PolitickerNY

Follow @Politicker

The Way They Were: Mayoral Candidates in High School

LAST

By Hunter Walker 12/13/12 5:23pm

Start The Slideshow

As next year’s mayoral race begins to heat up, Politicker took a look back and dug up the high school yearbooks of some of the likely candidates. Our journey into the past unearthed evidence of Bill Thompson’s musical talents, John Liu’s love of skateboarding, Tom Allon’s plans to be a doctor and some truly incredible vintage hairstyles.

Click through our slideshow to see photos of Messrs. Thompson, Liu and Allon as high school seniors. We were unable to find yearbooks for two of the probable mayoral candidates; Bill de Blasio, who went to Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in Massachusetts, and Christine Quinn, who went to Holy Child Academy on Long Island. To hopefully make up for these omissions, we included a yearbook photo of the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg.
Back Forward

mayoralfeature
Back Forward

Bill Thompson

Behold Bill Thompson's afro! Mr. Thompson graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1970. His yearbook identifies "orchestra" as his only extracurricular activity.
Back Forward

John Liu

John Liu graduated from The Bronx High School of Science in 1985. Mr. Liu, who was an avid skateboarder, included the following quote below his photo in the yearbook: "Live long, have fun and be happy. I'll miss most of you. Keep on running and/or rolling."
Back Forward

John Liu and His Track Team

Mr. Liu's yearbook identified him as one of the "returning stars" of Bronx Science's boy's cross country team. He also ran on the indoor/outdoor track team with whom he is shown in this photo (center row, sixth from left).
Back Forward

Tom Allon

Republican mayoral candidate and Manhattan Media CEO Tom Allon graduated in 1980 from Stuyvesant High School, where he participated in an extensive array of extracurricular activities. He was editor-in-chief of the school's newspaper, Spectator, in his junior year and remained a staffer his senior year. He was also involved in the honor society, the student government, president of the German society and an editor on the yearbook. The quote listed below his yearbook photo is "It took a licking, But it kept on ticking."
Back Forward

"We Are All G-D's Children"

This message from Mr. Allon appeared in the ads section of his Stuyvesant yearbook alongside messages from two other students under the heading "We Are All G-D's Children." In his note, Mr. Allon quotes Charles Dickens and said he was going "on to college to study pediatric-gerantology." Another ad in the yearbook taken out by the photo editors of the Spectator listed the credits for a fictional movie with Mr. Allon listed as "Pres. J. Spalter fan club."
Back Forward

Michael Bloomberg

New York's current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, graduated in 1960 from Medford High School in Massachusetts. Mr. Bloomberg was the "dues" agent for his homeroom and a member of the Technical Club, Science Club and the Slide Rule Club.
Back

"Argumentative"

Mr. Bloomberg was also president of the Medford High School Debating Society. In this photo, he is pictured with his fellow debaters (front row, center). Perhaps due to his love of verbal sparring, in the yearbook's "class dictionary," Mr. Bloomberg was identified as a synonym for "argumentative."