For generations of New Yorkers, the clang of a classroom clock or the dust of chalk-filled erasers brings back memories of their school days.

For 84-year-old retired teacher Marty Raskin, those memories live on in thousands of artifacts he has spent decades collecting. 

What You Need To Know

  • Marty Raskin is a collector of educational memorabilia from NYC Public Schools and beyond 

  • Raskin was a public school teacher for 32 years

  • He also attended public schools growing up in East New York, Brooklyn

“This would be plugged in, and this would be like a vacuum sucking up all the chalk. Before this you would go like this with the two things or a teacher would say, ‘Would you be an eraser cleaner monitor.’ And you’d go outside and bang all the chalk out,” said Raskin, demonstrating an electric eraser cleaner, one of the many items in his collection.

Raskin, a Brooklyn native who taught in the city’s public school system for 32 years before retiring in 1998, has built an archive that captures decades of classroom history.

Pieces from Marty Raskin’s collection are displayed in his home. (Spectrum News NY1/Roger Clark)

“A lot of these items you find on eBay or Etsy, I do get donations from various teachers, and the interesting thing is — and I have letters to back that up — when I do my exhibitions, I get from children of their parents,” he said.

Raskin grew up in the system himself, attending P.S. 202 in East New York and Franklin K. Lane High School on the Brooklyn/Queens border.

His collection includes hats, apparel, the famous old Board of Education doorknobs, Delaney attendance cards, clocks, student publications and even furniture, like a desk with an ink well.

“My job would be to go to every single ink well, and fill it up with ink, there’s a little container inside for the ink,” Raskin recalled of his time as an ink well monitor.

Now, Raskin hopes his collection can be displayed in a permanent home, offering New Yorkers a chance to reconnect with their own school memories.

“I want to find a home for this collection where it could tell the story. And by the way, when you talk about educational memorabilia, every single person whoever went to school is part of that,” he said.

For Raskin, each artifact represents more than nostalgia. It’s a way of honoring his profession, his students and the generations who passed through the city’s classrooms.