Martin Raskin taught in the New York City public schools for many years, and he is now retired. He is obsessed with collecting memorabilia about the city’s public schools, especially his own elementary school, P.S. 202 in East New York, Brooklyn. His apartment, the New York Times writes, is a shrine to the public schools.
Maybe there is someone more crazy in love with New York City’s public schools than Martin Raskin, but who else would collect a panel of hundred-year-old brass steam heat switches from Brooklyn’s Manual Training High School that closed in 1959? Or load up his car trunk with a boiler gauge from P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village?
“I’m a little bit compulsive,” admitted Mr. Raskin, a 77-year-old retired teacher who taught at Canarsie High School in Brooklyn and the Queens School for Career Development and is aflame with ardor for all things Board of Education, which, he said, “paved the way I am today — I’m blessed.”
When last heard from (in a 2010 article in The New York Times), the salt-and-pepper-whiskered schmoozer who could talk the paint off a wall had turned his Upper East Side of Manhattan apartment into a shrine to P.S. 202 in East New York, Brooklyn, where he spent kindergarten through eighth grade, graduating in 1955, before going on to Franklin K. Lane High School.
His mock classroom showcased ink-stained attached desks, Regulator clocks, milky glass chandeliers, tall teacher’s reading chair, class photos, oval brass doorknobs, wardrobe hooks, window pole, yellow report cards, merit certificates, black and white composition notebooks, even the original enamel number plate from his homeroom, 516.
It’s all still there, along with Mr. Raskin’s prize piece, the chair splinter extracted from the rear of his principal, Charles G. Eichel, and preserved in an envelope with the (unlucky) date of the encounter, Friday, March 13, 1942. Mr. Raskin had scooped it up along with other discarded P.S. 202 material in the 1980s, a fateful discovery that set off his freely acknowledged obsession, since abetted by eBay, Etsy and other collectibles dealers.
But that, it turns out, was only the beginning. “I’m now amassing a shrine to the whole educational system,” Mr. Raskin said.
He recently paid $450 on eBay for an 1850s New England dunce chair, which stands amid a table of vintage readers, including the complete Eichel oeuvre, student magazines, multicolored high school beanies and buttons, class rings and pins, diplomas, teacher ledgers, autograph albums, lunchroom tickets, commencement programs, and oddities like the news photo of the “Black Hand Stampede,” a panic over rumors of Mafia presence that terrified students at P.S. 177 in Little Italy on June 17, 1926.
He wants to find a permanent home for his collection, but so far has had no luck. He showed it to representatives from the Museum of the City of New York and the New York Historical Society, but they were not interested.
“There’s a fire museum, a police museum, a food museum, even a sex museum,” Mr. Raskin said. “But there’s nothing to honor teachers and students.”
I am reminded that when I finished my first book in 1974, The Great School Wars: A History of the New York City Public Schools, 1805-1973, I spoke to representatives of the same museums and met the same lack of interest. I did not have the wonderful treasure trove that Martin Raskin has amassed. But nearly half a century ago, it was clear that there was no interest in creating an exhibition or museum space to honor education in the city.
Congratulations, Mr. Raskin. Your passion is admirable. I hope you find a permanent home for your collection. Maybe UFT headquarters?
He gave his life to public education than these brand new Teach for America teachers ed reformers and the rest of corporate Wall Street than these people dont evn know how to do. This teacher was one of the high number of dedicated experienced, qualified educators who cared about there students. We all went to college and maintained contact with our great teachers. Today we live in an age where Union leadership hasnt spent a great deal of time in the classroom, nor in parents homes nor cared about anything but power. Power for themselves not for the students. Get my name in the newspaper’s,social media etc etc. This is a wonderful story about a teacher who cared first about his students and that is the New York City so many of us grew up in. Not this shame scenario we are all living currently.
Beata, your voice is a welcome addition to the blog.
I am surprised that the Museum of the City of New York was not interested. It seems like the perfect destination for Mr. Raskin’s collection. The museum has a lot of displays about Broadway, gangsters, immigrants and ethnic groups. Who do they think taught all the disparate groups to read and write in English so they could realize their big New York dreams?
You are right. The collection sounds perfect for that museum.
Or maybe this place could display yhis wonderful collection. They have all kinds of City artifacts.
http://www.cityreliquary.org/