Saturday, 24 October 2026, 11:00 am James Madison High School 3787 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11229
Join us for Homecoming 2026 10/24/2026. Pre Game ceremony honoring legendary Madison Softball coach Gil Fershtman starting at 11:30am. Go to our shop to purchase tickets.
Join us at Madison for Homecoming
Ceremony honoring LEGENDARY SOFTBALL COACH GIL FERSHTMAN starts at 11:30 AM
James Madison High School in Brooklyn dedicated its new athletic field on October 21, 2023 to Danny Suhr, class of '82.
James Madison High School in Brooklyn dedicated its new athletic field on October 21, 2023 to Danny Suhr, class of ’82. The annual Homecoming event drew hundreds of alumni and current students to honor the first New York City firefighter to die in the attacks of 9/11. Suhr was captain of his Madison Knights football and baseball teams. After joining the city’s fire department he became captain of the FDNY’s football team. Danny Suhr’s life was celebrated by members of his family, classmates and friends in a moving ceremony.
Sonny Fox ’42 hosted Wonderama and Just for Fun on WNEW-TV from 1959 to 1967. His path ran from Madison’s drama club to capture in the Battle of the Bulge, a year in Stalag 9B, and a long career in radio and children’s television.
By Hilda Scheib ’63
Even now, nearly 50 years after Sonny Fox stepped away from his role as host of Wonderama, former viewers seek him out to recount their memories of watching the groundbreaking children’s television show, or, if they were particularly lucky, sitting in the studio audience. Between 1959 and 1967, Sonny was host and mastermind of two children’s television shows on New York’s WNEW-TV: on Saturdays, Just for Fun, which transformed summer-camp-style “color war” into televised contests; and for four hours every Sunday morning, the extraordinary phenomenon that was Wonderama.
A typical Wonderama show was notable for its eclectic content. It might include magic acts, theatrical performances by Shakespearean actors, visits by celebrities – including several by Robert F. Kennedy – “Simon Says,” spelling bees, and joke-telling by young audience members. To interest children in current events, Sonny initiated a young reporters’ program, which covered presidential elections. After several years, the show traveled to foreign countries – Portugal, Finland, Israel – providing a child-oriented travelogue.
As for how he managed to devise four hours of programming each week, Sonny explained in a telephone interview, “In those days, television was all new. Nobody told us what to do or how to do it. There was no guidance, no mission statement. We were young, and we made it up as we went along.”
Wonderama programming was exciting and innovative, but what made the show special for Sonny was his interaction with the children in the audience and the rapport created. As he described it, “I never pretended I was a child. I just wore a suit and a tie and I respected them.” Unlike other shows, where the audience watched the performers, for Sonny, “the kids were the show.”
Born Irwin Fox in Brooklyn in 1925, Sonny became known by his nickname when there was one Irwin too many in his kindergarten class. He began high school at Erasmus, but after his family moved in 1940, he spent the remaining two and a half years at Madison.
Sonny’s high school years coincided with the beginning of World War II and America’s eventual entry into the conflict. He remembers an impassioned history teacher who focused her class on current events and a debating club in which he endorsed Wendell Wilkie for president. He also remembers a drama club where he found his “voice,” and starred in a production of The Bishop’s Candlesticks, for which he carefully honed the role of the bishop.
Following his graduation in January 1942 at 16-1/2, Sonny enrolled at N.Y.U., where he became interested in radio production and radio writing. He was drafted into the U.S. Infantry in October 1943 and arrived at the German-Belgian border, where, at age 19, he became his squad’s leader, then later, a sergeant. In December 1944, the squad surrendered to the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. His emotions at the time were mixed, as he wrote in his memoirs: “Relief at being alive, fear at what was about to befall us, but also a keen curiosity about what the new experience would be like. I was curious to walk through the looking glass and see the German side of the war.”
Transported in a closed boxcar for seven days, Sonny and his fellow non-coms arrived in Stalag 9B. There an American clerk insisted on listing Sonny’s religion as Protestant, not Jewish. This saved him from the slave labor camps to which the Nazis sent Jews, and where chances of survival were low. Last January, Sonny attended a Washington, D.C., ceremony where that clerk, Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds, was posthumously awarded Israel’s Yad Vashem medal for his valor in saving Jewish lives.
For Sonny, “The thing about being a prisoner of war during World War II is that you become very passive, really helpless. You surrender yourself to the fact that you no longer have control over what you do, who you are.” But during the year that he spent in the camp, Sonny learned from a fellow prisoner how to take back control over his life and soon organized a lecture series to combat the insidious boredom that plagued the prisoners. At the time of his liberation, Sonny was 6’3” and weighed 105 pounds.
Returning to New York, Sonny began working for Candid Microphone, the radio precursor to the popular television show Candid Camera. He then covered the Korean War for Voice of America.
In 1954, Sonny – who had never been on camera before – transitioned from radio to the emerging television medium with The Finder, a St. Louis educational station’s children’s show. It was followed by six years as host of Let’s Take a Trip, a CBS-produced program that followed two children, once described as “the luckiest kids in America,” on exotic adventures – to the Coast Guard, to a Chinatown parade, to meet celebrities like George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet and former president Harry Truman.
Sonny’s career trajectory intersected with many moments of television history. He was a game show host on some of the era’s most popular programs, including a short stint as the first host of The $64,000 Challenge, which he left well before the big-money quiz show scandals rocked the country in the late 1950s.
Following the magical years at Wonderama, Sonny hosted The New Yorkers, a daily variety/talk show, and the very late night Tomorrow Show. He then served as vice president of children’s TV at NBC. After a move from the East Coast to Los Angeles, he became a producer of children’s programs; of a renowned series on the golden age of television, a subject he knew well; and of another series called The Songwriter, highlighting eight great American composers and lyricists from the golden age of Broadway.
At age 87, Sonny wrote his memoir, But You Made the Front Page! – Wonderama, Wars and a Whole Bunch of Life. In it, he described his life as a series of unexpected decisions that he approached with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to take risks. Asked once about his fantasies, he answered, “My life has so far exceeded my expectations that I don’t have fantasies – I just have my life.”
Hilda Scheib is a San Francisco attorney.
From Spring 2016, pages 1–9.
Steered to Columbia by his German teacher, Allen Hyman ’51 co-directed Columbia Presbyterian’s Neonatal ICU, where he and colleagues devised Nasal CPAP for premature babies. He later served on Sen. Bob Dole’s staff and helped stabilize the hospital’s finances.
By Barbara Befler ’60
In February 1948, Allen Hyman entered the halls of JMHS from PS 206, somewhat at a disadvantage since many of his classmates had already established friendships and connections back in September. On his first day, all set to take Spanish, Allen was taken under the wing of his BMOC cousin, Jerry Skolnick, a senior, who strongly urged him to sign up for German.
“This was my very last choice of language, given the postwar situation,” said Allen. “But Jerry persisted, telling me that Mr. Schwartz was an intellect and loved teaching. I heeded my older cousin’s advice and the decision turned out to be life changing!” In fact, Allen excelled over six semesters of German and Mr. Schwartz became his greatest supporter. In his senior year, Allen, sure he would be going to Brooklyn College, was pressed by Mr. Schwartz to apply to Columbia. He was accepted and remains attached to the university to this day.
After graduating from Columbia College and Albany Medical College, Allen specialized in pediatrics. While a resident at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, he was advised to become an anesthesiologist by C. Everett Koop, then the Chairman of Surgery. Following a second residency in anesthesia at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, Allen became co-director of their newly established Neonatal ICU.
At that time, nine out of ten premature babies in respiratory distress died. (The plight of these infants was brought to public attention in 1963, when Jacqueline Kennedy delivered a four-pound baby boy who died two days later of respiratory failure.) As an attending physician, Allen applied what he knew of life support systems, using ventilation and intermittent positive pressure ventilation to keep the immature lungs inflated. Over the next decade, the survival rate steadily improved. “But, sadly,” stated Allen, “the ventilators and breathing tubes had a tendency to scar the infant’s tiny airways and damage the lungs. Life-threatening complications were all too common.”
In an effort to improve outcomes, Allen and his colleagues devised a plastic nosepiece through which positive pressure, supplemented with oxygen, could be delivered to the lungs. They called the system “Nasal CPAP.” Using this method, within ten years the survival rate reached 90 percent.
In 1975, the Chairman of Anesthesiology asked if Allen would shift his career course from babies to adults. Allen did so, becoming co-director of the new Surgical ICU at Presbyterian, where his research focused on the metabolic changes of critically ill adult patients. Here, he helped develop methods of nourishing the nutritionally depleted, traumatized patient.
In 1987, Allen was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellowship in Washington, DC, where Sen. Bob Dole, then a presidential candidate, asked him to join his staff as health aide. “I worked on two particularly rewarding programs,” said Allen, “a law expanding drug benefits to Medicare patients and a first-time-ever bill for congressional funding of AIDS research.” He discussed the latter with his former mentor, C. Everret Koop, who was now Pres. Reagan’s Surgeon General. Koop, among other initiatives, was at the forefront of a campaign to raise public awareness that AIDS was a major public health challenge.
In 1993, the trustees of Columbia Presbyterian recruited a new senior administration and Allen was appointed Executive Vice President, Chief of Staff, and Medical Director of the hospital. It was a time when the country was reeling from a dramatically changing health finance environment (managed care) and Presbyterian was on the verge of bankruptcy. Under Allen’s new team leadership, sweeping changes in reimbursement and practice procedures were installed, and within two years the financial plight of the hospital was stabilized. In addition, care was expanded for people living in Presbyterian’s Washington Heights community, who had been sorely neglected in years past. Additionally, a new children’s hospital was built and Presbyterian merged with New York Hospital/Cornell University Medical Center, creating the present New York- Presbyterian Hospital, one of the best hospitals in America.
Currently, Allen is Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. “One of my proudest moments,” he said, “came in 2017 when I endowed the Allen I. Hyman MD Professorship in Anesthesiology/Critical Care, the same year Columbia awarded me an Honorary Degree in Science.” Allen is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Century Association, and the University Club.
These days, Allen enjoys spending time with his eight grandchildren, two sons, and two daughters-in-law. He and Valerie, his wife of 57 years, live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and have a family house in the Berkshires. They enjoy attending concerts at nearby Tanglewood and traveling to more distant adventures around the world.
Looking back on his high school days, Allen reminisced, “I remain grateful to my brilliant teachers at Madison, particularly to Mr. Schwartz who steered me toward Columbia, and last but not least, to my cousin Jerry who steered me to Mr. Schwartz!”
Barbara Befler is a retired medical writer and a volunteer at Weill Cornell Medical Center.
From JMHS Alumni News, Spring 2019, page 7.
Amelia Susman Schultz ’31, JMHS valedictorian, became Franz Boas’s last student and a linguistic anthropologist, studying Ho-Chunk grammar and working with a Tsimshian chief before serving in the WAC. Now 103, she lives near Seattle as scholars rediscover her work.
By Hilda Scheib ’63
Born over a century ago, Amelia Susman followed a path not many women of her generation did to become one of the preeminent linguistic anthropologists of her time. Despite some major obstacles, it has been “spunk,” according to one of her colleagues, and “stubbornness,” as Amelia defines it, that propelled her to a life of academic and professional achievement that had a lasting impact. Today, her work has been rediscovered by a new generation of scholars in her field, who are pleased to find her living near Seattle, WA, at 103 years old.
Back in 1920s Brooklyn, Amelia, the daughter of German Jews, began school at PS 44, soon skipping two grades. She was JMHS valedictorian in 1931 and winner of the gold medal for general scholarship. She particularly remembers classmate Joseph Greenberg ’31, later a renowned linguist, from their high school days.
Amelia enrolled at Brooklyn College and studied with pioneering social psychologist Solomon Asch. To help support her family during the Depression, she worked for Asch under the New Deal’s National Youth Administration, earning $20 per month summarizing scholarly articles. In 1935, she received her BA in psychology.
Planning to continue in that field, Amelia heard that anthropology was the social science discipline most welcoming to women. In 1935, she was accepted in Columbia U.’s department headed by Franz Boas, considered the “Father of American Anthropology.” As Amelia describes it, at their first meeting, Boas warned her that he could not promise her a job when she got her degree. Her answer “So what?” began a long and close relationship with the person she referred to as “Papa Franz” and calls “the greatest person I ever knew.”
Boas was a proponent of the idea that differences in human behavior are largely the result of cultural differences acquired through social learning. Under his mentorship, Amelia wrote a dissertation on acculturation in the multitribal Round Valley Indian Reservation of Mendocino County in northern California. It was to be part of a collection of essays focusing on cultural change in Native American tribes, but Amelia’s essay was dropped, ostensibly because a paragraph was potentially libelous. Amelia, always strong in her convictions and her desire to tell the truth, sums this up as a “crock . . .” When the essay was finally published in 1976 by the U. of California, the consensus was that it had been excluded from the earlier collection because, as one reviewer put it, “almost no one at that time wanted to rock the boat by pointing out… the inhumanity of our conquest of this continent.”
For a doctorate to be awarded in those days, a candidate’s research had to be published. Since Amelia’s work had not, she was denied her degree. Boas came out of retirement to oversee Amelia’s second dissertation, making her his last student. He assigned Amelia to study the grammar of the midwestern Ho-Chunk tribe. To complete her research, Amelia studied Ho-Chunk tribal syllabary, a transcription of sound combinations and words for writing the language.
Confident in Amelia’s abilities, Boas sent her, in 1941, to work with William Beynon, a chief of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia. Her job was to perform “linguistic troubleshooting” and clarify earlier research. There, Amelia was given the nickname “Grandmother of Silver Fog,” referring to the local weather. Amelia and Beynon briefly contemplated marriage, but Amelia instead went to Seattle, where she joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1943.
Stationed in Colorado Springs, Amelia was trained to do Morse Code, then transferred to New York, where she worked with other linguists on dictionaries and phrase books in various languages for use by military personnel. Later, she worked at a psychiatric hospital on Long Island. Early in her WAC years, Amelia learned that her second dissertation had been published and she had been awarded her doctorate.
Returning to Seattle, Amelia hoped for an academic appointment. When none materialized, she moved on by getting an MSW degree in 1947. Her thesis was on Native American unmarried mothers.
Amelia married Elias Schultz, a longshoreman and wood sculptor. After living four years in Europe, where Elias studied sculpture and Amelia taught English, she worked as a research associate on a genetics project and as a faculty member in the Clinical Research Center and Department of Medicine, U. of Washington Medical School. She retired in 1977.
For years Amelia lived on a houseboat on Portage Bay in Seattle, from which she would kayak to her job at UW. She celebrated her 100th birthday by inviting friends and family to join her on a cruise on the historic steamboat, Virginia V. At 100, she was commended by a colleague for “meticulous editing and proofreading” of scholarly articles. Seven and a half decades after Amelia received her doctorate, anthropologist Jay Miller published a book about her dissertation, Acculturating Amelia (2018).
Hilda Scheib is a San Francisco attorney.
From JMHS Alumni News, Spring 2019, page 6.
History teacher Barry Fingerhut ’70 found hundreds of decaying photos of Madison from the mid-1920s and 1930s in the library basement in 2005. He and Ronnie Greenberg ’72 preserved them in archival sleeves and binders, and they are being donated for display at the school.
By Barry Fingerhut ’70
When I was young, even before I was a student at JMHS, I dreamed of discovering lost cities of gold in thrilling, epic adventures. As a history teacher at Madison since 1992, I was given permission in 2005 to examine books about to be discarded in the library basement storage area. There I found a buried treasure! In a dingy corner was a group of filing cabinets overflowing with what appeared to be hundreds of torn, decaying, dust-covered manila envelopes and papers. Many had been tossed onto the floor, some crumpled on the tops of the cabinets or crushed into the drawers, and it looked as though nothing of value was there. Of course, this drew me even closer, curious about my anthropological find.
I discovered photographs. Hundreds of long-forgotten photos of James Madison High School’s past. Sitting on the floor, I gently drew each one out of its ignominious tomb and found materials from the mid-1920s and 1930s. As a serious art photographer, I knew that these yellowing, acid-rich envelopes and amateur, glued mountings were eating away at the irreplaceable silver gelatin prints in stages, fading them gradually to a true death. While the ripped ones were beyond repair, I knew instantly that the history in these photographs was my new passion.
It took me over an hour to unearth most of them and make my plan. After asking permission, I took them all home. I showed them to Ronnie Greenberg ’72, my beloved spouse, and we sat there for uncounted hours, placing them into archival polypropylene photo sleeves and recording or saving any record offered of date and subject. We obtained three huge binders to arrange them in chronological order, stopping often to marvel over the images of our school’s past. The cleaning of our living room of the thousands of shreds of musty envelopes took even longer.
Now the glory of the past lies before us. When I found out from Frieda Weitz ’54 that space was dedicated at the school to keeping the remnants of Madison’s past in perpetuity, we wanted to donate these photos to the cause. Examining the photographs, one can see young ladies wearing formal hats, gloves, and carrying purses. One can see young men in three-piece suits and ties, and a number of them in knickers as well! In their eyes, though, is the eternal fire of youth, and also the occasional blanket of boredom. Everything is different but nothing has changed. Examine the long-lost past and the thrilling adventure of James Madison HS – the golden city is before you!
Barry Fingerhut taught Sociology, American History, and Economics in JMHS from 1992 to 2013.
Editor’s note: The JMHSAA will be providing a new, secure cabinet for the school to display the photographs in their binders. It will be located in the second-floor conference room where other alumni memorabilia are kept.
From JMHS Alumni News, Spring 2019, page 3.
Arthur Ashkin ’40 shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing optical tweezers, laser beams that grab particles and living cells. At 96 he is the oldest recipient and the fifth JMHS graduate to win a Nobel, and he still experiments in his home lab.
By Ellen Rivin Green ’64 and Judith Naomi Ophir Fish ’64
On October 2, 2018, we were given one more reason to be proud of our school: The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Arthur Ashkin ’40, making him the fifth JMHS graduate to become a Nobel winner!
The award, which he shared with two other scientists, was for his invention of the optical tweezers – laser beam “fingers” that can grab particles, atoms, viruses, or other living cells to study or manipulate them. This breakthrough in physics has had broad medical and industrial applications, including laser eye surgery, in vitro fertilization, and highly precise machine cutting. Its use in cell research enables new ways of understanding normal and diseased states in the human body.
At 96, Art is the oldest recipient of the award. It comes after nearly a century of interest in scientific experimentation that started when he was a child living on E. 27 St. near Avenue J. Art was especially fascinated then by the Crookes radiometer, a spinning device that demonstrates how light can exert force on a physical object, a subject he never abandoned. At Madison, Art was a member of the Math Club, co-captain of the Math Team, and president of Arista. He chose as his yearbook quote: “Yearning is desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bounds of human thought,” and his research in experimental physics fulfilled that yearning.
After graduating from Madison at the start of World War II, Art went to Columbia College for his BS and became a research assistant in the radiation lab, a position that was expected to keep him out of the service. Instead, he was drafted and became an enlisted reserve, able to continue working at Columbia building magnetrons for US military radar systems.
In 1952, he received his PhD in nuclear physics from Cornell University, where he met his wife, Aline, and went to work at Bell Labs, a hub of basic science research. There he focused on “laser trapping” – working with the radiation pressure of light to exert force on microparticles and catch them – and was the first to observe optical trapping of atoms. He then branched out into trapping living material. In 1986, he developed the optical tweezers, which allowed him to explore the interior of a cell and manipulate its inner structure without harming it.
“Science,” Art recently told New Jersey News 12, “is my hobby,” and it hasn’t stopped yet. He loves gadgets and has patented 47 inventions. The recipient of numerous awards, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2013. He authored the book Optical Trapping and Manipulation of Neutral Particles Using Lasers (1997) and many research papers, and is still involved in research and writing for scientific journals. He is currently experimenting in his home lab on affordable solar energy, using science to combat climate change.
On December 8, 2018, Art greeted the audience at Stockholm University remotely, and his Nobel lecture, “Optical Tweezers and their Application to Biological Systems” (posted on YouTube), was delivered by a colleague. “I hope you enjoy it,” Art said. A true James Madison High School success story!
Ellen Rivin Green is a retired NYC intermediate school assistant principal.
Judith Naomi Ophir Fish is a writer and a founding editor of The Westchester Review, a literary journal.
[Photo caption: Arthur Ashkin]
[Photo caption: Ashkin Log photo 1941]
From JMHS Alumni News, Spring 2019, page 1.
Richard D. Gitlin ’59 spent 32 years at Bell Labs, co-inventing DSL and helping lay groundwork for 3G and 5G wireless. Now at USF developing robotic surgical tools, the 60-patent engineer recalls Madison’s great teachers, an IBM crash he caused and fainting at an operation.
Richard Gitlin remembers his excitement as a kid taking the subway with his dad to explore Manhattan neighborhoods. At a Lionel train exhibit in Times Square, he was fascinated by how the trains didn’t crash. Tracing the track designs, he recognized a methodology in terms of timing and spatial independence. Arguably, the seed of networking technology was sown in him then.
Engineer, scientist, researcher, executive, teacher, inventor, and entrepreneur, Rich grew up to be a defining force in how we communicate. He has been a leader in digital communication, wireless systems, data networking, and bio-medical networking for 45 years, 32 of them at Bell Labs, where he co-invented DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) technology that enabled high-speed Internet access over the existing telephone network.
As Rich pointed out to the Alumni News, “The big ideas that change the way we work, play, and live were often conceived quite a while ago, but the additional technology, marketing, and production means to progress the invention into an innovation, such as the Internet, usually takes an extended period of time . . . The invention of DSL dates to the mid ’80s, but it took more than a decade for the first products to emerge.”
Currently, Rich leads an interdisciplinary research team at University of South Florida that is developing the next generation of robotic surgical tools for performing minimally invasive surgery (MIS) faster, safer, and more cost effectively. Five patents have been awarded for this potentially transformative work, and Rich has formed a startup company in Tampa to commercialize the technology.
Rich’s entrepreneurial spirit emerged when he was growing up in Sheepshead Bay. In an interview with the Brooklyn Eagle, he described how he would go to the local softball field with his little red wagon, take orders for sodas, buy them at the candy store, and make two cents off each returned bottle.
After attending PS 98 and Shell Bank JHS, Rich was accepted at Stuyvesant, but being only 13 at the time, his parents wouldn’t let him go. At Madison, he said, “I was a pretty serious student and was intent on maximizing my chances to get into a top-notch college.” Noting Mr. Charles Feit in calculus and Mr. Wolf in chemistry, Rich said, “I recall great teachers. Many in the English and history departments had law degrees, and in the math and sciences they had PhDs – I just thought that was required. Years later, I realized that this was special and was likely a vestige from their getting their professional degrees during the Depression and taking teaching positions . . . Weren’t we lucky to have benefited that way!”
He also remembered a teacher who took the math team to Columbia University where they learned programming on an IBM computer. Rich wrote a long program that eventually divided a quantity by zero, resulting in infinity. The machine froze, and upon cross-examination by his teacher, he admitted that he “was just doing an experiment to see how the machine would react.”
Rich’s uncle, a surgeon, was keen to see him follow his career path and he invited Rich, then a teenager, to watch an operation. Rich saw the blood and fainted. Scratch medicine; think engineering. Rich believes his interest today in MIS is partially due to such surgery being almost bloodless.
Graduating at 16, he was accepted on scholarship by Columbia but decided to attend City College’s highly rated engineering program. He graduated with honors and was awarded a National Defense Education Act Fellowship enabling him to pursue an MSEE (1965) and a Doctor of Engineering Science (1969) at Columbia.
In addition to developing DSL at Bell Labs, Rich also worked on a coding technique (multi-code CDMA) used in 3G wireless systems, and an “intelligent” antenna system that forms the basis of 5G wireless technology. After retiring in 2001, he was a visiting professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia, and later CTO of Hammerhead Systems, a venture-funded networking company in Silicon Valley. At USF he is a State of Florida 21st Century World Class Scholar, a Distinguished University Professor, and the Agere Systems Chair of Electrical Engineering.
Rich holds 60 patents, has published over 100 papers, and co-authored a graduate textbook on data communications. He is a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and a member of numerous engineering societies, including the National Academy of Engineering, the highest level of recognition in the profession. Affiliated NAE frat rats include Bill Gates (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google), and Louis Gerstner (IBM). And for you Apple fans, Steve Jobs didn’t make the cut.
When not working, Rich likes to play tennis, work out, and take long walks near downtown Tampa with Barbara, his wife of 50 years. They have two children and two grandchildren. He can be reached at richgitlin@gmail.com.
Larry Spear is a retired electrical engineer.
Madison Baseball ‘67, Hal penned this article waiting for the Madison Ballgame to begin, straight from the seats to his iPhone. Hall went to watch a Madison Baseball game to mark the 52nd anniversary of his Madison team winning a city championship.
Madison, BaseBall & Me
So here I sit. In the stands aside my 1st base position, separated by a fence , experiencing my first JMHS game in 52 years! As a spectator no less!
I always thought that baseball represented life in such a potent way. Touching all senses, feelings, desires and yet at its core is that every batter, player upon entering the game has one fundamental desire to get home.
Clearly romancing the past can be fun and I would imagine dangerous for some but for me, dispelling “ you can’t go home” seems so real. Now I’m not living in 1967, but sitting here, looking across the field, hearing and breathing the sounds of the game are real. It’s my past and prepared me for my future.
Yes, these boys, young men of Madison have their future ahead of them but when they take the field this is truly a special time. Friends, teammates, colleagues, Boys of Summer these are precious experiences.
For me, our team was family. Some of us played ball together when we were 7/8 years old to our senior year. From Fillmore Gardens, the Highway and neighboring communities we were united under the guidance of Arnie Pinsky.
As we entered our senior year, we were confident of an outstanding season. Not with arrogance but expectations of knowing how good we were. There never was a game we couldn’t win… Never! Perhaps no greater sign would be our City Championship game . Being down 7-1 with 6 outs to play against the men of Columbus HS from Washington Heights. Succeeding with scoring 7 runs against the early favorite to win it all and Winning and becoming reigning City Champions of NYC and the last one from Madison for the past 52 years .
So moving , so powerful and while I haven’t been in touch with the entire team, sitting here in the stands, I still hear Jack behind the plate encouraging Steve to bear down, Eliot in the hot corner, Steve still making short look easy and turning double plays with Donnie at second. Barry, Kirby, Artie patrolling the outfield and Ronnie gliding athletically in center . I’m manning first sitting 15 feet now from a place I called home. There’s Tony, Barry, Jim and Larry. Basically my family.
Yes maybe I went home for 9 innings or so and while the game was great and I was proud of our current Team, I also had the time to see my guys running the field, playing their positions, hitting the ball and winning. For in 1967 these Band of Players, my lifetime friends were City Champions, and it felt good and real for this time to imagine them all in the perfect place and in the perfect time.
Hal Trencher ’67
Lynn Herman Syms evolved from a Brooklyn native and interior designer—who designed Helmsley hotels and geriatric facilities—into an accomplished bronze sculptor and philanthropist. Married to retailer Sy Syms, she led the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra board and now funds global women's empowerment.
Lynn Herman Syms’ high school girlfriends remember when their loyal Adelphis sorority sister moved in her sophomore year to Manhattan Beach and still crossed the Sheepshead Bay pedestrian bridge every morning to catch a bus to Madison. “We were six inseparable friends,” Lynn said in an interview with the Alumni News in the paneled sitting room of her Upper East Side apartment. She recalled their pact to be neighbors when they grew up and “make a tunnel through our attached houses.”
The former Adelphis president admits that her early life was “lived in a bell jar from my father’s house to my husband’s house.” Homemaking, however, was not her forte. “If I walk into the kitchen, I bum myself,” she quipped. But as an artist, a businesswoman, and a philanthropist, Lynn has always been ready for a challenge. An art major at Syracuse University and NYU, Lynn married young and raised two children. At age 40, she said, “I decided to strike out.” Moving to Manhattan, she began work as an interior designer and started a firm with a partner in Brooklyn Heights. Soon she was designing guest rooms and public spaces in Leona and Harry Helmsley’s hotels. Despite a falling out with the Helmsleys, the experience “led to a lot of growth,” Lynn said. “None of that was wasted.” She went on to develop a specialty in geriatric facilities, “creating spaces [for Alzheimer’s patients] that might speak to memory.”
Then, in her fifties, when the emotional toll of her work became too great, Lynn made an about-face career change and became a sculptor. “From the first day,” she said, “I loved it with such a passion.” She set up a studio in the National Academy Museum and School, a 190-year-old institution on E. 89 St. Lynn sculpts in clay and, using the lost wax method, casts her pieces in bronze.
The figures displayed throughout her apartment range from rough and elongated forms to more classical representations of the human body. Emotions are laid bare and run the gamut from joy to heartache. Although Lynn sculpts using nude models, she likes to then drape her figures, adding detailed folds for greater interest. Many of her pieces have personal origins. “Ode to Ms. Leslie” — a woman proudly thrusting forth her newly rounded belly — was inspired by Lynn’s daughter’s first pregnancy. “My New Life” is a cluster of seven babies that Lynn created when her first two grandchildren were born a few months apart. Lynn’s work, represented by Madison Avenue galleries, can be found in the permanent collection of the Yeshiva University Museum and in private collections.
But sculpting was only one of Lynn’s activities. In 1984 she married clothing retailer and philanthropist Sy Syms, setting her on her own course of philanthropic work as well as on joint ventures with her husband. Sy, a Midwood HS graduate for whom Yeshiva University’s School of Business was named, was also chairman of Israel Bonds. The two traveled frequently to Israel and socialized in Israeli cultural and political circles. In the mid ’80s, violinist and conductor Itzhak Perlman asked Lynn to join the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra’s international board, which promotes and supports the orchestra. In 2001, when board president Herman Sandler was killed in the 9/11 attack, Lynn took over his position and served a four-year term. She is still an active member there and on boards of other charitable foundations. “I was so lucky,” Lynn said, reminiscing about her late husband. “He was so down to earth.” In the late ’90s, Lynn convinced Sy, who had once been a radio sportscaster, to join her in hosting a weekly radio show focused on interesting New Yorkers and city life. Waxing nostalgic about the “at-home” morning talk shows she listened to years earlier, Lynn said, “The second the microphone went on I felt like I knew how to do it.” The show lasted three years, and among the guests were Mayor Ed Koch, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, and TV-news anchor Jim Jensen.
Sy Syms passed away in 2009 and since then Lynn has plunged into new waters. Partnering with World Pulse, an online global community of women empowering each other to create grassroots change, she has funded the $20,000 Lynn Syms Prize, the first one awarded in 2014. The winner was a Pakistani woman, Zephania, whose school in rural Punjab is educating hundreds of girls in a society where 13-year-olds are forced into marriage and honor killings are not unusual. Strong women and raising women’s consciousness are “the theme of my life,” Lynn said. “It feels good if you can help one person.”
Always engaged in what she calls her “continuum,” Lynn will soon be returning to the National Academy to take up drawing and cartooning. Her website is lynnsyms.com.
The James Madison High School class of 1959 exemplifies lifelong friendships as they gather for their 65th reunion.
The friendships formed in high school hold a special place in our memories. Whether they were born out of necessity, or the continuation of friendships that began early in life, they provide grounding and support at a time when we mature into adulthood. The shared experiences become meaningful events in our formative years. The Madison alumni community is full of examples of friendships that stood the test of time. Few classes, though, have remained as deeply connected as the James Madison High School class of 1959. This year, they are getting together for their 65th anniversary reunion.
Nothing in this category yet.
