3. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, and Doug Emhoff lived in Midwood
Midwood raised quite a few famous figures in government, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bernie Sanders, and Chuck Schumer. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s childhood home at 1584 E 9th Street is today an unassuming home. Ginsburg was born in 1933 at Beth Moses Hospital at 4802 10th Avenue in Borough Park, which was settled by Jewish immigrants starting in the early 1900s. Ginsburg’s house was built in 1920, which lacked the vinyl siding it has today. Both sides of the two-family house appeared to have an outer facade layer possibly of stucco or plaster, and the original windows have been changed and remodeled over the years. The Ginsburg family was from the working class — her mother was a garment factory worker and her father was a furrier during the Great Depression. They attended East Midwood Jewish Center, and Ginsburg later attended James Madison High School before studying at Harvard Law School, then transferring to Columbia University‘s Law School.
Another attendee of James Madison High School was Bernie Sanders, who was born in Midwood in 1941. He grew up on East 26th Street, and he was the captain of both the track and cross country teams at his high school. Sanders would later attend Brooklyn College nearby, paying $80 a month in rent. In 2016, Sanders campaigned in front of the three-and-a-half-room apartment as part of his presidential run. Another important politician who lived in Midwood was New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who grew up in a Jewish household with an exterminator father and a homemaker mother. He graduated from James Madison High School in 1967 as valedictorian, attending Harvard and serving in the House across Brooklyn and Queens districts. Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, grew up at 1480 Ocean Avenue before moving to New Jersey.