Public School 190, ca. 1930. Puerto Rican-American poet Martin Espada wrote a poem about this particular school. Public School 190, Brooklyn 1963 The inkwells had no ink. The flag had 48 stars, four years after Alaska and Hawaii. There were vandalized blackboards and chairs with three legs, taped windows, retarded boys penned in the basement. Some of us stared in Spanish. We windmilled punches or hid in the closet to steal from coats as the teacher drowsed, head bobbing. We had the Dick and Jane books, but someone filled in their faces with a brown crayon. When Kennedy was shot, they hurried us onto buses, not saying why, saying only that something bad had happened. But we knew something bad had happened, knew that before November 22, 1963.

Construction of the IRT New Lots Line elevated trestle at New Jersey Avenue (foreground at left, with buildings under construction), June 10, 1920. The eastward extension to New Lots Avenue would be completed in October, 1922. The steeple of the New Lots Reformed Church is visible in the distance, at center-right.