N. Hills couple hunts for past, renew vows

Bill San Antonio

North Hills resident Gail Nizin likes to plan parties, but she doesn’t like her guests confined to stuffy cocktail hours and dull multi-course dinners.

So for her golden anniversary with husband Les, Nizin decided to treat her guests to a surprise.

After everyone had arrived for what they thought was a run-of-the-mill party Sunday afternoon, the Nizins split the partygoers into groups and handed them a list of clues.

They were going to scour Manhasset, Great Neck and Bellerose for keepsakes from the Nizins’ marriage on a scavenger hunt, and later meet under the Mary Jane Davies gazebo to watch them renew their vows as the sun set.

“I like to have a lot of fun and hanging around a cocktail party can get a bit boring, so I thought to have some fun with this,” Gail said. “I think people enjoy it when you do something different.”

Gail and Les briefly met at a high school dance in 1956, but it wasn’t until 1958 that they went on their first date to Rockaway Playland and talked into the wee hours of the morning on Gail’s front stoop.

The Nizins were engaged on Thanksgiving of 1962 and married a year later on Nov. 27, 1963 at Bellerose Jewish Center, where 50 years later their friends and family would take photos of themselves along one of the scavenger hunt’s many stops.

“We didn’t know exactly what they would do, but we knew they were going to do something special,” said Howie Stein, a friend of the Nizins who lives near them in the Greens Condominium and participated in the scavenger hunt. “Gail is very creative. You have to expect the unexpected with them.”

Initially, Gail said, she and her husband hadn’t planned on renewing their vows after their guests returned with the different items they collected.

But when their friend Audrey Mark passed away unexpectedly last week, the couple decided to get married all over again, with their daughters Barbara and Elizabeth, their families and friends in attendance.

“Life can be very bittersweet, that’s why when you have the opportunity to do things that are joyful with people you care about, you have to,” Gail said.

The Nizins hired a friend of Les’ from his work in the law field to perform the ceremony, in which the couple promised to be together another 50 years and beyond.

“Humor,” Gail said, explaining the key elements of their marriage. “Humor has always been big for us. My husband’s general disposition, he’s very easy-going and easy to get along with. We’ve just always gotten along so well.”

Stein said his friends of 12 years “complement each other well, intellectually and artistically.”

“They still have a flair for passion,” he added.

Gail said she’s always enjoyed planning creative parties, once organizing an “fashionless” Sweet 16 party for Elizabeth in which guests spent as little money as possible to dress as strangely as they could.

But Gail said she went to particularly great lengths for Sunday’s scavenger hunt, telling the story of her romance through a five-page poem containing clues of dates and locations where her guests would find mementos to gather and photograph.  

It was also crucial for at least one member of each group to have a smartphone, as some of the clues were for names of classic movies the Nizins saw while they were dating, Gail said.

“We tried to base it all on where we lived and things we did together,” Gail said.

Stein said Sunday’s expedition wasn’t the first scavenger hunt the Nizins have hosted. 

For Les’ 70th birthday, Gail organized a similar hunt through the Museum of Sex in Manhattan.

“I thought their topic this time around was great, with there being all these little things from their relationship,” Stein said. “I don’t know how they remembered everything, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to. I remember where I got married, but the colors she was wearing and the table near the window of the pancake shop, it just shows how much they care about each other. It matters to them. They’re a great couple.”

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