By Anna Levinson and Penelope Day
Murrow has officially reached its golden years.
This November, the school will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Murrow is planning a celebration from 6:30-11:30 pm on November 5th at the El Caribe Country Club, which staff and alumni can purchase tickets to for $175 per person. Faculty who have dedicated decades of service to the school have begun to reflect on Murrow’s history.
“Murrow is home to me,” said Dean and Physical Education teacher Mr. Lawrence Blatt, who also attended Murrow as a student when he was a teen. “Because I’ve worked here close to twenty years now, plus my time here as a student, it’s almost half my life I’ve spent in this building.”
Assistant Principal of Organization, Mrs. Christine Ingordo, is helping to organize the anniversary, and was excitedly looking forward to reconnecting with former students who she’s still in touch with.
“They’re all planning on coming,” said Mrs. Ingordo, “so it will be great to see all of them in person and hear all of their stories, how they’ve grown, and changed, and their families, and things like that.”
Mrs. Ingordo began working at Murrow in 1982, and has stayed for so long due to the friendly atmosphere and students.
“Murrow is a big school that has a small school feel, where we are friendly to everybody and try to make everybody feel welcome and safe and secure. I call it my Dorian Gray,” Mrs. Ingordo said. “When I say to people that I’ve been here 43 years and I’ve been in the system since 1982, they go ‘but you don’t really look that old,’ and I say I really believe that it’s the air in Murrow and the student at Murrow that keep me looking young and feeling young.”
Mr. John Faciano, English teacher and yearbook advisor, is helping to supply old Murrow yearbooks for the anniversary. Having taught at Murrow since 1991, he reflected on his appreciation for Murrow’s administration – which even compelled him to send two of his sons to the school.
“The administration in this school really cares about kids and goes out of its way to make sure that students are treated with respect, and teachers know that the school advocates for the well-being of children,” Mr. Faciano said.
Images: Murrow in construction, 1974. Images courtesy of Mr. John Faciano.
Although Ingordo feels that Murrow makes time stand still, she acknowledged many differences between Murrow in the ‘80s to now.
“We had approximately 1,800 students in the building,” Mrs. Ingordo said. “The hallways were way more psychedelic, the lobby down by the auditorium was all little tiny tiles, we changed that. Students were able to sit for OPTAs out in the hallway, and the reason they were able to do that was because there were less students, so it wasn’t crowded.”
Throughout Mrs. Ingordo’s years at Murrow, she has witnessed many of her students become her fellow co-workers.
“I had a couple of them that were students that are some of the para-professionals that are here in the building. But every teacher that was a student here, I remember them being a student,” said Mrs. Ingordo. “Actually, one of the teachers here, Ms. [Susan] Flanders, I actually babysat for because she was my parents’ neighbor.”
Mr. Faciano taught many current teachers at Murrow, and laughed at how they’ve changed as people.
“Mr. Carrelli, a social studies teacher, who’s 6 ‘4’’, he was very quiet,” Mr. Faciano said. “I would never imagine that Anthony Carrelli would be the incredibly gregarious person he is today.”
Other veteran teachers, like Math teacher Mr. Eliot Weiss, also have stories about some of their current colleagues as high school students.
““I had tons [of current teachers as students],” Mr. Weiss said. “They were great students, and they’re great teachers now. There’s so many, I can’t even remember. I had at least ten current teachers in my class.”
Mr. Weiss also has fond memories of teaching some more star-studded Murrow alums.
“I remember having certain students in my class,” he said. “Like Darren Aronofsky, he was a good student in my class, and of course now he’s a Hollywood director. Marisa Tomei and a few others not as well known were also in my class, and those were highlights.”
As Murrow’s longest-serving current faculty member, Mr. Weiss said he’s primarily been compelled to continue teaching by the students.
“The students are great of course. If they weren’t, I would have retired by now,” he added. “ I love teaching calculus, I love the chess team, and that’s what keeps me going.”
As Mr. Blatt was once a student at Murrow, he recounted his early memories as a troublemaker.
“The only time I got in trouble when I was here was when I was a senior and I sold freshman tickets to the 5th floor swimming pool,” Mr. Blatt said, “so we were doing that back then too.”
Mr. Blatt also went to school with English teacher and Murrow Network advisor Mr. Scott Menscher, and reminisced on his memory of discovering that they would be back together at Murrow.
“We grew up together, we played basketball together, and when I graduated highschool and he graduated a couple years after me. We went our own separate ways,” said the dean. “When I started Murrow, like the second day, I ran into him, I was like ‘what are you doing here?’ He goes ‘I work here, what are you doing here?’ ‘Oh, I’m subbing here.’ So this place, to me, it’s more about the people than the building.”
Despite his deep appreciation for Murrow, Mr. Blatt isn’t sure if he will attend the 50th anniversary event.
“I don’t know if I’m going or not, ” said Mr. Blatt. “I may want to go home and sleep after a day of school.”
Mr. Faciano began working at Murrow in 1991 when there were only about 2,400 students, and noticed a drastic change in the course schedule and population.
“We had cycles where students would change classes every 10 weeks, and get a new class, new teacher, they could choose a new class or continue a class they were taking,” said the English teacher. “Many classes had students that were in 10th-12th grade, the vision behind that was that the younger students would see the behavior of the older students as models of their own behavior.”
According to Mr. Faciano, a large part of the success of Murrow’s theater program is due to its lack of athletic programs.
“Money that was given to the schools that many schools would give to spend on sports programs, the principal put into arts and theater programs,” Mr. Faciano said. “Creating the foundation for one of the greatest art schools in the country.”
Murrow also used to have a weekly television presence on channel 67.
“We would do game shows, we would do trivia contests, we would do a dating show,” said Mr. Faciano. “We have some of them on tape, and so we taught about broadcasting and about film, that was a lot of fun.”
Mr. Faciano also discussed his favorite early memory from Murrow: the teacher’s cafeteria.
“The cafeteria’s there [now] but the food isn’t. That was a great place, where you could sit and talk with your colleagues,” Mr. Faciano said. “That was a great opportunity and now we don’t get that opportunity. Now, it’s even hard to talk with my fellow English teachers. I miss that, that was a loss.”
Principal Mr. Allen Barge, who began at Murrow as a student teacher in 1997, is possibly most excited to celebrate this upcoming milestone for the school.
“I came from a smaller school, and we had things, but just nothing that compared to this school,” Mr. Barge said. “The level of engagement, the enjoyment that I felt from the staff of the students here . . that hit me instantly, that it was not my experience in high school, but I was walking to the building every day as a visitor and feeling it. That has stayed with me.”
The Murrow Network 