Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
In this world Jimmy learned his trade and developed as a young man. He was socially active among immigrant Greeks and with his closest friend, Peter Stamatis, served on the Board of St. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Brooklyn. He also offered his talents as a psaltis, a skill he learned as a boy at the small monastery on a remote shore of Lake Kastoria.
Jimmy was eager to learn the language of his adopted country and enrolled in night school shortly after his arrival. The memory of his English teacher remained strong throughout his life. He diligently followed the guidance he received when his teacher recognized his intelligence and sensitivity: Read the New York Times every day, and carry a dictionary in your pocket.
For the next seventy-two years Jimmy did just that. He rarely missed an edition. Some long articles he saved to read on a weekend or on vacation. He had the Times on his bed in the hospital and at home shortly before his death.
To paraphrase what an immigrant said about opportunity in America:
They told me that the streets were paved with gold in America. I arrived to learn that they were not only unpaved, but that I would pave them.
What were "paved with gold" were the unique paths of opportunity for education that New York City provided to immigrants and their children at the turn of the century. One of the foremost among these was the New York Public Library. Founded by once governor Samuel J. Tilden with a $2.4 million donation in 1886, the library grew when both the Astor and Lenox libraries merged into it in 1895. In 1901, Andrew Carnegie donated $5.2 million for the construction of 65 branch libraries throughout the city. The grand, main public library building at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, with twin lion sculptures guarding its entrance, opened on 23 May 1911.
The Main Library was and still is an elegant, marble floored structure with dark wood paneling and bookcases. It offered access to the world's great books to anyone who entered its doors. Shabbily dressed, poor, working immigrants found their way to the reading rooms to study literature and find knowledge that had never before been available to them. Jimmy found this place and spent long evening hours with its books.
New York City opened the Free Academy in 1847 to educate the common people. The Academy became the City University of New York that included City College of New York (CCNY), Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and Queens College. Immigrant children became doctors, lawyers, professors, teachers, accountants and scientists.
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