Manhattan Chowder, Back in the Big Apple

Passing by a school playground full of children at recess in the East Village today, the din of a car horn in “panic” mode droned on and on in a monotone as they played. Just as I began to feel sorry for city kids who have to endure the urban noise around them from within their 12 foot chain link fence enclosed playground, I heard four or five boys stop what they were doing and start to build a chord based on the note from the car horn. They matched the rhythm creating the third and the fifth with one of the boys providing an off-beat and another improvising a counterpoint melody. One boy began to conduct with his right arm while the ball he had just been playing with was tucked under his left. I stopped on the sidewalk to wonder at the spectacle. Touched and amused at their ability to make music out of a car horn, I rounded the corner and realized that this was no ordinary playground I stumbled on to, this was the playground of Grace Church School.

A beautiful Gothic Revival style edifice set back from the street at 820 Broadway, Grace Church boasts one of the finest musical programs in the city. Their open-door policy and daily organ meditations are famous in the neighborhood. In fact, the school at Grace Church began as a boys’ choir boarding school in 1894. Eventually the school expanded into a regular elementary school and became co-educational, but obviously they have maintained their strong music program including a chorister training program for kids. Good thing, too, because these kids probably would have been beaten to a pulp on any other New York City playground. Keep singing, boys!