...Photo...Small Machine Tools...

...in a shop that is "completely air conditioned" according to the lettering on the window...

Is that a young Joe Michaels in that line up? Says tech school, New York on the other window....

Rob F.:

Thanks for thinking of me. No, it is NOT Brooklyn Technical HS, though the picture was taken somewhere in New York. Brooklyn Tech HS had machine shops which were larger, often still line shaft driven, and in all of Brooklyn Tech, there were only two (2) South Bend Lathes (which the lathes in this photo appear to be). The men in this photo appear older than HS boys, aside from all else. My guess is it is some sort of night-time trade school.

A typical machine shop at Brooklyn Tech would have perhaps 16 Ames or similar bench lathes, driven with flat leather belts. Older shop rooms had those bench lathes driven with overhead drives, and you used foot pedals to shift the belt onto the tight pulley to start the bench lathe. Modernized shop rooms had the same lathes converted to underneath motor drives. Engine lathes were a mixed bag. Older shops had a mix of cone-drive engine lathes of about 14"-16" swing driven off the line shafting, or had some geared head lathes such as Hendeys, also driven off the line shafting. There was also a good mix of Lodge & Shipley, Sidney, Reed & Prentice, and Bradford engine lathes in the shop class rooms- some of these having been ex defense plant corporation machines. Any shop classroom had anywhere from 12 to 16 engine lathes. The newest of the engine lathes were brand new LeBlond Regals. Some of the lathes had screwed spindle noses and some had long taper spindle noses. We kids learned pretty quickly to try to get on an engine lathe with the long taper spindle nose if we had to change a chuck or faceplate. We did use cradle blocks. We learned to "walk" a moving flat belt up or down the cone pulleys. We learned to grind a twist drill freehand, and to do shop math and handle decimals and fractions in our heads as part of machine shop classes.

All shop class rooms had at least 4 horizontal milling machines. The older classrooms had cone-drive/back geared horizontal mills. There were usually two shapers of about 16" stroke or a little bigger. Drill presses were a mixed bag, but none of the lighter round column variety. We had some camelback drills belted off the lineshafts, and we had some Leland Giffords, and some other fairly heavy drill presses. We also had Fosdick radial drills. I remember some wag had taken a scriber and neatly lettered "Fearless" under the Fosdick name on one radial drill's nameplate.

In my junior year, we had even heavier machine tools, and got introduced to the surface grinder (a 1920's Brown & Sharpe), along with getting into gear cutting using a dividing head. Our teachers were great, and were often men who'd attended Brooklyn Tech as students, went "out into industry" and came back to teach. Having a master toolmaker or a real patternmaker or a man who'd been a foundry molder or a civil engineer for a teacher made a world of difference. Perhaps we took such teachers for granted. They put a lot into teaching us kids, and they were tough and held us to high standards.

Our shop classrooms were great, and unfortunately, are long gone from Brooklyn Technical HS. In the 1990's, a principal was appointed to take over Brooklyn Technical HS. He had the "community interests" on his agenda. At the time, the neighborhood around Tech was a "changing" neighborhood and community activists had been agitating since young people from the immediate neighborhood did not attend Brooklyn Technical HS. The truth was Brooklyn Tech was known as one of the three "special" high schools in NY City. Prospective students had to apply to go there, get recommendations, have a good academic record, and pass a stiff entrance exam. Once in Brooklyn Tech, the work load was a lot heavier than regular academic HS, and if you flunked two subjects, you were immediately bounced out and sent to your district's academic HS. Stiff disciplinary code, dress code, and a whole different atmosphere, and it was all boys back when I went there.

In the 1990's the principal who was installed was sent into tear apart Brooklyn Technical HS from within to suit the agenda of the activists and the community around it. He did away with the specialized courses (Architectural, Aeronautical, Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering/broadcast option, Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering). All the shops were not modernized. Instead of moving to teach CNC machining and CAD, which would make some sense, the program was to get rid of all shops and technical education. They were gutted and replaced with classrooms. Any semblance to a technical HS was obliterated. Where there were once shops, labs with engines and dynamometers, strength of materials testing labs, a foundry with a cupola, a structural fabrication shop, an aeronautical shop, and so much else, there is now not even a hint of any of it.

When my 50th class reunion rolled around, I did not attend. I did not want to return to Brooklyn Technical HS to see what it had sunk to. Young people who have graduated recently have told me what it has become and I'd heard enough. I have not been back there since my freshman year of college, so we are going back to 1968 or 69. The building is the same, and the architectural details over the entrances (the entry I used had, amongst other things, a flyball governor in the stonework) still are in place, but that is where any semblance of the real Brooklyn Tech HS ends. I still sketch freehand in perspective to show how jobs go together, and still draw and do my calculations with lettering and linework done by my own hand. When people remark about it, I tell them, this was what we learned and what was required at Brooklyn Technical High School. We got a REAL education, and one that has been not only a foundation, but of continuing use to me over my entire career.

About the closest thing I've seen to the old Brooklyn Tech HS that I attended is a HS in Berlin, Germany named for Reischauer (sp ?), the man who developed a system of tolerances, limits, and gear design data. Students there so what we did all those years ago, including ramming up sand molds and pouring castings. Here in the USA, or at least in New York, the standards are watered way down, and the system is more concerned with studies about various ethnic groups, social issues, and political correctness than giving young people a real solid education.

In high school I was in the first group of students to attend a BRAND NEW school as a sophmore in '82-'83. "Shop" was all rolled into one, wood and metal. I remember 3 brand new (everything was brand new) gearhead lathes with 2000 rpm max speeds. Some welding booths and a table saw & wood planer is about all else I remember of that. Must have been a mill, just no memory... Moved next year and the new school at least had separate shops for metal, wood and ag. Never went into the ag shop so not sure what they did there. Metal shop had 3 or so lathes, probably southbends or similar, one shaper, vert bandsaw, bridgeport and a drill press or two. Maybe 6 welding booths and a small foundry set up for aluminum. Horizontal bandsaw outside in back to cut stock on. Teacher was a welder by trade so that is mostly what he taught us. After graduating that school ('85) went to local JC and in second year there Was in the LAST group of students to take a "machine shop" course. Teacher was an old guy (I thought at the time) who was from Yugoslavia and also had a small tool supply store in town. Good guy... That shop was turned into a computer lab maybe '88 or '89. I was happy to at least have had a couple classes in it before its demise. I guess that was the beginning of the end of "real work" in america, as everything started to go offshore about then, until now when people might be waking up to the fact that we need to be able to do our own production work here and not rely on other countries to supply us. (silver lining to the virus cloud)
I still have a chunk of mystery metal drop from that shops closing, maybe 5 or 5 1/2" dia and 11" or so long, and another drop about 4" dia and 7" or so long, threads on 1/2 of it that I welded a thick wall pipe handle to make the BFH. Used that combination of hammer and "anvil" to get a workout and smash beer cans flat, they would get really flat, (.035?) able to get 3 times as many into a barrel to maximize the payment per trip to the scrapman.
I will have to get that hammer out and flatten a can to measure, curious that I never measured one that was treated to the BFH.

How curious-it looks like a small training shop down at the Shops! Public in the street can just stop and take a nosey!

A search for Metropolitan Technical School brings up some similar style photos but none that I could confidently bundle with this one. As mentioned, these "students" seem older than the typical high-schooler. Looks like a commercial enterprise of some sort..