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THE PELHAM PARKWAY TIMES
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THE NEW GIRL IN CLASS! BY CLAIRE KLIENMAN SILVERSTEIN In the winter of 1952, the second term of the 1951-1952 school year was about to begin. On the at morning I anticipated what it might be like entering a new class, in a new school, in the middle of the school year. I felt nervous entering an unknown zone; would the other students accept me? I barely knew only one person who was my age who was attending the school, since I only lived in the Pelham Parkway neighborhood for a few days. A few days before I enrolled at PS89 to start the sixth grade, our family drove up from the south Bronx to our new home on Wallace Avenue. My father said to me, “this is your new world.” The morning I was to start PS89, my mother enrolled me and I was brought up to Mrs. DeLuca’s sixth grade class. All the students in the class and the teacher were already in the room. As I walked into the room, I was keenly aware that I was “the new girl in the class.” Mrs. Deluca introduced me to the class and directed me to an assigned seat. As I was walking to my seat a boy who I did not yet know, Stuart Zuckerman, asked me “do you play canasta?” Apparently the class thought the question was funny and started to laugh. I said yes and proceeded to my seat. In a recent conversation with a member of my sixth grade class, Estelle Kell, who later became my best friend, she remembered me walking into that classroom that morning carrying a red sweater, a detail I do not remember but somehow caught her eye and remained fixed in her memory. After eighth grade in 1954, Stuart Zuckerman and I went to separate high schools and lost contact with one another. About 20 years later, I walked into a pet store in Co-op City with my son and daughter. My son, Steven was looking to buy an Iguana! All of a sudden I heard a voice yell out “Claire PPTIMES@AOL.COM
Sue Ravin, Estelle Kell and Claire Kleinman. Silverman!” It was Stuart Zuckerman, who owned the pet store and sold us the Iguana. As time went by I made many friends at PS89 and Christopher Columbus High School. I have fond memories of our friendships and shared activities. One favorite activity was playing girls softball on the parkway with Estelle, Joan Traub, Gloria Daniels and other team members. I have wonderful memories of Saturday afternoons in the seventh grade shared with a new friend Maxine Greenberg. We would have lunch at the Jasmine Inn Chinese Restaurant on White Plains Road, see a movie at the Globe Theater, and then finish the day with a pizza at the Allegro Inn. Maxine Greenberg and I
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have recently reconnected. Another seventh grade activity was after school indoor roller skating to music in the gym at PS89. My mother took me to a sporting goods store on White Plains Road to buy a roller skating outfit, that matched the style that my friends wore skating time. By the end of the first in my new sixth grade class, the “new girl” had made many friends, boys as well as girls. Now, I was part of the “gang”.
Claire Klienman Silverstein 2345 Wallace Avenue CCHS 1958 PS89 1954 silversteinbandc@aol.com —————————————— TEL 631/979-4985