Why was Roosevelt so special?

One thing that happened to me that was surprizing was in 1979 when I found out that Howard Stern and I were both living in Bloomfield Connecticut. Was that a coincidence or what? We had gone to school together at Washington Rose and sort of lost track of one another, only to be reunited years later in Connecticut. I happened to be watching the news one day and saw local TV interviewing my old school chum Howard about some bit he did on "WCCC," Hartford's 'regressive' rock station. (Honestly, the worst of everything is in Hartford, CT) I thought to myself that it would be great to contact him at the station and find out what the hell he's been up to. The next day, I went to the Farmington Polo Grounds Antique show with my wife looking for some old crap when I happened to run into guess who...Howard! He was with his wife Alison and was living in Bloomfield less than an eigth of a mile up the road from where I was living. This was phenomenal news for me. One of my best school friends from Roosevelt a place of so many fond memories for me was now my neighbor.
I got together a couple of days later with Howard when our wives were out somewhere. He proceeded to tell me about how miserable he had been in Roosevelt and how he was getting his "ass kicked" on a daily basis and his lunch money ripped off too. Not until he came home with reading assignments that were geared for students 3 years his junior, did his parents consider moving. It was the Roosevelt curicullum, not the fact that he was used as a punching bag by his classmates, that got them heading for the suburbs of Rockville Center. woohoo!