A Non-Linear History of The Fieldston News - Ethical Culture ...

A Non-Linear History of The Fieldston News
by Joshua Baldwin ’02
Founded in 1928, the year that Fieldston’s
Riverdale campus opened, The
Fieldston News replaced The EthicaLight
to become the school’s official student
newspaper. Still in steady operation
today and appearing every three to four
weeks, the News, as Bob Montera, faculty
advisor to the publication since 1986, describes
it, is a “small town newspaper that
contains lots of different voices that look at
our community: some are conversational
in tone, some hard-hitting and analytical,
and some are very creative. . . .The Fieldston
News provides the public service of making
sense of the big issues in the classroom and
the issues of the world around us.” The
paper’s staff, with the help of the graphic
communications department, produces
the paper in Fieldston’s own print shop
(now run by Carl Smith) – the technological
methods changing, of course, with
the times, from the linotype machines of
yesteryear to the Adobe Creative Suite layout
software and digital, high-speed printers
of today. By way of an incomplete and
non-linear history of The Fieldston News,
allow me to take you on a tour of the paper’s
contents, from its inception to the
present.
But before we begin that circuitous journey,
let’s start with the bookends: a quick
glance at the contents of the very first and
(as of this writing) the very latest issues of
the paper. Volume I, Issue 1, dated November
14, 1928, describes a campus-inthe-making,
with one of the front-page
headlines announcing that “School Buildings
Are Now Almost Finished: Grounds
and Athletic Fields Not Yet Ready for
Use.” We learn that student council representatives
have just been elected, and
have gathered for their inaugural meeting.
Turning the page, we find out that “Hope
Lewis Hine/eCF ArCHives
for Championship Basketball Team is
Good This Year: Kurtz Has Five Veterans
Left from Last Year.” That takes care of
politics and sports – how about some culture?
Books get reviewed (including To the
Lighthouse and Winesburg, Ohio), and the
latest theatre assessed (Gentleman of the
Press is at the Forty-Eighth Street Theatre).
On the back page, there’s a little ad for H.
Bruning, “Home-Made Candies and Ice
Cream, 242d St. and Broadway.”
Volume 82, Issue 14, dated May 8, 2009
does not include any advertisements, for
local outlets or otherwise; the bulk of the
issue is devoted to a “Band Day Roundup,”
describing the performances by 13
student bands (rock, hip-hop, and genrebending)
that participated in this annual
spring event on the quad. The front page
of the issue offers a snapshot of current
concerns, one discipline-related, and the
other health-related: “Senior Cut Day: Division
and Proposal,” and “When Pigs Fly:
Swine Flu.” Inside, there’s a faculty profile
– a recent Fieldston News fixture – of Joy
Rizzo, administrative assistant to the principal
and assistant principal, plus a reflective
piece titled “Fond of Founder’s Day.”
Writer Henry Neuwirth’s words about that
age-old ECF tradition could also be used
to describe the contents of The Fieldston
News – “inevitably, they talk about everything
Fieldston is, isn’t, and should be.”
One subject The Fieldston News always
keeps its eye on is the school
itself – the physical infrastructure,
the progressive philosophy, the personalities
that frequent the halls, and the current
fashion trends on display. More often than
not, writers come with tongue planted
Lewis Hine captured these no-nonsense editors hard at work in the print shop in the 1930s.
ECF Reporter 11

Outside news dominated the front page during World War II.
firmly in cheek, as Tony Wion ’87 did
in his June 1, 1987 article “A Consumer
Guide to Fieldston Bathrooms,” in which
he provides ratings of smell and cleanliness,
lists the number of sinks, urinals, stalls,
and mirrors in each facility, and offers
pointed comments such as these regarding
the boys room in the 100’s building: “This
is actually one of the more pleasant places
to go, because it is rather secluded, has
liquid soap, and, if you arrive at just the
right moment, the sunlight streams in the
windows, which have a view of Old Glory
flapping in the wind – a real bonus for the
patriotic bathroom-goer.”
The physical characteristics of the school
are often reported on in the paper. The
front page of the March 26, 1976 edition
includes extensive coverage of Fieldston’s
vast underground tunnel network, as well
12 ECF Reporter
as an update on the scaffolding that covered
a then-deteriorating Ethical. Further
back, an October 19, 1961 article by Hilary
Lerner ’63, “New Emergency Lights
Give Illumination When Power Fails,” not
only explains the new contraptions but
also includes a funky cartoon by Lance
Maxwell ’64 entitled “Caught in the Act,”
which depicts a teacher disrupting a pair
of necking students thanks to the new
lights.
The paper serves an eminently practical
purpose too, as evidenced in the October
12, 1971 edition “A Guide to Fieldston,”
which serves up a comprehensive description
of the student government (then
known as the Student-Faculty Council);
the student-run publications, clubs, and
committees; the various facilities and
rooms; and a profile of the Tate Library.
In addition to explicating these more conspicuous
aspects of the school, the paper
also delves into more subtle and sensitive
matters of equal – if not greater – use to
the student body, provided, for one, in a
column that ran in the 1950s called “The
Inquiring Reporter.” In the September 30,
1954 version, author Bill Kelley ’56 asked
“What advice would you like to pass on to
the form below you?” (The column always
took on this form of a question followed by
a series of student responses.) The answers
range from the nihilistic – “Drop dead!” –
to the resolutely earnest: “Be honest, keep
good study habits, work hard, never give
up, and if you are knocked down, get up
and do it again.”
And it wouldn’t be The Fieldston News
without appraisals of the school’s mission
and dissections of its commitment
to ethical life. Alec Appelbaum ’89, in
his January 16, 1987 opinion-piece “Ethics:
Appearance vs. Reality” demonstrates
the often self-critical stance that writers
on this subject take when he writes that
“I know of no student (including myself)
who feels that they fully understand the
meaning or significance that ‘Ethics’ has
in their lives . . . The faculty at this school,
particularly the Ethics department, has a
responsibility to discuss further the issue
of ‘ethical behavior’ until it is understood
and practiced.” Still, there’s room for humor
on this subject, as we see an editorial
on October 4, 1938 entitled “Learning
By Doing” transmogrify in that same volume’s
April Fools’ (April 1, 1939) issue to
“Doing By Learning.”
A descriptive catalogue of every issue of
The Fieldston News would constitute a
fairly complete and linear history of Fieldston
from 1928 to the present; this is not
such an exhaustive account. But if there is
a significant event from the school’s past
that one intends to investigate, a researcher
would have to go to The Fieldston News
archives and dig up the contemporaneous
account. And one event that would likely
take up an entire chapter of a history of

the school is the takeover of the administration
building (from March 23 to
March 25, 1970) by students who called
for Fieldston to be more diverse in student
body, faculty, and curriculum. Thankfully,
the researcher can turn to the April 16,
1970 issue of The Fieldston News, which
is devoted entirely to these events, and
includes relevant documents such as press
releases by the Black and Latin-American
Students Club; an abundance of interviews
with faculty, board members, and
students; a reprint of a New York Times
editorial on the takeover, along with head
of school Dr. Daniel Wagner’s letter-tothe-editor
response to the Times; as well as
a statement of policy by the joint Board of
Governors-Faculty Committee. It’s a rich,
illuminating compendium.
The Fieldston News focuses just as
much attention on events and matters
external to the school as it does
on internal goings-on. From area concert
reviews to opinion on war, the paper not
only chronicles the life of the school but
is also a valuable running commentary on
the outside world: culture, politics, and
science – it’s all there.
Page 2 of the May 26, 1969 issue provides
one of countless examples of the paper’s
insightful outward gaze, with two editorials
on the Vietnam war (“New Draft
Reforms” and “Double-talk From Washington”);
a report, by Harry Sunshine
’70, on an interview with Dustin Hoffman
conducted by a group of high school
newspapers (“He was dressed in country
casual. Nothing fancy, loafers, khaki trousers,
a plaid shirt, a tweed jacket with a
cigar in his pocket. He came on pretentiously
chewing gum. He took a seat on
stage and the interview began.”); and a
review of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline by
Tom Farber ’71 (“The artist seems to have
had such a good time recording it that it is
hard for the audience not to have as good
a time enjoying it.”).
New York City, one of the school’s more
immediate contexts, plays a significant
The first issue of the 2001-2002 school year was devoted to 9/11.
role throughout the pages of the paper.
On April 24, 1987, the front page is
graced with an “Exclusive Interview with
Ed Koch” by Adam Michael ’88, which focuses
on issues of racial tension and homelessness
in the city. On a lighter note, in
the May 14, 1993 issue Andrew Blum ’95
offers “The Official Blum Survey of Street
Courts,” the subject being the city’s public
basketball courts. Of Carl Schurz Park on
85th and the East River, Blum writes: “My
personal favorite, Carl Schurz’s courts are
barebones; high rims, no lines, no nets, big
puddles. There is a real neighborhood feel,
and most of the players know each others’
names.” A year later (in the May 25,
1994 issue), Kore Nissenson ’95 sketches
the home-base of many ECF students in
her “Chronicles of the Upper West Side,”
in which the author takes a delightfully
impromptu and aimless Sunday stroll
through her neighborhood. She happily
observes: “I like the flea market best for
used jeans, lipstick, and jewelry” and “I
was in the mood for a snack so I stopped
off at H&H for a bagel stick, which is a
stick of dough surrounded by poppy seeds,
onions, salt, and sesame seeds.”
And just as the paper has included user’s
guides to the school, so too has it included
guides to the city, such as the December
16, 1954 “News Reviews New York City;
Offers Suggestions for Low Budget Christmas
Holiday Amusement” which includes
art gallery listings, ice skating locales, and
lecture series schedules. Also, on November
24, 1971, an entirely different kind
of user’s guide appeared, this time on the
more scientific end of the spectrum: “Getting
the Most from Your Listening Post”
(no author attributed). This helpful piece
ECF Reporter 13

14 ECF Reporter
MeMories of the Print shoP
The ECF Reporter reached out to many past editors of The Fieldston News for their
memories. Below is an excerpt from a particularly evocative email we received.
i am a poet, and, i am afraid, an atmosphere-dependent person, involved in sensory
detail and feeling tone.
i remember the pink grainy gunk we used to get ink off our hands at the end of the
afternoon, its searing smell that made it seem more effective than it was. My hands were
still patchily inky when i went home.
i remember how late our sessions went, and the light dimming in the windows that were
at eye level because the print shop was “on campus” and in the basement. i remember
leaving hungry and the walk down the hill and the occasional rides from seniors when i
was an underclassmen, and driving kids home in a black jalopy i drove (and loved) when
i was a senior.
i remember the molten lead coming down from the linotype machine where Mr. riegert
sat, and the heat when one went near. i remember setting type for headlines by hand,
the thin leads between words, the justifying of lines with em bars and en bars, and the
thin spacing bars we placed between the lines we set. i remember the rollers turning the
pages to print the paper, the pride of accomplishment when it was done, the implement
we used to turn the devices to get the columns tight in the frames and trays, how different
everything looked in black and white from the way it looked in metal.
i remember how close we all were, how we came up getting to know seniors we would
not otherwise have known, how we would count letters and widths of letters to create
headlines, working on condensation as if we were sharing the solving of a useful crossword
puzzle. i remember how i LOveD the kids who worked in the class below us, how
i loved the experience of cooperation, like a team (i played hockey and basketball) with
a very small space in which to “pass the ball” and score goals. (i remember we had to
avoid that, a widow, one word on a line by itself.) – Liz Sussman Socolow ’58
Editors then (1958) and now (2008): from left to right, co-editors Liz Sussman Socolow,
Michael Rosen, and Annette Hollander, all class of 1958.
PHOtOs: MiCHAeL rOsen
comes complete with diagrams of optimal
decibel levels and a fastidiously labeled
drawing of a stereo box and record player.
Of course some events that occur outside
of the school grounds reverberate deeply
inside of the school. The headlines during
World War II show a dramatic shift in the
school’s attention, as the students and faculty
became consumed with the war effort.
The December 5, 1941 issue announces
“War With Japan! How Can We Help?”
and includes “LATEST NEWS FLASH-
ES ON THE WAR.” On December 15,
1941, the News printed a photo on the
front-page of a group of students “listening
to the President’s declaration of war”
and reports on “numerous air-raid drills,”
noting that “classes were interrupted continuously
throughout the remainder of
the hectic week.” Starting on February 6,
1942, the paper began a policy of running
a different defense stamp cut on the front
page of every issue to encourage the sale
of defense bonds and stamps. As the war
continued, so did the changes in behavior
and suspension of tradition; a March 20,
1942 headline declares that “Sixth Formers
Abandon Senior Play; Defense Activities
to be Substituted,” and the December
8, 1942 issue offers an extensive description
of a “Commando Training Program
Marked by Obstacles; Steeplechase, Boxing
and Wrestling Make It Tougher” (a
sub-headline to the article “Gym Department
Strengthens Future Soldiers”). On
February 5, 1943, it is reported that the
“Whole School Is Fingerprinted For City.”
Reporters Dick Berman and John Simon,
both from ’46, who co-wrote the article,
explain that “[t]he records will go on file at
City Hall and will be used to identify any
victim of a calamity.” As long as there was
war, there was much to cover – and the
WWII issues are among the most gustofilled
of any in the archives.
In fall 2001, I, along with ’02 classmates
Emily Carlin, Paul Feingold, and Jessica
Weinstein, served as editor, and we devoted
an entire issue to the September 11 at-

The entire April 16, 1970 issue was devoted to the takeover of the administration building in March.
tacks, with pieces ranging from fact-based
chronicles to deeply reflective meditations
on the day’s events. On that day, as Megan
Brown ’04 put it in her article “Fieldston:
The Response,” students came to “the horrifying
realization that life would never be
the same.” Indeed, it was an entirely unsettling
day – the second day of the school
year – and our editorial instinct was to call
off the issue we were just about prepared
to put to press and re-orient all of our attention
to 9/11. We never questioned this
instinct, and the result is a 9/11 issue of
The Fieldston News, released October 5,
2001.
What of The Fieldston News on
The Fieldston News? The paper,
like the school, does not shy
away from self-reflection, and contains
many instances where the staff looks at its
product and asks, who are we? What is our
purpose?
In the very first issue of The Fieldston News
(November 14, 1928), Herman Solomon
’29, in an editorial, gracefully outlines the
ambitions of the paper – the statement of
purpose reads: “THE NEWS is imbued
with the desire to represent the school’s
best in personality, vitality, and progressiveness.
We cannot but hope that Fieldston’s
material wealth will produce in the
individual a desire to be a mirror of splendid
achievement. We cannot but hope that
he will catch the spark of aggressiveness,
and in so doing, ignite within himself the
feeling of friendship and the spirit of advancement,
for which the school stands.
We sincerely hope that this publication
may prove itself the highest representative
of the school’s character. We hope,
that having a firm foundation in natural
resources – the equipment and the student
body, The Fieldston News may be as a beacon,
illuminating the most precious possessions
and memorable occasions in our
new home.”
Moving closer to the present, we can turn
to Henry Haber ’05 in his May 20, 2005
editorial “Reflections of a Past Editor: Les-
sons for the Future” and hear echoes of
Solomon’s call for The Fieldston News to be
the “highest representation of the school’s
character” when Haber writes: “So the lesson
here is before one sounds off on something,
know the whole story, not just bits
and pieces of it. Make sure your hands are
dirty before making your voice heard. The
perfect forum through which to do that
is the newspaper because the newspaper is
the voice of the students, and that voice
can be heard for miles around.”
In addition to articles on the aspirations
and role of the paper, The Fieldston News
also contains numerous discussions of its
own appearance, as well as the technology
behind the production of the paper. For
instance, on May 13, 1965, the editors
inform readers that the column they are
looking at “which had previously appeared
in twelve-point Granjon type, is now set
in ten-point Textype. All other columns
which formerly appeared in ten-point
Granjon, are now being set in eight-point
Excelsior.” Later on, the June 5, 1975 is-
ECF Reporter 15

sue features the rich, testimonial-filled
“Tribute to Mr. [Carl] Riegert,” who ran
the Fieldston print shop for 25 years and
– like Carl Smith who inhabits that role
today and Art Jacobs before him – oversaw
the entire printing process behind the
paper.
Riegert also spearheaded a campaign to
improve the printing facilities at Fieldston,
which included the donation (by the parents
of the class of 1960) of a new linotype
machine in 1961. In a December 19, 1961
article on the donation, Vicki Traube ’64
quotes “expert fourth form linotypist Norman
Zucker [’64]: ‘I think the new linotype
is one of the best and most instrumental
purchases the school has made in
its history. I also think that we should be
thankful for this, because few high schools
have such excellent journalistic facilities.’”
During his tenure in the print shop, Art
Jacobs, like Riegert, implemented many
innovations to ensure that the facilities remained
so excellent. For instance, when he
started at Fieldston in 1986, the machine
that printed the newspaper from metal
plates prepared in the school darkroom
could only print on one side of a page
at a time; Jacobs traded in this Davidson
Machine for a Perfecta Press, which prints
on two sides at once. In addition, when
Jacobs arrived the graphics department
didn’t own a single computer, and all layout
work on the paper was done by physically
cutting and gluing text. In 1987 he
brought in two SE 20 Macintosh computers,
and by the time Jacobs left the school
in 2007 the print shop was equipped with
20 computers and all layout work could be
done using Adobe Pagemaker software.
From the get-go, The Fieldston News
brought a heavy dose of irony to the
table – look through virtually any issue
and you’re sure to find some dry humor
lurking somewhere in the pages. At
the heart, maybe even soul, of the paper
lies a playful spirit that often ruminates,
either explicitly or implicitly, on nothing
16 ECF Reporter
more than the act of writing itself. Take
this entry in the long-running column
“Field Stones,” from the first (November
14, 1928) issue of The Fieldston News:
“The author suddenly had the desire to
interrogate the supply room attendant on
anything in general, and it fell to a talk
on tennis, which reminded this high financier
(who added up the sales of erasers
and blotters only) of the time when a girl
came up to the window and complained
that she had lost a tennis court, whilst the
aforementioned business man rummaged
all over but found none.”
Six years later, in a column of similar sensibility
to “Field Stones” entitled “Random
Ravings,” an unnamed author closes his
January 24, 1934 piece with a “Guid nate!
Now g’wan to bed.” Such words highlight
the paper’s role as friend and companion
to the reader, as an organ that speaks directly
to the community, whether it be on
matters of grave importance or simply to
wish everyone a good night’s sleep.
There’s always room in the paper for such
miscellaneous musings, always a columnist
who doubles as a kind of prankster.
Here, on May 1, 1947, an unnamed author
ponders how to make use of the open
space, the frontiers of The Fieldston News:
“We could, of course, come out rather vulgarly
and advocate men-of-distinction ads.
Possibly even a scientific poll might find
that 400 out of 400 First Formers prefer
Big Ethics brand of reefers. But no, why
disillusion the faculty, sitting in lofty contentment,
secure in its belief of our incorruptible
purity? And so, abandoning forever
all hope of a racing form to adorn the
place which was hitherto inhabited by the
editorials, I concluded that the question
of how to fill our space is definitely food
for thought. Excuse me, now, you see, I’m
not very hungry.” In this case, the paper
provides a place for students to think and
write in free-form, a break from the pressure
to come up with answers and make
clear-cut arguments.
eCF ArCHives
A student enjoys the News in 1952.
It’s on these frontiers of the paper that
Fieldston’s most luminous absurdists –
not to mention some of the more talented
teen-age prose stylists – come to roam. One
such pioneer was Mike Taubman ’99, who
penned a column called “Tonsil Hockey”
during his senior year. In his December 17,
1998 column he wrote: “Lunch room. Two
words that mean so much. Fish munching
on ferns. Four words that mean significantly
less. Wendelsprout. One word that
doesn’t mean anything. Why can’t we eat
in the lunch room all the time?” Another
was Matthew Corman ’89, whose October
5, 1988 “Apocalypse Soon?” opens: “A
few weeks ago as I indulged in my normal
Sunday breakfast of poached cauliflower
in Bosco sauce I came to the startling realization
that the summer was drawing to
a close.” The Fieldston News goes way beyond
use-value, and offers a hefty dose of
finely crafted verbal entertainment, too.
Speaking with past editors, one fact
they often emphasize is the amount
of time and work required (Doug
Lowenstein ’69 noted with a chuckle that

he “spent every waking hour in the graphics
department; the newsroom was my
home”) – but, still, as Robert Fagenson
’66 notes, “intellectually it was a great exercise;
a terrific experience that I wouldn’t
trade for anything.”
In addition to the mental effort, editors
also recall the sheer physical labor that
went into producing the paper. Richard
Tofel ’75 vividly recalls that “we were
lucky, I think, to have an old-fashioned
hot-type printing system, with a linotype
compositor the molten lead in which was
so dangerous that most of us weren’t allowed
to use it, and a printing press that
used fire to keep the ink flowing and powder
to dry it. I can still see and smell it.
We set headlines by hand.” The work environment
certainly still holds a firm grip
on the memories of past editors. Esther
Klein Willison ’52, who remembers that
“everything was in the basement so it was
like entering a separate world,” can still
hear “the sound of the type falling down
into place, the pedals you pushed . . . the
tightening and turning of the big screws to
keep everything together.”
Many past staffers and editors have gone
on to careers in writing and editing.
Woody Klein ’47 is one such alumnus – he
worked as an investigative reporter for The
Washington Post, the New York World-Telegram
& Sun, and press secretary to New
York Mayor John V. Lindsay in 1965-66.
After that he edited IBM’s international
Think magazine for 25 years and retired
in 1992 to become editor of The Westport
News in his home town in Connecticut.
For Klein, it all started at Fieldston. “I
never had to make a decision about what
to do with my life,” he said. “The Fieldston
News launched my 65-year career as a
journalist . . . I owe my entire career to The
Fieldston News.”
Nan Rosenthal ’55 is another alumnus
whose adventures in journalism began at
The Fieldston News; before she went on to
become an art historian and curator (she
recently retired from her position as senior
consultant for modern and contemporary
art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
where she organized exhibitions of the
work of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg,
and Chuck Close, among others),
Rosenthal worked at various newspapers
for several years. It all started when, on assignment
for The Fieldston News, she went
to the New York Herald Tribune offices
to interview then-reporter Judith Crist
for a piece on an upcoming assembly.
Rosenthal remembers sitting “in wonderment
at all that goes on in a city room”
and asked Crist for career advice. Crist
told Rosenthal that she should either go
work as a reporter for a suburban paper
or as a copyboy for a city paper. Rosenthal
opted for the latter and became a
copyboy at the New York Post (then a liberal
paper owned by Dorothy Schiff); she
worked there summers during college and
eventually became a reporter for the Post.
Later, she moved across the Atlantic and
lived in London, writing the “Londoner’s
Diary” column for the Evening Standard.
Before heading to graduate school at Harvard
to study fine arts, Rosenthal worked
sAtOru tsuFurA / eCF ArCHives
A student works on
layout in 1979.
for the magazine section of the New York
Herald Tribune (which later became New
York Magazine) – and she cites her experiences
in the Fieldston print shop as “very
instructive about graphics and magazine
layout.”
The Fieldston News is one of many venues
outside of the classroom where learningby-doing
takes place; Bob Montera noted
that “The Fieldston News is still very much
a workshop with the smell of printer’s
ink in the air and the sounds of a still
functioning printing press in the graphics
room; it is all done in-house; it’s very
hands on and everyone on the staff takes
part in the shaping of it . . . in the process
of becoming journalists students learn
to check their wilder impulses and write
with greater restraint and reflection as
more thoughtful citizens of the school.”
The current technological shift may mean
new means of distribution, but one thing
remains constant: The eager, burgeoning
journalist can always find a home at The
Fieldston News. n
Joshua Baldwin lives in Brooklyn.
ECF Reporter 17