Fordham Preparatory School - Ramview Ramview Spring 2019 | Page 27

by Lou DiGiorno ’88, School Historian
have his dedication plate inadvertently taken out by a
wrecking ball. Sure, Father’s biography can be found on
the school’s website, but that is no reason not to preserve
his non-cyber memorial as well.
Placardry aside, a second class of items also needs
One Helluva Piece of Furniture
looking after. These items are a bit broader in their scope,
but still, in their own way, have a lot to tell us about the
Fordham Prep experience as it has unfolded since the
Tyler administration.
Tucked in the Social Studies’ library, for instance, is an
unassuming 1913 edition of C.C. Martindale’s Christ’s
By the time you read this, it should probably be about
a week or so before the start of the Great
Post-Dodransbicentennial Expansion Extravaganza, or as
the Administration insists on calling it, The East Wing
Project. It ought to be a blast — literally. I keep hearing
talk of “blasting out walls” to make way for new
foundations. Ah, how I love the smell of concrete in the
morning.
In anticipation, yours truly has made several
reconnaissance missions into the soon-to-be construction
zone to scout out objects of historical value to the Prep
that will need to be removed from the area, carefully
catalogued and stored away until the dust settles.
What sort of objects are we talking about? The first
category is straightforward enough: signage. Near the
finance office, for example, is the principal’s plaque,
which traces the history of the distinct Prep principalship
from its establishment in 1920 with our first official
principal, Fr. Michael Jessup, S.J. For those interested,
the complete and rather sinuous lineage of our Prep
principals and headmasters dating back to 1841 can be
found in an article called “A Matter of Principals” in the
online, Fall 2013 Ramview. An unassuming 11” x 17” wall
hanging could easily be misplaced in the wreckage.
Dumped into the wrong filing cabinet drawer or stowed
on some shelf in the cellar, it could conceivably be
committed to oblivion until my successor’s successor’s
successor unearths it just in time for Fordham’s
Cadets. In and of itself, the book is neither rare nor
valuable. What makes it interesting, however, is the
stamp on page xi of its introduction: “THIRD DIVISION, ST.
JOHN’S COLLEGE, FORDHAM NY.” It is one of the few
artifacts that remain of Fordham’s middle school, which
was in operation at Rose Hill into the early 20th century.
Likely, after the Third Division was disbanded,
Martindale’s little volume on St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St.
Stanislaus Kostka and St. John Berchmans was
transferred to Second Division, or the Prep, since at
various points in our school’s history, the Prep has
(appropriately) maintained a chapel dedicated to the
three “Jesuit Boy Saints” as they are collectively known.
A number of objects will also need to be spirited out of
the Religious Studies Center, not the least of which is one
of the original study carrels from the opening day of Shea
Hall in 1972. For many years, until the space’s renovation
in the ’90s, the semi-sectioned-off, worktable was a place
for reading, crammingor reading, cramming for chem
quizzes, illicit napping and, of course, getting shushed by
Mr. Stellwag, or his assistant, the late Mrs. Maureen Clark.
Sophomore Frank Marciano’s take on the original
bibliotheca furnishing: “Impractical. No outlets for
charging.”
Finally, in room 216, where economics teacher Mr.
William Bozzone has taught since joining the faculty in
1989, there are two pieces of furniture that could use a
little TLC, with the C standing for conservation.
tricentennial in 2141. The first is an old (and rickety[ish]) handmade lectern,
one of the oldest pieces of furniture at the Prep today.
And then there is the sign for the Fahey Religious Studies According to school lore, it has been in continuous
classroom use since the 1930s, and there is some
photographic evidence to support this. Of course, there is
Center on the third floor, named in honor of Fr. Frank
Fahey, S.J., Latin and theology teacher from the late 1940s
to the late 1960s. The memory of the short-statured,
long-cassocked, scrappy but gentle Jesuit from Hell’s
Kitchen is far too important to the legacy of the Prep to
more to this durable bit of carpentry than its longevity,
there is also the matter of its builder. This particular
antique rostrum was handmade by Mr. Paul Carielli,
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