which resulted in substantial damage and one—Sullenberger’s “Miracle on the Hudson”—that resulted in a destroyed aircraft. While it’s common for birds to collide with planes in the air, large fowl like Canadian geese can cause enough damage to ground a flight.

“To me, it’s just a horrible precedent to be set nationally,” said Hall. “For the city of New York, the Port Authority and the FAA to take an action like this, to add to an area that is already an attractant, to add to that with these waste disposal units is just irresponsible.”

The Yorkville Bank building is expected to be the Upper East Side’s newest landmarked building. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

Late last month, the LPC met to hear testimony about the historic building, which it described as “an elegant Italian renaissance revival-style structure.”

The Yorkville Bank, which was established in 1893 by German stockholders, first operated out of an office on Third Avenue and East 85th Street. In 1905, they commissioned Robert Maynicke, a German-born architect who had designed the Germania Bank Building, now a city landmark, to construct the current four-story building of granite, limestone, brick and terra cotta.

The LPC and those supporting the effort cite the building’s cultural history as an important factor in the designation decision.

“This building is significant not only for it architectural integrity but its representation of the German-American community that once populated this part of Manhattan,” said Tara Kelly, executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, who testified in support of the designation at the recent hearing. “This area of Yorkville centered around the ‘German Broadway,’ which had all kinds of businesses that supported the community, and unfortunately there isn’t much left of that.”

While architecturally valuable buildings are sometimes marred by haphazard additions, proponents of landmarking the bank building point to the 1923 addition by architect P. Gregory Stadler, designed to replicate Maynicke’s original structure, as an enhancement and asset of the aesthetic. They also assert that while the facade has been slightly altered since it was constructed, the main features that make it stand out are still intact and are the most prominent aspects of the building.

“Although the ground-floor windows were elongated in the 1990s for use as show windows for the retail enterprise, the elegant arched openings, separated by full-height pilasters and flanked by delicate roundels, were left intact,” the LPC stated in their summary of the landmark merits. “The building’s massive sculpted bronze entrance doors, second-story triangular pediments supported by scroll brackets, classical window surrounds and two imposing cornices have all survived as well.”

Others pointed out that as the neighborhood continues to grow in popularity, it will be more urgent to protect worthy buildings with landmark status.

“Just as the opening of the Second and Third Avenue elevated railroads brought initial urbanization to Yorkville, work on the Second Avenue Subway has brought new construction to the area and development pressure will only increase with the line’s eventual opening,” said Nadezhda Williams of the Historic Districts Council.

The building changed hands several times over the course of its history but continued to operate as a bank until 1991, when it was converted to retail space on the ground floor and a fitness center on the upper floors. It is currently owned by the Related Companies, which supports the designation, and houses the Gap and an Equinox gym.

“If the owner is for it, then typically, it goes right through,” Kelly said of the chances that the LPC will vote for the designation.

City Council Member Jessica Lappin has also expressed her support for the landmark, and Lo van der Valk, president of the Carnegie Hill Neighbors, praised the building, saying that its massive doors “remotely evoke a modern industrial counterpart to the Gates of Paradise of the Florence Baptistery.”

The LPC will likely agree, and is schedule to vote on the Yorkville Bank Building’s application on Tuesday, April 17.

By Shani R. Friedman

When you think Yorkville, the words “dining destination” don’t generally come to mind. In fact, it’s often difficult at all to find any interesting place to eat that far to the east. Coming to the rescue on an otherwise barren stretch of the avenue is Palacio Azteca, where you can kick back with cerveza and tuck in for a bountiful, inexpensive Mexican meal.

We arrived close to starving on a balmy Tuesday night when the place was nearly empty. Unlike many other Mexican restaurants that look like a piñata exploded inside, decorations are limited to a chandelier and native wall art. We took a seat at one of the eight tables and dug into the crispy chips and salsa the waitress

Unlike many other Mexican restaurants that look like a piñata exploded inside, Palacio Azteca’s decorations are limited to a chandelier and native wall art. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

quickly set down. You can’t have chips without drinks, and I chose sangria ($6), which didn’t overwhelm me with booze, while my dining companion picked a non-alcoholic mango horchata ($2), which is made with milk and rice. When my friend said her “amazing” horchata “tasted like summer,” I did wonder if I had picked unwisely.

The two of us are guacamole junkies, so of course we ordered a plate to share ($6.95). At first I worried that they had been skimpy with the portions, but I realized that if they had given us any more, we would have just stuffed ourselves with an excess of chips. The guacamole was smooth and very fresh, but we fanatics wouldn’t have minded a little fire mixed in.

Since we had already gorged ourselves, we decided to scale back a bit, rather than go for massive entrées like burritos or enchiladas. My friend found the appetizer version of the chorizo and potato flautas ($6.95) to be more than enough food. I had a hankering for hard tacos, which weren’t on the menu, so I subbed in a pair of soft tacos with tilapia, which came with rice and beans and more guacamole ($11.50). I had a bit of a back-and-forth with the waitress trying to find out if the refried beans were made with lard or were vegetarian. After consulting with the cooks, she reported that they’re made with vegetable oil and onions, which satisfied this non-pork eater. Again, we concluded that the food was tasty, but a bit bland. The dessert menu (flan and tres leches cake) didn’t tantalize us enough to risk exploding stomachs, and we were already close to uncomfortably full.

Perhaps it’s the neighborhood, where diners are perceived as not very adventurous. But given that the crowd picked up later in the evening, the kitchen clearly has a following. Palacio Azteca should reward both old and new devotees by showing a little more imagination in the kitchen, and putting some olé on the menu.
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Palacio Azteca
1374 York Ave. Between East 73rd and 74th streets
212-249-7313
Entrées: $9.50 and $19.50

When Pope Benedict XVI visited New York City last spring, students from St. Joseph’s, Yorkville served as official greeters. The group then headed to the eponymous church next door, where the Pope led an ecumenical prayer service.
The students’ role in the historic event illustrates the special character of the 128-year-old school, at 420 E. 87th St. St. Joseph’s has a strong academic program, a faith-filled community and a family environment, said Theresa Bernero, head of school. The students also donated 2,200 hours of community service as a living birthday present for the Pope.

Students come from all five boroughs, with about 5 percent commuting from outside the city. Photo By: susan M. sipprelle

There are 305 students in pre-kindergarten through 8th grade at St. Joseph’s this year, where the student body is evenly divided between boys and girls. The average class size from pre-K to 4th grade is 26. Students are required to wear uniforms: a white shirt, gray skirt or pants and a blue sweater.
The school’s curriculum follows the standards set by the Archdiocese of New York and the New York State Framework for Learning and includes mandatory religion classes. The school’s faculty is lay. Students do not have to be Catholic to attend, although Catholics and Christians constitute 82 percent and 96 percent of its student body, respectively. The majority of the school’s graduates continue their education at Catholic high schools.
Bernero describes St. Joseph’s as an “inner-city school” because the Archdiocese provides scholarships for 20 to 30 percent of students each year whose families’ incomes are at or below poverty level. Students come from all five boroughs, with about 5 percent commuting from Westchester and Rockland counties and New Jersey.
“It’s a smaller school where it’s not easy to get distracted,” said Simmone Alexander, a Queens resident who graduated from St. Joseph’s last spring and now attends St. Francis Preparatory. She plans to become both a singer and a psychologist. “The academics are challenging, but the school is a family,” Simmone said. One lesson that stands out from her time at St. Joseph’s is that you must work hard to achieve big goals.
Last year, the students won an important victory—access to 87th Street for recess—following an 18-month campaign they waged in cooperation with teachers and parents. For more than a decade, the city had not allowed the street to be closed off, but after the children spoke before Community Board 8, they received a standing ovation and won the right to cordon off the street for safe use during recess.

Theresa Bernero, Head of School.

When Theresa Vasquez enrolled her daughter, Victoria, in St. Joseph’s pre-kindergarten in 1999, she didn’t intend to be there for her daughter’s graduation. But her family’s experiences with the school changed her mind. This year, Victoria is in 7th grade at St. Joseph’s, and her younger sister, Katherine, is in kindergarten. “The teachers are so dedicated,” Vasquez said, “and they really prepare children for high school.”
In the past five years, the school has enhanced its science and technology programs. St. Joseph’s added a science lab for lower grades, a full-time technology coordinator and gave all students access to classroom computers. Kindergarten to 8th graders also have access to the school’s computer lab. Bernero said that the school must continue to recognize the ever-changing world and prepare its students accordingly. Over the next three years, there are plans to continue improving technology, add foreign languages and arts to the curriculum, and expand the after-school program.
When the McCusker-McBride family moved to Yorkville in 2003, they entered their son Thomas in pre-kindergarten at St. Joseph’s.
“We’ve really hit a home run here,” said Joe McCusker, father of Thomas, now a 2nd grader.
“There’s a rigorous academic environment, but it’s well-balanced by the real community the school offers,” said Kate McBride, praising the school’s educational approach and Bernero’s openness to parental involvement.
Every June, the parent association and the school advisory board host an annual street fair to raise funds for the school’s needs and special programs. Three years ago, the after school program offered only three activities; now there are about 20, funded by parents.
Bernero said that the school’s ideal graduates have learned the skills to reach their academic potential, to engage in Christian service and to actively participate in their faith.
While at St. Joseph’s, students take part in community service projects, including food drives for the Yorkville Community Pantry. They also attend Mass once a week with their grade and once a month as a school.
John Murray, who plans to become an engineer, graduated last spring and now attends Regis High School. He remembers when his mother took him to St. Joseph’s.
“I had a good feeling when I walked by the church,” he said, “I thought it was really beautiful.”
Reflecting back over his years there, Murray added, “They were great. I couldn’t imagine having been at any other school.”
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St. Joseph’s School, Yorkville
420 E. 87th St.
212-289-3057
www.sjsyorkville.org
Theresa Bernero, Head of School
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