DECEMBER 9, 2022


TO RESPOND WITH A COMMENT OF YOUR OWN, PLEASE WRITE TO OR CLICK ON WHSALUM63@AOL.COM

Hi Authors of the Weequahic Saga,  

 

Ann Mittler Chaudron (55) joins the W-Char Room at achaudron@verizon.net.

 

WHS Class Gatherings:

 

Judie Seidman Gold (6/53)

The Class of June 1953 will be holding a Brunch/Luncheon on May 21, 2023 May 21, 2023 at Nero's Grille, Livingston NJ to "Celebrate our 70th." Please contact Ron Zevin at (973) 477-8306 or e-mail me at goldjegold@aol.com for more information. Judie

 

Mel Rubin (56)

Is there anything in the works for our reunion? I know about the Florida event, but is anything planned up here? Please contact me at melr12001@yahoo.com. Mel

 

Myra Lawson (Exec. Director) shares note from WHS Alumni Assn:

 

The WHS Alumni Association extends our thanks to all who supported our 2022 Hall of Distinction program, held virtually on November 10. We inducted 12 notable alumni and took the viewers on a tour of the high school in recognition of its 90th birthday. If you didn't have a chance to see the program, you can still do so by following this link (WHSAA 2022 HALL OF DISTINCTION PROGRAM).

 

It is also not too late to make a donation to our scholarship program in honor of one of the inductees, or even to join the WHSAA as a member. One of the things that make our school so special is the ongoing support from our alumni community. On behalf of the WHSAA Board of Trustees, the high school and the community, we thank you.  Myra  

Judy Cherny Albaum (6/62) shares comments in response to items in past issues of the “WHS Note.”

 

To Elaine Hersh Krusch (6/50) re: side streets between Chancellor and Lyons, we lived on Keer Avenue from when I was 8, corner intersection was Leslie Street. I also walked home for lunch. Schley Street was familiar to me because an aunt lived there. away was Fabyan Place where there was a swim club; think that was a dead end. Going back towards the school, I am drawing a blank.  

 

Also, someone from the class of the 50s mentioned proms as being boring then. I was invited by someone I did not know because he did not have a date. Someone suggested to him that he invite me. My date I believe has passed, David Blumenthal or Blumenfeld; the latter, I think. On the way home, three couples or two (not certain) our car was slammed by a truck (think Daily News, not sure) and spun around. So, boring it was not. No one was hurt seriously as I remember. Only I had shards of glass inside my prom dress that entered, of course, via breast area. 

 

I also attended Young Israel Hebrew School twice a week and on Sundays. I was one of only five who continued onto Hebrew High School. I walked to YI and back home, which, in winter, was in the evening and PITCH BLACK. Imagine letting a 13-year-old (and younger) walk alone anywhere today. I would stop and get a candy bar on the way one block from YI. Street address gone from my memory. I think prior to graduation we were perhaps 12. Then five continued on and I used it as excuse to finally get my mother to allow me to cease piano lessons.  

 

Two of my father’s four sisters and my mother taught in Newark, as did a cousin. My mother’s brother was a Newark school vice-principal. I did Kindergarten and first grade at Maple Avenue School. Then, my mother took a job at Chancellor and made me walk there from Goldsmith Avenue (in the section that was Maple Avenue) until we moved to Keer Avenue. First few years played with neighbors Paula Fisher and Merle Kurzrock (very smart gal). Linda Small lived on Leslie and a girl named Fran whose last name I do not recall.  Judy

 

Responding to W-responders: 

 

Michael Botnick (68)

In response to Alan Ginter (64/65), I have this vague memory of being in that production of music from “Oklahoma” at Fabyan. I remember doing a square dance and singing in the chorus. I was good friends with the Activity Director’s son, Jay (?). I still have the little musical note gold pin somewhere that was given out after the performance. I would have been 10 years old at the time. Michael

 

Gorge Rubin (6/59)

To Ronnie Reggie Weinstock (59), I remember your mom Tillie and the sandwich shop on Elmora Avenue in Elizabeth. I was managing my dad's drugstore on the corner of Elmora and Jersey Avenues and used to send out for lunch at your place across the street. When N.J. opened their first state lottery, you came over and gifted me with a lottery ticket. I never told you that the ticket was two numbers away from winning the jackpot. I missed out being a more generous tipper. George

 

Fred Goldman (6/62)

For Chet Cohen (6/59), the name of the billiards place in Hillside was Fun Fair where they had pool tables, slot cars, bowling and, of course, a lounge. Not sure about this one, I think they had pool tables was the boys club on Hawthorn Avenue. I knew all these places but I never really liked pool. Most of my close friends did, so I went along.

I think at the time a new pool hall also opened up in Elizabeth on St Georges Avenue.

 

So, just to top off another story, the father of the girl I married had a store on Springfield Avenue in Newark, of all things, Newark Pool Table where he sold and fixed pool tables. When I bought my house, he gave us a bumper pool table for the basement. That game was much more fun than playing pool. 

 

For all the talk about Krugman's Drug Store, I’m sort of amazed that no one brought up the sad related story of that corner which I'm sure most of us remember. Right in front of the drug store a very young boy around eight years old got hit by a car and died. So, all

our memories can't be happy, but some we just can't forget!  Fred

 

Bob Steinberg (66)

To Elaine Sheitelman Furman (6/56), the name of the game of throwing the ball against the steps was called “Stoop Ball.” My younger brother Mark and I used the same scoring system; no wonder, since we were your neighbors (living on the 2nd floor above Nelson and Fern Chester). Since I am a bit younger than you, think of us “as the noisy children next door.” Bob

 

Jacqueline Kaufer Klein (66)

Thank you to Sandy Markowitz (6/63), Michael Kessler (1/60) and Warren Sommer (6/58) for putting a name to the cobbler at the shoe store Bergen Street. I can picture Mr. Zupko exactly. And I remember the big Cat's Paw sign in the window; the logo of a black cat was kind of scary. The store smelled like shoe polish. I still remember his striped apron Mr. Zupko wore just like it was yesterday! Jacqueline

 

Irwin “Ussy Steinlight (1/63)

In response to Maxine Feinblatt Kaplowitz (65), who lived at 167 Lehigh Avenue, my family lived at 214 Lehigh. I remember a few other families also lived on Lehigh. Ussy

 

Maxine Feinblatt Kaplowitz (65)

Yes, the Steinlight brothers lived up the street from us. Mark Scher (6/63) was also up the street and Norman Strell (6/63) lived next door to us. It would be great to talk to some of these guys. Maxine

 

Judi Wodnick Chait (62)

To Elaine Sheitelman Furman (6/56) we used to call the game with a ball against the stoop plain old “stoop ball.” We also had great steps for playing on Patten Place, a one- way street between Wolcott Terrace and Goodwin Avenue near Hawthorne Avenue. Judi

Larry Koenigsberg (64) shares Weequahic Wikipedia:

 

I've been engaged in editing Wikipedia ("the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit") for nearly seventeen years and I've learned a lot in the process! Recently, I learned a bit about Weequahic Park, finding online the Olmsted Brothers' Landscape Architects' Report, their 1899 assessment and proposal to design the park. The brothers were carrying on the firm of their late father, Frederick Law Olmsted, whose first of many landscape architecture projects was Central Park in New York City.

I learned that Weequahic Park Lake is not the largest lake in Essex County, contrary to the county's Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs, because it is anthropogenic. Some other Essex County anthropogenic lakes, called reservoirs, are larger, even if they are not named as lakes. This "largest" status has been the subject of some "edit warring," a Wikipedia term describing editors changing an article in the encyclopedia back and forth, sometimes within minutes.

Wikipedia has four Weequahic articles; Weequahic, Newark; Weequahic Park; Weequahic High School; Weequahic Golf Course.

 

Settling another edit war, I found an academic source for the pronunciations of Weequahic, Wee-QUAY-ic, or WEEK-wake "when spoken rapidly." That source, Burned like a tattoo': High school social categories and 'American culture, in the June “2002 Ethnography,” is by a 1958 Weequahic High School graduate, Sherry Ortner, a UCLA Anthropology professor. It begins, "This article is part of a larger ethnographic and ethnohistorical project on social class in the US, as tracked through the lives of my own high school graduating class, the Class of '58 of Weequahic High School in Newark, New Jersey." I expect this will have more than special interest to some readers here.

Ortner's pronunciation fits my own recollections perfectly. On the other hand, Linda gives it as "Wee-qua-chick," and I wonder who among the readers of “WHS Note” has heard this one used in ordinary conversation.  Larry 

Talking on “WHS Note” topics: 

 

Roberta Blake Abramson (I/54)

My aunt owned the apartment house with candy store and apartment on that corner. I was Lorraine Rindzner DeAngelo’s (1/55) friend. I now reside in Boca Raton on the ocean and come back to NJ to our beautiful Bridgewater mountains. The Madison Jr. High class ring was something new to me, so, thanks to Barry Gruber (1/54) for the picture of the ring.

 

Would love to hear from former classmates who live near Boca Raton or Bridgewater, NJ (Robertaabramson@aol.com). Bestest friend is Jerry Sheitelman (1/54) who is my phone buddy since he relocated to Jacksonville. Just were gifted Weequahic tee shirts from our oldest daughter who knows how excited we get about our old wonderful school. Roberta

 

Harold Hal Bruck (54)

Responding to recent comments on “kids of means” theme in the newsletter, I grew up in a two-story walkup on Hawthorne Avenue. My three brothers and I slept in one room on bunk beds. We had a “community” drawer for socks, underwear and shirts. The best (or worst) was one bathroom for six people when our diet was constipating. It is only now after so many years that we look back and appreciate how precious those moments were.  Hal

 

Leonard Moshinsky (1/45)

To Beth Zucker Fischbein (Columbia 74), the candy store was on the corner of Badger and Watson Avenues. I remember Eileen Don’t remember any name other than Buchner’s. We all hung out on the sidewalk on Sunday mornings. Watson Avenue is under route 78 as is my home on Jelliff Avenue. Leonard 

 

David Stern (6/69)

To Beth Zucker Fischbein, the store was Harry’s on the corner of Nye Avenue and Demarest Street across the street from where I lived. Harry always had a smile and saw the good in people.  David

 

Mel Rubin (56)

I recall at least two more furriers on Bergen Street. One was Blecker’s located near Watson Avenue. Marty Blecker was in our class. Wasn’t Finkelstein’s on Bergen and Lyons?  Mel

 

Steve Epstein (6/63)

In reply to Susan Weinberg Simon (Hillside 60), yes, you did live next door to me on Weequahic Avenue, but, sorry your husband Marvin worked at Rockford Furniture along with his father, not at my dad’s store in Union City. To Jaqueline Kaufer Klein (66), it was a treat for all kids in the Weequahic neighborhood to see or hear the Dugan tuck or the Good Humor man. Great fond memories of yesteryear. Steve

 

Margie Bauman (6/60

Re: classmate of June 1960 Bette Krupenin Kolodney’s notes about furriers, my dad bought my mom a pretty fur coat in the 1950s from Braunstein’s, which mom gifted to me. When I brought mom to Alaska to take care of her after my dad passed away in 199, I took that fur coat to a furrier here to get a ripped seam in the arm repaired properly. When I went to pick it up, the furrier who repaired it remarked that it was a very interesting coat. He pulled up the lining to show me the fur was stamped to identify the fur as being from Pribilof Island fur seals which meant that the fur came from hair seals clubbed to death for their fur in the 1950s. Given that information, I in no way was ever going to wear that coat. Instead, I donated the coat to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, which, alas, never displayed the coat, but keeps it for visiting researchers who study furs and other such objects from back then. Margie

 

Noah Chivian (6/52)

To Arthur Schechner (1/49), re: Meyer Kussy, founder of West Side Trust, the family were members of Oheb Shalom way back in Newark. They sat on the left side of the center section in back of your family and in front mine. Sarah Kussy gave me a gold mechanical pencil for my Bar Mitzvah. Her brother Joseph Kussy was an original staff of Beth Israel Hospital in 1901 and was Dental Director for over 30 years. Noah

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