Stuyvesant Math Team, Spring 1957
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Photograph courtesy of Nathan M. Reiss, from Indicator, June 1957
From the Indicator:
The scene: a room in Stuyvesant High School inhabited by a nondescript bunch of ruffians commonly known as the Math Team. One Stuyvesantian is torturing the blackboard with incomprehensible hieroglyphics. The degree of incomprehensibility of these hieroglyphics instantly betrays this misanthrope's identity. He is Jeff Rubens, captain. In the back of the room Alan Katcher and Monroe Rabin, two mathematicians (???), are having it out with tightly rolled newspapers.
A sudden plague strikes the unsuspecting Team. The calculus students have just been freed by Coach Greenberg. Refreshed by their long nap, they are bent on wreaking a little destruction. Integrations, differentiations and a few summations are clearly branded on their foreheads. This is a real gone bunch of guys. (They left ten years ago.) Weiner throws his daily block at Saul Zaveler, which, as usual, is neatly sidestepped– Weiner into a few juniors provided as padding for such occasions. To clear the air, Eddie Weidberg, Mel Wasserman, Dave Konstan, and Roger Aarons deposit a few of last year's corpses out the window.
(Editor's note: All persons mentioned are unfortunately not fictitious, but represent our school in the city-wide competition in which we have placed first and fourth the last two seasons.)
Rubens, not sparing his stout knout, manages to get them into a seat. He starts proving Mishuggener's Theorem, but when he reaches the crucial point:
a2 + b2 - (girls)2 x (censored)n = #?"$%&?#
a low animal growl is heard from the seniors. They are revolting (in more ways than one). Rubens turns for the door. It doesn't open!! It's locked!! Will Jeff Rubens escape from the enraged Math Team … or will duress spoil Jeff Rubens???