Adam Distenfeld ’81, an acclaimed sculptor, is as direct and outspoken as much of his stone work, including his newest piece commissioned by The American University. “I was born in the Bronx and then I was adopted,” said Adam Distenfeld ’81 of his home life. “My parents’ first apartment was in Jamaica, Queens. The rest […]
Ellen Chaitin’s childhood “argument skills,” combined with a social conscience groomed in part at BFS, set her on the path to becoming a judge in the California Superior Court. “My parents didn’t want a school with social pretensions and they liked Quaker education,” recalls Hon. Ellen Chaitin ’66, a judge in the Superior Court of […]
Kings County Civil Court judge and former Federal prosecutor Dena Douglas received this year’s George Fox Distinguished Alumna Award for exemplary service to the community and to the school. “I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I lived in Crown Heights. I started Brooklyn Friends in kindergarten, so I’m a lifer. We moved to Lefferts Gardens when […]
Dr. Jonathan Pincus ’52 is Chief of Neurology at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Washington, D.C., and a professor of neurology at Georgetown University. He has also written two books, Base Instincts—What Makes Killers Kill, and the textbook Behavioral Neurology. “Brooklyn Friends provided an advanced curriculum and presented it with love,” says Dr. Pincus. “The […]
Martha Bridge Denckla ’54 is an MD and the director of the Developmental Cognitive Neurology (DCN) Department at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, a part of the John Hopkins Hospital institutions in Baltimore, Maryland. Of her department, Denckla says that “most of it is a research group. It’s a very academic place. I am a professor […]
Author of the critically acclaimed The Book of Calamities, Peter Trachtenberg began writing seriously at BFS and never stopped. Peter Trachtenberg ’70, an accomplished writer whose latest book debuted in August, entered BFS as a junior. “I was one of the subway contingent,” he said, referring to the fact that he lived on Manhattan’s Upper West […]
An anti-racism public school reformer speaks frankly about being BFS’ first African-American K-12 student, and of a lifetime spent bucking tradition. “I remember being the only person of color. My hair was different. I remember a boy telling me I was dirty. I remember that I hated Dick and Jane. This was before the updated version. […]
He started out writing about the Supreme Court for BFS’ former student newspaper The Life. It spawned a decades-long career covering the court up close for the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal, and his co-authorship of the acclaimed book Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion. Stephen Wermiel ’68 seemed delighted on November 19th to be back at […]
Class of 1966 alumnus Lawrence Madlock, MD, went to segregated schools in Memphis, Tennessee, and entered BFS as a junior in 1964 “under some strange circumstances.” He returned to BFS under even stranger circumstances during the Vietnam war, and later experienced war and famine in Ethiopia. After completing medical school and his internship, he returned […]
Boston literary agent Jill Kneerim continues launching the careers of heavy-hitting journalists, novelists, poets, scholars and short story writers who have won the Pulitzer Prize and other major awards, but she remains an active alum in the BFS community. “BFS and all other schools in the ’50s were pretty dull places by comparison to what’s […]
Read the Brooklyn Daily Eagle article “BFS Bests Calhoun for Volleyball Title“ Great moment last week at BFS: our Boys Varsity Volleyball team won the PSAA championship, an amazing feat for this first-year team. Our team’s ranking, as of today at maxpreps.com: 120th in the U.S, 4th in New York State and 3rd in New […]
BFS and the Class of 2014 may be gearing up for Commencement right now, but at this time 50 years ago, it was the Class of ’64’s big moment to graduate BFS. Fun to look back since many of our ’64 alumni are planning to celebrate their 50th reunion on June 7 at BFS Alumni Day. […]
