After the Second World War many disabled US war veterans were looking for work, in vain as very few employers would touch them. Arde Bulova, chairman of the Bulova Watch Company, hit upon the idea of training these war veterans as watchmakers.
He directed Stanley Simon, Bulova’s industrial relations director, to establish the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking. The school was located at 62nd Street in Woodside, Queens and opened in 1945 ; it was named after the founder of Bulova, the father of Arde Bulova.
The school was specially designed, with ramps and wide doorways (to accommodate wheelchairs) and cork floors (to give traction to crutches). The work could be performed sitting down and no tuition was charged in the early days.
As Stanley Simons put it in 1946, according to The New York Times: “A man does not have to be an athlete to repair watches”. Many veterans became watchmakers, thanks to this initiative. And now Stanley Simons, who could be considered as a watch veteran, has passed away on August 5, at the age of 93.
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