Update 1-21-14

Hi,

 

Some answers to Barbara Blitfield Pech's question about insecticide spraying in Green Acres in the 1950s.  This was initiated by some present day health problems former residents are having:

 

From Neil Guberman:   I can absolutely confirm that a small truck type vehicle backed into our driveway and emitted a cloud of ???? that completely enveloped our house for the purpose of insect control.  I also believe this happened on more than one occasion.  I'll check with my sisters to see if they might remember any specifics, but in our past gatherings we talked about how insane that seemed and how dangerous it was to be exposed to who knows what in that manner because we were definitely in the house as it was sprayed.  As we say in Pittsburgh, "Yoi and Double Yoi!"

 

From Jay Berliner:  I remember small tanker trucks spraying for mosquitoes that went through Green Acres every now and then in the early 50s, and if the drivers were in a good mood, they would take the hose and spray the kids.  I had this done once or twice.  It could have been DDT, but it should have been before agent orange as that was for foliage not mosquitoes. 

 

And the following discussion, edited from Facebook:

 

Bernie Scheidt:  I remember they came with a jeep that had a fogger on the back.  They would back into the garages and spray DDT until the fogger blew up in one of the garages.  Green Acres was surrounded by swamp lands that were a breeding ground for mosquitoes and all the diseases they carried.

 

Barbara Blitfield Pech:  A jeep but no overhead planes?

 

Amy Kassak Bentley:  I spoke to my mother.  Yes, trucks and possibly cars, came by each year, possibly in early summer, and sprayed the area.  She has no recollection of crop dusters.

 

Judy Hartstone:  I moved to the old section of Green Acres in 1950, when the shopping center was a distant gleam in some developers' eyes, and I have no recollection of any spraying of any kind.

 

Arthur Wachtel:  No, I don’t remember spraying, and there was no defoliation.

 

Barbara Blitfield Pech:  Me, neither.  Though on another note, was Green Acres built on landfill?

 

Arthur Wachtel:  I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.

 

Amy Kassak Bentley:  Green Acres was not built on landfill.  It was pristine farmland owned by Emil Reisert.  North Woodmere, however, by Branch Boulevard., was wetlands that was filled in.  The wetlands were closer to Jamaica Bay.

 

Arthur Wachtel:  The area may have been swamp before they built the shop center.  The whole long lot across from Flower Road, all the way to Sunrise Highway, was covered by tall reeds like you see in swampy areas.  We use to call the lot “the lost continent.”

 

Judy Hartstone:   There is no doubt that the shopping center was a swamp.  I fell in and, 62 years later, can still remember the sensation of the cold, smelly swamp water closing over my head.

 

[Rich -- Though Amy Kassak Bentley posted a photo on Facebook of Green Acres around 1950, with houses in the foreground and the land that became the shopping center towards the rear.  The interesting thing about this photo is big portions of two of the Curtis Field runways are still intact between Flower Road and Sunrise Highway, but there's no sign of swampland.  Still, the photo cuts off west of the area Judy Hartstone is talking about.]

 

Unrelated to all the above, from Jerry Bittman:  My dilemma -- I have one daughter who lives in Colorado, and my other daughter lives in the state of Washington.  I'll remain neutral and wish that either the Giants or Jets were playing.  Also, Super Bowl XLVIII will now have a new name.  Since both states passed similar laws last year, this game should be called either the Marijuana Bowl or the I Feel Good Bowl.

 

And from Emily Kleinman Schreiber:  I enjoyed reading the information about Jewish last names.  Just thought I'd tell you that.

 

[Rich -- Here's another piece of that article, for people who were curious, but didn't follow out last week's link.]

 

    The next most common source of Jewish last names is probably places.  Jews used the town or region where they lived, or where their families came from, as their last name.  As a result, the Germanic origins of most East European Jews is reflected in their names.

    For example, Asch is an acronym for the towns of Aisenshtadt or Altshul or Amshterdam.  Other place-based Jewish names include:  Auerbach/Orbach;  Bacharach;  Berger (generic for townsman);  Berg(man), meaning from a hilly place;  Bayer -- from Bavaria; Bamberger;  Berliner, Berlinsky -- from Berlin;  Bloch (foreigner);  Brandeis;  Breslau;  Brodsky;  Brody; Danziger;  Deutch/Deutscher -- German;  Dorf(man), meaning villager; 

    Eisenberg; Epstein; Florsheim; Frankel -- from the Franconia region of Germany;  Frankfurter;  Ginsberg;  Gordon -- from Grodno, Lithuania or from the Russian word gorodin, for townsman;  Greenberg;  Halperin -- from Helbronn, Germany; Hammerstein;  Heller -- from Halle, Germany;  Hollander -- not from Holland, but from a town in Lithuania settled by the Dutch;  Horowitz, Hurwich, Gurevitch -- from Horovice in Bohemia;  Koenigsberg;  Krakauer -- from Cracow, Poland;  Landau;  Lipsky -- from Leipzig, Germany; 

    Litwak -- from Lithuania;  Minsky -- from Minsk, Belarus;  Mintz -- from Mainz, Germany;  Oppenheimer;  Ostreicher -- from Austria;  Pinsky -- from Pinsk, Belarus;  Posner -- from Posen, Germany;  Prager -- from Prague;  Rappoport -- from Porto, Italy; Rothenberg -- from the town of the red fortress in Germany;  Shapiro -- from Speyer, Germany;  Schlesinger -- from Silesia, Germany;  Steinberg;  Unger -- from Hungary;  Vilner -- from Vilna, Poland/Lithuania;  Wallach --from Bloch, derived from the Polish word for foreigner;  Warshauer/Warshavsky -- from Warsaw;  Wiener -- from Vienna;  Weinberg.

 

The link:  slate . com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/01/08/ashkenazi_names_the_etymology_of_the_most

_common_jewish_surnames . html    (please remove the spaces -- in addition to the 2 between slate and com and the 2 between surnames and html, there's also one after most)

 

The class of '65  50th Reunion dates:  April 24 through April 26, 2015

 

The South '65 e-mail addresses: reunionclass65 . blogspot . com  (remove the spaces)

 

The South '65 photo site: picasaweb . google . com/SouthHS65    (ditto)

 

 

Rich