__________________ SEAFORD _________________
COMMUNITY UPDATE Infections as of May 23
2,079
Infections as of May 17 2,065
$1.00
HERALD
Residents learn about fire safety
Fifth-graders create journals
Students learn about birds
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VOL. 69 NO. 22
MAY 27 - JUNE 2, 2021
District PTAs take over Adventureland By JENNIFER CORR jcorr@liherald.com
Jennifer Corr/Herald
SEAFORD SCHOOL DISTRICT students went for a spin on the Musik Express.
The happiness could almost be felt in the air as children reunited with friends and ran to a number of Adventureland’s games and rides. The Seaford Manor and Seaford Harbor Parent Teacher Associations reserved Adventureland, in East Farmingdale, for Seaford School District elementary school students for a spring family event last Friday. The annual event was the district’s most successful one yet, with lines of students and t h e i r p a re n t s s t re t ch i n g
through the parking lot. Only a half-hour after the start time, Vanessa Krussman, president of the Seaford Harbor PTA, said she couldn’t help but notice the happiness and energy among the families that participated, many of whom were enjoying their first night out after a year of quarantine. “Just being outside, being a bit more comfortable and with people you know and you’re starting to see again in sports, it’s just the whole community coming together,” Krussman said. “We began planning this a year ago, as we always plan in CONTINUED ON PAGE 15
Seafordite’s radio collection takes listeners back in time By BRIAN STIEGLITZ bstieglitz@liherald.com
Michael Katz’s collection of more than 200 vintage radios offers listeners more than just a chance to hear Top 40 hits. The 69-year-old Seaford resident has been accumulating radios from different historical movements across the globe. Katz is displaying part of his collection, which includes 135 wood radios and 90 others, at an exhibit at the Wantagh Public Library until Saturday. He recently gave the Herald a tour of the exhibit, which focuses on shortwave portable radios from the 1950s to the 1980s.
“Before the wall came down, you couldn’t get these,” Katz said, referring to the Berlin Wall and gesturing to a row of Russian Army radios from the early 1980s, which he calls the “forbidden fruit.” He bought the radios on eBay, but if he had displayed them in the U.S. before 1989 — the year the wall fell — he could have been branded a spy and possibly arrested, he said. “They couldn’t sell these to us — we were the enemy,” Katz said. “So I think they reverseengineered their radios and sold them to Europeans for a cheaper price.” He gestured to another set of
wood radios adorned with lavish patterns. “These are French,” he said. “They were really into having fancy designs on their radios.” Katz grew up in Brooklyn, and had an American Zenith table radio. “I hated it,” he said with a laugh. The first radio he bought on his own was a 1969 RCA table set, “and that’s when I discovered classic rock,” he added. He listened to the Beach Boys and the Beatles on his radio, and said he grew fascinated with “playing around with complicated controls.” He lived in Manhattan at the time, where he was studying accounting at Baruch
College, and bought a car only so he could drive up and down the East Coast to go to hobby and radio conventions and buy more radios. Katz, now a CPA with a private practice, moved to Seaford 30 years ago to raise a family with his wife, Elizabeth. They have two daughters, Sheryl, 28, and Melissa, 23.
“I have so many big radios all over my house, and my wife always says she wishes I collected thimbles,” he laughed. “When you have a hobby, you tend to go a little nuts. When I go to a show to display them, I stock my car so full I could barely see out the back window.” Katz’s oldest radio on display CONTINUED ON PAGE 12