For Marty, After All

Good friends, gone now.
Their photographs on my wall.
Until some stranger takes them down, throws them away.
No reason to keep them after all.

Last week I learned via a Facebook post that Marty Sternstein had died on April 18th. This past week has seen a a social media outpouring of tributes in his memory.

Marty was 78 when he retired in 2010. He touched the lives of hundreds of students and colleagues who remember him with love, respect and gratitude. 

Juliana May wrote of Marty’s enduring impact on her life:

And she chose the perfect photograph to accompany her words.

There can be no gathering or memorial service at least not for now. As word spread on social media it became the gathering place for collective grieving and sense of loss. The anecdotes, memories and tributes from his former students poured in.

They remembered his kindness, his blue sweatshirt and khakis, the ice clinking in his capped container of iced coffee, his gap-toothed smile, his love of Bob Dylan. They wrote of his influence on their life choices, love of literature, use of commas. They called him wise friend, mentor, philosopher, guide and – most of all – great teacher. 

On Twitter and Instagram David Netto wrote: 

And he included this remarkable photograph:

Marty taught English first at a public school in New Jersey and then at the Walden School in NYC. And – when that school merged with New Lincoln in 1988 – at Walden Lincoln.

Here’s a photo of  Walden faculty and staff from the1987 yearbook. Marty is there along with Miriam Colon. Lois Hilton, Cecille Little, Bob Roseen and Sue Sortino all of whom also became a part of The Day School in 1991.

When the then Day School acquired the assets of Walden Lincoln in 1991 Marty became one of the founding figures of the high school of what is now Trevor Day School. When he retired he did not want any any kind of event or celebration to mark the occasion.

A month ago Zack Garlitos wrote:

I had an English teacher in high school, Mr. Sternstein, who told us an anecdote one of the first days of class. A teacher brings a goldfish to class one day, and tells their students to write down every observation they can make about the fish. The next day, the teacher has the same fish, and gives the same assignment. The students, however, are not allowed to make any of the same observations they made the day before. “But we already recorded all of our observations yesterday,” the students say. “Do it again,” the teacher tells them. So they do, and they each make a list of new observations. The next day, the teacher brings the same fish, gives the same assignment. The students make a new list. This goes on for days, and each day the students realize there is always something new to notice about the fish. We would come back to this anecdote from time to time throughout the school year. When someone would find themself stumped, Mr. Sternstein would remind us, “Look at the fish.” I returned home from the Philippines on March 15, 2020 with a mild cough. I’ve isolated myself in my apartment for the past week-and-a-half; the only meaningful human contact I’ve had has been virtual. I’ve been battling the pressure I feel to document this bizarre moment in human history from the confines of my room, the existential dread of not knowing what lies at the end of this tunnel, the fear and loneliness that I associate with isolation. I find myself longing to make photographs that are not explicitly about our collective circumstances, because I feel that in some way, whatever I create right now will, inevitably, be about this moment. The fish changes: sometimes it’s the fading tulips on my kitchen table, other times it’s the detail in the parquet floors, others the way the steam rises from my cup of coffee, and—perhaps most frequently—my own life, patterns, and choices. Amidst the fear and uncertainty, I am grateful to have a moment to slow down, to process the trip from which I just returned, to consider my surroundings and relationships and be thankful for them. – https://imgund.com/zackgarlitos

There’s a video somewhere of Marty teaching a class of I think ninth graders. He is leading a discussion of Great Expectations. And what I remember is how Marty was eliciting from the class just how their own experience of life and relationships connected with Dickens’ characters.

Pip and Estella were not some alien figures in an old book that was supposed to be good for them to read – but adolescents with feelings and emotional lives, just like theirs. Marty had that indwelling quality. The literature he loved was a part of who he was and the fabric of his life. It is that that he shared with those students. They too could look closely. And find connection and meaning. And look again at the fish. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could not find any official obituary or death notice on line but I did find a note from a funeral home saying that Marty would be buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing.  That is where his parents Samuel and Pauline Sternstein are buried. 

Marty was a writer. And this week I found something of his that was published in the Birmingham Review in 2016. I believe it to be autobiographical based on what I know of Marty’s parents and childhood.

Marty was born in 1932 and when he was seven he was living at 2551 Aqueduct Avenue in the Bronx,

His father was fifteen when in 1911- as Schulem Sternstein – he left Uman, Russia and arrived in NY via Liverpool on the RMS Caronia. 

Marty writes of his father owning a diner and commuting daily by subway to Brooklyn. At the time of the 1940 census he was listed as working as a waiter and had worked 72 hours the previous week. 

His mother was born in Buczacz, Poland. She arrived in 1921 as Peppi Hoffman via Antwep on the SS Lapland. She was 22.

Buczacz was the site of multiple Soviet and Nazi atrocities both before and during WW2. Marty makes reference to his mother’ good fortune in emigrating and to her sister who did not.  And there’s another – oh so understated – hint later of what became of her. 

Between about 1890 and America‘s entrance into WWI in 1917, some 13 million immigrants arrived  to make new lives in America. Most passed through Ellis Island, many settled in New York City.  Seventy-five percent of them were Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe. Marty’s parents were part of that extraordinary wave of immigrants from Europe.

Marty was an only child. But there was another baby, an older brother.

A man is in his room looking at family photographs and he remembers. The complex contradictions of family  deeply felt and gently remembered. It seems perfect for this moment

It is a remarkable piece of writing.

I take a deep breath and think of Marty.

Photos: @seventiesup (Facebook) Walden School Yearbooks, Trevor Day School.