Who remembers HS fraternities on LI? (Elmont, Franklin Square: food, park, kids)
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The guys in Delta saved my butt from racial violence once. Then again my black friends saved my bacon when some kid trying to make his bones by fighting me and lost, tried to make it racial. He didn’t know that the guys he complained to were long time friends.
I had close black friends from my days at Belmont Elementary, through the Scouts and high school. But... there were still occasions where there were significant race fights.
It was different times and we had more in common than not.
Pretty sure I was one of the original members of Delta Gamma Rho Oceanside Chapter. Was in Baldwin chapter first. Corky was VP. Drove a yellow Maverick. I think Chuck? was the president. We started an Oceanside chapter. Met in Wayne MCGovern's (i think) house. Mostly we hung out in what we called Freeport Park (again pretty hazy on details). I was a member 70-73. We had a few fights but nothing major. Mostly drinking and parties and GIRLS! Dances at Kights of Columbus hall. Bob Whaley was a friend of mine. I remember him. We got our picture in Newsday because he used to sit on the motor of his boat when we went clamming. We were friendly with Alpha Sigma Phi. Not so much with Omega. There was a big incident with John Stemiele (spelled wrong im sure) and Dennis Fanti or maybe Dino? For me it was fun times.
Oh the reason I'm jumping in this so late is that I was on amazon yesterday and I remembered I wanted to order Fred Gross's book. I did. I think its set a little after my time. I was in the Navy by 1975. But should be interesting to see what he has to say.
Started reading Fred's book and see that his info is off on Delta Gamma Rho Oceanside chapter. He thinks it was started in 1977 but that's impossible because I was a member during high school and I graduated in 1973. Yes we were inducted into the Baldwin chapter but soon started meetings on our own, in Oceanside. Don't want to name complete names but there was Dennis C and his older brother, A&A twins, Rusty, Big John, a few others I cant recall. I lived on Beverly Road since we moved from Astoria in 1964. Since I worked in Island Park...Texas Ranger, Luigi's Pizza, Hess Gas Station, most of my friends were from Island Park and some in Alpha Sigma Phi. We were good friends. Phi and Delta got along great for the most part. Must have changed later on. I joined the Navy in 75 and never returned to Oceanside to live. Best times were at Freeport Park in the summer. Mostly beer , wine and girls. One time we were attacked by about five carload of maybe Brand X or TKB? Very Hazy. The most deadly weapon used was a car antenna someone in Delta broke off one of their cars. Too bad things got out of control later but looking back now I see it was inevitable. We really were just a street gang with no redeeming social value.
West Hempstead was the Hot Spot. Its where everything merged. Race really was not an issue as it was a mostly homogeneous society. Most of the conflicts started over territory or boredom. A lot was due to he said and she said. There were also Sororities which were the sister clubs of the Frats. The frats often had one or two minorities. Race didnt become a big deal on Long Island until later in the 90's. The Tawana Brawley incident, or should I say Non Incident really divided the state of NY.
Long post for a long forgotten thread. But if anyone's out there....
I vividly remember fraternity presence in Freeport in the late '70s/early '80s: the two principal ones who had a "rivalry", Delta Gamma Rho (green-on-black colors) and Omega Gamma Delta (yellow/black). and the then-new one, Alpha Theta Epsilon (white/black). They'd strut around high school hallways in their similar cloth "letter" jackets, all-black with the fraternity color piping the shoulders, with the designation on his back: the 3 greek letters spelled out and placed in a triangular formation. A-T-E was the newest one, scrappy, whose initiates were physically smaller than the other two.
This 1974 NYT article really doesn't scratch the surface, but it does cover it:
[url]https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/11/archives/l-i-high-school-fraternities-uneasy-rivalry-that-worries-some.html[/url]
The NYT article portrays them as simple and harmless, a community of jocks. My Freeport experience was much different. Not all bullies and a-holes joined the fraternities. But all fraternity members were bullies and a-holes, to a person. They were the people who didn't excel (academically) at school (you wouldn't catch a fraternity member taking an AP course), who were predominantly from lower-middle class backgrounds (which seemed to be a basis for their tribalism/territoriality). [To be fair, when I say "bullies", I generally mean "former bullies." Bullying, as such, only seemed to exist in grades 6-9 or so. By high school, the bullies have matured out, or been socialized enough, or have established a reputation by intimidation, to "just" be a-holes.] Of course, they were the smokers (in their defense, this was the '70s, and there were a lot of smokers). I almost forgot: they were exclusively white and racist and kept so by blackballing.
The one thing that makes the brutality and intimidation of these fraternities seem almost quaint is: there was no lasting injury. They didnt carry weapons (certainly not guns). They did drugs (marijuana, only) but they didnt deal, as such. They graffittied their letters, but you didn't ever hear about anyone being wounded (or shot). They dealt in fists only, which, when considering MS-13 and the machete incidents in Suffolk, I guess, is something.
Regarding their membership, the exception that proved the rule, for me, was when I heard of a classmate who had tried to be initiated. He would have been an outlier at this fraternity: he was a high achiever, from an upper-middle class household, was in no way a bully, was widely popular in school, played varsity hockey but also excelled academically (and later went to Brown and is a Wall St trader). Sure, he came to school with facial bruises from the fraternity initiation-- but he was blackballed. Which seemed to demonstrate what the selection criteria for these groups are: that guy was "too good" for them. He was popular with the jocks and the a-holes and the brains. So they beat him up and then one (or more) denied him membership out of envy. He was too successful for them. [And No, I am not that Wall St trader.] IIRC, the same thing also happened to a widely popular African-American guy, except then the collective wisdom was that he was blackballed principally because of racism.
Was the Brown graduate/Wall St trader that you were talking about, Nick Boulukos, who graduated from Freeport in 1980?
Long post for a long forgotten thread. But if anyone's out there....
I vividly remember fraternity presence in Freeport in the late '70s/early '80s: the two principal ones who had a "rivalry", Delta Gamma Rho (green-on-black colors) and Omega Gamma Delta (yellow/black). and the then-new one, Alpha Theta Epsilon (white/black). They'd strut around high school hallways in their similar cloth "letter" jackets, all-black with the fraternity color piping the shoulders, with the designation on his back: the 3 greek letters spelled out and placed in a triangular formation. A-T-E was the newest one, scrappy, whose initiates were physically smaller than the other two.
This 1974 NYT article really doesn't scratch the surface, but it does cover it:
[url]https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/11/archives/l-i-high-school-fraternities-uneasy-rivalry-that-worries-some.html[/url]
The NYT article portrays them as simple and harmless, a community of jocks. My Freeport experience was much different. Not all bullies and a-holes joined the fraternities. But all fraternity members were bullies and a-holes, to a person. They were the people who didn't excel (academically) at school (you wouldn't catch a fraternity member taking an AP course), who were predominantly from lower-middle class backgrounds (which seemed to be a basis for their tribalism/territoriality). [To be fair, when I say "bullies", I generally mean "former bullies." Bullying, as such, only seemed to exist in grades 6-9 or so. By high school, the bullies have matured out, or been socialized enough, or have established a reputation by intimidation, to "just" be a-holes.] Of course, they were the smokers (in their defense, this was the '70s, and there were a lot of smokers). I almost forgot: they were exclusively white and racist and kept so by blackballing.
The one thing that makes the brutality and intimidation of these fraternities seem almost quaint is: there was no lasting injury. They didnt carry weapons (certainly not guns). They did drugs (marijuana, only) but they didnt deal, as such. They graffittied their letters, but you didn't ever hear about anyone being wounded (or shot). They dealt in fists only, which, when considering MS-13 and the machete incidents in Suffolk, I guess, is something.
Regarding their membership, the exception that proved the rule, for me, was when I heard of a classmate who had tried to be initiated. He would have been an outlier at this fraternity: he was a high achiever, from an upper-middle class household, was in no way a bully, was widely popular in school, played varsity hockey but also excelled academically (and later went to Brown and is a Wall St trader). Sure, he came to school with facial bruises from the fraternity initiation-- but he was blackballed. Which seemed to demonstrate what the selection criteria for these groups are: that guy was "too good" for them. He was popular with the jocks and the a-holes and the brains. So they beat him up and then one (or more) denied him membership out of envy. He was too successful for them. [And No, I am not that Wall St trader.] IIRC, the same thing also happened to a widely popular African-American guy, except then the collective wisdom was that he was blackballed principally because of racism.
Was the upper middle class classmate that you referenced, Nick Bouloukos, who graduated in 1980 from Freeport HS?
Alpha sigma phi and omega I remember back when I was in HS. I went to VS north high and we had Phi, Central HS had omega and south HS not sure which one they had. Phi wore red and black sweaters and Omega wore yellow and black sweaters. I always remembered not to wear either colors for fear of getting jumped or beat up in school LOL.
What year did you graduate from VSN? I went to Malverne + I had a lot of friends/classmates in Phi -- they were very close to the guys at North ... every w/e, they were always getting into scraps w/Omega from Central
What year did you graduate from VSN? I went to Malverne + I had a lot of friends/classmates in Phi -- they were very close to the guys at North ... every w/e, they were always getting into scraps w/Omega from Central
I graduated in 1989 from VSN
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Delta Gamma Rho early seventy's oceanside
