I write this blog called “Financial Foundations.” The recurrent theme emphasizes the importance of building a strong foundation for whatever the system or structure may be. It’s always been a fundamental truth for me—from where it emanated, I did not know. Of course it was family. It started with that. A family of 10 growing up on Lentz Avenue in Newark, New Jersey’s Ironbound, right under the flight path of Newark Airport. But it was more than the family and the tight-knit friends on the block. Then I recently read about the fate of St. Aloysius School. It led me to this reflection.

Memories of St. Aloysius Grammar School in Newark

They are finally tearing down St. Aloysius Grammar School.

At least that is what the announcement will say.

The City of Newark has leased the property. The building has long been vacant and in disrepair. They plan to raze it and build a brand-new public grammar school on the site.

Good.

Newark needs a functioning school more than it needs an abandoned building. Progress should not be feared simply because it removes something old.

But the news left me with another thought.

They can demolish the physical structure. They cannot demolish St. Al’s.

For close to twenty years, ten children from one family were educated there. We entered first grade looking up at the enormous seventh- and eighth-graders. Eventually we became the large students marching through the hallways while the smaller children looked up at us. Then we left. The building remained. Now the building will leave too.

No one walking into the new school will know the character that was St. Al’s. There will be no reason for them to know. They will create their own character, their own stories, their own foundation.

But before the wrecking ball arrives, I want to preserve some of ours.

This is not the official history of St. Aloysius. I do not have all the facts for a real history. I have memories—more than fifty years old, imperfect and undoubtedly wrong in places. But memories are much better than the void I found when I tried to look for what St. Al’s had been. Do an internet search. Look for the names. The information is just not there. I thought that if the foundation is still there—which I firmly believe—then the story of that foundation should be written for posterity.

So let me start.

The Walk

There were two routes to school. Up Ferry Street or along Fleming Avenue.

The Fleming Avenue route passed a nightclub that opened at one point. Forbidden temptation. Just sneak a look through an open door while passing quickly. A glimpse into some adult world we knew we were not supposed to see.

At the intersections stood the crossing guards—the larger seventh- and eighth-grade boys wearing their crossing-guard belts. They seemed huge. Important. Our protectors. When the thugs from the local public school, Hawkins Street School, tried to harass us, the oldest St. Al’s boys chased them away. We never doubted that they would.

But rewind further. Even prior to St. Al’s.

Kindergarten was only a couple of hours of play at Hawkins Street School. I walked the three Newark blocks alone. No siblings. No parents. Confident. The important objective was to arrive early enough to claim one of the tricycles.

Then came St. Al’s and first grade. Now there were older siblings for the walk—Kathy, Peggy, and Mary—and a tiny candy store along the route.

One nickel.

Five penny candies from behind the large glass case at the counter.

One of those. One of those. Maybe one of those.

But watch the Ice Cubes. My favorite. They cost two cents, so choosing one meant getting fewer pieces of candy. The clerks laughed at the long deliberation. But these were serious decisions. When you are six years old, a nickel is wealth. The candy and the nickel were the entire focus. Intensely.

Lunch was usually another walk home. Campbell’s Bean Soup. Pancakes. Something simple. Then came the special days when we were given a dime to buy lunch in the cafeteria in the basement of the school. The best day was Pasta Twists.

Delicious sauce—Italian gravy—a small roll, and a small carton of milk.

A real treat. I can still taste them. Haven’t found any to match since.

And always looming nearby was the hulking Ballantine’s Brewery. The smell of barley and hops baking into beer was an ever-present part of the neighborhood.

For a while Ballantine’s apparently considered expanding beyond beer and inventing new soda flavors. They came to the school and gave us samples. Each student received a sheet with the name of each flavor and five faces ranging from a frown to a happy face. Taste the soda. Circle the face.

What a treat.

Most of the flavors were pretty bad. I think Ballantine’s stuck with beer for good reasons.

On weekends and during the summer, the schoolyard became our stickball field. A strike-zone box was spray-painted on the wall. If the pitch landed inside the box, it was a strike. No umpire needed.

A true home run threatened a Ballantine’s window. It did not happen often. When it did, the game ended pronto. For one moment everyone could admire the shot. Then we all sprinted home to avoid being caught.

The school did not end at its doors. It was the walk, the candy store, Ferry Street, Fleming Avenue, Ballantine’s, Hayes Pool, Hawkins Street, the church and the neighborhood all around it. Remove any one of those things and St. Al’s becomes something a little different.

Becoming One of the Big Kids

First grade was taught by Sister Mary Bernadette, the sweetest and nicest nun in the school. Our classroom was really a pass-through room between the main hallway and the gym. The older students marched through it in single or double file like soldiers while we looked up at them in awe.

Everyone was big. Really big. But nice. Protecting us.

The contrast is funny now. Once we became those large students marching through the room, we were thinking mostly about ourselves. We barely noticed the little kids watching.

The promotions—the maturity—happened gradually, quietly.

At first the crossing guards were giants. Then they were classmates.

Erasing the blackboards was a plum job reserved for the obedient. A child learned that trust was earned through who was permitted to remove chalk dust. The dusty erasers also served a disciplinary purpose. Get caught using bad words and a nun might force-feed you a taste of the chalky eraser. The yardstick was also a tool of choice, but more often than not just a threat loudly slammed on a desk to deliver the message.

Then came gym-breakdown duty. The gym was also the auditorium and cafeteria. For gym day, the large folding tables and hundreds of metal folding chairs had to be cleared quickly to create a basketball court. Then everything had to be put back.

The chairs were stacked perfectly straight on long, low carts or they would not fit. Two boys pushed while one smaller boy guided and steered the load into the long, narrow caverns beneath the stage. Pick your head up from the crawling position and—whack—the stage floor above reminded you how little space there was.

Work fast. But be careful with the folds. Catch a finger or a piece of skin in one of those chairs and you got a wicked blood blister.

This was work. Being selected meant you were among the leaders.

The biggest jobs went to the strongest boys. At Christmas, three or four were chosen to go to the church and haul out the heavy concrete Nativity statues. I was selected only once. I could not lift even the smaller sheep. That duty belonged to the early-bloomer men of the class. Donald. Not me.

Somewhere during those years the small children became the big kids, though no one announced when it happened.

The Building

The building itself returns in pieces.

The bronze plate on a classroom door polished enough to show a reflection.

The hot radiator hissing at the side of the sixth-grade classroom in winter. A perfect place for truants to melt crayons of every color. A menagerie of dripping colors, wider and much dirtier than a rainbow. We were all chastised. No one was ever caught.

The cold metal folding chairs in the gym and auditorium. The staged plays and musicals. Sitting and watching the older students rehearse “Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon.” That song can still return me to the room that no longer exists.

The long tables in the basement where lunch was served in rows—and where fourth-grade science was taught. The question one day was whether heat travels to cold or cold travels to heat.

Of course they both move toward each other.

Wrong.

The teacher said those who marked both were obviously guessing. It could not be both. Heat travels one way, to cold.

Embarrassing. I still thought I was right. But that lesson never left, and the answer was never incorrect again in the years after.

There were the wooden desks, the older models carved with gouged markings left by students from prior years. The desks came with cubby storage bins beneath each chair. Books had to be stacked neatly from largest to smallest, preferably in the order the classes would be taught that day. No loose papers. No books every which way. If the next subject was buried too far down, you had organized the pile poorly.

And there was the book bag. No such thing as backpacks. You hauled around the book bag by its plastic handle or straps.

We carried books back and forth daily. The spelling book was a thin paperback. You filled in the answers directly as you moved through the chapters. Spelling homework was easy because spelling was easy—and because the book was light.

Another classic was similar in size and content. It was called the “Think and Do Book.” I still quote that title to impetuous subordinates at work fifty years later. First, we think; then, we do. Only that sequence makes sense. The cartoonish lessons within are long forgotten but the theme sticks like wisdom.

Math or science was another matter. A heavy textbook and usually an accompanying workbook. Two books for every class with homework. Some weekends the book bag would barely close, bursting with almost everything from beneath the desk.

What was that ridiculous song? “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”?

Well, the book bags got heavy.

The year after I graduated, in 1974, Ballantine’s had a gas leak. A leak from its ammonia tanks filled the air around the school. Fire trucks. Ambulances. News reporters documented how the emergency evacuation—a fire drill—sent 250 grade-school students outside, directly into the looming cloud. No serious injuries, but good old St. Al’s was in the news.

Lessons

And learn?

Let me tell you about Sister Sheila.

Barely five feet tall. A drill sergeant with a Massachusetts brogue. Lifelong lessons in English grammar.

Diagram sentences on the board. Understand to, too, and two. Adverbs versus adjectives. Dangling participles. Never end a sentence with a preposition. Memorize the linking verbs by heart—or else.

“Be, is, am, are, was, were, being, been…”

The lessons remain. Every time I write, Sister Sheila is still editing.

I never had her taller sister, Sister Patricia, as a teacher. By then Sister Patricia had been promoted to principal. One day our sixth-grade classroom was in open rebellion. She appeared smiling at the door, called in to quell the uprising. She did not need a speech. She led us in singing “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” Soon the room was singing with her.

Order restored.

Third grade brought the Apollo landing. One studious kid with thick glasses, Louis, the prototypical nerd, presented an entire class on the details of the lunar landing, complete with models and figures.

Totally boring.

Why would anyone be interested in this egghead stuff?

History remembers Apollo as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. I remember one kid’s interminable models. So much for recognizing history while it is happening.

Frank spoke endlessly about a career in the military. Weapons, aircraft, the glory of war. “The Bridge Over the River Kwai.” Wonder if he ever fulfilled that dream.

Fifth grade. Mrs. Madsen. Gym day. Bring sneakers and leave them beneath the desk. A classmate picked up a girl’s sneaker and threw it at me. I threw it back. Out the open window it flew to the street below.

Horrified. We were marched down to the principal’s office.

Mrs. D was the young, attractive sixth-grade teacher trying to manage rowdy boys suddenly coming of age. Yet what I remember most is her warmth.

For a self-portrait assignment, she had me use my reflection in the bronze plate on the classroom door to get a realistic view of the shape of my nose. The nose I drew was enormous. Art was never an aptitude regardless of effort. She corrected me.

“It is a cute, small nose. Nothing like what you’ve drawn.”

One small sentence of warm affection. Still here.

Mrs. S. taught fourth grade. Strictly business, even with her popular son and our classmate, Johnny. Johnny died during the summer after eighth-grade graduation, hit by a car while crossing a highway in Jersey City. It must have been devastating for the family. Decades later, that is still where my mind goes—not only to Johnny, but to his mother.

We feared some teachers. We avoided the dreaded Sister Catherine, the meanest of them all. But the first mentors I remember outside my home were there. They taught grammar and science and spelling. They also taught order, responsibility and expectation—sometimes kindly, sometimes harshly, sometimes without understanding the child receiving the lesson.

Formation

The religious lessons were deeper than a class.

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Hear a siren and say a quiet Hail Mary for the victim and for the safety of the police officers or firefighters responding.

At Mass, when the priest lifted the chalice: “My Lord and my God.”

How to kneel at the altar for Communion. Never touch the Host. Then the rule changed, leaving a generation of thoroughly indoctrinated children confused.

The silent routines were burned into lifelong practice.

Once a month we marched in lines across Fleming Avenue for First Friday Mass. There was Christmas Eve choir. I proudly told Sister Mary that I had opened a Christmas gift early that night—a brand-new, shiny black pair of shoes.

At Confirmation in the church, the Bishop asked religion questions. My hand waved excitedly in the air. At the conclusion, he seemed to single me out for answering the most questions, resting his hand on my shoulder while giving his final speech.

Touching? Rewind to second grade. Assigned partners marched into the auditorium. Our song? “Balloons, balloons, bright bubbles of crimson and blue…” What stands out? The soft touch of the girl assigned to walk arm in arm with me in the procession. Small sensations that somehow remain after the lessons, the theology, and the music have faded.

Father Sheriden was the pastor. Quiet. Rarely seen.

The real workhorse was Father Pietkowski. Larger than life. Pipe smoking. The smell of stale tobacco emanating through the corridor. Humming loudly as he walked the halls in his deep, husky voice.

“Dee…dee…dee…”

You often heard him before you saw him. Ever-present. It was not really a tune. It was simply Father Pietkowski.

At Christmas break, every student was given a small box of hard candies. Nothing elaborate. But the long lineup remains clear: children eagerly longing for time off, waiting for those boxes.

The lessons were not delivered as a coordinated plan. They accumulated. A prayer when a siren passed. Books neatly stacked. The honor of erasing a blackboard. The expectation that you would carry your share of chairs. One ordinary reinforcement after another.

The Playground and the People

The playground was just a large parking lot surrounded by a fence.

The popular boys gathered on the concrete steps at the unused rear entrance to the auditorium. Hang around them. Listen to what occupied their attention.

My older sister walked religiously to the large oak tree in the middle of the yard and stood there alone. No friends. No talking. Just waiting painfully for recess to end and the lines to form for the march back to class.

At the time, I was embarrassed. Friends noticed and asked me why. I had no idea. The memory feels very different now.

Games were rough. Buck Buck—how many fingers up? The biggest kids formed a sturdy bridge. The athletic ones leaped onto their backs. The winning team piled on the most players without collapsing and then guessed how many fingers the opposing team held up.

We did not worry much about liability.

Then there were the people.

Anthony was remarkably smart. He never seemed to work at it. He was simply brilliant and always knew the answers.

It was a shock at graduation when Regina—also smart, but like me merely good—was named valedictorian.

Quiet Edward disappeared from school for several days. His older next-door neighbor, Danny, came asking if anyone had been bothering Eddie. Mysterious, but the message was clear. Older Danny was watching out for younger Eddie. The news of Eddie’s father’s suicide was a surreal, sad chapter. Devastating, but foreign and beyond the understanding of a young mind at the time.

There were the pretty girls. Colleen and Cathy. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Frighteningly popular and pretty.

June became “June Bug” because apparently her house had been infested with insects at one point. Children can be cruel without considering how long a name might last.

The twins, Pat and Mike. Pat became a star swimmer at East Side High and, true to a yearbook prediction, eventually a coach and athletic director. I never heard much about what happened to Mike, his smaller twin.

Another Anthony—the twins’ best friend who lived close to them down Ferry Street near Hayes Pool—was always joking and could draw remarkable cartoon characters and scenes.

Chlorinda from Panama stands out, perhaps because of her unusual name and her stature as a large, jovial Black girl. Always caring. Always friendly. Her laugh remains.

Roseanne’s mother kept her in the car until the bell rang. Every morning her mother sat with her while all of the other children congregated and played. When the bell rang, only then would Roseanne walk toward the front steps while her mother remained parked, watching until she disappeared inside before slowly driving away. We all thought it was odd. Looking back, I wonder if it was harder on her mother than on Roseanne. To us it was another school day. To her, perhaps it felt like surrendering her daughter to a place she couldn’t protect her from.

Hundreds of unique personalities bundled into one small school. A cast no movie writer could invent.

Embarrassment

The memories changed as we grew.

First grade started in a blaze of glory. Everything was large and mysterious. As the years advanced, the memories became more embarrassing than fond. Perhaps that is simply what happens when childhood attention turns inward and self-consciousness arrives.

The nuns announced how much each child had put into the Sunday Mass collection. In front of the whole class.

A dollar? Praise.

A quarter? Still good.

A dime? Ridiculous. Why bother? Families needed to contribute more than a lousy ten cents.

At one point Mom was allocating ten cents to each of the three youngest and perhaps a quarter to everyone else. Add it up. Two or three dimes plus five quarters. Around $1.50 each week. We had little money, Catholic-school tuition and a large family. That was what we could afford.

I knew the arithmetic. I could not say it.

So I accepted the embarrassment.

Then there was my one good pair of blue uniform pants. I fell and cut my knee, leaving a hole in the pants. There would be no new pair before the next school year.

I used a blue ballpoint pen to color the lily-white skin showing through the hole. Blue ink would not repair the pants. It made the hole a little less visible.

Children learn family economics without anyone teaching the course.

The book bag carries another memory.

To this day, I do not know what I did to cross Mike. In fifth grade he challenged me to a fight after school. I was frightened and confused. A crowd followed while he dragged me to an open lot on the route home.

He started hitting. I did not want to fight. I did not even put down the heavy book bag. I swung it simply to repel him.

I survived. He left me alone after that. I still do not know what caused it.

Rewind to first grade. Peggy was in second grade and was being harassed by a boy named Tommy. We were sitting behind Tommy and his family at church when he accused me of cutting a hole in his jacket. I had no idea what he was talking about. He dragged me outside and told his parents what I had supposedly done. I denied it.

I am not sure why it was so frightening in retrospect.

But it was.

That may be the nature of these memories. The adult mind looks back and asks why a moment mattered. The child who remains somewhere inside does not need to ask.

The Photograph

Years later, I found a grainy photograph scanned and preserved on a website. Its caption identified the line as the St. Aloysius eighth-grade graduation procession crossing Fleming Avenue in 1973.

So cool.

That was me.

The picture is too grainy to make out individual faces. But I was the shortest person in the class—even shorter than the girls—so I would have been at the front of the line, immediately behind the altar boys carrying the cross and candles.

I cannot see myself.

But I know I was there.

The procession does not look so long in the photograph now. It was long then.

That photograph may be the best image for memory itself. The evidence is indistinct. The scale has changed. The people are difficult to identify. Yet those of us who were there know where we stood.

We also know the theme song we sang at our eighth-grade graduation. So fitting, it still resonates when I hear it. “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me….”

What Remains

St. Al’s was not one lesson. One teacher. One friend. One embarrassment.

It was not even the building.

The building merely gave us a place to hang the memories.

The real St. Al’s was a jumble of ordinary moments cast together almost accidentally into a rock-solid foundation we still carry. The foundation was laid by a nun who demanded correct grammar. A teacher who said one unexpectedly kind thing. Folding chairs that taught teamwork. Concrete statues that proved there were jobs beyond my strength. A dime in the collection basket. Blue ink on a knee. Silent prayers that still come unbidden when a siren passes. The older children who protected the younger ones. The day the younger ones became the older ones without noticing.

My first mentors outside the home were there. The foundational values were formed there. They remain sturdy so many years later—even when I question them, resist them or try to escape them.

That is why this is not an argument against demolition.

Build the new school.

Fill it with children.

Let them create ordinary moments they will someday struggle to explain.

But let us preserve what happened before. Not simply dates and photographs. The character. What it felt like to be a child there. The things official histories never record because no one realizes they are history while they are happening.

The wrecking ball can bring down the walls.

It has no power over the foundation St. Aloysius built inside us.

An Invitation

These are my memories. They are incomplete. Perhaps yours are different. Perhaps you remember teachers I have forgotten, another cafeteria lunch, different games, different fears or different joys. Perhaps one of my details is wrong. After more than fifty years, that would hardly be surprising.

That is why I do not want this to become only my history of St. Al’s.

If you attended St. Aloysius—or someone in your family did—I hope you will contribute what you remember. One memory triggers another. One name restores another face. Together we may preserve a little more of what St. Aloysius really was before the people who remember it are gone.

The building belongs to Newark. St. Al’s belonged to all of us. Its story should too.

The St. Aloysius Memory Project