This Is Ours: East 82nd St., Vol. 2, New York City

“Growing up in New York City is both a fairy tale and a reality for the participants of This Is Ours: East 82nd Street, Volume 2. The Upper East Side of Manhattan, which is where you will find both 82nd Street and St. Stephen of Hungary School, is home to some of the world’s most famous museums, boutiques of internationally acclaimed fashion designers, countless stores, restaurants of every description, staggeringly tall skyscrapers and elegant brownstone residences. It is also the home of local corner stores and deli’s, neighborhood parks, schools, houses of worship, and every type of transportation imaginable. Bordered by the East River and the wide expanse of Central Park, East 82nd Street is a microcosm of New York City and the place many of our students and teachers call home.

In this volume of This Is Ours, the second to be created at St. Stephen of Hungary School, our students were charged with thinking about the definition of “environment” and what it means to them, as children of New York City and citizens of the world. They worked as both a whole and separately as teams to explore the way their small corner of the world might teach others through their words, their paintings and their photographs. Over the course of three seasons, Fall, Winter and Spring, our students worked every week to document their environment. They sought advice from their elders, interviewed local businesses and documented their findings, telling the story of their environment through the lens of their neighborhood.  

In the spring of 2020, our world was faced with a serious global challenge. Covid-19 became a pandemic, forcing our city to enter an unprecedented period of quarantine and shut-down,  as we grappled to contain the devastating effects of the virus on our citizens and economy. We are grateful and thankful that these student authors have remained healthy and that they were able to complete their work on this volume before they were forced to continue their school journey at home, via the internet. 

While our neighborhood may look the same on the surface, things have changed dramatically for us all. This pandemic has taught our students about the importance of protecting their health, the health of others and the need to share their story to the greater world, because our global society needs to know more about each other to more forward together into the future.”

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