Remembering Bill Bernstein My Sigma Beta Phi Fraternity Brother at City College of New York

I rarely read the New York Times during the week, but on the way home this afternoon I saw a copy of today's paper on my seat.  I picked it up, read a few articles and perused the obituary page.  There was a listing for a William Bernstein.  A person by that name perished on September 11, 2001, but it wasn't my fraternity brother from CCNY.  When I saw that this William Bernstein was a graduate of CCNY, I knew it was my old friend Bill.  There is another obituary of him in the Downtown New York City Magazine.

I must say that he had a very distinguished job history.  I last saw him in early 1974 just after I returned to NYC from the University of Rhode Island.  I had no contact with him for 42 years and never knew until now what became of him.

I always remember him at the Sigma Beta Phi fraternity house.  We had one house on 6th Avenue between 27th and 28th Street in Manhattan.  When we were kicked out, we moved to another house at Parkside Avenue in Brooklyn which we shared with a house plan known as Tremaine.  Please read more about my CCNY years at this blog entry.  Bill was always a big card player.  There was a contingent of fraternity brothers who stayed at the house and played cards while others like myself went to singles dances looking for dates. Those were the days.  A few years later Bill and Joe Viel shared an apartment in Queens Village.

It is a shame that he died at age 64.  My condolences to his family.