🌲🏘️🌳 History Stories Memories through the cobwebs of time…

Memories through the cobwebs of time…

by Jeffrey Orling, from The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter #82

I’ve driven through my old neighborhood… the Country Club… and it is completely unrecognizable.  Every house has been completely remodeled to unrecognizable.  The Country Club was small houses and all the owners added on to them.  I would be surprised if any of the original houses remain without the modifications.  I moved away in college and only came back to visit my parents, and when my mother sold the house I never had a reason to go there.

What a wonderful place to grow up!  And our schools were great and teachers incredible and so many left an indelible imprint on my life.


And from a later The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter #86

My memory has way too many cobwebs to be reliable…but the missives bring back memories that I thought were lost.  Too bad there are so few photos of those days.

Roger (“Roddy”) Nierenberg lived down the street, on the corner of Shelter and Snapdragon (my family lived on Shelter Lane)  Roger became an accomplished musician, and I had the pleasure of seeing him conduct in Lincoln Center.  His younger brother George did a film about tap dancing: George Nierenberg Wikipedia Entry

I wonder how many Wheatleyites I can recall from the “S Section” and “County Club”:

Roger Morris

The Eastmans

The Nierenbergs

The Jeromes

The Messings (Robert, Charles, and Kenneth)

The Glasers (George and Tom)

The Bagdons

The Witkins

The Solows

Peter Altchuler

David Golub

The Zoob Twins

Joe Sciortino (I ran into him in Florence!)

The Alperts

Dickie Strauss

I have (a few times) on my way back home driven through the old neighborhood.  Nothing is recognizable (of course).  Too bad.  I moved to NYC after college (I think my classmate Andrea Levine also attended Carnegie Mellon University), first in Park Slope, then the Upper West Side, and finally the loft on 10th street.  Those were the days!  I rode my bike all over town.  I lived in a loft at 32 East 10th Street for about 20 years.  Sure there are changes, but THAT street is still quite recognizable.  All that time I have no memories of running into anyone from Wheatley… except my brother Alan (1966) and Gail Wittkin, who lived in The Village.  I was seeing Andy Halper for a while when he was living in Brooklyn Heights.

For Our Neighborhood