In Loving Memory
This Day in History
The Stuyvesant fencing team become city champs for the sixth time.
In Loving Memory
The Campaign for Stuyvesant/ Alumni(ae) & Friends Endowment Fund, Inc.
P.O. 2626
Peter Stuyvesant Station
New York, NY 10009
Office
610 West 115th Street
New York, NY 10025-7771
(212) 222-9112
Pajama Day
One upon a time there was no Pajama Day...and of course there were no females either. All that changed in 1969. Here’s an account (adapted from an article in the 1996 Indicator) of how Pajama Day started:
Certain Stuyvesant seniors were jealous of what they imagined to be the glamorous life of suburban high school students as seen on TV: football pep rallies (attended by people other than the players!), outdoor barbecues, bonfires of raked leaves in the fall, and most important, slumber parties! In comparison, their lives as apartment-dwelling “eggheads” seemed dull and “nerdy.” The leader of this group, Waldo, felt that “The Best School in the Nation” should not be outdone by the average suburban high school, so he decided to have a slumber party at Stuy. However, Waldo thought that a slumber party was simply a party held in the evening at which everyone wore their pajamas, not understanding that people were supposed to sleep over! Anyway, Waldo convinced about 100 of his classmates to secretly stay after school until 10:30 pm one Thursday night in December. Since the entire class was just as clueless as their fearless leader, nobody questioned the sanity of the idea.
When the long-awaited Thursday finally arrived, the hundred spirited seniors eagerly hung out in school until sundown, after the teachers had gone home. Then they put on their pajamas and began the party. They ran around the halls in their slippers playing a giant game of freeze tag. Finally, they got hungry and decided to order in pizza, but were told that due to the “current inclement weather conditions” all deliveries are canceled. Unbeknownst to them, it had been snowing heavily. A quick assessment of the situation revealed that it would be impossible to go home at 10:30 as planned; they would have to spend the night at school! Making the most of an unexpected situation, they continued the party, dining on the delicacies mistakenly left out by the cafeteria staff the previous day, and then they watched the falling snow which lulled them off to sleep around 2 am.
Five and a half hours later, the students were awakened by the stern voice of the Principal at that time, Dr. Fliedner, who had arrived to find 100 students in pajamas camped out inside the front door of the school. “What are you doing here?,” he asked. “Why are you all in your pajamas? It’s against regulations to sleep in school. You could all be expelled!”
Waldo exclaimed: “Sleep in school? We only do that in classes! We all just got here extra early because today is Senior Pajama Day.”
Embarrassed, Dr. Fliedner answered, “Oh, I must have missed the announcement. Carry on!”
So carry on they did, proudly flaunting their pajamas all day, and all the seniors who weren’t wearing pajamas felt out of it and stupid, and the juniors were jealous. So when the next year rolled around, the new seniors organized a “Pajama Day”... And so it goes.