Lunar landing: Diane Green

Diane Green, 60, was a sophomore at Hofstra then. She is a fifth-grade teacher at Franklin Elementary School in Hempstead.

I had just migrated from Alabama to Maryland and from Maryland to Hofstra. I was a new student. I was busy trying to get oriented in New York and Long Island. I opened up a Malcolm X Center on Union Avenue in Hempstead. We had children come in, had tutoring for them, took them on trips, mentored them.

I especially remember downtown Hempstead Village then. It was bustling. Everything was happening. You had Sears. You had, I think, three movie theaters. There was Winstons. There was a bus terminal. There was Lerners. There was a hat shop. It was amazing to me. Hofstra was like a city within itself, and then outside you had all this stuff going on. It's changed so much now.

I remember talking to the kids about the moon landing. I remember the kids talking about it. I asked them, what it would be like on the moon. So we did a lesson on that. I think that made them feel like it was possible and then they started wanting to go into space. We were talking about gravity and the distance it would be from here to the moon. I think we also did a play on space. The children had come up with these space outfits.