By SuZanne Zenker Gilbride (1974),  from the Wheatley Alumni Newsletter

Images from the January 1950 issue of Good Housekeeping, which can be read here.

Our family, like many others, had roots that started in this country in New York City. My great-grandparents came from overseas: Russia/Ukraine, Austria (now Poland), Romania, and Germany. After WW2 many of our parents came home to no housing; got married and moved in with the in-laws. I found my mother, father, sister, and brother in the 1950 census living with my mother’s parents at 215 West 78 street.

Shortly after the War, there were neighborhoods starting to pop up on Long Island and magazine ads to introduce you to the new communities, like the one down below. Our family moved in to the Roslyn Country Club “School Section” in 1950, and I was born 1956. I remember being told that the area had been farm land and potatoes were still in the ground and pheasants wandered around. No one had fences, and we would cut through everyones backyard.

As I looked at the magazine below, I can’t help thinking of the Jetsons, so modern these houses, with all the cool amenities. There were slight differences (maybe 4 different designs) and everyone decorated differently, so no two houses were alike. The houses had great warm floors because of radiant heat… A story I remember hearing was that when the builders constructed Levittown with radiant heat, the pipes floated in the slab, so in our group of houses the builders connected the pipes to the frame in the slab, and over time there was a rust problem, and the pipes would break at the connection. We had many floor leaks, and floods over the years.

Enjoy a bit of our past…SuZanne [Zenker Gilbride] 🙂