EBC High School for Public Service

1155 DeKalb Ave

Broadway and the neighboring streets were a center of entertainment in Bushwick during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This building, now a high school, used to be a vaudeville and motion picture theater called The DeKalb Theater, and later, the Casino Theater. The building’s current occupant, EBC High School, has been in service to Bushwick youth and their families since 1992. It was created in response to city budget cuts during the fiscally tumultuous 1970s and 80s by a group of local religious congregations that had grown tired of the city’s neglect. They organized across racial, religious, and labor borders to open two new schools in Bushwick and East New York. EBC has grown into a pillar of the Bushwick community. Shout outs to Ms. Trinidad, the school’s Parent Coordinator who’s steady doing #thework.

Classroom Prayer

By Modesto Flako Jimenz

I don’t remember you from I.S 162

I was 12. It was your first school.

A conglomorate of latinos y africanos.

Before gentrification hit the hood.

You was there in the trenches Jennifer  

Teaching our youth

You wanted to do it 

Not for loan payments 

Not for the accolades

Not for tenure

You knew it needed to be done  

To teach clarity 

To teach growth  

To the future

I don’t remember you from 162

I don’t know where it happen

How you decided to forget

Human to human care

You have clock out

Accept that flako

I repeat to self 

While i watch 

School activities ignore 

By you and gossip embraced 

To pass the time.

I don’t remember you when i was 16

When you would bring extra notebooks 

You new it was hard for kids to have

Pen and paper

I don’t remember you 

While i teach

El pasado El futuro y el presente

I wish i could remember jennifer

That teacher that walk into I.S162 

With a smile 

A bag of supplies and care 

For the future