Requiem for St. Anthony's: A Casualty of Gentrification by Jesse Turner

I live down the block from Saint Anthony's. I have nephews who went to there, it was not only a school that produced great basketball teams. It was a good that produce outstanding, caring, compassionate students who went on to live outstanding lives. It is also the Catholic School with the highest percentage of Black and Latino students. Bob Hurley could have gone anywhere, but he stayed at Saint Anthony's the school he loved, and the school that loved him. It was the basketball power house without it's own basketball court at it's school. If you went to Saint Anthony's you had street respect and academic respect. 

 

I grew up at the outside city basketball courts between Saint Anthon.ey's and the police station. What really happened in my local opinion is gentrification killed Saint Anthony's. When I grew up Downtown Jersey City was blue collar and poor. It was not unusual to see abandoned houses and factories. Families who could afford to keep their children out of the public schools did. The truth is those public schools were pretty good places for a kid to grow and learn as well. I went to Ferris High School, and we were always glade that Saint Anthony's was not on our schedule. Gentrification displaced many Latino, Black, and poor White families. The wealthy, the connected, and the powerful moved in, and blue collar working families moved out. Everything changed, and immigrant communities were lost. Downtown Jersey City stopped being my Jersey City decades ago. We lose some of our humanity and sense of who we are when gentrification comes knocking.