Brooklyn Life

How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Made It From Midwood to the Supreme Court

The Notorious RBG, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is known to her fans, shares a home borough with the original Notorious title holder — the late rapper Biggie Smalls, aka the Notorious B.I.G.

Photo via Wikipedia

by Hannah Frishberg

03/15/2016 2

Born on March 15, 1933, to Nathan and Celia Bader, Russian-Jewish immigrants who worked as a furrier and a garment factory worker, respectively, Ginsburg was raised at 1584 East 9th Street in Midwood.

She attended James Madison High School — the same institution that graduated presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, New York Senator Chuck Schumer and Judge Judy.

She was a cello-playing Brooklyn Dodgers fan; the accomplishments listed in her yearbook include being an editor at the school newspaper, a cheerleader and a baton twirler.

Ginsburg’s Midwood address, recorded for posterity on her yearbook page, is a two-story clapboard property between O and P avenues. Located on the edge of the neighborhood, near where it transitions into Gravesend, the home is in a predominantly Jewish area. The property adjoins a second, separate home on one side, and houses a driveway on the other.

After graduating from James Madison, Ginsburg went on to Cornell University and then Harvard Law. She became a tenured professor of law at both Sweden’s Lund University and Columbia University; the chief litigator for the Women’s Rights Project; a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University; and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Then, in 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, where she has held office for 23 years.

A longtime feminist, Ginsburg has always been vocal about supporting women’s rights, and along with Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor is part of the largest contingent of women the court has had on it at one time. Last year she said to a crowd at Georgetown University Law Center, “People ask me sometimes, ‘When do you think it will be enough? When will there be enough women on the court?’ And my answer is when there are nine.”