Plan mass Middle Village reunion

Joyce Heller Wall sat on the stoop of Spencer Wulwick’s porch as the doo-wop music played on the portable radio and children danced in the street. Across the street, her older brother, Sherman, was standing with his blue and gold jacket as part of the non-fighting gang, The Semanons.
The smells of fresh produce from a green grocer and newly made chocolate from the candy shop filled the air at the corner of 78th Street and 68th Road in Middle Village. Occasionally, the adults would ask the two dozen children to turn the music down, but most were content to let the music play because they knew their children were around the radio.
That was 50 years ago.
Wall, like other former Middle Village residents, is preparing for the first mass reunion in the place where their common childhood unfolded.
For the past 50 years, dozens ex-residents of Middle Village have been gathering in Pompano Beach, Fla., to reconnect with old friends and share stories about growing up in the small Queens neighborhood. Now, these childhood friends are becoming giddier as they plan to move the reunion 1,300 miles north this month.
On August 18, at least 100 people will gather at Joe Abbracciamento’s in Rego Park to have the gathering of former residents. The reunion is in Rego Park because there is not a restaurant in Middle Village large enough for the expected crowd. A few said they plan to tour their old neighborhood to see how it has changed and to bring their memories to life.
“Connecting with these people helps bring back the smells and sounds,” Mrs. Wall said from her home in Albuquerque, N.M.
George Keuling, the reunion organizer, said he started it because he and others did not want to travel to Florida for the annual reunion. He added he does not want the Middle Village reunion to become frequent because he “does not want to take away from the one in Florida.”
Keuling, 70, said he mailed information on the reunion to 200 people and so far, 110 people have confirmed they were attending. Keuling added he expects 150 to attend the event.
“The friendships are much stronger now,” he said. “We are all getting up there in age.”
The reunion stemmed from connections made on a web site, Middlevillagelove.com. a social-networking site like Facebook or Myspace that offers contact information, message boards and photos from childhood for more than 2,000 former residents. The website was first used by many Jewish residents of the town, but now other ethnic groups who lived in the area are hearing about the site and signing up.
“People see the old pictures and turn around and ask another friend if they have heard from so-and-so,” said Wulwick, 70, who created the web site in 2000. “Then they turn around and ask another person and they get in touch with so-and so.”
Many of the first users of the website grew up as friends Wulwick said. As word of the site spreads, more users who did not grow up in the same friendship circle are signing on.
“I saw the pictures and they brought back memories,” Wall said. “It brought back friendships.”
Today, the web site is helping re-establish those friendships by putting old friends in contact.
One of the fathers of the web site is Herb Teicher - now living in Staten Island - who is in charge of the newsletter, The Middle Villager, which started it all.
“My husband talks to his friends like he still lives there,” Linda Teicher said.
“[The web site] can’t bring back my youth,” she said. “But, it can bring back my memories.”