Before he got famous for swindling his friends and family and investors out of billions of dollars–creating the biggest Ponzi scheme in history–Bernie Madoff wasn’t even the most famous alum of Far Rockaway High School.
That distinction maybe went to Dr. Jonas Salk, who helped discover the polio vaccine; or basketball star and commentator Nancy Liebermann; or the extremely talented rapper MC Serch, of 3rd Bass.
Like so many of the New York City’s brightest students in the 1950s, Madoff commuted by bus and train from his home in Laurelton, Queens to go to the school by the beach, in residential Far Rockaway. He climbed the wide marble staircase with his future wife, Ruth, and countless future investors who he would keep as friends as he created Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960.
Madoff represents a different time for an area of Queens that has suffered in the past few decades from high crime and unemployment. The main shopping district, Mott Avenue, still shows the old signs of prosperity, in the architecture of the abandoned buildings and the art-deco style of the Far Rockaway Shopping Center sign, which hasn’t been painted in years. And while the big limestone building that was home to Far Rockaway High School since the turn of the 20th century is still around, the inside is different. The high school will be phased out in June, when it graduates it’s last class. The Department of Education closed it down citing low performance.
Far Rockaway and other areas of south Queens have been suffering for years. But when Hurricane Katrina struck, people still managed to open up their wallets for a worthy cause. Greg Meeks’ and Malcolm Smith’s charity, New Direction Local Development Corporation, had been around since 2001, designed to help residents in their district find jobs. They wanted to send money down to NOLA, and asked locals to help. Many did. They’re still advertising the good work they did for the residents of New Orleans even after reports show the money never even got there. Victims on both sides–those who gave, and those who thought they were going to get–are starting to feel burned.
Meeks and Madoff might not have ever met each other. Their ties to Queens are decades apart. But with more and more allegations surfacing–of slush funds, of trips paid for by another Ponzi schemer, of empty promises and investments going nowhere–the two seem more and more alike. Far Rockaway’s a different place than it was in the 1950s, but some things never change.