NEW YORK | FDR High School | 35 FT | 4 FLOORS | 1954

[THE BIG APPLE]

It’s one big family for Brooklyn high school planning 50th anniversary

NY Daily News

At the Franklin D. Roosevelt High School, four of the 10 teachers at a table making plans for its anniversary were once students there. They reflected on their days as students and their attachment to the school. They planned the event the way a family plans a milestone anniversary.

Like the great man it’s named for, Franklin D. Roosevelt High School has stood the test of time.

Four of the 10 teachers at the table making plans for the Brooklyn school’s 50th anniversary were once students there. Mitchell Poska attended FDR from 1986-89, met his future wife at the school and went on to Brooklyn College.

“Then I came back to FDR to teach in 1998,” he says. “So many of the teachers I’d had were still here. Laura Alvarez over there was my math teacher. Steve DeMarco, the principal, was my social studies teacher. I came back to give back to the school that helped form me. I love this place. Today I’m the assistant principal of English and arts. And I can’t wait to take part in the 50th anniversary festivities.”

One of the first events will be the Nov. 17 unearthing of a time capsule buried on Nov. 15, 1989. “We’ll be burying a new time capsule to be unearthed in another quarter century,” says Principal DeMarco. “Not sure what we’ll put in the new one. But I’m thinking of including the name of an Asian student who won a scholarship last term to Harvard. I’m not allowed to give out student’s names or let you speak to students, but I can say he started out as an English language learners student, which make up 41% of our student body.”

Ron Califano, Class of ’69, says when he started at FDR in 1965 it was mostly Italian. “I didn’t know then, but the four years I spent here were the best of my life,” he said on Monday, strolling the echoing hallways. “It was packed with Bensonhurst Italians, street kids who could sell you any part you needed for your car during lunch. They sold leather jackets, bootleg cigarettes, the daily number, fireworks. One year, half the school wore Nunn Bush shoes sold out of a student’s car trunk. But inside, the teachers were amazing. They even got a wild kid like me to pay attention and stick it out and graduate.”

Califano is now booking name talent for a 50th anniversary 1960s rock and roll show in the 918-seat auditorium to be held the night before a Gala Jubilee Luncheon at Gargiulo’s Italian Restaurant on May 17.

“When I walked in here this morning, I felt like I was being marched to detention,” Califano says. “Never did I think I’d be back here to help celebrate the 50th anniversary.”

It was thrilling to listen to teachers and former students sitting around planning a school birthday the way a family plans a milestone anniversary.

“I was an English teacher here,” says Tony Biancoviso, now retired. “But after a certain number of years, I decided to apply for the assistant principal of English position. There were other very capable teachers applying and they asked what other schools I’d applied to for the same position. I said none. They asked what I’d do if I didn’t get the position. I said I’d go back to teaching here at FDR. They didn’t understand that most of us love this school. In fact my wife has said that if she ever files for divorce, she’ll name FDR High as the third party in the proceeding.”

They all break up laughing. But Judy Berger, a retired assistant principal of administration, says, “My husband said the same thing! It’s a funny school because it was built across from Washington Cemetery, and some people say it’s in Bensonhurst or Borough Park. But stretching from 59th to 57th Sts., from 19th to 20th Aves., this neighborhood is actually called Mapleton.”

Which was something new I learned at FDR High.

DeMarco says 250 teachers educate 3,300 students at FDR, with an average class size of less than 30. “Our graduation rate is 70%, about 800 grads last June,” he says. “We have kids from 55 countries, mostly Asian countries, but a new influx of students who speak only Italian.”

One of the most striking things you notice entering FDR is the absence of metal detectors.

“I’m proud to tell students and parents that they won’t be spending a half-hour a day going through security like at the airport,” Poska says. “That time will be spent getting a great education in FDR, which is like a family to us.”

A half-century after it opened, that’s worth celebrating.

While built in the brutalist style of architecture, this is a small gem. It's not the best, it's not even close actually. But it is definitely far from the worst. It is like a moment in time, a crossroads of the world, defiantly New York. Next to a cemetery it seems undesirable right off the bat. BUT you'll be amazed as it is right smack dab in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood, a Russian neighborhood, a Chinese neighborhood, a SE Asian neighborhood, a formerly dominant Italian neighborhood, and a growing Hispanic (Guatemalan) neighborhood. One could literally say that this chunky mesh of concrete is at the center of the universe and geographically in the center of Brooklyn.