Fighting Tuition Increases at CUNY, back in the day

I only got to New York City in 1984, so I don’t know all the history. But tuition increases were threatened in 1989, and there were a wave of protests and campus takeovers, and the increases were stopped. Here’s Ken Stein, speaking, probably to a group (bullhorn) from the roof of Schuster Hall (that’s Davis Hall in the background) at Lehman College.

In 1991 I was busy making calls, trying to coordinate work among campus coalitions across the city/area, against Desert Shield, which would soon become Desert Storm. Ken was the contact name at Lehman. And then after the invasion, there was another round of tuition increases, and another round of campus protests, less successful. By then I’d moved back to the Bronx. That’s when I first met Ken.

Time rolled forward. I went to Lehman. I became a teacher. I got involved in the union, a little, started going to Delegate Assemblies. David Shulman would often take me to dinner after the DA was over, sometimes with Cathy, or Cathy and Annette, and occasionally with bigger groups. One day we left Fashion Industries and went to a nearby restaurant. Big circle table, in the front, by the windows. I bet it was December or January, it was cold. And one guy looked familiar; Ken had become a teacher as well. He was at a place called Pacific. It got closed a few years later.

He friended me, or I friended him. Whichever. I started to see his photography – really amazing stuff. Some attractive. Some pure New York City gritty.

I’m not wading through to find more great samples of his work. It’s an impressive body. Please, when you have some time, figure at least half an hour, probably more, go to his Flickr, and take a look at some first rate New York City work. Or here’s an article about him (with older photos). And I think there’s more. I think his photos ended up in lots of publications.

In any case, I followed his Facebook posts, and looked at his photos, and read about cameras and lenses. We were aware of each other, but didn’t really interact. Until after he’d been at Forsyth for a while, and went looking to recruit teachers, and contacted me. I never was able to help, but I tried. And then he reached out for help with PBATs – again, I wanted to help, but it didn’t work out.

But that kind of set the stage for occasional interaction. He was real Bronx, and I was not. But I am here now – and so there were some mutual connections. His picture of himself at CBGBs, I showed it to a former student, now a teacher herself “Oh my god! that’s my pops!” (It’s Eddie Torres, the drummer. There’s also a Bronx Eddie Torres, a dancer. That’s someone else. I taught his daughter, too.)

Between 181 (did he live in Coop City? I don’t know.) and Lehman (But what high school? I don’t know) he had connections here. He once asked about his friend Andrea, who I do not know, but I knew the last name; I taught her daughter. He knew activists who I know, and Lehman folks, some of whom overlapped with both of us.

And we were both in the DoE, with some similar inclinations. We supported some of the same causes. You know when two people have photos from similar protests? He once asked me to donate to Samelys Lopez, that was back in 2020 – I was already working on a fund-raiser and recruiting volunteers. I developed greater interest in Consortium schools – Ken brought expertise. He asked about union elections – I gave him the run down – and I think he gave us his support. Lately we both have been posting for a Ceasefire Now!

I went to Ken’s retirement in 2021, a year before mine… Because he invited me. Cool people, glad to have been there. That was the third time we met.

And, sadly, the last. We were not close. Not friends. But the news hit hard. We were contemporaries. Some overlap in interests, at least political ones. And in New York. Similar background. Similar age. My heartfelt condolences to those who were close to him.

You can’t meet Ken now, but you can still see him through his work.