Posted on January 30, 2010, 5:07pm by Dyske Suematsu

Our Cafeteria in 1911

While browsing through New York Public Library’s Digital Gallery, I came across this photo entitled, “Young women around tables reading, P.S. 63, Recreation Center, May 1911.” Joe Maller helped me confirm that this is our cafeteria area. In terms of the angle, it could potentially be the south-east corner of the building, but you see the number “7″ at the left edge of the photo? (Click on the image to see the larger image on NYPL’s site.) That’s for “EXIT 7″ which is on the north-west corner of the building as you can see in this photo Joe took, which means that those exit signs are 100 years old.

I’m not sure what exactly these women are doing, but they look about 20 years old, which would mean that they were born around 1890. If any of them were related to TNS students, they would likely be their great great grandmothers, or great great great grandmothers.

I also found a map of the school block from 1897. If you “zoom” in, you can see a lot more information. Our block is numbered 431, and above it, it says “Philip Minthorne”. As you can see on the right, our school building did not exist then, which is consistent with the fact that P.S. 63 was founded in 1905.

I found a book online that mentions the name “Philip Minthorne”. This is an old book that Google recently scanned, entitled “The Market Book” and it is described as “containing a historical account of the public markets of the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, with a brief description of every article of human food sold therein, the introduction of cattle in America, and notices of many remarkable specimens.”

Here is the relevant part of this book which describes what was happening in our neighborhood around 1787:

One of the principal market-women, who daily attended at this market both winter and summer, was Mrs. Frances Banta, (usually known as “Aunt Frankey,”) one of the daughters of Philip Minthorne, and a sister to Mangle Minthorne. On some eight or ten acres left to her by her father, near the present corner of Third Street and Bowery, she lived, and grew her produce or market truck. Her father, while living, had owned about 110 acres of land running along the east side of the Bowery Road, commencing from about First Street and running up to Fifth Street, thence in an easterly direction to the East River, taking in a part of the present “Tompkins Square,” which then was a salt marsh. This property old Minthorne divided up into nine parts, and bequeathed it equally to his nine children, when it afterwards became known as the “nine partners,” giving each one a slice or small front on the Bowery, which ran easterly, gradually increasing to a greater width, and ended in a Lane that ran parallel with and a little east of the First Avenue. The balance of this property on the east side of the Lane was at that period divided by another Lane which ran easterly, and was principally all meadow or marsh land. This was divided on the north side of the Lane into “nine parts,” and on the south side into nine other parts, and these three divisions were numbered, so that each had an equal share of both good and poor land.