How a Boy From Coney Island Made It When Jerry Gilbert joins the table at the Breakfast Club each morning in the VIP Room we know we are in for a good time. This affable Building Three resident always has a delightful story to tell. His rise from a lower middle class existence in Coney Island to luxury residences in Florida, Where did you grow up Jerry? Manhattan and Long Island is fascinating. I was raised on West 1st Street in Coney Island off Neptune Avenue and attended Abraham Lincoln High School. Like some other neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the area had acquired a reputation as a vicious slum and breeding ground for crime. Fortunately, by concentrating on school and sports, I graduated from Baruch College otherwise known as “downtown City College” before going into the Army. What was next? “When I graduated from Baruch in 1957, computer programming was in its infancy. It was then that large insurance companies, banks, brokerages and other financial institutions entered the data processing world. My affair with programming began at Royal Globe Insurance. After two years I moved on to NCR and then Control Data Corp., where I became manager of commercial systems. Later I went to the famed Ted Bates Advertising, one of the largest advertising agencies in the country, where I rose to vice president of corporate systems. Still later, I formed my own computer consulting firm, Cornell Computer Corporation. This became a very successful venture” What about your personal life? “A couple of weeks after discharge from the Army I met Gilda Bender on a double date. It was like lightning hit me. We started going together, and in 1961 at Menorah Temple in Borough Park I married the stunning brunette from Thomas Jefferson High School. Gilda and I have three children, Carolyn, Robert and Jon. We started out in Brooklyn and moved to Plainview. After about thirty years, when the kids moved out on their own, we moved to the Hamlet in Jericho and lived there for 9 years.” Where else did you live? Since 1977 we spent the winters “snowflaking” in Florida. We lived at Boca West, the Polo Club, Sable Ridge, and the Boca Raton Hotel. In 2004 we moved to North Shore Towers...a great move. I enjoyed the amenities, especially weekly poker games with a great group of guys. I ran the Billiard Tournament and was responsible for computerizing it, to the delight of the members. Len Halpern of Building Two was our first winner. That’s a great photo of the two of you. What’s Gilda up to? After college Gilda became a dental hygienist. But after a while realized she was not utilizing her people skills. She became a Certified Instructor for Dale Carnegie Institute, and then became a Sales Rep for Carnegie where she broke sales records for the international firm. Several years later, Gilda became a stock broker for American Express, and is now with Bridge Capital, as well as a doting mother and grandmother. What happened to Cornell Computer Corp? It continued to thrive. But in 1987 Rupert Murdoch, the Australian mogul made me a very lucrative offer that I couldn’t refuse, especially when he gave me a five year contract to stay on. In a way, selling Cornell was like giving up your baby. But it was the right time and the right money. Any new interests? Yes, I was one of the first to join the fledgling NST Men’s Club when Al Fuchs formed it last year. In a short time we grew to more than one hundred members and I enjoy my role on the executive committee. Any philosophy you want to share? “Be grateful in life for all that you have achieved, and live your life with a set of rules. The rules you live by are very important. My number one rule is Say what you mean, and mean what you say. By following that rule I’ve been successful in my career, my marriage, and with my children. For a guy from Coney Island, that’s not bad.” By FRED CHERNOW 4 North Shore Towers Courier n February 2015 Photo by Jennifer Decio
NST022015
To see the actual publication please follow the link above