A local writer who taught chess to South Bronx elementary students in the 1990s has published a new memoir detailing the career change that forever impacted the course of his students’ lives, along with his own.
David MacEnulty’s book, “Sunrise in the Bronx: Chess and Life Lessons from the South Bronx to the White House,” was released Oct. 15. He met with the Bronx Times at a Mott Haven cafe to recall his life as a chess player and teacher and the students whose lives were transformed by the game — many of whom are still in contact today.
MacEnulty took an unexpected pathway into teaching. He came from a family of musicians and, as a philosophy major at Florida State University, he “accidentally tried out for a play.” He discovered a love of acting and had some roles on stage and screen. But he later began a writing project on street crime in 1970s and 80s New York City, which quickly overtook his other interests. “Pretty soon, I was a writer, not an actor,” he said.
MacEnulty later moved up the ladder in real estate and in building management. One day, while working for unscrupulous property owners in the East Village, a longtime friend and chess master Bruce Pandolfini called MacEnulty and asked him to fill in for one day teaching chess to third graders.
At that time, MacEnulty was in his mid-40s, had never been in charge of a classroom and though he was a well-regarded chess player, he was not at the master level. But he ended up taking the sub job, and everything changed from there.
At Pandolfini’s encouragement, he happily quit his building management job to teach at Bronx and Harlem schools with the American Chess Foundation and finally landed at Community Elementary School 70 (C.E.S. 70) in the South Bronx as a full-time teacher of chess, which was a required class for kindergarten through second graders at the time.
The memoir details MacEnulty’s difficult early years as a new teacher — especially as a white man…
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