Cardozo High celebrates 40 years

Bayside’s Benjamin N. Cardozo High School capped off a celebration of its 40th year recently with a gala reunion celebration at the Douglaston Manor International, overlooking the Douglaston Golf Course.
The reunion of hundreds of trans-generational graduates began on the morning of Saturday, November 8, with an “in house happening” at the school, located at Springfield Boulevard and 58th Avenue.
Current Cardozo students performed a music and dance recital for the returning alumni, present and retired faculty and staff, according to event public relations coordinator, Darlene Fried-Friedman.
Attendees got to roam the halls of their alma mater and gathered in the cafeteria for a collation. The attendees, some returning from as far away as England and Japan lingered until the last moment of the event, scheduled to end at 1 p.m.
The organized celebration resumed at 7:30 p.m. with the soiree at the elegant golf course clubhouse and catering hall at 63-20 Commonwealth Boulevard in Douglaston.
There, they got to catch up on events with old chums and reminisce, with a little help from a slide presentation “40 Years of Greatness” and popular music from decades past. “The faces may have changed, but the voices are still the same,” one grad was heard to say.
The alums greeted some of their old teachers and all of the principals who have headed Cardozo, except for its first, the late Ben Michelson. Principals Bertram Linder (1981-1994); Arnold Goldstein (1994-1999) and Rick Hellman, who retired in July after heading the school since Goldstein’s departure were there, as was Cardozo’s new principal, Gerald Martori, alone in having no grads to welcome back.
Some of Cardozo’s more famous graduates who were not able to attend were former CIA director George Tenet and film and TV star Reginald VelJohnson.
In some cases, it was also something of a family reunion, as in the case of the Dodd sisters - Daria (’77), Carrie (’79) and Terri (’80) or the (nee) Garvin sisters, Bonnie Magliano (’71) and Cindy Zisner (’75).
This was the culmination of a long effort by a committee headed by Wendy Weiner (’75) who returned as a teacher four years ago, to instruct French and Spanish classes.
She needed some of a teacher’s skills to get the classes of alumni quieted down for the program of recognition and “class photos,” as the “kids” were busy talking in class.