Remembering Eagle Day Camp: A Jewish Summer Camp in Nanuet, Rockland County, New York
- Mark Vogel
- Oct 20
- 8 min read
The former site of Eagle Day Camp in Nanuet, New York ✈
Standing in a Home Depot parking lot on Hutton Avenue in Nanuet, New York, it takes a minute to line up what you see now with what once stood here. The address today is 43 Hutton Avenue, just off Route 59 and a short drive from Exit 14 on the New York State Thruway. For decades in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, this land was Eagle Day Camp, also called Eagle Country Day Camp, a Jewish day camp that drew children from Rockland County, the Bronx, and northern New Jersey. Today, big-box retail and hotel chains define this corner of Nanuet. Back then, it was buses, ball fields, pools, a snack bar, and long summer days outside.
Eagle Day Camp fit into a wider network of Jewish summer programs around New York, but it was very much its own world. Former campers still remember Eagle as a Jewish day camp in Nanuet and look back on it with real affection, even decades later. The camp sat on land off Hutton Avenue, not far from what is now the Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton Inn Nanuet along Route 59, just beyond the Thruway exit. In those days, this stretch of Rockland County felt like the countryside to kids coming up from New York City and nearby suburbs. For many Jewish families from places like Riverdale, Monsey, Spring Valley, and Bergen County, Eagle was the default summer plan. For two months each summer, the moment you stepped onto that bus in the morning, camp became your world.
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“Eagle Day Camp no longer appears in any directory or brochure. But if you stand in that parking lot, close your eyes, and listen past the hum of cars and shopping carts, it doesn’t take much to imagine buses pulling in, counselors calling out groups, kids yelling “Let’s go, Dave!”, and Chief Tahka Zees’ whistle cutting across the pool.”
By the 1970s and 80s, Eagle had clearly developed a strong Jewish identity. Over time, word of mouth among synagogues and Jewish neighborhoods turned it into a familiar name. Parents knew the camp would be traditional enough to feel comfortable and relaxed enough to feel like a break from school.
My own Eagle day started in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The bus would wind its way through the neighborhood, kids piling on with towels, lunch bags, and half-finished comic books. Once we got onto the highway, the ride took on a personality of its own. Our bus driver was Dave. To us, he wasn’t just a driver; he was part of the daily routine. We would egg him on, pressing our faces to the windows as the bus rolled up the Thruway. “Let’s go, Dave! Dave, let’s go!” we shouted, as if he were a race car driver and not a man hauling a bus full of noisy campers up to Rockland County. Looking back as an adult, it’s obvious that Dave was driving responsibly and well within the rules, but for the kids on that bus it felt like we were flying. That ride set the tone: this wasn’t school, this was camp, and the day was ours.
Once the bus pulled through the entrance, the routine kicked in. Eagle’s layout may be paved over now, but in memory it’s still clear: fields, two pools, paths between activity areas, and the central spots where kids gathered for announcements and snacks. Sports were a big part of the day. We played kickball on dusty diamonds, baseball on slightly more serious fields, and soccer and volleyball wherever there was enough flat ground and a willing counselor to keep score. Nobody was scouting anyone for a scholarship. The goal was exercise, friendly competition, and the feeling of being part of a team for the morning.
You rotated through activities. Some periods were more structured; others felt like semi-organized chaos in the best way. You might finish a kickball game, grab some water, and then be hustled over to volleyball. If you weren’t especially athletic, you could still participate. There was always a place in the lineup, a job keeping score, or a role shagging balls that went too far into the outfield. What tied it together wasn’t fancy equipment. It was the reliable rhythm of the day and the counselors and staff who looked like they’d been doing this forever, even if they were only a few years older than the oldest campers.
If Eagle had a center of gravity, it was the pools. On hot Rockland County afternoons, the pool schedule mattered almost as much as the bus schedule. Presiding over the water was the lifeguard everyone remembers: Chief Tahka Zees. His real name was Norman Garfield, but virtually no camper called him that. He was known by his camp name, a persona familiar to generations of Eagle campers. “Tahka Zees” came from Yiddish, loosely meaning “really sweet,” which captured how kids saw him. He watched the water with serious focus, whistle at the ready, but there was warmth behind it. He projected safety without killing the fun. For many of us, he is the reason we ever felt comfortable going into the deep end.
Alongside him on the deck was another lifeguard we knew simply as Mike. Alumni remember him as part of the pool team: another steady presence in a red swimsuit, scanning the water, calling out instructions, and tossing out an occasional joke between swim periods. Together, Norman “Chief Tahka Zees” Garfield and lifeguard Mike anchored the aquatics side of Eagle’s identity. For some campers, the pool meant actual swim instruction. For others, it meant trying not to swallow too much water while flailing across the lane. One 8mm clip from my family’s archive shows campers in a rubber boat tipping over, everyone tumbling into the pool in a tangle of arms and legs. It is chaotic, but everyone surfaces, laughing and sputtering. That scene captures Eagle’s pool energy far better than any brochure or schedule ever did.
Beyond the pool, sports filled a large part of the schedule. Baseball games lasted long enough for arguments over safe or out. Soccer matches brought out competition between groups that would normally sit together at lunch. Volleyball games became running jokes about who could actually get the ball over the net. Late in the season, color war took all of this and intensified the atmosphere. Teams painted banners, invented chants, and suddenly cared a lot about events that had seemed casual just a week earlier. Every field and corner of the property became part of the competition, but it never felt mean-spirited. When color war ended, you went back to playing with the same kids you had spent all week trying to beat.
One daily ritual stands out as clearly as any game: the end-of-day snack on the stadium-style benches. These benches were long, tiered wooden rows, each one slightly higher than the one in front. At the end of the afternoon, campers filled them, a sea of damp towels, tangled hair, and half-finished conversations. You sat there with your snack, listening to the final announcements, comparing notes on the day, and trying to figure out whether your group was scheduled for something special the next morning. From those benches you could see bits of the grounds you had roamed all day, and it gave the day a natural endpoint. When you stood up, it was time to find your bus.
For campers who wanted something beyond the usual rotation, Eagle offered optional horseback riding lessons. Once a week, a small group was taken off campus to a local ranch. It wasn’t a dramatic Western experience; it was a simple, suburban version of horseback riding. But to city kids, riding a horse along a quiet trail felt like stepping into a different world. You learned how to mount, how to hold the reins, and how to guide the horse along a controlled path. The instructors focused on basic control and safety. After a couple of weeks, you started to feel like you understood the basics, even if you never advanced beyond a steady walk or brief trot. The contrast between sitting on a horse one day and standing on line at the snack bar the next is part of what made the weekly lessons so memorable.
Camps like Eagle only worked because of the adults who showed up day after day. Mordy Minchenberg was one of the personalities associated with the camp, another adult presence who helped keep it running. Whether he was handling logistics, managing staff, or dealing with parent concerns, he was part of the structure that let everyone else take the smooth operation of camp for granted.
Then there was the kitchen. Every day, Gloria Gottesman, who ran the food operation turned out simple kid-friendly meals in quantities that only someone who has worked in a camp kitchen can fully appreciate. Former campers still talk about her famous cinnamon buns. Together with Chief Tahka Zees, lifeguard Mike, bus driver Dave, and the counselors on the fields, these adults created a sense of order and safety that let kids treat Eagle like a second home.
Fast forward to today and the physical signs of Eagle are gone. In their place stands the Nanuet Home Depot shopping center with its large store, vast parking lot, and steady traffic. Just down Route 59 are the Hilton Garden Inn Nanuet and the Hampton Inn Nanuet, both located near Exit 14 and part of a cluster of hotels serving travelers moving between Westchester, Rockland, and northern New Jersey. For someone visiting the area today, these hotels are practical, affordable options for exploring Rockland County or nearby towns like Monsey, Spring Valley, or Nyack. They offer the usual franchise comforts, including indoor pools, Wi-Fi, breakfast service, and easy access to the Shops at Nanuet and the larger Palisades Center.
But for former Eagle campers, turning into that parking lot at Home Depot is a jolt. The turn off Route 59, the way the land slopes, even the line of trees in the distance can trigger memories of bus drop-offs, the ball fields, the pool, and those wooden benches at the end of the day.
It is easy to feel a little sad standing where Eagle once stood. The phrase “paved over” feels literal here. The fields where kids played baseball and kickball are now lined with cars. The pools are gone, replaced by asphalt and retail entrances. The stadium-style benches exist only in 8mm film and in stories traded online among former campers. At the same time, this is exactly how many suburban corridors grew. The same highways that made day camps accessible also made the land valuable for retail. Nanuet is an example of that evolution, with the Thruway, Route 59, and the Palisades Center all shaping development over the last several decades.
What remains is not the physical camp but the network of people who went there. Former campers share memories of Chief Tahka Zees, lifeguard Mike, the bus rides from various neighborhoods, and favorite foods from the kitchen. There is even a Facebook group called “I Went to Eagle Day Camp” where former campers share memories and old photos. Some remember bunkmates who later became lifelong friends. Others recall learning to swim there, or at least learning not to panic in deep water. For me, the combination of personal home movies and what you can still observe today—the Home Depot address on Hutton Avenue and the hotels at Exit 14—helps connect memory to geography.
Eagle Day Camp no longer appears in any directory or brochure. But if you stand in that parking lot, close your eyes, and listen past the hum of cars and shopping carts, it doesn’t take much to imagine buses pulling in, counselors calling out groups, kids yelling “Let’s go, Dave!”, and Chief Tahka Zees’ whistle cutting across the pool. That mix of personal memory and local history is why a paved-over camp in Nanuet still matters to the people who spent their summers there.
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