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it's almost impossible to describe because it was considered it was like a temple
It was a place you went to get saved this was not just education
because most of us I grew up
you know
neighborhood pretty much ethnic neighborhood you had the jews over here and you had down two blocks were the Italians and Irish and so forth
the whole city fundamentally was italian-american irish American Jewish
American and African American right I was %uh eighteen I think before I knew there was anybody else
well but
most of our parents were immigrants
just on my block there must have been
twenty
thirty
young people around my age give or take a year almost all of whom were immigrants
the parents were immigrants
%uh they didn't have automobiles that had very little
%uh they came here without knowing the language and they worked hard
to make something of themselves
just to the degree they wanted their children
to go to college be a professional man
get an education learn something
so you know I know I think from the day I was born that I had go to city college
there were no options
well we couldn't afford private schools that was out of the question I probably wasn't smart enough
to win a full academic scholarship
and city college was free
and in the ivy league schools to which a lot of these kids go today
they just weren't taking these kids they was discrimination everywhere forget it but city college
was was considered on a level academically with ivy league schools and yeah
and
I mean basically you knew that if you were going to get out
you had to keep your grades up you had to take a placement test
and make it in City college
if you talk about a meritocracy that was the ultimate meritocracy the ones who
finished at the top regardless of ethnic background where your father came from none of that mattered
right you got in so you grew up knowing that this was the place
that you had to get to
in order to do something
as a matter of fact Stan
this was the way out
for generations
and %uh this school city college
put out some of the greatest the most renowned intellectuals absolute in the country from
the nineteen thirties to the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties absolutely and nobel prize winners
yeah supreme court justices
it was a distinguished was university it was as I say the ultimate meritocracy
only the best
academically who applied got in
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