Amsterdam's Florence Collins, Reid Hill’s favorite teacher

Florence Collins lived most of her life in the house where she grew up on Amsterdam’s Pulaski Street in the then predominately Polish enclave called Reid Hill.

Born in 1911, her parents were Anthony and Pelagia Lulkowska Dabrowski. They had come to America from Torun, Poland, birthplace of Copernicus. Her given first name was long and according to her son’s eulogy, she decided to call herself Florence because of a neighbor woman who had that name.