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ALUMNI UPDATEBernstein, Hanley Pass Century MarkBy Shira Boss-Bicak ’93
Sidney Bernstein ’24 and J. Daniel Hanley ’27 celebrated their 100th birthdays this year, making them the granddaddies of the College alumni family. A New York native, Bernstein was among the youngest members of his College graduating class, entering at 17 and completing his degree in three years. Although not a gifted musician, he liked to play the piano, and practiced on an upright in his dorm room in Hartley Hall. After practicing the same piece for some time, Bernstein received a petition under his door, signed by scores of Hartley residents, that told him “enough is enough” and to change his piece, he recalled in a memoir written for his 90th birthday. Bernstein is a lifelong supporter of opera and music, was v.p. of the educational foundation of Fashion Institute of Technology and was a founder of Shenkar University in Israel. He founded a commercial real estate company in New York, from which he retired at 95. His nephew now runs the company as Bernstein Real Estate. A lifetime John Jay Society member, Bernstein regularly attended colloquia on campus until his mid-90s. “When you reach an advanced age, you become an observer rather than a participant, and take pleasure in others’ accomplishments rather than your own,” Bernstein expressed through his daughter, Elaine S. Bernstein ’72 GS. Having been born at home, Bernstein likes to point out that he was 79 the first time he went into a hospital. After suffering two strokes, he has cut back on his activities, but goes to a senior center four days a week. Bernstein celebrated his 100th birthday with family and friends in New York City in a series of private parties at his home every weekend in April, and with two celebrations on his birthday, April 13 — one at the senior center and one at home with his children, Paul, Elaine and Anne, and three grandchildren. Bernstein’s wife of 43 years, Anita Michelson Bernstein, died in 1986. “He’s a mensch,” Anne Bernstein says of her father. “He’s the most loving, giving, helpful person on the planet, a man with ethics, honor and class.” Bernstein attributes his longevity to having “chosen” the right parents, who lived into their 90s. “He figures he has another 10 or 15 years,” Elaine Bernstein notes.
Hanley was directed to a career in government service from summer jobs he had while a student at the College in the 1920s. During that time, he served as a tutor-companion to the sons of several leading New York families, including Henry Morgenthau Jr.’s boys, Henry III and Robert, now Manhattan’s district attorney. Hanley taught them to swim and sail at their home in Fishkill, N.Y, where one of their neighbors was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was recuperating at Hyde Park after having contracted polio and who soon became New York’s governor. Hanley was introduced to Roosevelt’s press attaché
and became involved in the Democratic party. “I was with the
Democratic National Convention before Roosevelt was nominated”
as the party’s candidate for president, he remembers. “After
he was elected, J. Edgar Hoover got me to join the FBI.” Hanley retired from the State Department in 1968 after 30 years of service, including embassy posts in Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Korea and Liberia. He and his wife lived in Portugal for 20 years before moving to Wellington, Fla., in 1988. They have three sons, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. On March 19, about 50 family members celebrated Hanley’s 100th birthday at “one big party,” as he describes it, at the Palm Beach Country Club. Are there any other 100-year-old College alumni out there? Please contact CCT because we’d like to tell your story, too. Shira Boss-Bicak ’93 is a freelance journalist in New York and a contributing writer to CCT.
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