Pictures from Van Antwerp School's History

One memory of mine is the annual basketball game between the basketball team and the girls. We played by the girls rules (half court those days). We guys wore skirts and a boxing glove on our predominate hand. If a boy player was hitting too many shots he got to wear a second boxing glove. We sent a lot of girls to the foul line. The score in the last game in 1953 made the guys a winner by only a couple of points. Coach, Ray Gifford, would do some sleasy things like putting a player on the bench down at the boy's basket end on the side line and at the right time he would jump in shoot a basket and one of the running players would drop off on the opposite bench. It was a good and fun time...and the boys did not always win!! - Dave Hotchkiss Remembering Mrs. Newstead and her husband running that small grocery/store across from Van Antwerp? They lived behind the store. After her husband died she continued running the store and telling people who were short a dime or quarter that was enough. I personally remember going there to buy "sparklers" and caps for my cap gun. If anyone was short a few pennies she just smiled and accepted what they had.

She was beaten nearly to death (died shortly thereafter) by someone who came into the store late at night. The Police Chief (Jack McGovern) who is the son of the Police Chief (John McGovern) who was police chief when we went to VAS, went ballistic as did every member of the department who went to Van Antwerp. They found him after a long investigation that every member of the force worked a lot of overtime to solve; and he was convicted.

Van Antwerp School, 1925

Van Antwerp School, Class of 1953 Click here to enlarge

Van Antwerp School, 2001

graduates also attended in memory whatever happened to...? faculty and staff remembering

Van Antwerp School
Story Avenue
Niskayuna, NY 12309