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09/30/2009
"Across the Universe" directed by Julie Taymor,
"We Own the Night" directed by James Gray, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg and
3/27/2009 - Jamaica High Granted LANDMARK Status2/25/2009 - All 1959, 1960, and 1961 Grads added to database!
Landmark day for Jamaica HS
BY Nicholas Hirshon
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Thursday, March 26th 2009, 4:00 AM
JAMAICA HIGH SCHOOL, a hilltop institution known for its Georgian Revival style and famed alumni such as "The Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola, has been designated a city landmark.
Citing the sweeping structure as "a proud anchor of the community," the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to protect Jamaica High - which was dropped last year from a state list of persistently dangerous schools.
"It really affirms the tradition of the school," said Principal Walter Acham. "We have a very, very rich heritage of alumni. The building and grounds speak for themselves."
In addition to Coppola, graduates of the three-story school, opened in 1927, include Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Alan Dugan and journalists Art Buchwald and George Vecsey.
Surrounded by athletic fields, the brick building with stone trim features granite columns and a tiered cupola - Colonial elements intended to "Americanize" early students, most of whom were European immigrants.
Landmarks Chairman Robert Tierney described the school as "dignified" and heralded its "elaborate drives and terraces."
Jeff Gottlieb of the Central Queens Historical Association, whose research led to the landmarking, said he hoped the designation would foster protection of other notable sites in Jamaica.
The commission also took another step toward landmarking the ornate Ridgewood Theatre, which opened in 1916 and was considered the country's longest continuously operating movie house until it closed a year ago.
The Classical Revival structure - with a limestone and terra-cotta facade - came to the agency's attention last March after being profiled in the Daily News' "History in Peril" series.
The commission heard public testimony about the theater Tuesday and expects to vote in September. The theater's owners, Tony Montalbano and Mario Saggese, plan to reopen three of its five screens in July.
Landmarking proponents include the great-grandson of Ridgewood Theatre's architect, Thomas W. Lamb, who also planned the RKO Keith's theater in Flushing and Midway in Forest Hills.
"My great-grandfather was a person who designed theaters for the common man," said Thomas A. Lamb, 49, of upstate Kinderhook.
"His thing was, 'Let's provide everybody with a grand space to see a movie.'"
Well, here we are at the end of February, 2009! We have some good news and some bad news.........we hear ya - yes, we hear ya - you want the BAD news FIRST and then hopefully something good. So, with our good intentions finally trampled, we have to tell you that having a fiftieth reunion this coming June is a practical impossibility. There just isn't enough time for the planning, and certainly the response to this site hasn't been overwhelming, although we have receivied many acolades for putting this site together. The praises aren't necessary, as it has been fun bringing old friends and classmates together. Now the good news - through the help of a few classmate volunteers we have taken the 1959 and the 1960 yearbook and added ALL the graduates of those years names into the PROFILE DATABASE. What this means is that instead of guessing who we have and who we don't have - we now have them all from these two years and very soon we will have all four graduating classes Profiles online. So what does this mean, well it means that when you log on and have some time, you can look at the profile SYMBOLS on top of the page of grads and see exactly who is here and who isn't. The hope is that when you spot a familiar name that hasn't joined the site, and you know the grads email address you can send them an invitation using the last box on the RIGHT HAND side of the HOME PAGE. Just enter their email address and click on SEND. The hope is that if many of you have just one friend that isn't here online, and send that person an invitation, that they will join, read the list themselves and add some more grads names. If this WORKS then the reunion could be planned for sometime in September or October of 2009. In the meantime, we have been pleased that many of you have contacted grads you remember, and have rekindled some old friendships. Again, and we are getting horse from repeating this, but please don't just log on and log off, - POST SOMETHING on the MESSAGE BOARD. Let us know that you have been here!!
New SITE Page - World Current Events
1/24/09 - Planning for the Reunion
As anyone that can count can see, so far from the four graduating classes we have about 125 Classmates that have registered on here. Most have come from the Classes of 1959 and 1960. As you know, our graduating classes were large and each class numbered well over 1000 Graduates. In order to put together a worthwhile reunion, we would need at least 200 grads. This, in fact, is a small number considering that we have FOUR Classes.
Each one of you that logs on is able to see the list of grads that are online now. Many of you have sent us additional email addresses to add to the list, and the majority of those additions have also logged joined the site. We ask all of you to look over your email list of old friends and send us in any names that aren't here. Remember, it's the email address that most important.
We have waited this long to contact professional Reunion Planners, but we think we should wait a bit longer to see if our list of grads grows. We planned to have the Reunion sometime in June of 2009, however, we are wondering whether it may be more practical to shoot for a date in September or October of 2009. Most likely the affair will be planned for somewhere in the New York metropolitan area. If you have any additional comments please post them on the message board.
1/17/09
Hi Grads - Do you remember when most of us read George Orwell's, 1984? Remember how we thought 1984 was so far away that we couldn't even contemplate getting to that year? Not only has it long passed, but we are almost ending the first decade of the new century.
So, a warm Happy, Healthy, and Prospersous New Year to all of you! Our good wishes should go out to President elect Obama (and his staff), who takes office in a couple of days. He certainly has a very difficult task ahead of him, No matter what party you are affiliated with, it is time to put party politics aside and all work for the common good. We MUST conquer the apathy that has taken hold in our great country and return to the work ethic, honest dealings, and positive energy that we knew when we were growing up.
We are continually getting more grads signing onto our site. We will update everyone as soon as we have some firm facts, figures, and options for our upcoming reunion. We would also like to have your comments and suggestions on the message board, as well as your sending us anyone you know of that you have an email address for, so we can add them to our database.
In the near future we intend to add LIVE CHAT and expanded Message boards to the site. Some of you must have a good joke or two to add to our Joke board? Send them to us, and also send us any song titles that you would like added to our Jukebox.
12/28/2008
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Hi JHS Grads - 1959-1962:
Welcome to YOUR NEW web site! Unlike other sites like Classmates, and Reunion, there is absolutely NO charge for using this site. The only way for this site to become successful is to have ALL the graduating classes email addresses, and we are working to that end. If any of you know any grads you want us to add, please send us their email address, their name, and the graduating class that they attended. Please include the maiden name of all females. Our email addresses are at the end of this note. There are also many of our friends that attended special schools, like Brooklyn Tech, Styvessant, The Bronx High School of Science, Juliard, and The Performing Arts. I would like to include as many of those grads as possible because we knew them from Junior High School and from the neighborhood, while they attended special schools.
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**New News**
Hart Sturm
Many of us remember Ellen Hart as "Miss Subways" and of course she is a '59 graduate of Jamaica High School and also has registered on this site. Ellen is the owner of Ellen's Stardust Diner in Manhattan and also owns Iridium Jazz Club in Manhattan as well. Her married name is Ellen Sturm and you can check out more photos by accessing her profile. Ellen also suggested that her restaurants could also be made available for our REUNION if desired. Check out this clip from YOU TUBE - Click Below! There are more on You Tube if interested - just do a Google search on Ellen's Diner.
Ellen's Stardust Diner another video at Ellens (click here)
click on above link to see Ellen's Diner in action!
_____________________
Participation:
We cannot emphasize enough that the success of this web site is entirely up to YOU, the class graduates. We have said this before, 10 years ago, and no one listened, thus there was no reunion. If we are to be successful in planning and carrying out a class reunion, there has to be PARTICIPATION! We, the administrators can only provide the medium for communication, but YOU the GRADS must participate in the message forum, finding grads names and emails we don't have, and providing photos, anecdotes , or anything that will make this site more interesting to those logging on. If everyone just logs on just to see who was here then this project will FAIL. We will endeavor to make any changes or additions that YOU request that will make this SITE more interesting. So now it's UP TO YOU!!!
_____________________________
The time is quickly approaching for our 50th REUNION!
If we are to plan for this celebration we must develop an email address book in order to maintain communications with YOU! We created this web site with this in mind, and also for you to reconnect with old friends and classmates that you haven't heard from in such a long time. Again, remember, grads MUST be invited to this site by the Administrators or by YOU! However, the Administrators have to add the name of the GRAD before they can log on or fill out their profile. So PLEASE, when you send an invite - send a duplicate to one of the Administrators.
So, welcome to the Jamaica High Class Of 1959,1960, and 1961 web site. Just to reiterate, we NEED the email addresses of any grads you know from the above years. If female, please also leave their maiden name. If you know the State where they presently live, leave that information as well.
While we are developing our address book, we encourage you to log on. and enjoy the site! If you have any information or photos you would like to post please send them to us, and if there is anything you wish us to add to the site please let us know. REMEMBER, this is YOUR SITE! We welcome suggestions, photos, annecdotes, scans from class albums, and anything else you might wish to include here. Just send them to us and we will post them. We are in the information age of the 21 Century, and this type of communication would have been impossible in the past. Let us use it well!
We hope that this NEW site will reunite many old friends, and give us the necessary information to plan a 50th Anniversary Reunion for the above classes.
Thank you,
Larry Schnitt - (60)
Stan Shapiro - (59)
"Beautiful Ohio" directed by Chad Lowe, starring William Hurt, Rita Wilson and Julianna Margulies
This is from Jay Herson:
Three motion pictures were filmed at Jamaica High School during the 2005-2006 school year,
