Valentine Day Response

Ann and Ira Bindman

Yes, true love did start in college. We were juniors in February 1964, when we met in a Shakespeare class taught by Professor Elton. This attractive young woman came late and caught her finger in the door, trying not to let it slam. She looked around for an empty seat. There was only one in the classroom, next to me. She slid in quietly, grimacing throughout the class and holding her finger. I noticed her pained facial expressions and, in the end, asked her if I could help. She mentioned she thought she had broken her finger and wondered if I would go with her to Harlem Hospital, where her father was a physician. This was our first date! And now 55+ years later, we owe our marriage to CCNY and the wonderful opportunity we had to get free education and a lifelong relationship. 

Ira: Love is an inexorable force driving the heart wild and the head crazy. It’s the best thing in life.

Ann: Love is a dizzying, affection and attraction to another.

Class of '65 & '66

Andrew and Isabel Cardona

I met Isabel in our Architecture studio, where we both struggled with all-nighters and the pressure of critiques. Throughout those years, I watched her excel at everything she did and I got to know her warm soul. It wasn’t until our 4th year (out of 5) that I was brave enough to tell her I loved her -- her mind, beauty, and spirit. She shot me down a couple of times, but somehow I was never embarrassed enough to give up. Each time I told her how I felt, we became closer and just more vulnerable to each other. In March of 2019, we finally started dating, then we graduated in May of 2021. Moved in together that same month and got engaged a month later. These have been the easiest and happiest decisions of my life. We are both have our bachelor's in Architecture from The Spitzer School at CCNY in 2021.

Class of '21

Frank and Pauline Cohn

As a Stuyvesant High School student, I met Paula while she was in Junior HS playing ping pong in 1942, in after-school activities. I was drafted in 1943 and failed to write her while at war. When I returned to finish College at CCNY, where she was in the Class of '52. She forgave me for not writing and we eloped to get married in '48 but we both remained at CCNY.  When I got a Regular Army Commission from ROTC at graduation in '49, I went back on active duty and took her away from her College studies. But when I was ordered without dependents to Korea in '57, she returned to CCNY, to graduate from the School of Education. We now both were CCNY graduates. Paula, unfortunately, died in May 2021, and I hold our time at CCNY responsible for our subsequent 72 years of blissful marriage. Paula is my permanent Valentine!

True love is a partnership that lasts forever…

Class of '49 & '59

Hank and Harriet Fuld

Friday night May 20, 1960, was a miserable rainy night and the occasion of my House Plan's (Saxe 60) final party before we all graduated. We invited a sorority from Brooklyn College to join us at our clubroom on Lefferts Ave in Brooklyn. I was at the bottom of the stairs when the girls entered and that is when I first saw Harriet Hirschhorn. That was over 60 years ago and I am still hooked. Harriet tells me that she was home reading a good book that afternoon when her friend, Marilyn called and invited her to come to the party with her sorority.  Harriet had no intention of going out on such a nasty evening, but when Marilyn said "my father will drive" she decided she had nothing to lose and agreed to go to the party. I am eternally grateful to Marilyn's father for being a wonderful chauffeur that night.

By the way, there is a song that was popular on the Hit Parade in the late '50s entitled "On the 20th of May". Its first lines are something like this "I'm looking back to a wonderful day, the 20th of May, I showed you my heart and you stole it away when first we met on the 20th of May". . Not only did we find each other that rainy night, but we have a song (even though the tune sounds very much like a march) to commemorate it. That is my love story and it really is a happy one!

Class of '60 

Darwin Green and Ruth Relkin-Green

It was January 1946 and the first class of women was admitted to uptown CCNY, 600 women, 3,000 men. My House Plan, Dean '50 was having its first House Plan party. Newly back from the Navy, he was on the House Plan oversight committee. We met that night, danced, and saw one another for the next few years. He graduated in June '48 and I in January '50. We married in September 1950 and now 71 years later we are still happily married.

Class of '48 & 50 

Alexandra Krames and Marvin Tran

I met my now fiancé at CCNY during the 2014 Spring semester. We were both theater majors and kept bumping into each other while working on productions. In the fall of 2014, we both were cast in CCNY’s production of Arabian Nights. Our flirtations turned into a first date, down the block from CCNY at Jin Ramen on 125th St, and has become a 7 going on 8-year relationship. We spent countless days enjoying the campus together, taking quick Cafe 1 lunch dates, studying in the Quad, and late-night rehearsals in Compton Gothels. 

Love is the simple things: conversations about our day in a local diner, walking through the city and visiting our favorite shops, cheering each other on through professional ups and downs, and always being open to discovering new things about ourselves and each other. 

Class of '17 & '16

Guillermo Polanco and Luciana Stumpf

Our dearest memories of our time together at CCNY are when we would sit together in the quad during the springtime, enjoying a cup of coffee and walking together to Marshak for lab.

For us, love means supporting each other, being confident, and standing by that person as you both face challenges head-on.

Class of '16

Carolina de Los Reyes Baron and Robert U. Akeret

In the late 1950's I, Carolina de Los Reyes Baron, was attending CCNY.  I had some personal issues and was sent to discuss them with the new guidance counselor, Robert U. Akeret.  I only attended therapy with him for one month but we remained in touch with each other throughout the years. He was married to a lovely well-known model, Ann Klem Akeret, and together had four lovely daughters. Dr. Robert Akeret became a well-known international writer. I was married to a world-renowned flamenco guitarist Manolo Baron and I became a famous flamenco dancer traveling the world with the Jose Greco Company.  After my husband and Robi's wife passed away, we reconnected at a lecture we both attended at CCNY. After sharing our life stories we fell in love and got engaged. Unfortunately, Dr. Akeret passed on but the legacy remains. His four daughters are my very best friends. 

They are like family. I thank CCNY for our first encounter...

Class of '59 

Peter and Judy Salzer

I asked Judy to dance at a House Plan Party. She was a good dancer and we started dating. We would meet on the compass every day. Judy said yes to my proposal and we married two weeks after my graduation. Love is a long-term commitment, love is devoting your life to your partner and putting them first in everything that matters. Judy and I are looking forward to celebrating our 65th Anniversary on June 23.

Class of '57

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Sharon (Jevotovsky) and Alan Selman

I meet my husband, Alan, the love of my life, at CCNY, and we were married for over 57 years until he passed away in January 2021.  We met on April Fool’s Day,1960 (April 1st)   It was a beautiful spring day, and we met on the City College campus lawn.  Where else did (and probably still do) City College students spend a sunny spring day between classes?

We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. He was talking to her on the lawn that day, and I had just arrived on campus after a short walk from the subway station. I was an upper freshman, and he was a lower junior.  He told me his birthday was the next day (April 2nd) and I told him mine was two days later (April 4th).  The rest of that spring semester we conveniently “ran” into each other on the City College lawn between classes. By the following fall semester, we were a couple. There is a word in Yiddish – beshert – which means “meant to be” – and I think our meeting was beshert.

He was a math major and, although I was a good math student, I decided to major in biology, having never taken biology in high school because I took so much math.  Both of us were very good students and the first in our families to attend college. We were elected to Sigma Alpha and held offices, me as secretary and him as vice president.  At the end of our respective senior years, we each were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Our friends often told us we were going to have amazing children (and we do).

After his graduation, Alan went off to graduate school at Berkeley to receive his master’s degree in mathematics; and we corresponded long distances. I still have the letters we wrote to each other; I told our children they can read them after we are both gone. In the early sixties, there were no cell phones, no Skype or Facetime, and long-distance phone calls (on a landline) were very expensive. But they were a little less expensive after 9 pm on a Saturday night.  So, we had a date by phone every Saturday night at 9 pm east coast time.  We did see each other between semesters and in the summer when Alan would come home from Berkeley. In the summer of 1963, after my graduation, we married, and I joined Alan at Berkeley. The following year we returned to the northeast to attend graduate school at Penn State, where Alan received a Ph.D. in mathematics and I received an MS in zoology with a specialization in physiology; and, during that period, our two children were born.  During that time, I was a stay-at-home mom as it was difficult to get childcare then.

Over the years, we lived in many different parts of the country and, in fact, the world, where Alan held different faculty and research positions at various universities.  He was a Fulbright Scholar in Israel and a Humboldt Fellow in Germany, as well as winning awards back home.  I always found some sort of academic or research position, but, finally, with Alan’s encouragement and support, I received a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University at Buffalo thirty years after receiving my master’s.  It had always been my goal, after my son and daughter received their law and medical degrees, respectively, to go back to school. In 2014, we retired, but retiring did not mean we stopped traveling. We continued to travel and enjoy life until the pandemic and his illness made traveling impossible.

Class of '63

Shirley and Sidney Silvers

My husband, Sidney Silvers, my one and only, to whom I was married for 73 wonderful years, passed away less than a year ago on March 19th, 2021. His love, support, understanding, and kindness were a blessing all those years. 

We met in CCNY's Baruch College in 1947; I was 19 and he was 21. Sidney was a proud WWII veteran who had enlisted when he was 17. I served in the Pacific as a radarman on a destroyer-escort, the USS-Heyliger. We met in the cafeteria on the 9th floor, at that time, Baruch College was housed in a single building at 17 Lexington Ave. Sidney was surrounded by his House Plan classmates who pointed me out to him. Our first date was a double date with our close friends. We went to a show on Broadway and then we rode the train home to the Bronx, where I lived with my parents, brother, and sister in a fifth-floor walk-up. Sidney then had to walk home about three miles to his parent's apartment, they were the first ones in the neighborhood to have a TV set. We continued dating, became engaged, and four months after obtaining our Bachelor's degree's, we were married in the New Tremont Palace in the Bronx on a Sunday afternoon. We did not have a honeymoon because we had teaching assignments the next day. We went on to obtain Masters degree's, also at CCNY's Baruch College. Our first apartment was on Marcy Place in the Bronx, again a fifth-floor walk-up and the rent was $43 a month. Sidney had a long career with the New York City Board of Education as a teacher, guidance counselor, and a center administrator for auxiliary services for the high schools. Afterward, he was the comptroller for the Pennystock Journal. I taught at Baruch in the Accountancy department, led by Chairman Emanuel Saxe, for three semesters before leaving to give birth to the first of our three children; Mara, Suzanne, and Adam. I then returned to teaching and retired from CUNY's Queensborough Community College as professor and deputy chairwoman of the business department. That didn't stop us, we enjoyed our retirements and spent time in the Berkshires, Boca Raton, and North Shore Towers in New York. We were enthusiastic volunteers in Tanglewood, Boca Raton Regional Hospital, Northwell Hospital, The Wick, Crest, Barrington Stage, Williamstown Theatre, among others. 

Baruch College gave us the most wonderful opportunities to broaden our horizons and to lead fulfilling, happy, and meaningful lives. It opened a whole new world to us, plus, giving us the ability to see our students accomplish the very same things and realize their dreams. 

Class of '49 & '53 

Judith (Tullman) and Larry Spinner

It happened in the fifties. Ike found God at the White House and I found Larry Spinner at CCNY.  Queen Elizabeth 11 had just been crowned. Joseph Stalin had died, and the space age had begun with the launch of Sputnik 1. CCNY had rigorous, stellar academic standards and welcomed its diverse students from different backgrounds so I found myself relentlessly challenged and surprisingly - capable of doing new things. While CCNY was doing a bang-up job firing -up my mind, Larry was doing a bang-up job inspiring my heart. I had heard about Larry from friends. The tall, handsome, already published poet, had a wry sense of humor and wore a tweed sports jacket with brown suede elbow patches. How stylish, or perhaps chi-chi to some of our classmates...

Hey, what's your name?" Not exactly a great pick-up line, but I replied, with a pretentious "My name is Judith Tullman"

"What's in a name? My real name is Nathan Alexander Spinner, but my family and friends call me Larry, don't ask me why! So, should I call you Judith or Judie?"

 And so, we were launched. Larry had lived in foster homes for many years and had funny, fascinating though heartbreaking stories about his early days. He told all, in our social club, the CCNY cafeteria. Through his stories, I began to understand Larry’s difficult childhood, and admire his courage, determination, and humor. He was the one with the real discerning eye who led us to appreciate the gothic revival masterpiece buildings in which we spent so many of our college days.  

"Imagine you're at Princeton, their collegiate buildings are just like ours, and just think what they pay in tuition. Or Cambridge and Oxford if Princeton doesn't meet your standards" he would tease.

We would often on the way home from the class slip into nearby movie houses to catch the latest films. Then he would catch the “A” and I would get the “D” or “C train.” Yes, we were subway commuters. Somehow in those times, it was a romantic meeting on the train platforms before and after CCNY classes. Larry was the sports stringer of the CCNY Undergraduate Campus newspaper for The New York Herald Tribune and had more intriguing stories to tell. The world of sports was irresistible as was he. Writing figured prominently in Larry’s life during CCNY years, and later in his creative advertising career and his entire life, but that’s another story. What drew Larry to me? His discerning eye...just joking! I gave blood at the CCNY blood bank during the Korean and Vietnam wars and Larry was able to use my blood credit for a family member proving I was once again, indispensable. Or maybe, I loved to laugh and he made me laugh a lot. Larry loved a good audience. If it weren’t for CCNY there would be no story.  Larry and I attended our 50th-year graduation reunion with pride and warm feelings.  At the ceremony, the 2005 graduates cheered wildly as the few attending 1955 graduates walked down the aisle. What a happy day for us and City College. By the way, Larry and I were fortunate to be married and together for 61 years. 

Class of  '55

Mort and Helen Sternheim

Helen Rothenberg Sternheim, my wife of over six decades, was a pioneering electrical engineer. Helen went to Taft High School, where she excelled in math and science At graduation in January 1951, she was happily surprised when she was awarded most of the science and math prizes. Helen enrolled at CCNY as an electrical engineering major. At that time CCNY did not allow women to major in math and science, although the college did become completely co-ed a year later. Women could enroll in education, and strangely enough, in engineering. A CCNY history website states that girls had first been admitted to engineering in 1938. The reason they were admitted, we have heard, is that the Engineering School Charter called for persons of good character, not men, as in the school's original charter. A court case led to the admission of women, it's a good story, but we don't know if it's true. 

Helen completed the four-and-a-half-year electrical engineering program and graduated in June 1955. She was the only woman in that year's engineering class of 192 graduates...The New York Post published her photo in a front-page spread, proclaiming her as the "Queen of the Engineers" One other young woman had started with Helen, and she had dropped out. There were fourteen other members of the Society of Women Engineers but Helen was the only senior. Helen and I met in a freshman physics class, we started dating a year or two later. We both belonged to service organizations; I belonged to Alpha Phi Omega and Helen belonged to Chi Lambda. I attended Bronx Science and went to CCNY with the aid of a Regents Scholarship. I graduated in January 1954 with a B.S in physics. After a brief stint at Bell Aircraft outside Buffalo. I returned to New York City to be with my sweetheart and to do graduate work at NYU. We were married shortly after her graduation, on June 19th, 1955. During the first year of our marriage, I taught at Brooklyn College while finishing my NYU's masters degree by taking courses at night. After that, I worked on my doctorate at Columbia with the support of an NSF predoctoral fellowship. Once I had finished my studies at Columbia. I got a postdoctoral position at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Helen left her job at Curtiss Wright Electronics, we settled into a house in Southaven, a ten-mile drive from the Lab. It had a big lawn, tall trees, and large forsythia bushes that burst with bright yellow flowers in the spring. It was definitely a change from the Bronx. After two years I moved on to another post-doc position at Yale, Helen searched for jobs all over the state, applying to perhaps fifty companies. At one firm somebody actually said they did have facilities for women. 

Finally, Helen reached the employment offices of Southern New England Telephone, aka SNET, which was hiring engineers. They had separate men's and women's employment offices, so she was referred to the men's office since engineering was men's work. She had good interviews with the personnel officer and with the engineer in charge of the department. They told her that an offer would shortly be forthcoming. Weeks went by without a response, and whenever she called, they were reassuring. Eventually, she was hired, having a woman in a man's job required additional time-consuming levels of approval. Step one for promotion was an exam on basic math and engineering material. If you did well enough and were eligible to attend multi-day score and the statement that it was not high enough for the program. She checked her colleagues and discovered that her score was higher than some who had been told they passed. SNET may have been more welcoming than other companies, but sexism still persisted. 

We moved on to UMass Amherst, Helen stayed home, raising our young family. She became active in Round the World Women, which helped foreign graduate students and faculty wives to adjust to life in Amherst. She also managed a blood bank and organized a program of gourmet dinners for the University Women Group. By June 2019 Helen and I were ready to retire, our main collaborators had moved away or retired, grant funds were increasingly scarce, and we were both running out of energy in our mid-eighties. Our workshop materials and related documents on Scholarworks are available to the public. Helen and I could not have chosen a better time to retire, less than a year later the Covid virus would cause major headaches for anyone running an in-person program. 

Class of '55

Palentine Day Response

Palentine's Day, formerly known as Galentine's Day, celebrates platonic friendships. We want to share with you other aspects of what love means to our CCNY community.

Alexus Montero and Sarah Jorgensen

We call each other “Spaghetti” as an inside joke. Cafe One and Compton Goethals was our favorite place to talk about our photography projects, psychology papers, and even spill a little chismé. I (Alexus) would get a small spiced chai and a turkey avocado sandwich and Sarah would get a small coffee and cliff bar.

CCNY is the place that boosted my confidence, inspired my passion for research, and helped me realize that I can be creative. It’s also where Sarah and I were in one of our Psychology courses and we both sat down at the same time and Sarah said “I can’t wait to get home and…” but I blurted out “eat spaghetti” and we started dying of laughter in the middle of class (looking back now it is not funny at all and we probably looked ridiculous). Now we gift each other Spaghetti every year for the holidays and tell the story over and over.

Karen Lim and Osa Onaghinor

Our favorite place to hang out was in the Cafeteria. CCNY is a place that made a best friend for me; if not for us both attending CCNY, we wouldn’t be the best friends we are today. I can’t imagine life without her beside me.

Hilaury Gonzalez and Amanda Lopez

I don't think there are words to describe how much CCNY means to me, it's where I met my best friend. There are so many memories that will forever be tied to The City College of New York.