CCNY is celebrating Valentine's Day 2025
with new love stories.

Love is in the air! In honor of Valentine’s Day, City College continues its tradition of celebrating CCNY love stories. We are featuring two lovely couples who met and found love at City College. Enjoy the new stories and feel the love!

Rosalyn (Rozzie) Frank & Alan Hantman

"A Love Story Born at CCNY"

Rozzie Graduated B.A. 1965 with a major in Psychology
Alan Graduated B.S. 1964 and B. Arch. 1965 (1st Architecture graduating class)

Their love story began on South Campus, on the 4th floor of the Finley Student Center (since replaced with a science building) in House Plan Association’s Wittes Dynasty Room.

They had noticed one another across the room but had never spoken. Their first introduction occurred in the Beaver Bookstore on Amsterdam Avenue at the beginning of the spring semester, January 1964. Alan and his good buddy, Bob Silver, entered the bookstore and ran into a “suntanned and radiant” Rozzie, just back from a Florida intersession trip. Bob introduced them since he and Alan had been Bronx neighborhood friends and were members of Wittes ’64. Rozzie (Sis Wittes 64.5) and Bob had been in the same Psychology course.

Alan had simply come to buy books, but it was there that he finally met the lovely young woman he had noticed, but never had the courage to talk to. He asked if she ever had lunch at “The Greek’s” coffee shop a bit further north on Amsterdam, and she said yes (although NOW Rozzie says she had NEVER gone there.) So, lacking the courage to ask her out then and there, Alan sat at that diner eating cherry or pineapple cheesecake every day for a month hoping she would walk in. It was excellent cheesecake but he continued to sit alone.

The Musical Comedy Society saved the day. Their production of Lil’ Abner was highly anticipated and Alan needed a date. After failing in two phone invitations to other ladies, he tried the phone number Bob had given him and Rozzie’s mom answered. When asked who was calling he told her “Alan,” and she then deflated his balloon by responding, “which one?” (It turned out that Rozzie was dating two other Alans.) But when they spoke he was happy to find that Rozzie already planned to see Lil’ Abner since her friend was part of the production. They agreed to go together with Bob and his date Linda, and their friend David and his date (and future wife) Diane. It was a great show, but Rozzie later told him that the way he held her hand was very annoying.

Nevertheless, they continued to meet, talk and deepen their friendship on the South Lawn, at Lewisohn Stadium, and while sitting on the low wall in front of Shepard Hall, often while consuming Raymond’s Bagels. (Raymond the Bagel Man was a beloved campus fixture. He always parked his bagel cart on Convent Avenue, either at Shepard Hall or at the entrance to South Lawn.)

They dated for several months until Alan left for Maine for a week-long Leadership Training retreat for the House Plan Association. It was then that they realized that they truly missed each other, a textbook case of “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” They married the following June, a brief sixty years ago (three days after graduation.)

Rozzie and Alan have been blessed with three lovely daughters, three handsome sons-in-law, five brilliant granddaughters, one awesome grandson, and two loving grandsons-in-law! It all began right here, at their beloved CCNY.

Kaestner & Jacqueline McDonnough

It was February 1978 and classes at The City College of New York had started late due to a snowstorm. I was a Trinidadian Brooklyn high school senior taking a course for free at the college. I nervously walked into class and took a seat up front. About 30 minutes later, a super cute, bearded guy, wearing a silver mylar jacket with NASA patches, walked in carrying a Samsonite briefcase.He took my breath away.

A Jamaican, he was a third-year, electrical engineering transfer student who lived in the Bronx and worked in the college math lab. This was important because our paths would never have crossed if we hadn’t taken that class.

After class, several of the students introduced themselves. Somehow Kaestner, the cute Jamaican, and I ended up walking to the bookstore together. After leaving the bookstore, he walked me to my subway stop and along the way, he shared shelled peanuts, something he always carried in his jacket pocket, and offered to tutor me in calculus. Long story short, this was the beginning of our whirlwind romance.

Over the next months, we laid the foundation for what was to become a decades-long relationship. Highlights of our first months together included pizza and movies and St. Patrick’s Day at the Empire State Building.

In April, Kaestner met me on the steps of the iconic Midtown New Public Library and presented me with a bouquet of daffodils! New York’s Hayden Planetarium, nighttime walks in Central Park and a late spring walk through Brooklyn Botanical Garden’s Cherry Walk rounded out our relationship. The following September, I left for Northwestern University. The following May, Kaestner moved me back to New York and, five months later, we were married.

We now reside in Richmond’s Highland Park, where our romance continues and where we have the good fortune to live on the same street with one of our two sons and his family, my mom and a host of relatives.

Lawrence and Sandy Langer

Larry was class of 1951, Sandy was class of 1953.  They met on the boardwalk in Far Rockaway, N.Y. when Sandy was about to enter as a first year student and were married while students at CCNY in 1951.  They used to talk about living in married student housing on North Brother Island in an apartment the size of an elevator shaft.

The Langers traveled to the Boston area so that Mr. Langer could teach at Simmons College, where he was an American Literature professor, and earn a Ph.D. in American Literature from Harvard University. Among his works was 1991’s Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. He received many other awards and recognitions.

The Langers celebrated 72 years together before Larry passed away at 94 years old in early 2024. Their love and legacy will continue on through their 2 children Andy Langowitz (Nan); daughter Ellen Lasri (Nissim), 5 grandchildren; and 3 great grandchildren.

Read More Love Stories That Were Featured on Valentine's Day 2024