A Sleepy Town Comes Into Its Own – And Then Some!
by Lois W. Stern
When I was a child, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, NY, was about as small town as one could get. Its commercial area consisted of a main street lined by several small stores, a few antiquated fishermen’s homes, a tiny library overlooking the harbor, and a a three room schoolhouse, a bit further east.
Late each August, my Dad would get together with some of the neighborhood fathers to blaze a trail, starting from the deeply wooded area behind our homes, through about three quarters of a mile of hilly, vine tangled forest, to that tiny, brick schoolhouse perched at the end of the their path. With paint buckets in hand, they would trample down the tangled underbrush while painting green bands on scattered tree trunks along their chosen route. When we were kids, on an occasional morning while hiking to school, our sense of adventure would overpower our sense of duty and we would veer off course to explore. I recall several mornings when we got so hopelessly lost that we arrived after the second bell had chimed, to the reception of stern reprimands.
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Lois, back row, second from the left. |
Once inside the building, we would make a dash for our individual classrooms. The entire student body of 72 students included all the students from Kindergarten through eighth grade. Grades K-2 were assigned to Mrs. Wills, Grades 3-5 to Mrs. Norton, and grades 7-8 to Mr. Newell, who was also the building principal. When I entered Kindergarten, I walked into a room arranged with three rows of student desks, and was assigned my rightful place in the Kindergarten row. After only two months as a Kindergartener, Mrs. Wills announced that I was doing so well that I could now move to first grade. “Slide your desk over to the next row,” she directed. No psychological or academic tests, no parent conference. In those days, the teacher was the sole decision maker and the respected law of the land.
Now let’s fast forward to 2008. Cold Spring Harbor is no longer a lazy, country town. Its Main Street is lined with elegant boutique style stores that are a popular tourist attraction. Although decidedly upscale, the commercial area has managed to maintain its old world charm. That once tiny library is now a museum of sorts for the Society of the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities. Their new library, a multimillion dollar complex, has moved further westward, backed by acres of hiking trails. CSH homes and schools are the envy of Long Islanders, afforded by a select few.
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James Watson, a molecular biologist at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, put Cold Spring Harbor on the international map with his groundbreaking discoveries concerning the structure of DNA, for which he earned the coveted Nobel Prize in1962. His work set the course for further cutting edge research at the laboratories, where he served as director from 1968 until his retirement in 2007. CSHL now owns that little three room schoolhouse as well. The inside of the building has been totally renovated and enlarged through the addition of two new rear wings.
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But it maintains the exact front façade it sported many years ago. |
The true miracle of this building, however, is what happens inside. The DNA Learning Center, the world’s first science center devoted entirely to genetic education, is one of the prides of Long Island. The DNALC offers students opportunities for enriched hands-on science experimentation and study throughout the entire calendar year. Over 230,000 students and teachers have received laboratory instruction in DNA science there. More than 6,700 middle and high school students have attended one of their week long summer camps from as far away as Massachusetts and Colorado.
As for me, I still can’t ride by that building without smiling as I recall the early designation of those two front staircases, at a time when the right front set of steps were known as “the girls’ stairs”, the left set of steps, “the boys stairs”. Times sure have changed!
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About the Author: Lois W. Stern has written a number of nostalgia articles, including Grab a Pickle, Share a Memory, originally published in the New York Times. She has written feature articles for LI Beauty Guide, numerous articles on health and beauty posted at her website: www.sexliesandcosmeticsurgery.com/ and is the author of: SEX, LIES AND COSMETIC SURGERY. She is now on work on her second book. |
Lois
Stern
Thanks Lois for the delightful article... John Wolf
