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Stuyvesantians in Israel

Stuyvesantians Lost on 911

IN LOVING MEMORY

'62 Indicator

SARA BARON
1905 to 2005

Please help us to complete the
Stuyvesant High School
Centennial Timeline

Read the Campaign Newsletters

1923
Lt. Gen. Garrison H. Davidson*
Thomas Marshall Davidson, McLean, VA

1925
Charles Belous, Esq.*

1937
Bernie Silverman*

1938
Irving Lang Boca Raton, FL

1940
William Solomon
Arnold Roth
John Shipley, PhD

1947
Italo H. Ablondi, Esq.* Washington, DC

1949
Paul Weichsel, PhD
Donald Gerber, MD, Brooklyn, NY
Marshall Greene, MD
Howard Kaplan, Chevy Chase, MD


1950 (Jan.)
Earle S. Altman

1952
Bernard Seabrooks

1953
Howard Rosenkrantz, DDS Marblehead, MA

1955
Solomon S. Steiner, Ph.D.

1956
David Katz

1958
Martin Goldstein, MD

1959
Morton Fleischner
Leonard Strickman, Esq.

1961

Paul Hyman
Alexander Byron Miller

1962
Mike Kwatinetz San Francisco, CA
Ben Wolkowitz, PhD Madison, NJ

1963
Jeff Fleigel MD Ocala, FL
Lou Leichter, PhD, Esq. St. Paul, MN

1964
M. Felix Freshwater, MD Miami FL 
Jeff Kestler, Esq. Far Hills, NJ 
Harvey Sohnen, Esq. Walnut Creek, CA
Mark Probert  Long Island, NY
Lenny Mandel West Orange, NJ

1965
Ben Tadelis Los Angeles, CA

1969
Matt Asen Fort Meyers, FL
Harris Cohen, MD

1974
Laura Blitzer
Jeffrey Krauss, Esq.

1977
Matthew Bernstein

1980
Irene Chang, Esq.

1981
Neal Wilson
B. Dean Angelakos
Anna Wong, MPH Boston MA

1985
RJ Vassiliou

* Honorary/In Memoriam

Our Strong Band: Stuyvesant HS Think Backs and Memorials  

"Charles W. Taussig '13".... from the 1913 Indicator, NY Times, and FDR Library

President of the American Molasses Company in 1933, when he became one of the original members of the "brains trust." From 1935 to 1934, he served as Chairman of the National Advisory Committee of the National Youth Administration. Mr. Taussig served on the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, as co-chairman in 1942, and as chairman of the American delegation from 1946 until his death in 1948. He also served as a member of the President's Council for the Virgin Islands, chairman of the U.S. Commission to study Social and Economic Conditions in the British East Indies, and on the United Nations Conference on International Organization.

At Stuyvesant, he was a swimmer, hockey player, and member of the Wireless club. After graduating Stuyvesant Charles entered the family molasses business, leaving it to become a wireless operator at sea during World War I. After the war, Charles devoted himself to the molasses business until asked by FDR to join the original, pre-inauguration, New Deal team.

Charles was also a successful author, having written 5 books and a number of magazine articles. 

"My father Dr. Joseph T. Shipley T'14-57".... by John Burke Shipley ’40 Professor (retired) University of Illinois (Chicago), from the SHS Centennial Book manuscript.

My father began teaching at Stuyvesant in 1914, at the age of 19 and a half after having graduated from CCNY in 1912. (He would have started teaching immediately after graduating college but at 17 he was considered too young.) While he was still a neophyte teacher, he told me some sixty years ago, his class was especially rowdy. A chief trouble-maker was a big, tough kid. My father dealt with the problem as follows: He appointed the kid class monitor. That took care of it for some while, but one day another student made a big nuisance of himself. So my father said to the class monitor, “Hey, John, we’ll have to chain him down, won’t we?” The next day, in comes “John” with a chain. My father explained to him that, no, we would not really be chaining that boy down. It was a joke. My father then turned to the blackboard and, sensing something, immediately ducked. The chain went sailing over his head out a window. I never did learn what happened to the monitor and the other boy, but this experience apparently led to my father’s teaching from the back of the class. He once showed me the window – in Room 204 or 207 – through which the chain had gone. Matters – at least classroom order –must have turned to normal from that episode on; at least he imparted no more such anecdotes to me.

His teaching career, however, almost came to abrupt ends in 1917 and again in 1919. When we entered World War I, my father signed a petition of protest along with some 200 other high school teachers. He did so as a conscientious objector and Socialist. This public posture almost cost him his job. Whether any of the other signers lost theirs I do not know, but in my father’s case, a letter from the principal, Dr. von Nardroff to the Board of Education apparently enabled my father to retain his post. Two years later, comparable situation occurred. Though this time, he did not make his decision public. New York State had passed a bill requiring teachers to sign a loyalty pledge. “I didn’t like it, and didn’t sign. I made no public protest [unlike others who did and who lost their jobs], but I phrased a statement from words of our Founding Fathers, signed that, and had it attached to the pledges from Stuyvesant.” But “a piece of stupidity . . . . on the part of a Superintendent, who had obviously come to Stuyvesant to ‘get’ me . .. brought my chairman (Dr. Frederick Law) onto my side, and I escaped intact.”

During his career, which ended with his retirement in 1957, he entered richly into the life of the English Department of Stuyvesant. In the Department, he created the honors classes. Among his students, he counted the three Noble Prize winners and four of the five college presidents who graduated from Stuyvesant. As to his after-class life at Stuyvesant, my father was, for 17 years, faculty advisor of Arista and of the senior class. He also presided at 30 of its first 100 graduations.

One particular pleasure for my father, Dr. Joseph Shipley, was coaching the Stuyvesant championship swimming teams over several years. He was actively engaged in sports throughout most of his life, from chess to handball, tennis, racquetball, and squash, to walking in his late 80s into his 90s. But from early boyhood he had always liked swimming. At 13, he swam across the Hudson River near where the 125th Street bridge now is, and during his years at CCNY he earned his letters on its swimming team.

Just what aspect of his career at Stuyvesant my father looked back on with greatest satisfaction isn’t really hard to determine—it is in having given to so many able and intelligent young men a knowledge of our language and its literature. That helped make an education at Stuyvesant the superlative education it was (and is). But surely he counted coaching the championship swimming teams a meaningful part of the educational process.

---

Joseph T. Shipley was an extraordinary individual who helped  Stuyvesant become much more than just a school for training, sciences, and mathematics.  

In addition to teaching English at Stuyvesant High School for over 40 years, Joseph was the drama critic for the New Leader, a founding faculty member of Yeshiva College, received a PhD from Columbia in 1931, and was president of the New York Drama Critics Circle. In addition to Stuyvesant and Yeshiva, he taught at City College and Brooklyn College. His legacy included 4 children, 19 grandchildren, 9 great-grand children, and 27 books, the last of which was published when he was 91 years old.

"Letter to the Class of January 1949".... by Edwin M. Kelly, PhD, T'14-61, from the January 1949 Indicator

"You are now going out into the world and the dominant thought in your mind should be SERVICE. Opportunities for usefulness to the community, to your country, and to mankind have been emphasized in various ways through your high school career.

Stuyvesant is itself an outstanding example of SERVICE. It has taught you the democratic ideals of the American way of life, and has prepared you for good citizenship. The faculty has ever striven toward the accomplishment of the highest good for you spiritually, intellectually and physically. Every school day has been an opportunity for acquiring knowledge, for training the intellect, and for developing moral power. As your high school days are drawing to a close, you should ponder the thought as to what you will do with this training. Do you intend to be selfish with your talents, or to use them beneficially for uplifting those about you and improving the world?

Your ideal of SERVICE should be to upraise the race. If each graduate held this thought in his mind as he lived each day, the force for good would be felt ultimately in all fields of endeavor. A little pebble thrown into a large pond produces ripples that extend in ever-increasing circles to all shores

To do this you should seek the truth and abide by it. You should be thorough and accurate in what you do, since only through this procedure will you be able to resist all specious appeals. Be careful of propaganda and its subtle ways. Do not fall in with the majority, if it is wrong, because of lethargic indifference. Likewise, do not be ensnared by the saccharine efforts of a well-organized minority. You should be tolerant and not vindictive. You should not be asleep to what goes on about you in this fast moving and complex world, because the future of our beloved country depends on you and your contemporaries.

In conclusion, I hope that you will always cherish an undiminished ardor in maintaining the ideals learned in your student life at Stuyvesant in whatever service you give to your neighbor and society.

My best wishes for a useful life of SERVICE go with you."

---

"Doc" Kelly, a formative force for Stuyvesant High School, taught in Stuyvesant High School for 47 years. At the end of the 1961 school year, during which he served as assistant dean of students, he retired from Stuyvesant. Sadly, the next week, on July 4th 1961, he passed.

Dr. Kelly graduated Columbia in 1914, received his PhD in education from Fordham, and was an ensign in the US Navy. Somewhere in there he also pitched minor league baseball!

"Ray Arcel '17".... from the Wabash Valley Profiles, Terre Haute National Bank

In the rough-and-tumble sport of professional boxing, Terre Haute native Ray Arcel was distinctive.

Articulate and courteous, Arcel carried himself as if an attaché case belonged in his hands. For a while, he wanted to be a physician. Instead, he became one of the most successful trainers in boxing history, producing at least 19 world champions between 1923 and 1982, including Benny Leonard, Frankie Genaro, Abe Goldstein, Charlie Phil Rosenberg, Jackie “Kid” Berg, Lou Brouillard, Teddy Yarosz, Sixto Escobar, James J. Braddock, Tony Marino, Freddie Steele, Ceferino Garcia, Billy Soose, Alfonzo “Peppermint” Frazer, Tony Zale, Ezzard Charles, Kid Gavilan, Roberto Duran and Larry Holmes. Leonard, world lightweight champ from 1917 to 1925, was Ray’s favorite. “He was a master fighter, using brains instead of brawn,” he said. In 1982 Arcel was the first trainer inducted into Ring’s Boxing Hall of Fame. He was enshrined at the new International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y. in 1990.

The son of David and Rosa Arcel, Ray was born Aug. 30, 1899, at 812 S. Fourth St. His father managed Addie’s Confectionary (named after Ray’s paternal grandmother Adelia) at 113 S. Fourth St., next to Albert Fiess’ harness shop. When Ramel and Adelia Arcel settled in Terre Haute in 1883, the family resided at 102 N. 13th St., operating a fruit concession. Before Ray was a teen, the family moved to East Harlem. His parents enrolled him at Peter Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. He rode a bike to school every day, excelling at cross country and in the classroom. His interest shifted to boxing after a few weekend amateur bouts.

For several years Ray was a purchasing agent for Meehanite Metal Corp., serving as cornerman in his spare time. Eventually, he owned his own gym in Brooklyn. Current Terry Ray trainer Angelo Dundee, who handled Muhammad Ali, was among his many notable pupils. Arcel acquired a reputation as a disciplinarian. Yet he was a genius for concocting a battle plan. Retired fighters recognized him for teaching moral values, too. Twice he came out of retirement. In 1970, at age 71, he began training Roberto Duran and steered the fighter to a world title within two years. On June 11, 1982, he worked his last championship bout in Larry Holmes’ corner, assisting former student Eddie Futch in the successful title defense against heavyweight challenger Gerry Cooney. Not all of the 2,000 fighters Arcel trained during his career — which spanned nearly 70 years — won. Heavyweight champion Joe Louis beat 14 of them. “Louis thought I was ‘The Meat Wagon,’” Arcel once told an amused audience.

On March 7, 1994, Arcel died at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. He was
94. He was survived by his second wife Stephanie, son-in-law Clement Bloch and
two granddaughters. Honors continue to come his way. On March 28, 1999, Arcel
was posthumously inducted into the New York Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Sarah
and Ramel Arcel, an aunt and uncle, are buried at Highland Lawn Cemetery.

In the news recently for his bequest of one million dollars to his alma mater, Columbia College of Pharmacy. Professor Taub attended Columbia, from which he graduated in 1920, and upon receipt of his degree he remained at the college as a teacher. He served first as a chemist, and then as instructor in chemistry and physics. He progressed in his field until 1948, when he became a professor and chairman of the division of chemistry. In 1923 he received the American Pharmaceutical Association's Ebert Medal for pharmaceutical research. He also was the recipient of the Columbia Alumni Federation Medal for Conspicuous Service in 1954, as a result of his outstanding service in the activities of the University. He is extremely active in the Columbia College of Pharmacy Alumni Association, and has established several scholar-ships. Professor Taub has published over twenty scientific papers, has co-authored two texts, has served as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry for many years, and has been granted a number of patents. He has membership in the Association of Consulting Chemists and Chemical Engineers, American Chemical Society, the Parentaeral Drug Association, the New York Academy of Science, and the Pharmaceutical Society of New York. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemists, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor Taub was recently honored at the Columbia College of Pharmacy's Alumni Association Dinner by the receipt of the Henry Hurd Rusby Award. It was at this time that he announced his bequest of $1,000,000 to the School.

The Stuyvesant Training Corps was organized as a military instruction unit in December 1915. Captain Henry F. Davidson, father of Garrison Davidson of the Class of 1923 (who was the mascot of the STC growing up), was the Drill Instructor. Henry Davidson fought at the Battle of San Juan Hill where a large drinking cup in his hand diverted a large enemy bullet aimed at his head. Henry and son General Garrison Davidson are shown here in a 1958 photograph, with a hat of the type Henry wore at San Juan Hill. 

Many members of the STC fought in World War Two, a number at very high rank, and the bonds developed at Stuyvesant and in the war enabled these men to meet on a regular basis over the years until many were well into their 80s. A regular newsletter connected the group all those years. The STC was renamed “The Last Man’s Club” and lasted until virtually the last man passed on. 

For example, for the 1974 meeting, members included Bernard Miemann, Edgar Chapman, George Ellner, Vincent Federici, Walter Wood, Harry Isaacson, Fred Marsh, J. Florian Mitchell, Richard Mugler, Theodore Novak, Alfred Reutershan, Hugo Rogers, Arthur Sanfillippo, Alois Scharf, Kenneth Spear, George Titus, Harry (Red) Freedman, Peter Hahn, Sidney Wilde, Arnold Hanson, Bill Tannhauser, Charles Gillhaus, Bill Sands, David Newberger, Richard Leslie, Lee Kramer, Alfred Hausrath, Sidney Berliner, Joe Hasto, Sidney Tobias, Jerry Turner, Ken Morton, Elmer Rogers and Joe Rizzuto.

The institution of the Stuyvesant Training Corps lasted almost an entire century.

Stuyvesant’s First Championship Football Team, the Class of 1923, went undefeated in City play, beating DeWitt Clinton 14-0 in the Championship game. Three team members went on to become captains of their college teams. The team included Captain William Adler, Garrison Davidson, Michael DiVirgilio, Bernard Feurer, Harold Hockelman, Abraham Kaplan, William Koselink, Ernest Rehm, John Shaw, Clarence Taylor, William Timm and Abraham Zahn. The December 8, 1922 Banquet, held at the West Side YMCA, also listed “Eddie the Water Boy” and “M. Slavin, first aid”.

Officers of the Stuyvesant Club in attendance at the football banquet included President Thomas Hession, Vice President William Adler, Secretary Leo Kramer and Treasurer Bernard Feurer. Speakers included Principal Ernest R. Von Nardroff and Coach Joseph Saltman.

In his autobiography, Gar Davidson wrote: “”In 1919 there was only one technical high school in the New York school system, Stuyvesant. … I traveled by subway from the upper Bronx to lower Manhattan for four years and was never late for my first class, a distinct tribute to the reliability of the New York subway system.”

“The school was not a neighborhood institution as far as I was concerned.  The student body was a polyglot group coming from a great variety of ethnic backgrounds; sons of Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian and Italian immigrants who lived nearby, Irish from Hell’s Kitchen, Germans, Hungarians and Czechs from uptown and Greeks from Brooklyn. Most kids being poor headed for work soon as school was out….

In 1921, I decided to try out for the football team. … I was successful and played right end for two years. In 1921 we just missed winning the championship but in 1922 our team brought Stuyvesant its first championship.”

After graduating from Stuyvesant, continued his education at New York University, Fordham College and Fordham Law School. Following his admission to the bar, he engaged in Bar Association activities, and for several years conducted a series of radio programs sponsored by the American Citizenship Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association. At the same time, he became affiliated with various civic organizations devoted to the furtherance of good government. Shortly after this country was involved in the war, he was selected by the United States Navy for training as a civilian instructor in the aviation branch of the Navy. Mr. Canton believes that the Stuyvesant technical background was of inestimable value in aiding his naval aviation course since he was trained intensively and comprehensively as an aero-nautical engineer in a matter of months, after which he was assigned to a naval air station as an instructor. He considers this entire experience a very gratifying phase of his life and then resumed the practice of law after the war. Shortly after the formation of the Alumni Association, he was elected Secretary-Treasurer and has continued as such till the present. Mr. Canton feels that his duties and activities for the Association are in a measure a recompense for the debt due Stuyvesant, not only for the fine schooling acquired, but for the friends he made and the grand teachers under whom he studied and who influenced him in many ways in the most formative years of his life. He is continually attempting to imbue this attitude in other alumni so that the Association may benefit and prosper.

"Jack Pelz Jan ’30".... by Dan Steinbach '84

Jack Pelz (Jacob Cohen when he was at Stuyvesant), my grandfather-in-law, was born in 1912 and passed away at the age of 93, leaving his wife of 62 years.

Jack's father and mother both passed away at a young age. At 16 while attending Stuyvesant High School, he went to live with his older sister. His two younger siblings went to orphanages. Upon graduating from Stuyvesant, he had no money for college. Times were different back then and with no source of money, he went to work. He worked most of his life in the subways as a conductor at first and then as an engineer.

However his life was not about his career, it was about his family. Whenever the family would come over for Passover, he would always kiss all the grandkids and say they are his millions. Hilda, his wife, and Jack had 4 daughters each about 4 years apart. My mother-in-law is the oldest causing my father-in-law to call her the pick of the litter. They also have 10 grandchildren which includes my wife and currently have 6 great-grandchildren.

When I first started dating my wife, her parents were on vacation overseas so she stayed with her grandparents in Forest Hills about a mile or so from my father's house. We were both camp counselors with the Flushing YM/WHA, Cindy was 16 and I was 18. I went jogging with her after dinner for several nights and then decided that I should at least say hello to her grandparents. I wasn't sure what to expect from her grandparents. Just in those first few moments I was taken in by their warmth. We seemed to get along fine from the start. I guess they knew.

When my older son Zack was 2.5 years old, we visited them in their winter residence in Century Village in West Palm Beach Florida. They would have been very upset if we came to Florida for a vacation and didn't visit them. In the last few years, they gave up their place in Florida and eventually their place in Forest Hills Queens to move to an assisted living residence in Melville Long Island very close to my mother-in-law and one of their other daughters.

Still hanging on the wall in their apartment at the assisted living residence was Jack's Stuyvesant diploma from December of 1930 (I believe). It was obviously folded at one point but then found its way into a frame and proudly displayed. Having attended the same high school although so many years later seemed to be a bond. We still have a doll house that Jack made in shop class at Stuyvesant over 75 years ago sitting on the floor of our living room.

The family met at the cemetery but there was no funeral parlor, just a simple ceremony. My mother-in-law, Renee, had wanted to celebrate his life in the tradition of an Irish wake as opposed to a somber ceremony. I think he would be very happy to see everyone get together and share fond memories and stories. Jack was the eternal optimist - always smiling with the warm look of love when seeing his family.

Right before Passover in 2005, he didn't feel well and became disoriented. While on his way to the hospital he said to his wife of 65 years, "we had a good life." He may have known. After the hospital he was in a hospice where he was fairly non-responsive for several days. The decision was made not to prolong his situation with a feeding tube or artificial respirator. He had accomplished all he was going to accomplish and there is nothing wrong with 6 great-grandkids as an accomplishment.

- Dan Steinbach '84

"John T. McLaughlin '32".... From the 1962 SHS Alumni and Scholarship Association Journal

President of the Vick Chemical Company.

Mr. McLaughlin worked continually during his four years at Stuyvesant and was awarded a full tuition scholarship at Harvard after his graduation m 1932. He entered the Equitable Life Assurance Society when he graduated from Harvard Phi Beta Kappa in 1936. Mr. McLoughlin moved on to Proctor and Gamble Company in 1939, where he served as Product Brand Manager. In 1946 he became Advertising and Sales Manager at Carier Products. He directed the Surgical Dressings Division of Johnson & Johnson from 1947-1954. Mr. McLoughlin was "Vice President in charge of Marketing Domestic and Export of Easterbrook Pen Company for three years sterling in 1955. In 1958 he moved on to Mead Johnson & Company, where he acted as Vice President and General Manager, Nutritional and Pharmaceutical Division. He was made President of Mead Johnson Laboratories when Metrecal sales had reached a great height, warranting a separate division. Mr. McLoughlin became President of the Vick Chemical Company in 196l. He is also active in many community endeavors, as well as his business enterprises. He has been Vice President of the Princeton, N. J. YMCA; Trustee of the Princeton United Fund; and is Vestryman of the Trinity Church of Princeton, N.J., and of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Evansville, Indiana.

"Dr. Irving V. Glick ‘32"

At Stuyvesant, Irving Glick was on the editorial staff of The Spectator and was editor of the Yearbook.  He graduated from Stuyvesant at a time when the country was suffering from the Great Depression.  He then attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas where he received a BA Degree in 1936.  After Baylor, he returned to New York, attended New York University and then went to the University of Maryland Medical School, obtaining a Medical Degree in 1940.  After graduating, he held internships and successive residencies at Mt. Sinai Hospital, Bellevue Hospital, Harlem Hospital, and Montefiore Hospital.

In 1944, during WWII, Dr. Glick entered the Medical Corps of the US Military; and with the rank of Major he was assigned as an Orthopedic Surgeon to various military hospitals.  During this period he was among the first to use bone grafting in reconstructive surgery.  Because of his specialty and the urgent and continuing needs of wounded soldiers certain physicians were retained or “frozen” in the Military beyond the end or formal cessation of WWII.

Dr. Glick’s last assignment in the Military was at Oliver General Hospital in Augusta, GA, a large Orthopedic and Psychiatric installation.  While stationed at Oliver General hospital he met and subsequently married Tommie Wurtsbaugh, an American Red Cross psychiatric social worker, in 1947.

After discharge from the Army in 1947 Dr. Glick returned to New York City, continuing specialized training at Mt. Sinai and Bellevue Hospitals.  He then opened a private practice in NYC and continued his association with Mt. Sinai and Bellevue as attending physician.  During this period he joined the faculty of New York University Bellevue Medical Center as Professor of Orthopedic Surgery where he taught for over twenty-five years.

After living in NYC for several years, Dr. Glick and his wife – because of personal friendships and their interest in tennis – moved to Great Neck, Long Island.  Eventually moving his office to Great Neck, Dr. Glick was one of the first physicians to work toward the establishment of North Shore Community Hospital.  Increasingly aware of the need for medical care in the field of sports, he became one of the pioneers in the development of Sports Medicine.

During this period Dr. Glick was physician for the Port Washington Tennis Academy and physician for the US Tennis Open, then held at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills.  The United States Tennis Association and the United States Open moved to the new stadium in Flushing, NY in 1970 at which time Dr. Glick established the Medical Department for the US Open and was Chief of the Medical Department for over twenty years.  He has continued his interest and involvement with the USTA as Honorary Chairman of the USTA Sports Science Committee and as Tournament Physician Emeritus of the US Open.  His dedication to providing excellence in medical care to the tennis players, to the public attending the games and the staff of the US Open extended also to football players and to basketball players.

After working with Coach Lou Carnesecca and the New Jersey Nets in the 1970’s , he became associated with St. John’s University basketball team, continuing to work with Coach Carnesecca. Interest in a player’s progress, health, total development and welfare – present and future – on the part of the coaching staff (a philosophy reflected by the University also) was an approach shared by Dr. Glick.  This led to a remarkable, unique and satisfying association with the “Red Storm” basketball team for over twenty years – until Dr. Glick’s retirement in 1999.

Left,with St. John's University President Fr. Donald Harrington

Right with Coach Lou Carnesecca

Among heart-warming experiences and highlights of his long and productive career are not only verbal and written tributes from grateful patients, friends, tennis players and basketball players, but also the unique and public tribute presented and broadcast on September 3, 1999 in the Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Tennis Open:

Surrounded by family, friends, players and tournament spectators at Madison Square Garden, Dr Glick was honored at the 2000 Chase Championships. It was fitting that the award be given at the last Chase Championships held at the Garden, as both the tournament and Dr. Glick have been a trademark of professional women’s tennis.

The Sanex WTA Tour’s Irving Glick award was established in 2000 to recognize and honor Dr. Glick’s dedication, contributions and sport medicine excellence. This award will be given annually to a Sports Medicine

 Physician in Professional Women’s Tennis, to honor excellence and to carry on the legacy for which Dr. Glick has set the standard.

John devoted most of his life to serving his alma mater, Cornell University, where he is presently Assistant Dean of the School of Engineering. Upon his graduation from Stuyvesant, where he was an officer of the General Organization and Arista, Dean McManus was awarded a scholarship to Cornell. After receiving his degree in 1936, he became an assistant engineer with the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester which provided him with a great challenge as a young engineer. In 1941 he was appointed as the director of the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training Program conducted by Cornell in the Buffalo area. In 1948 Dean McManus became administrative assistant to the Dean of Engineering at Cornell. He received the appointment to his present position in 1956. During his years of service at Cornell many advances have been made including major construction of new engineering buildings, increase in research and graduate facilities, and an expansion of the faculty. Dean McManus also has many professional and academic affiliations. He was secretary of the Education committee of the Engineer's Council for Professional Development, and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Phi Kappa Phi, and Chi Epsilon. Dean McManus terms his stay at Stuyvesant as the "crossroads" of his life, and he attributes much of his inspiration towards engineering to Stuyvesant.

“Hooked”… by Jules Lipcon ‘35

My strongest memories of my days at Stuyvesant are about the principal, Dr. Von Nardroff. Not that I had any personal association with him. What lies vividly in my memories are the semi-annual science demonstrations he put on in the auditorium for the entire student body. Dr. Von Nardroff moonlighted as a physics professor at Columbia University and was well-qualified for what he did. These were no ordinary lectures. They were theater; exciting and informative. Their purpose was to get you ‘hooked’ on science. He succeeded beyond all expectations.

I recall one lecture on the colloidal properties of liquids. He closed by having a cauldron of molten metal brought forth from the foundry shop. After dipping his arm in some sort of liquid, he passed it through the poured stream of red hot metal.

Another lecture was on astronomy. A pendulum was suspended from the auditorium ceiling. It swung over a smoked glass plate that was projected on a screen. You literally saw the earth turning.

With that kind of exposure, how could anyone leave Stuyvesant not being “hooked” on science?

"After Graduation"... by Jules Lipcon '35

I was the youngest of four siblings, the children of immigrant Jewish parents, growing up during the depression. I took a year off after Stuyvesant and then went to NYU for a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

I was drafted soon after graduating. Having a degree, I was assigned to the Ordnance Corps. I went to Officer's Training and was assigned as an instructor in training artillery mechanics. In early 1943 I was already a captain and was given command of an Ordnance Heavy Maintenance Co. We did very sophisticated maintenance of artillery, small arms, instruments, and all types of tracked and wheeled vehicles from tanks to jeeps. We were assigned to the First Army and went with the army from Normandy to Germany. I was discharged in early 1946 with the rank of Major. I used the G.I. Bill to obtain a master's degree in Industrial Engineering at NYU.

I spent my entire career at Maidenform Inc., rising to V.P. of Engineering. I was responsible for the I.E. department and also for machine development and factory and machinery maintenance. I retired in 1988. I have been retired for 15 years. I just passed my 85th birthday. The reason I retired so late in life is that we put two daughters through medical school, an achievement I am proud of. I have filled my retirement with writing, lots of culture, travel and much time spent out doors. I quit downhill skiing two years ago at age 83. I hope I haven't bored you.

"The Navigator -  Col. Leonard R. Sugerman '37 USAF (Ret.) PhD"

Col. Sugerman is known for his accomplishments in the advancement of the technology, management, practice and teaching of the arts and sciences of navigation. Leonard has been assistant to the Director of the Physical Science Laboratory, New Mexico State University since retiring from the Air Force in 1975, after thirty-three years of service. His responsibilities with the Air Force included the development, production and testing of self-contained bombing and navigation equipment for tactical and strategic aircraft, missile, satellite and reentry systems; his service also included two wartime overseas tours with engineering units. While assigned to the Air Staff in 1958, he made the inertial navigation systems available to the Navy's Special Projects Office, enabling the Polaris nuclear submarines Nautilus and Skate to reach the North Pole submerged. At MIT, Leonard studied under Prof. Charles Draper, then went on to get an MBA from University of Chicago and an MPA from New Mexico State University.  He is a fellow of the Institute of Navigation and, most recently, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from New Mexico State University.

The Leonard R. Sugerman Press, established to publish The Universe is a Cloud, Some Raw Food for Thought (see www.lrsp.com/sugerman), now dedicates itself to publishing books that will stretch the imagination of the reader with ideas and concepts that, as Len describes, represent "Thinking outside of the box".

In 2005, Leonard established the Col. Leonard R. Sugerman '37 Award in Aerospace Engineering with the Campaign for Stuyvesant.

"Stuyvesant High School"... By Bernie Silverman '37

The year was 1936 – and Hitler was spreading his venom throughout the world. In Manhattan, every Sunday the American Nazi Bund in full German uniform would parade on East 86th Street. Anti-Semitism was everywhere including our dear High School.

In the Fall of 1936 a group of Jewish Students from STUYVESANT got together and wanted to organize a club so that they could spread accurate knowledge about Jewish culture, holidays, etc. According to School regulations we needed twenty students and a Faculty Advisor to form a Jewish Cultural Society Club and would be given room in the School and a time when to meet. We met these criteria. However, our Principal Mr. Sinclair Wilson repeatedly could not find a room for us to meet.

At that time one of the Superintendents of the Board of Education was a man named Jacob Greenberg. I did not know him but I wrote to him explaining our predicament – that our principal was continually refusing to allow a Jewish Cultural Society to exist.

I did not hear directly from Mr. Greenberg but 2 months later Mr. Wilson called me into his office and asked me “… what day would you like to have a room for the club? “

"Albert Axelrod '38, 1921-2004"....  from  www.Fencing.Net

Axelrod was one of the greatest American fencers in history and was a member of five consecutive U.S. Olympic foil teams (a 20-year span!).

Nicknamed "Albie," his first appearance in the Olympics came at the 1952 Helsinki Games, when he competed in both the team and individual foil events. While the U.S. team reached the quarterfinals before being eliminated, Axelrod reached the semifinals in the individual foil, where he finished in fourth place in his pool (the first three finishers advanced to the finals).

In the mid-1950s, Albert was one of the best fencers in the world and was ranked No. 1 in the United States in 1955, 1958, 1960, and 1970. He was ranked in the U.S. top ten from 1942-1970, missing three years during World War II for military service. Albert won the gold medal in team foil at the 1959 and 1963 Pan American Games. He also won silver medals in the team and individual foil at the 1955 Pan American Games, and the individual foil at the 1959 and 1963 Pan Am Games. Besides competing in five Olympiads, Albert also competed in six Maccabiah Games, beginning in 1957.

Albert Axelrod passed away on February 24, 2004. Albie was one of the greatest competitors of his or any generation, whose results as a foilist have yet to be surpassed. His contributions - as a coach, team leader and manager, and editor of American Fencing - are hallmarks of his life-long dedication to our sport. He will be missed.

"Albert Axelrod '38, 1921-2004".... 
from  www.fosters.com

Albert Axelrod SOMERS, N.Y. — Albert Axelrod, 83, of Heritage Hills in Somers, died Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004, at Montefiore Hospital in New York.

Born on Feb. 12, 1921, in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was the son of Esther and Morris Axelrod. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School and City College of New York. He also served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

During his career he worked as an electrical engineer in the aerospace industry, retiring from Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage, Long Island, in 1986. Until two years ago, he was an active participant in the sport of fencing, and remained active in other areas of the fencing world until the time of his death. He participated in five Olympics between 1952 and 1968, winning the Olympic bronze medal in 1960. In addition he was a four-time National Champion, also earning nine second-place, two third-place and one fourth-place finish in the National Championships between 1942 and 1970.

He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Henrietta (Chooluck) Axelrod of Somers; one daughter, Stephanie Keegan and her husband, Andrew, of Dover, N.H.; one son, Michael Axelrod and his wife, Patricia Daragan, of Westbrook, Conn.; three grandchildren, Daniel, Brian and Peter Keegan, of Dover; and his brother, Boris Axelrod and his wife, Shirley, of St. Louis, Mo.

"Eugene Garfield '38" .... Foreword from Essays of an Information Scientist: Creativity, Delayed Recognition, and other Essays, Vol:12, p.xi-xii, 1989 by Roald Hoffmann

The other day I tried to imagine a world without Gene Garfield, Oh, he’d still be with us, but let’s say Dr. Garfield turned out to be a great organic chemist instead of what he is. In that world, I‘d saunter into the library on a Saturday afternoon, as I’ve done for twenty five years. I’d glare at the undergraduates with their feet up on the table near the new journals, those 250 multicolored objects of my obsession, bringing the week’s good news to Cornell. Actually that Saturday afternoon there’s a football game, so there’s a little less competition between the undergraduates and professors for the space of many uses in Clark Hall Physical Sciences Library.

I sit myself down, in that Gene-less world, and begin to look through the journals. I scan the titles, read some abstracts, read in more detail a few pieces of a paper, put aside a handful of articles to copy, hoping against hope that one of the five copying machines has survived a day’s abuse. In one issue of Recueil des Travaux Chimiques des Pays Bas (I’ve heard boorish Americans call it the Records of the Traveling Chemists), there is an article reporting calculations on a fascinating cyclopentadienyl thallium compIex. But that day something happens — I’m distracted, perhaps by the view across Cayuga Valley, or tired from too much country and western dancing, so I drift as I scan down the pages. The contents don’t register. I miss the article.

Which is too bad because it’s relevant, terribly relevant, to work Chris Janiak, German postdoctoral associate, and I are doing on thallium and iridium chemistry. In fact, I don’t find the article until a year and a half later, after we’ve written ours on the subject, when a critical commentator arguing with our interpretation points to this Dutch article and I get the shock full impact, of not searching the literature, the shock, reverberating back to childhood, of not having done my homework.

In that world there is no Current Contents. There is no redundancy mechanism to provide me with another chance to make up for my moment of distraction, a second scan through the riches of the chemical literature.

Then there is this insubordinate graduate student in my group. She had her own way of doing research, and resists my gentle attempts to impose a paradigm. I tell her you should really know the experimental literature of the field before you build an orbital theory. She says “Ah, hell, let’s do a calculation and see if the results are interesting, then we’ll look if anyone has made the relevant molecules.” I view this curious philosophy as a modern day perversion of the notorious Dirac fallacy of following the beauty of the equations, experiment be damned. I fight back, showing her examples from the literature that violate her orbital interaction diagrams, and in my real world I have a trick for finding these (and I will share it with her soon), namely Citation index. We’re working on explaining a molecule with a weird geometry, first seen a dozen years ago and still a puzzle today. It’s so easy to trace all the papers that reference a key finding of an anomaly, that spot the same paper that she and I took off from. The true value of this creation of Gene’s is that it is a bibliographic tool, not a servant of vanity, nor a meter stick for promotion. In the ISI-less world, I have a harder time keeping ahead of my student.

It would be a dull world without Gene Garfield’s essays. Where else could I see Joshua Lederberg and Harriet Zuckerman looking toward the space separating them, while discoursing on the post mature nature of the discovery of bacterial sex; get some name-dropping mileage among my jazzy friends out of Rudy Wiedoeft (one also learns there is a World Saxophone Congress every three years — I wonder if they have parallel sessions and if their meeting rooms are sound-proofed better than those of the chemists); where else would I see such deft side-stepping to explain why the work of Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Medicine, never appeared on lists of most cited papers; learn who taught Mister Rogers to fly; and find out that Gene, Josh, and I were all Peglegs.

And what would I do if I could not look forward to the fourth fifty most cited scientists in 1973-84? I mean, here the first one hundred and fifty have passed, and I’m not on the list! I have my asterisk, and yet I’m not on his list. Mind you there are scores of those perfervid molecular biologists, medicos, and their ilk, the same crew that’s swamped Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA (ISI Accession Number DG 092) taking up most of the space on that list. I bet they’re all just citing each other, a thing my chemist friends would never dream of doing. They just cite themselves. But the ignominy of it all — Michael J. made the top 150, and I haven’t!

In that deprived world no one would call me to pontificate as to why Soviet physics papers are their most cited literature component, or ask me to pronounce (by Federal Express, please) ex cathedra of what this highly cited chemistry paper is a harbinger. Of fashion, that’s what. Gene certainly has a way to a man’s heart. Even if my picture isn’t there as often as Josh’s, he’s helped me make the middle-aged transition from wunderkind to sage.
I much prefer this world, where Eugene Garfield and his brainchildren entertain and inform us.

"Elvyn V. Davidson, MD '39".... from a tribute on the OakRidger.com

Loved and successful Doctor and citizen of the Oak Ridge, Tennessee area. Chief of surgery at Baptist Memorial Hospital, instructor at UT Medical Center, Oak Ridge hospital emergency room physician, and resident at Harlem and Bellevue hospitals. "Buffalo Soldier" serving in Italy and later served with Occupation forces in Japan. Built a successful private practice, carried on by his daughter. Treated Martin Luther King Jr. for multiple stab wounds.

Elvyn moved to NY at age ten where a Junior High School teacher and Stuyvesant HS gave him the courage and education to succeed despite a very disadvantaged background. He was interviewed as part of an oral history project for the University of Tennessee's Center for the Study of War & Society. In the interview he discusses his family, childhood, education, and career. He has many good things to say about Stuyvesant:

At a time when math and science education nationwide is struggling to keep up with the rest of the world, Stuyvesant High School in New York City turns out well-educated graduates who are accepted easily into most of the top universities in the US.

Prominent graduates include Eric Holder, US deputy attorney general, and Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffman, a professor of chemistry at Cornell University. Two other Nobel laureates—the famous geneticist Joshua Lederberg and the distinguished economist Robert Fogel—also graduated from Stuyvesant. It was not the magnificent new Stuyvesant building which promoted these achievements.

When Lederberg, Fogel and Hoffman attended, the school was located in a decrepit, very crowded building on the lower East Side in Manhattan. The library was inadequate, the books tattered, the labs far out of date, and the teachers average. No grassy suburban campus, just dirty concrete sidewalks on a narrow crowded street. Neither were there school buses; students had to use public transportation; most traveled over a dozen miles daily from the outer boroughs.

Yet Stuyvesant was regularly tops or very close to the top of high schools in New York State, and in the number of students being awarded the prized New York State Regent's Scholarships for college.

The basic stimulation for achievement came from the creative interaction and friendly competition of a critical mass of bright, intensely curious students, and from the rigid, tough standards, such as the Regent exams, which set challenging goals.

Success in learning mathematics was aided greatly by a longtime custom in New York of forming math teams in all high schools which met and competed against each other. Peer tutoring is a productive technique, well known and used in the 19th century, but unfortunately forgotten or ignored by today's educational dogma. Kids will accept harsh criticism from another kid, which might devastate them if it came from an adult teacher. Such clubs and teams, competing with other high schools in all the academic subjects would help all students achieve.

Research has found that McGuffey's Readers, standard textbooks in the late 19th and early 20th century, use vocabulary three or four grades ahead of those used in textbooks today. Our textbooks have been dramatically dumbed down.

New York City public schools in the 1930s were generally regarded as the best in the nation, but no more. Tracking of students was done back then in every grade, yet today educators oppose tracking. Teachers then were happy to skip brighter kids ahead to a higher grade. Today educators oppose skipping grades. Are not these educators partially responsible for the general drop in student performance? When kids are bored, they tend to misbehave.

The perilous state of elementary, middle and high school public education is obvious to all. Many reports have been issued, such as "A Nation at Risk" in 1983, but while various dubious changes have been adopted, it is fair that impartial markers for academic achievement like SAT and PSAT scores have shown no significant improvement since then. It is a fact that when foreign visitors arrive in America and put their children in our public schools, they discover their children are two or three grades ahead of ours in most subjects.

In science and mathematics one finds that American public high school kids rank last among 16 industrialized nations. [Ed. note: This refers to results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) released in 1998, and can be understood as reflecting the fact that US high-school students take much less science, especially physics, compared to students in other countries. See Michael Neuschatz, The Science Teacher 66, 23-26 (1999).] Even more shocking is that while Asian children, who excel, do not feel they compare well with other nations, American children think wrongly that they are doing quite well. We badly need capable American workers who know basic mathematics and science for our modern, technology-intensive economy. Expensive private schools for bright kids are springing up costing up to $20,000 per year, per child.

One scintillating facet of American public high school education, shining amid the generally dismal vista, is the outstanding success of high schools of science like Stuyvesant and the Bronx High School of Science. Very few of them exist to serve our huge society of over 285 million people. Where they do exist, like the public North Carolina High School of Science and Technology, they quickly attract interest from the majority of the surrounding high technology companies. High tech companies extend assistance, equipment, visits and offer summer and part-time employment, hoping for fresh, bold ideas from the young people.

My suggestion is to revolutionize American public education, i.e., for our Federal government—in cooperation with the states and local government—to fund and to build 435 high schools of science, like Stuyvesant, over the next seven years, one in each Congressional district and locally controlled. The cost is quite reasonable. Building 63 such public high schools each year, at a cost of $3.8 billion per year, means the total cost to the federal budget is less than $27 billion over seven years—about half the cost of the Apollo Space Project when one corrects for subsequent inflation. The cost could be shared by the Education Department, Commerce Department, National Science Foundation and NASA budgets. It could be called the Second National Defense Education Act.

E.G. Sherburne, Jr. once pointed out, "While many people think that a 'genius' will thrive without any encouragement, studies tell a different story." Each year hundreds of thousands of bright American students of all skin colors are lost to science for lack of the proper challenging education. The high standards of these proposed nearby federal science schools would exert a strong positive influence on all public education, as parents of kids in the feeder elementary and middle schools in the area demand that courses in those schools be improved to give their children a chance to pass the exam to enter the local science high school.

The federal science high schools would provide student tutoring, special facilities and demonstrations to nearby schools. As President John Adams wrote, "The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of the rich men in the country."

A former wartime lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve, Howard Greyber is a PhD astrophysicist, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and a member of the International Astronomical Union. He lives in Potomac, Maryland.

©1995 - 2003, AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY APS encourages the redistribution of the materials included in this newspaper provided that attribution to the source is noted and the materials are not truncated or changed.

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Response by Jack Cazes Jan'51, Boynton Beach, FL

February 2004:
Stuyvesant Teachers Definitely Above Average Regarding the Viewpoint by Howard Greyber on Stuyvesant High School [APS News, December 2003]: for the most part, it was a pretty good overview of my time spent at Stuyvesant (Class of February, 1951), but I am disappointed by the claim that the teachers were average.

One could not be any further from the truth in this respect. All of the teachers with whom I interacted were of a very high caliber; they were extremely dedicated educators and always spent much of their own time with us (after hours) to be sure we understood and absorbed everything they threw at us.

In my own case, I took two years each of chemistry, biology, and physics. Where else could one have such an experience? Certainly not at Bronx Science or at Brooklyn Tech. Our program was as full as we wanted it to be and our teachers motivated us as no others could do.

Faculty Talent to that of a Small University...  RIchard Held, PhD '39

Sometime during my eighth grade in PS 6 Manhattan (1935) I began to think about the impending need to enroll in a high school since grammar school ended with the eighth grade.  My parents toyed with the idea of sending me to a private school of which there were several available in Manhattan and environs.  There was the Horace Mann School, the Collegiate School, the Bentley School and the Fieldston School (later referred to as Feldstein for obvious reasons) and a number of others.  Most had excellent reputations but they were quite expensive.  The selective public high schools of the mid-thirties also had fine reputations, they cost nothing, other than the taxes one paid anyway, and I preferred to avoid what I regarded as the social snobbism implied by private schools.   Of the selective public schools in Manhattan two all-boys high schools, Stuyvesant High and Townshend-Harris, stood out the latter allowing completion in three years as opposed to the usual four.  Admission to both was dependent upon receiving high marks in tests administered in the eighth grade. I took both exams and was accepted in both but preferred to go to Stuyvesant because of its strong reputation as a science-oriented school and my parents concern that I was too young to speed up my educational progress any further. 

Stuyvesant’s physical plant was an unimpressive pile of bricks situated in lower Manhattan between 1^st and 2^nd Avenues running from 15^th to 16^th streets amid nondescript rows of tenement houses.  It had an internal gymnasium but no outside facilities whatever.  The campus was the street with a few food stores and snack shops scattered along it.  The internal atmosphere literally stunk at times dependent upon what sorts of chemical reagents were being tested in the laboratory for qualitative analytic chemistry.  When hydrogen sulfide was bubbled through solutions to precipitate and identify metallic sulfides the atmosphere within the school was intolerably loaded with its rotten egg smell.  Other equally identifiable smells kept us abreast of the curriculum of that course.  

Despite its physical shabbiness the school was in such demand that it had to run two sessions per day to accommodate all of its students.  Accordingly, during the first couple of years, the students attended the afternoon session running from 12:30 to 5:00 pm while in the second couple of years they attended from 7:30 am to noon.  Thus a building designed to teach 2500 students actually taught 5000.  One may wonder why such an inadequate facility gained such a reputation for educational excellence.  The answer was simple.  Its faculty was equivalent in talent to that of a small university.  A large portion of the faculty held advanced degrees and consequently many were referred to as Doctor So-and-so.  At that period during the great depression a faculty position in a New York High School was one of the best paying and most secure jobs an academic could have.  The consequences were clear.   Most of the faculty was dedicated to their work and the better students were excited by the intellectual prospects presented to them.  I learned to love this grungy place. 

The faculty was a diverse lot.  Among the more colorful were:

Dr. Kaplan, a teacher of advanced mathematics who was rumored to have commanded a Russian submarine during the previous war.  He dressed oddly with out of date suits and spoke with a strong accent.  He may have been a good teacher but could not control his classes, members of which tossed chalk at the blackboards when his back was turned.   Dr. Schur taught biology with a flair that made it alive.  Sig Meyers taught physics and coached the swimming team which for practice could only use the pool in the local public bath house.  I joined the Y in order to practice and became the number one breast stroke specialist on the team.  Mr. Pause taught English and supervised the newspaper group.  Then there was Astrakhan, Mostow, and Lobsenz as international a set of names as was obtainable.  My home room teacher was Miss Popo a petite teacher of French of uncertain age who reminded me of a Pekinese dog.  The students were more diverse in origins than the faculty.  Among my friends was Joe Hurley who hardly had money for lunch and had to wear his father’s hand-me-down suits because they were so poor.  I remember his mother a handsome dignified woman who wore a large brimmed hat.

I have described the characteristics of Stuyvesant High School mostly from a more or less objective  point of view.  Now I want to follow that up with some of the activities that engaged me around that time and place.  Many proved educational in a less formal manner than classroom instruction.  Every school day I boarded the second avenue elevated train at 92^nd St and traveled to 14^thst and 1st avenue which was around the corner from Stuyvesant. However, during my first couple of years a companion of mine and I would occasionally start quite early and remain on the train until it reached the City Hall Station.  There we would get off, walk to the City Hall, and find a seat in the balcony of the main hall where we would witness for an hour or so the entertainment provided by the meetings of the Board of  Estimate.  I believe we originally learned about these meetings in our Civics Class which was of course about government.  The most dramatic touches were provided by the then mayor of New York City, Fiorello H. Laguardia. When he arrived the action was accelerated. Words became louder, disputes were amplified, and the whole scene was electrified.  This little Napoleon was a dynamo of energy, witty, sarcastic, and entertaining. We would stay listening until it was time to go north for the afternoon session at Stuyvesant.  I remember telling friends and parents that we had spent the morning with the Mayor of New York. This early extra-curricular experience allowed me to interpret correctly much later the meaning of my eminent relative’s announcement that he had just had lunch with the President.  Yes, he had, together with a thousand other people.

The elevated railway with its open-ended cars was the locus of many activities of teen age boys for which it was not designed. The lure of exposure to the winds kicked up by the motion of the cars was a spur to the scientific imagination. Gliders made by folding paper would exhibit amazing trajectories when thrown into the wake of the train’s motion.  Kites could be flown from the rear of the train although one risked loss of it if and when the train stopped.  Perhaps the most artistic of these games was the use of rolls of paper.  By weighting the front end of a roll and dropping that end onto the tracks while holding the roll on a stick as the train started, one could  allow it to unroll completely thereby creating a festoon of paper down the tracks. My friends and I thus decorated the elevator tracks in a manner that clearly anticipated the artist Christo who became renowned for covering various buildings with paper. But we seem to have been all but forgotten as progenitors of that artistic movement.

Many of us enjoyed learning chemistry.  But certain processes and techniques were particularly fascinating.  For example, the making of gunpowder by combining sulphur, carbon, and sodium chlorate led to many bomb productions among myself and friends.  The ingredients were purchasable at a nearby chemical supply house called Eimer and Amend.  The production of rocket fuel was also an attractive process in which we engaged with varied success.  Glass blowing proved interesting and we dabbled with it making our own fanciful objects out of glass tubes.  

The swimming team took up a certain amount of energy on my part.  One needed to practice continually if one was to win consistently.  So all through the winter I kept training at the local Y catching one cold after the other in what seemed to be the consequence.  But I kept after it.  I remember swimming meets at which we swam competitively at the various high schools that had pools.  I can’t say that I enjoyed it.  It was more of a “must do” thing for some ulterior motive I never could clearly articulate. 

Stuyvesant had no women students but it had a few older women on the faculty.  One semester I was assigned to a class with a substitute teacher who turned out to be a very comely young woman named Mrs. Isaacs. The title was made very conspicuous for reasons that may easily be divined. She seemed to be about the age of an older student.  The prefix Mrs. would put her out of limits for students.  Such was the ethos of the thirties.  I was absolutely mesmerized by her as was 90 % of the students in her classes.

Curiously enough, not long after I joined the faculty at MIT in the early sixties I met her again, twenty-five years later.  She was the wife of a faculty colleague.  We reminisced. 

My love for Stuyvesant High School evolved from many aspects of the four years I spent there. Obviously the most important came from the exceptional training and discipline I received from the complement of outstanding instructors. I have forgotten many of their names, but the name of Hyman Mostow stands out: Exposure to Hyman Mostow's senior year course in English made college freshman English a breeze and I needed that breeze to handle a difficult freshman year in college.

My years at Stuyvesant also eased my university engineering training and  provided strong grounding for my career in many diverse engineering fields. My career included aeronautical research, supersonic military aircraft design and development, surface-to-air missile design, aerospace laboratory equipment design, nuclear submarine overhaul equipment design, water pump test facility design, and innovative water-pump performance improvement designs.

My peak career accomplishment was the aerodynamic configuration design for the Navy's supersonic attack airplane, designated the RA-5 Vigilante. One of these airplanes is now on display on the USS Intrepid at the Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York harbor. There is a plaque at the RA-5 display noting that this airplane had more state-of-the-art advances than any airplane in history.        

Not to be overlooked as a career-advancing benefit of my years at Stuyvesant is the time I spent as a member of the staff of The Spectator. Our faculty advisor was a great teacher named George Dewey Pause. For an office we were assigned the broom closet by the 15th Street entrance of the school, where we worked late many nights to put out the paper on a weekly basis. There was a typewriter, an old Remington if my memory serves me, for some of us to write our stories. Others wrote longhand, generally using upper-case block lettering. Somehow, stories got typed and taken down to a linotype shop some miles downtown from the school. There we got printed "proofs" of the articles made up for us to edit and to produce "dummies' (paste-ups) of the pages that would eventually be printed at that linotype shop. Training in writing and editing The Spectator helped in my engineering career where writing and editing are  a mandatory part of job responsibilities.

And then there was the Aero Club, a group of Stuyvesant model airplane-building enthusiasts. These were depression-era years and few of us could afford gasoline-powered models. So the bulk of our activity was in building rubber-powered models, competing with each other and learning how to improve flight-duration performance. During warm weather, we competed in Central Park's Sheep Meadow, a venue for which we learned to obtain permission from Park authorities. During the winter months, we competed by flying very light weight models in the school auditorium.

The outdoor airplanes were fairly large, having wingspans of about 36 to 40 inches. And they were designed to stay aloft by taking advantage of thermal rising currents for five minutes or more. Sometimes, during competitions in Central Park, one (or more) of our planes would fly out of the park, and out of sight, mostly toward Central Park West. Generally we would get notified by a finder as to where to pick up our model. No one was ever injured by one of the errant model airplanes!

The indoor models we built were very light (in the range of an ounce or two as I remember) and had a wingspan of 12 to 15 inches. The wing and tail surfaces leading and trailing edges were made of lightweight balsa wood about 3/32 square. The wings had about two ribs in each half, and the covering was a material called microfilm which was made by pouring a liquid on a water surface and attached by putting the wing structure onto the microfilm material floating in the water. Tail surface covering was effected similarly, by putting the structure onto the floating microfilm material. The propellers were hand carved out of a block of lightweight balsa about one-inch square to a paper-thin thickness.

In flight, the propellers rotated about one revolution per second. Most of us test flew these models in our parents' bedrooms where we could achieve flying times of one minute or more. In the auditorium at Stuyvesant, Aero Club contestants could achieve flying times of five minutes or more, barring someone opening a balcony door. Of course this would upset the contestant and cause much of a ruckus. We had to learn how to handle distractions such as this. Thus, participation in Aero Club activities gave us much experience and insight in the field we were preparing to enter as engineers. 
                       

Bill Solomon, left, with Texas State Rep. Elliot Naishtat '61, organized the wonderful Class of '40 60th Reunion in 1999. Reunion activities included an afternoon reception next to "Bill's plane"--the RA-5 Vigilante, shown here--on the Intrepid. A special experience for all!
 

“Remembering Hyman Mostow”… by Saul Ferdman ‘41

I entered the morning session of Stuyvesant High School in my fifth term. The school was split into two sessions because it was physically impossible to include everyone in one session. I had promised myself that I would join som