Jersey City History
Historic Public Schools
Lecture Presented by John Gomez, President of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, at the James J. Ferris High School
 Postcard View of Dickinson High School Courtesy of the Yost Collection |
Good morning. My name is John Gomez. I am a 6th grade Language Arts teacher at Academy 1 school. I am on the verge of starting my second year of teaching in Jersey City, the city in which I was born and educated, the city in which I evolved and came of age. Jersey City, the home of my East European ancestors. The city of historic churches and public schools, of brick and brownstone townhouses, of cherub-lined movie palaces and Victorian mansions. Exactly one year ago I sat where you are sitting now, wondering if my school would be new and modern, equipped with powerful air-conditioning, quiet plumbing, dependable outlets, and, last but not least, elevators. It did not occur to me that most of Jersey City's public schools were over a century old and therefore lacked these comforting amenities. I did not think anyone could function as a teacher without them. It seemed difficult to take in the mysterious aura of any historic building, considering the circumstances.
Some of you will be housed in new modern buildings, cooled daily during hot months and perfectly warmed during bitter days. Your chalk will not fade like fog when you write on your chalk boards. Your knees will not ache when you take a quick elevator ride to your fourth-floor classroom. Windows will close easily without struggle. You will have it made. Welcome to present day Jersey City.
But after a few uncomfortable weeks of pulling collars, those who teach in historic public schools will surprisingly find him or herself rewarded with an almost magical environment—one which no new school building could possibly match. To me, not being immersed within the boundaries of historic walls is something of a loss, a price to pay for educational coziness. Wouldn't you want to hear the youthful footsteps of yesterday as you walk down marbled corridors? Wouldn't you want to savor architectural elements that are no longer used in construction, namely because the artisans that produced them are long gone? In truth, a hundred years would have to pass before today's modern complexes could acquire the historic charm and breathtaking grace of No. 1 School on Duncan Avenue, No. 20 School on Danforth Avenue, or No. 5 School on Merseles Street. Believe me, history is far more meaningful to the teacher and student than any form of technical bliss.
Perhaps you've diligently prepared for your teaching career by studying that text book giant, Piaget, or other cognitive theorists whose names you should not file away. Perhaps you've thoroughly immersed yourself in the complexities of classroom behaviorisms and academic methodology, all in preparation for your first year of teaching. Sitting here this morning, you must be thinking: there is nothing more to learn about education; I am ready for the classroom. But I am here this morning, as a teacher first and as a preservationist second, to happily inform all of you that it is not over—there's one more aspect of education that you must know about, especially when it relates directly to Jersey City.
You need to become cognizant of the soon-to-be-profound role of historic Jersey City in your lives. Your hard-won career as a teacher is about to take place in an ancient New World city. As educators, as keepers of this 150-year-old institution known as the Jersey City Public School System, it is unavoidably vital to you. Jersey City's history will follow you into the classroom and your students into the world. It hovers over your head even now, in Ferris High School, named after a local prominent politician and engineer at the turn of the 20th century. History surges under you even. This auditorium sits on what was once Zabriskie Park, designed by the nationally-renowned landscape architect, John Withers, famous for his urban park designs and the restoration of the Liberty Tree in Maryland and George Washington's Mt. Vernon tree groves.
Jersey City is New Jersey's (and one of the country's) oldest cities. In 1609 Henry Hudson anchored his "Half-Moon" exploration vessel in waters now covered by the Liberty Science Center. But it was not until 1660 that a permanent settlement was secured in Bergen Square, known four centuries later as Journal Square. If you are assigned to School. No. 11, on Bergen Avenue, you should know that that is the oldest continuous school site in New Jersey, dating back to 1660. Across the street from No. 11 is the circa 1740 Apple Tree House, where it is said General George Washington visited to draft military plans during the Revolutionary War. Speaking of revolution, the downtown section of Jersey City known as Paulus Hook, where School No. 16 stands today, is the site of the old British-controlled Paulus Hook Fort. It was here, in 1779, that a spectacular morale-boosting raid was inflicted upon the fort by General Harry Lee.
During the 19th century, Jersey City swelled into an industrial and transportation mecca, becoming home to countless manufacturers and railroads. Glass and pottery works, the crumbled remnants of which can be found today on the waterfront as parcels are cleared for skyscrapers, dotted the area. Smokestacked steel mills, colossal grain elevators and ship building yards provided incoming immigrants with plenty of employment. Ferry terminals made of glass and steel welcomed commuters and new Americans. Ornamental churches of all denominations were erected. Awesome civic centers were constructed amid soaring tenements and railroad embankments. It was a vast kingdom of street trolleys and elevated trestles, cobbled carriage roads and horse-driven ferries.
Politicians in this era were not ignorant of the need for a public school system, which was a sure sign of urban growth and prominence. The legendary educator George H. Linsley, who started out teaching in Manhattan, was lured to Jersey City with the promise of being able to craft his own educational system. Thus, in 1851 Linsley founded the Jersey City Public School system. Public School No. 1, formerly located on York Street in downtown Jersey City, opened its modest doors to a mere 5,000 residents with Linsley at the helm, yardstick in hand and chalk at the ready. Nearly fifty years later, at the turn of the 20th century, city officials decided to erect several new public school buildings in almost every crowded neighborhood to meet the unprecedented surge in immigration. Jersey City's astoundingly diverse population, made up mostly of people of Irish, German, English, Dutch and African descent, had swelled to over 250,000. New to its expanding shores were hopeful immigrants from Poland, Russia, Sweden, Italy and Asia. They arrived to find a vibrant, healthy public school system, whose students were daily housed within the cavernous, comforting walls of architectural jewels. Families sent their children to these new ornamental school houses, built especially for them. Local master architects like Charles Long, Rudolph Sailer and John Rowland designed functional school buildings using the finest of materials: marble, terra-cotta, ceramic tile, limestone, select brick, granite, brass, copper, and stained glass, some manufactured in the Tiffany Studios, whose foundry was located in the Heights section of Jersey City. Public schools were extended equal attention and adoration as other monuments rising across Jersey City's flourishing landscape.
In the early years of the 20th century, Jersey City was witness to remarkable social events. In 1908 the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad opened its subway tunnels into New York City, exactly 32 years after sandhogs had descended into the soft silt of the Hudson River. Known today as the PATH rapid transit system, these tunnels connected Manhattan Island to the rest of the continent for the first time. They also elevated Jersey City's distinction as a world-class transportation hub. Luxury locomotives had previously emerged from great railroad cuts in the cliffs of the Palisades to reach the waterfront where connecting ferries, sometimes slowed by ice drifts or severe storms, would take passengers to New York. The new tunnels alleviated this problem, whisking people under water and bedrock to rising skyscrapers or vaudeville shows.
New ornamental buildings were being unveiled almost everyday in Jersey City. Imagine what the immigrant student must have thought in 1910 when one of the most beautiful American Renaissance buildings in the country, the Hudson County Court House, opened, its large historical murals painted by famous artists, one of whom, Francis Millet, perished on the Titanic oceanliner. Imagine what this young student thought when he or she was present for the opening of the new U.S. Post Office on Montgomery Street, designed by Treasury Architect James Knox Taylor. Put yourself in the simple shoes of this student and behold the rise of sensational bank buildings, concrete factories, iron-truss bridges, and narrow trolley viaducts wedged between six-story tenements. Picture a landscape riddled with hand-cranked automobiles, traveling circuses, teeming reservoirs, busy powerhouses, ice block sellers, street magicians, traders, fishermen, crowded wharves, umbrella-wielding shoppers, nickelodeons.
In the mid-to-late- 20th century, Jersey City's immigrant population shifted once again. Former citizens migrated to the suburbs and beach towns of New Jersey, thanks in part to the New Jersey Turnpike, which bullied its way through Jersey City in 1952, right before local Doo Wop groups like the Duprees hit it big. Immigrants from Caribbean, South American, Indian, African and Asian countries arrived with the same soaring hopes and dreams as those decades before. New students entered the Jersey City school system, taking their positions as the next generation. The 60's brought about urban blight, thereby causing the abandonment and consequent demolition of many of Jersey City's civic monuments, including a handful of beautiful historic public schools. As Janis Joplin played the Stanley Theatre and the Port Authority thought of building the World Trade Center in Journal Square, ferry depots came down, leaving almost no vestiges of Jersey City's maritime and transportation prominence.
Remarkably, many historic public schools survived the blight and remained standing during the educational renaissance of the 90's. Dickinson High School had been inspired by and modeled after the Czar's Palace in St. Petersburg when it was designed and erected between 1904 and 1912. John Rowland, its prodigious Jersey City architect, went on to design the magnificent School No. 32, later Ferris High School and now McNair Academic High School. As official Public School Architect, Rowland also drew the plans for Lincoln and Snyder High Schools, not to mention Public Schools 5, 16, 3, 30, 31, 2, among many others. Next to Rowland's design for the sprawling Jersey City Medical Center, Dickinson High School is regarded to be his finest architectural achievement, as it looms atop the Palisadian cliffs of Jersey City, despite the turnpike viaduct lingering below. School 20, designed by Charles Long in the late 19th century, is considered to be one of the most beautiful school buildings in all of Hudson County. Thankfully, it too still stands.
Permit me to take you on a brief visual tour of historic public schools in Jersey City. Fortunately most of the sites I am about to show you are still standing—in some cases for over a century—but others have been either demolished or adapted for commercial purposes. (Slides)
One hundred years later, these same graceful schools still solidly stand as distinct social and architectural legacies. They radiate with history, reminding today's students, teachers and administrators of escaped eras.
I can only implore you, as new Jersey City teachers, to attempt to grow with these historic school buildings as they continue to age; add to their deep foundations; ponder their inscribed cornerstones; admire their Corinthian columns and arched windows; contemplate their cultural testaments; stand next to their forgotten architects, former teachers, students and administrators. I envy you. I applaud your place in public school history, being the 150th entering class of distinguished teachers. How superb this weight must feel upon your backs.
I do not see how a new teacher will be able to work in such an environment, teeming with such powerful history, and not become an extension of it him or herself. Surely the new teacher, keenly observant and erupting with energy, will peer closely at the tall columns, the iron railings, the carved entablatures. I cannot see it otherwise. You have the singular opportunity of experiencing historic public school buildings firsthand. Yet you also have the chance to create a legacy of your own, starting today, here, in this auditorium. George B. Linsley served the public school system for over 50 years, and when he retired in old age former students came forth to extend their praises. You, and I, should be so fortunate, for there is no greater legacy than that conjured up for children. Will you contribute decades of your invaluable life like Linsley did? Will you, too, put in untold amounts of planning and teaching hours throughout the years? Just as Jersey City's school buildings were built to last for generations, so must your dedication, which is the impenetrable seed of this greatest of professions.
Think about the teachers you never knew, the students you never taught. Think about them, even though you cannot know their names or faces. History is useless unless it is recognized, appreciated, shared and reinforced throughout the years. This, as teachers, is our duty. Whether we teach mathematics, social studies, language arts, science, world languages, art, music, computers or special needs, we must unerringly use history as inspiration. The mathematics teacher must use time itself in her lessons, subtracting and adding the ages. The social studies teacher must rouse both the forgotten and palpable events of the world. The science teacher must trace the geographic girders that brace urban landscapes. The language arts teacher must celebrate tragic tales and literary heroes penned by city poets and storytellers, and prompt students to continue the narrative. Art teachers must explore the urban palettes of painters, photographers and architects.
With all of this said, I extend a pleasant welcome to all of you. Historic Jersey City, your new home, welcomes you with genuine gratitude.
Thank you.