Brownsville

The great school strike of 1968 had ended on November 19th after 90% of the system, of the system's 60,000 pedagogical employees and most of its 1.2 million students had been out for 36 days.

What had started the previous spring as a localized conflict had erupted in the fall into a citywide issue when Mayor Lindsay and the s- central school board refused to back up a decision of an impartial board-appointed arbitrator who ruled that the unit administrator, Rhody McCoy, and the local board of the pr- predominantly Black Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district had acted illegally in terminating the employment of 19 union teachers.

Throughout the fall of 1968, and even after two aborted settlements, the battle raged in many areas of the city, reducing itself to a naked Black/white struggle between parents of the impoverished ghettos and the striking teachers.

The aftermath of the great school strike was almost as bitter.

[laughs]

Yeah.

[laughs] A- a- and the, the article began, "A spokesman for union teachers at Franklin K- K Lane High School in Brooklyn called yesterday for the transfer of 1,100 Negro students out of the school following student disorders and alleged assaults on teachers in the last two weeks." The art- uh, the article went on to talk about the gerrymander, the gerrymander of the school zone to take in more and more Black students from Bedford-Stuyvesant and Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and concluded, "Mr.

Saltzman attributed recent student disorders, including a rash of extortions, vandalism, larceny, and numerous acts against other students, to a group of several hundred Black students who had grown, that has grown from a small, hardcore group." My relationship with Albert Shanker, UFT president, had always been a good one, and there was no reason to believe that he would undercut my efforts at Lane with an expedient maneuver of his own.

And to see what they have in mind, just check out one bus shelter in Brooklyn.

The B-12 and B-14 stop on Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville now has a rain garden on its green roof covered with native grasses and other vegetation.

Officials say the elevated garden doesn't only look nice, the plants can also help prevent flooding.

flooding by absorbing 16 gallons of rainwater during storms it can also lower the temperature in the shelter below for riders waiting for a bus on a hot day the best of all for taxpayers it's not costing the city a cent the department of transportation says a non-profit group is paying for installation and upkeep officials will see how the prototype works out and then possibly bring it to other bus shelters around the city

Yeah.

So Larry Lee and talking to him during the war years, certainly before my time, he was a lieutenant in a Brooklyn neighborhood, Brownsville, and a truck company, 120 Truck.

And also another gentleman who was a lieutenant.

His name is Jack O'Rourke, John O'Rourke, actually.

Hell yeah.

I, me, as in myself, I'll be talking about Car today, uh, Brooklyn c- is it Brooklyn? Brownsville.

Brownsville Car.

Brownsville.

Brownsville.

The legend, the legend, the legend, the legend.

God larper, larper.

Um, the kind of me- the kind of thing that, uh, when Mega brought up his topic I immediately got to thinking on was...

I was like a shark.

It's time! Introducing, fighting out of Brownsville, New York, USA, presenting the heavyweight undisputed champion of the world, Iron Mike!

Get back in that mode.

Not next week, not tomorrow, right now.

Well, there's one other fight before I hand it over to you to talk to us about some more fights on this notable mentions.

Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson, both brought up in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, New York, but I suppose it's just bad timing As the reason why these two never met.

During Tyson's prime years, Bowe was a green novice, and by the time Bowe was the heavyweight champ in '92, Tyson, well, he was being sent to prison, weren't he? And when Tyson was released in '95, Bowe was retired by 1996.

Yeah, so, what, it just one of them mismatches, innit, really.