I Knew Judy Holliday (Kind of)
by Lucy Wright Cooney
I was so lucky to grow up in Sunnyside Gardens, one of the first planned urban communities in the U.S. Aside from being a very kid-friendly neighborhood, it was home to several well-known people one of whom was Judy Holliday, a movie actress and Broadway star. Judy’s family lived in Sunnyside, and her mother Mrs. Tuvim gave piano lessons. One of her pupils was a friend of mine and when I was twelve or thirteen, I sometimes went with her to her lessons - baseball bat and mitt in hand - and I’d wait and listen while she had her lesson. Occasionally, Judy would be there visiting her mother and would speak to me. And I remember her always as very pleasant and unaffected.
A few years later, when she was starring in "Bells Are Ringing" on Broadway, I went to a performance with some friends from the Drama Club at Bryant High School. After the show we went backstage to get her autograph. Nine or ten of us crowded into her dressing room, and she was laughing and talking to all of us as she signed our programs. When I handed her mine, she took one look at me and said, "Hey, it's Slugger!" and gave me a hug. My coolness rating went up about 1000% that night.
Lucy moved with her family to 48th Street in Sunnyside Gardens in the summer of 1944 where she went to the Progressive School, PS 150, and Bryant High School. She has worked at Shelburne Community School in Vermont since 1998 as an assistant preschool teacher, intensive needs para-educator, and bus driver. She has ten children of her own, and 15 grandchildren.
Most recently, Lucy has written a book, “The Game,” about Sunnyside and baseball. Her aim in writing is to reacquaint readers with a time when children lived their lives under fewer constraints from adults, and out from under the limits placed on them by technology. To learn more, visit her website: https://lucywrightcooney.com/home