Jack Molinas: The LES Connection

A recent email baseball discussion with prof Bob lead from Gustavo Molina to Jack Molinas. I did some research to see if there was a LES connection to Jack, since I knew he went to Stuyvesant. I thought he was Greek Orthodox, but he was a fellow Sephardic Jew. He lived in the Bronx at the time, but his father Louis lived for a while evidently in the 7th Ward near PS 147. The excerpt comes from an excellent book about Jack

Alumni Sports Media Roundtable at Stuyvesant High School : 6/24/09

The KV Colonel and my beloved ex-boss Dr. Ringel sent me info on this

The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association invites you to the first-ever Alumni Sports Media Roundtable at Stuyvesant High School on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009. Join your friends, classmates, fellow alumni, faculty and students for an evening of great stories, snappy dialogue and fun. The panelists include Len Berman '64, Sam Marciano '85 and Sam Rosen '64 while the moderator will be Dave Cohen '68. All the participants have distinguished themselves in the world of sports media. Len Berman is best known as the former sports anchor at NBC for more than two decades in New York City; Sam Marciano is the anchor for the MLB website; Sam Rosen is the voice of the New York Rangers and the NFL; and Dave Cohen is the former radio announcer for the New York Yankees.

I had graduated with Berman and Rosen(zweig) but only knew Berman. He was in my homeroom class. I never liked Berman much and seeing him again bore out my original impressions. Pre-talk he spent a little (very little) time with the alumns and quickly escaped to hang with Cohen, Rosen and Marchiano. It was my first time at the new Stuyvesant and probably my last. They preserved a room from the original one there (some of the slides in the slide show). Berman mentioned that it was his English teacher and mine, Sterling Jensen, who provided inspiration for his broadcast career. Jensen said he had a great voice and should develop it. Looking back, my Stuyvesant HS teachers weren't so special. With the exception of Kahn, Gluck, Finkel, Schwartz, Schindelheim and Goodman many were pretty mean-spirited and uninspiring. I missed Frank McCourt by a few years.
I found Jensen' times' obituary
Published: Thursday, December 9, 1993

Sterling B. Jensen, an actor and mime who helped found the Roundabout Theater, died yesterday in the Touro Infirmary in New Orleans. He was 68 and lived in New Orleans. The cause was congestive heart failure, said his wife, Esther Ewing Jensen. Mr. Jensen was born in San Diego. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in drama from San Diego State University. In World War II, he saw combat with the Army in New Guinea and the Philippines. In 1965, Mr. Jensen helped found the Roundabout Theater and, in its first production, played Adolf in "The Father," by Strindberg. His many roles with the Roundabout in the 60's and early 70's included Lieutenant Osborne in "Journey's End," Vanya in "Uncle Vanya," the King in "Pelleas and Melisande" and the title role in "King Lear." He also taught creative writing and acting at Stuyvesant High School. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two stepdaughters, Elizabeth Wynne-Martin of New Orleans and Esther Wynne-Wilson of Hardin, Mont., and five grandchildren. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 as a telephone operator in "The Desk Set." In the late 50's, he joined the Mime Theater of Etienne Decroux.

Berman and others were decrying the death of the major broadcast and print media outlets. I feel bad about the loss of the behind scene jobs they provided as well. But I wish I would have had the nerve to ask the question, "Perhaps if those outlets were more truthful about what was happening in the world they wouldn't have fallen victim to the vast and different information available on the internet." Marchiano mentioned how hurt she felt when McGwire and others broke all those records. I can't believe that some of those writers and broadcasters as well as managers and team officials didn't know what was really going on. Although this blurb from a piece from broadcast union news on Marchiano's force retirement sounds like the sad state of affairs for experienced workers everywhere

Marchiano's termination is more about what's happening in the local TV news business than it was about his performance. Industry sources say all six local stations, which for decades were cash registers, are losing money - big money. This has led to cutbacks. It has also led to major players, including local sports anchors making mid six-figures and up, either taking drastic pay cuts or, in Marchiano's case, being fired.
For years now, local sportscasters have been on the endangered species list. Many news directors - some genuflecting to consultants who have mistaken New York City for Iowa City - have attached a low priority to their nightly sportscasts.
"The sports guys are tolerated, but minimized. But the local sportscasts are still important. We are all still viable because we offer, through highlights and commentary, a local slant....That's why I lasted for (over) 40 years," Marchiano said. "Look, I'm not the greatest guy there ever was, but the point is you knew it was me. I'm known by first name."
Familiarity has been devalued. The suits would rather bring in a rotating cast of know-nothing wannabes practiced in the art of awful ad-libs, smarmadukes who have no connection with their audience and no feeling for the marketplace.
Now, there is not even a trace of bitterness in Marchiano's voice. Considering that other local sportscasters, on the outside looking in, still constantly complain about their demise, this is fairly remarkable. Or is it? Marchiano said he ain't looking back, only ahead to the next gig.
Four months ago, he had emergency knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus and is finishing up his rehabilitation. Soon, he will head for South Florida to visit friends.
"But I'm only a phone call away. It's peculiar not going in to do a sportscast every night," he said. "What I dwell upon is my brand, which is familiarity and credibility. So, I'm hanging out my shingle."
All of a sudden, it seemed like it was around 10:50 p.m. on Ch. 11. He blasted Woody Johnson for not meeting with Bill Cowher. Tore up the Giants' and Jets' PSL plans. And wondered who would fill all those expensive seats at Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium.
Right then you hoped someone with a clue would do the right thing.
And return Sal Marchiano back where he belongs.

Ron Silver On The LES

Below: He attended ESHI, the East Side Hebrew Institute on Avenue B and 8th Street

Below: His mother, May Zimelman, lived here in 1930. It's now part of the Village View Houses site. In the census she was listed as Mae Zimlman

About the former ESHI, from ephemeral ny
This Victorian Gothic/Queen Anne building is the third lodging house the Society opened, called the Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School. Constructed on Avenue B and 8th Street in 1886, it housed 71 boys, according to the 1870 census, most between 12 and 15. The architect, Calvert Vaux, also designed Central Park. Vaux was committed to helping the poor and designed all of the Children’s Aid Society homes. Over the years, about 170,000 street kids passed through all the different lodging houses. The Avenue B building didn’t house kids for long though. By 1910 it became a school only, and in 1925 was sold to a Jewish congregation. Vacant in the 1970s, it was turned into apartments in 1977, then landmarked in 2000.

New York City Pleasures And Treasures: Narrated by Ron Silver

Although his political views, to me, were baffling I was sad to hear that this son of the LES passed away. from Roy

We lost a fellow pegleg - "Ron Silver".
He was a year behind me, but I did have lunches with him at times.
Makes me remember I'm getting older and am mortal.

Ron Silver, a long time smoker, died on March 15, 2009 in New York City after a two-year battle with esophageal cancer. Silver was born in New York City, New York, the son of May (née Zimelman), a substitute teacher, and Irving Roy Silver, a clothing sales executive. Silver was raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and attended The East Side Hebrew Institute ("ESHI") and then Stuyvesant High School. He went on to graduate from the SUNY at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Chinese, and received a Master's Degree in Chinese History from St. John's University in New York and the College of Chinese Culture in Taiwan. He also attended Columbia University's Graduate School of International Affairs.
Silver traveled to more than 30 countries and spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. He taught at the high school level and was a social worker for the Department of Social Services.

Tim Robbins And Susan Sarandon: Who's Almost?

Above, Tim's address in the 1970's when he went to Stuyvesant High School
Possibly the address of Susan Sarandon's mother Lenora Marie Criscione in 1930. As much as I'd like to include them I don't think I have a strong enough case.
An excerpt from a 1992 story about Tim:

Gil and Mary, who met as music majors at UCLA, married in 1952. When Tim, their youngest child, was barely 2, his father was signed to cut a record in New York City. Gil flew ahead from Los Angeles, while Mary packed up the car and drove the kids - Adele, 7; David, 5; Gabrielle, 4; and Tim - to Manhattan. "I have the feeling," says Robbins, "the first two years of my life were very quiet. Serene. Birds chirping. And then into our station wagon and driving cross-country. New York City! Raarrgh! This explosion! Tim was not a happy-go-lucky toddler. "He was very sober and pontifical," recalls his father. "We used to call him Timothy Cardinal Robbins. My ex-manager once came in and saw Tim and called him 'the oldest person in the world.'" Adding to Tim's mystique was the fact that he didn't speak "until a relatively late age," Gil says. "But he didn't have to. He had a form of language, but it was not intelligible. His three siblings translated for him." Tim also, according to his father, had "a wonderful fantasy life." All sorts of characters inhabited "his extra-extra-world. It was Tim's joke." Short on money, the Robbinses - crammed into a top-floor railroad flat on King Street - were long on talent and ambition. The children shared a love of music and drama, and Gil gave them guitar lessons. But he "didn't encourage any of the kids," he says. "It's a very difficult life. I made sure they saw the backside of it as well as the glitzy side." With Ian and Sylvia coming to Thanksgiving dinner and Tom Paxton regularly at the kitchen table, the Robbinses entertained an eclectic group of friends who were smart, outspoken, and involved. The theater of the streets provided a colorful backdrop, with a neighbor who flounced down the block in velvet Shakespearean suits and Norman Vincent Peale leading protests in Washington Square Park. A women's house of detention once stood in the neighborhood. "You'd walk down the street and hear these women: 'Help me. I need to get ... so baaaddd. I need somebody to ...meeee!!' I was, like, 11 years old," says Robbins. "That's probably why they closed it down." The neighborhood did not make him tough, just disciplined. "I have a different meter as far as who I trust and who I don't," he says, measuring his words. "What is real and what isn't. If it's sometimes too defensive, that's called 'street law.'" The Robbins children attended parochial school and were taught by nuns. Tim now says the role of altar boy was his first "stage experience," and when it came time to choose a confirmation name, he wanted Illya, for Illya Kuryakin, of The Man From UNCLE. "My parents said I wasn't allowed to. Illya's not a saint." Gil Robbins continued his career as an actor, appearing in Off-Broadway shows like How to Steal an Election and joining the road company of 1997. The 10-year-old Tim performed with his older sisters in plays for the Theatre for the New City. He directed his first play at the age of 14 and performed satiric political sketches lampooning Watergate figures. The Robbinses voiced outrage at crimes against democracy. "I suppose it was skepticism as far as politics is concerned," recalls Mary. "I think mistrust of the government was probably a theme." When his older sister Adele was attending Ohio's Antioch University, says Robbins, "one time my mother came into my room, woke me up and said 'I want you to be very proud of your sister. She was just arrested for protesting the Vietnam War.'" Acting wasn't Robbins's only obsession. He'd wake up at 4 am for hocked practice, and he also became a decent baseball player. He attended the elite, science-oriented Stuyvesant High School, where he got good grades. [Don't let the word "elite" fool you: it's a public school. - Pol] His brother, David, meanwhile, has veered off into heavy-metal music and left for California. Tim was awarded a Regents Scholarship to the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, twenty miles from the Canadian border. Isolated and remote, the college nevertheless had a small theater department, which Tim participated in. Says Gil, "He was a large frog in a small pond. He wasn't learning anything about himself." But he was learning how to party. He says Plattsburgh had a thriving bacchanalian scene. "I've done hallucinogens, but I don't think it's responsible to talk about this kind of stuff because people read that and think that validates whatever they're doing. I know there are definitely personalities that should not take hallucinogenic drugs.

Deacon Blues

Phil Woods' sax solo on Doctor Wu had me hankering for Steely Dan. Deacon Blues is my favorite of theirs. This could come under the category of "posts that have nothing to with Knickerbocker.....except that Walter Becker (on guitar) is Stuyvesant HS, class of 1967

This is the day
Of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers
Wild gamblers
That's all in the past
You call me a fool
You say its a crazy scheme
This ones for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
Ill make it this time
Im ready to cross that fine line
Chorus:
I'll learn to work the saxophone
I'll play just what I feel
Drink scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me deacon blues
My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
Sharing the things we know and love
With those of my kind
Libations
Sensations
That stagger the mind
I crawl like a viper
Through these suburban streets
Make love to these women
Languid and bittersweet
Ill rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town
A world of my own
I'll make it my home sweet home
Chorus
This is the night
Of the expanding the man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be