Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
A Pictorial History of Working People in New York City
The extraordinary efforts of ordinary people are visible during this pandemic as never before. The NYC Department of Records and Information Services is proud to present a virtual panel discussion with young workers about documenting working people’s lives and a virtual exhibit celebrating the 20th Anniversary paperback edition of Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives - A Pictorial History of Working People in New York City, by Rachel Bernstein and Debra E. Bernhardt, with many photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives and from the young workers who participated in the panel on May 14, 2020.
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives tells the stories of the men and women who built the City—of towering structures and the beam walkers who assembled them; of immigrant youths in factories and women in sweatshops; of longshoremen and typewriter girls; of dock workers and captains of industry. It provides a glimpse of the traditions they carried with them to this country and how they helped create new ones, in the form of labor organizations that provided recent immigrants, often overwhelmed by the intensity of New York life, with a sense of solidarity and security.
Astounding in their own right, the book's photographic images, most drawn from seldom-seen labor movement photographers, are complemented by poignant oral histories which tell the stories behind the images. Among the extraordinary lives chronicled are those of Philip Keating, who, seven years after a fellow worker photographed him painting the Queensboro Bridge in 1949, plunged to his death from another worksite; William Atkinson, who broke the color bar at Macy’s and tells of fighting racism at home after fighting fascism abroad during World War II; and Cynthia Long, who fought gender barriers to become, in the late 1970s, an electrician with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3. With narratives at the beginning of each section providing historical context, this book brings the past clearly, emotionally, and fascinatingly alive.
This online exhibit features images from the NYC Municipal Archives used in the book, and others that illustrate the depth of the Archives’ collections. Many of the images featured here are from the thousands of images taken by photographer Eugene de Salignac, who worked for NYC for over 30 years in the early 20th century, but whose name had been forgotten when the Ordinary Lives was published. Images of the spring 2020 panelists at work in the early 21st century compliment the historical images.
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives - Panel Discussion
Thursday May 14, 2020, 6:00-7:15 pm
A virtual panel discussion with young workers about documenting working people’s lives and a celebration of the 20th Anniversary paperback edition of Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives - A Pictorial History of Working People in New York City, by Rachel Bernstein and Debra E. Bernhardt.
Author Rachel Bernstein is joined by Commissioner Pauline Toole, Manhattan Borough Historian Rob Snyder, former head of the New York City Central Labor Council Ed Ott, organizer Myriam Hernandez, construction worker Shi Greene, electrician Shauna Irving and teacher Donna Chin.
Sponsored by LaborArts, New York Labor History Association, NYU’s Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYC Department of Records and Information Services/Municipal Archives, and New York City Central Labor Council.
Panelists -
Myriam Hernandez at the inauguration day protest in Washington DC with New York Communities for Change coworkers.
Myriam Hernandez trained as an accountant in her native Ecuador, but when she arrived in the United States she could not use her training. When she first arrived she cleaned offices, eventually becoming involved with the service workers union 32BJ, and stepped into organizing other workers, alternating between doing the cleaning work and the organizing work. She started organizing for them while still cleaning, then organizing for 1199, the health-care workers union. In both occupations, many workers were undocumented, and were so afraid to speak up they did not even believe they had the right to ask for time to get a drink of water.
Moving on to organize for the Teamsters, she anticipated that people with licenses and social security and unemployment and good salaries would speak up for their rights, but even there, fear of losing a job hindered action. Hernandez is currently an organizer with New York Communities for change, still working for immigrant rights and workers rights but collaborating with community groups as well as labor groups.
Myriam Hernandez shown here with NYC City Council member Carlos Menchaca (whose district includes Sunset Park in Brooklyn) and Cynthia Nixon at a rally they organized in just 24 hours. The rally attracted over 200 people, protesting the fact that immigrant residents were afraid to go into the park because of ICE overstepping.
In March 2020 Shi Greene was on a demolition crew at the Bronx North Central Hospital during the Coronavirus pandemic. She was responsible for the demolition and clean up of 6 floors to make needed rooms for patients suffering from COVID-19.
Shi Greene was a young mother with a criminal record and dismal employment opportunities when she found a friend who was in the apprentice program of the construction workers union Labors Local 79. She jumped at the chance, went through the program, and became an active member—and a tireless mentor for others. She describes the local as having a history of being extremely diverse—they would take anyone willing to do the difficult work.
Greene is an outspoken advocate for safety and training in the construction industry, and appeared on the Brian Lehrer radio show to raise awareness about the issue and the tragic number of construction workers who died on the job, mostly on on-union job sites.
She also works as an instructor and mentor with Pathways to Apprenticeship, which brings apprenticeship opportunities to low-income communities—people who live in public housing or receive public assistance, the under-employed, youth just released from the foster-care system, people with criminal records and others, most of whom are African-American, Hispanic, and of other minority cultures.
In 2018, Shi Greene was part of a project to rebuild and provide safer NYC city schools. Her assignment on this job was dock master—Local 79 Mason Tender—responsible for scheduling truck and supply deliveries and monitoring the access and entry points of the dock to ensure all worker safety.
Chin teaching a fourth-grade class on Complex Sentences. It shows the “action” in the classroom, and illustrates the increase in student centered activities to engage learners in what used to be a very dry topic (grammar).
Donna Chin, daughter of long-time labor activist May Chen (p.183) and product of the NYC public school system, began teaching over twenty years ago where she was raised in the Chinatown/Lower East Side community. Today she teaches ENL—English as a New Language (formerly known as ESL—English as a Second Language) in a NYC Public Elementary School (P.S. 281M) in District 2.
Contemplating the changes in the profession from the last century to this one, she notes the renewed emphasis on community/family and teacher solidarity in advocating for education funding, and the continued struggle of working women as they juggle all the demands on them at home and at work. She also notes the extraordinary challenge of engaging students when they are all remote—on a 2D screen—and the spotlight remote learning puts on the inequities that have long existed in the public school system.
A screenshot of Chin teaching a remote learning lesson from home. Remote learning has challenged teachers to keep up student engagement on a “2D” flat screen.
Shauna Irving’s family had businesses in childcare and early-childhood education, and the experience she has had in that field, she says, is a great help in dealing with people in the larger world. After being derailed from her music studies at York College (by financial hardships and the tragedy of a friend’s death) she saw an ad on a bus for NEW—Nontraditional Employment for Women. That same week she ran into an acquaintance who was an Electrician in IBEW Local 3. She jumped at the chance and was soon studying in the ‘A’ Apprenticeship program in IBEW Local 3. She loved all aspects of the wide-ranging educational programs they offered and the on-the-job training. Now a journeywoman electrician, she was working at the Javits Center when she was laid off due to the pandemic.
Irving is an active member of IBEW Local 3, Vice President of the Amber Light Society (the women's club of Local 3), an active member of the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus of IBEW, and a graduate of NEW (Nontraditional Employment for Women).
Shauna Irving volunteering for Heart 911/Local 3 IBEW doing recovery work for Hurricane Maria in Morovis, Puerto Rico, August 2019.
Shauna Irving on the job in Long Island City, splicing overhead, July 2018.
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