Since its early days, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School has made use of its buildings for summer programs, both for enrolled students and the public. In 1919, the Summer Play School was founded in partnership with the New York Federation for Child Study, providing summer activities and meals for underprivileged children at the Ethical Culture School building on Central Park West. Today, the school still hosts summer programs on the Manhattan and Bronx campuses.
Further afield, the schools ran a sleep-away summer camp for boys and girls in Cooperstown, New York from 1923 until 1971. End-of-summer reports from camp directors described a variety of classic summer camp activities: swimming, boating, hiking, horseback riding, arts and crafts, baseball, tennis, and drama performances. During the 1950s, the camp added a dark room and kiln for artistic-minded campers.
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- Page from a Summer Play School brochure, circa 1920. Ethical Culture Fieldston School Archives, MS 3042. New York Historical Society.
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- Ethical Culture School Camp brochure, circa 1970. Ethical Culture Fieldston School Archives, MS 3042. New York Historical Society.
A fun scrapbook from the early days of the camp shows campers and staff participating in several of these activities. Both the young campers and older staff seem to be having the time of their lives. These joyful, outdoorsy photographs encourage viewers to get out and enjoy the remaining days of summer. (And there’s plenty more inspiration in N-YHS collections!)
This post is by Project Archivist Alexanne Levengood. All images are from the recently donated archives of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. The collection is not yet accessible to researchers.
My parents, John and Miriam Helbok, ran the camp its last summer, 1971 (his name appears on the brochure with the photo of the sailboat, above), and I got to run around the place as a six-year-old; some very good memories there (and some that make me cringe — you can imagine what most people thought of the directors’ kid who thought that he owned the place). I went back there in 1986, before all of the 55 acres had gotten divided up and sold off, by which point many of the buildings had fallen down, including the directors’ cabin and most of the girls’ cabins (the boys lived in tents on platforms). And I went back in 2006, when just a thin sliver remained, from the main house down to 200 feet of lake frontage: The owner had stabilized the main house, with a new roof (it still looked like something out of a Charles Addams cartoon), and the property had a $2.3 million asking price; I do not know what has become of it since.
I was a camp counselor in 1959. I would love to connect to some of the counselors who worked that particular summer.
Would be grateful for any help.
I live in MN.
Hossein:
I was also a camp counselor around that time and was friendly with another counselor named Hossein. By any chance, was that you?!
Mike Salmon
I attended the Ethical Culture School Camp starting when I was 8 years old in 1950 until I was 12 years old in 1054. It was a great leaning experience. I learned to swim, canoe, row, sail and play tennis. The best part was meeting and interacting with different campers and counselors.
As a homesick 8 year old, it was comforting to have Marty, a counselor who had dwarfism, give me a hug — having a caring adult counselor as small as I was was reassuring.
Clifford Alexander was the tent counselor when I was 10 years old — Cliff went on to become the first Black senior class president at Harvard, an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Secretary to the Army under Jimmy Carter, and is the father of Elizabeth Alexander, the poet who spoke at Obama’s first inauguration. I was born with a cleft palate that wasn’t surgically corrected until I was 13 years old – Cliff went out of his was to stop other campers from mocking or teasing me.
As a 12 year old, I had my first date ever at the camp with a Black girl named Beverly. She was quite smart and the first Black female I ever met who had the self confidence to have her hair “natural”. I still think of her occasionally.
I’m a year or so younger than you, Peter, but was also at ECSC when you were there (1951-53). Peter Rutkoff hosted reunions in Cooperstown for a decade or so, up until Covid made them “virtual.”
You can find his email address by Googling his name and “Keyon.”
Best — Dick Larschan
I attended ECSC from 1958 to 1960. I have fond memories of those years. We used to bathe in the lake (no showers; Ivory Soap). We used to play game by throwing a “spauldine” on to the gabled roof of the main house.
Bernie Werthman, Fieldston Music Director, was the Camp Director, and Fen Fuller, Fieldston language teacher taught sailing and may have been the head counselor.
I started to learn to sail and learned archery. I thrived on the tennis courts and baseball field.
Fellow Fieldstonites Bucky Thirlwall, Bobby Manasse and the Farbman brothers attended.
Alas, my parents decided to send me to a more upscale camp after 3 years. Wasn’t nearly as much fun.
Years later, 1967, I returned to ECSC for my Senior Project teaching in an Upward Bound Program. Other participants were Keri Christenfeld, Merideth Wright and Victor Alexander.
And coincidentally, John Helbok, the last Camp Director, was my 5th Form Physics teacher.