:f  /j/X/shipley

Letter to JL from Joseph T. Shipley           20 February 1978
29 West 46th Street., 10036

Dear Joshua Lederberg,

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     Back from a brief stay in Florida, I find your welcome letter.

     Dr. Steigman, teacher at Stuyvesant then first
principal of the High School of Music and Art, had written a history
of that school, but no one has thus discussed Stuyvesant.  I do, to
some extent, in the book I am at work on, More or Less Me.
A number of the school Alumni Bulletins give many details of its
growth, and especially of its graduates; I have some of these still.

     I did, however, live through much of that growth.  I was chairman
of the Program Committee (which prepared every student's program every
term) when entrance examinations were initiated.  In 1939 I was
assigned for the year -- along with Stuyvesant teachers Charles
Granet (director) and Jerry Shur (photographer) -- to write scenarios
of the N.Y. City school system, for motion pictures to be shown at the
1940 N.Y. World's Fair.  When I returned to Stuyvesant in 1940
I was appointed Faculty  Leader of Arista, Faculty Advisor to the
Senior Class, and to the Indicator.  I presided at your graduation,
and at 32 of the first 100 Stuyvesant graduation exercises.  Thus I
probably could inform you of the items about which you inquire, but
most effectively at a talk.  Perhaps we can get together when you are
in New York.

     I leave at the end of March, for two weeks in Israel, then from
there to London, where Mrs. Shipley and I have a flat.  We stay in
England, with short trips in Europe, until the end of September.
Thereafter, back in New York.  By that time, I imagine, you will be
at Rockefeller University.  If you wish, we might meet then.

     At least one of the men at Rockefeller, Dr. Ling, is a Stuyvesant
graduate.

                                         All the best,


                                         Joseph S..