On Friday, February 13, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and his wife, Jamie Snow-Markowitz, hosted hundreds of Brooklyn sweethearts who have been husband and wife for a half-century or more. The celebration at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge also featured the couples renewing their wedding vows, and several of the ‘newlyweds’ and BP and Jamie Markowitz were interviewed for an upcoming documentary that will chronicle the lives and loves of New Yorkers.

Sam and Hilda Weinberg took top honors as the longest married couple in attendance—an incredible 70 years of wedded bliss. Also on hand were Holocaust survivors Samuel and Pola Schanzer, who met in a displaced person’s camp during World War II and discovered they grew up in the same small town outside Krakow, Poland. She is 88, he is a spry 101, and he boasts that he doesn’t take a single medication. The Schanzers have been a happy couple for an amazing 61 years.

Two other couples, Rudy and Madeline Misiti and Paul and Anne Barone, share more than their secrets to a happy marriage—the two wives are also sisters! The Misitis met when they were only 17 years old, and Madeline recalls watching a movie at the old Mayfair Theater on Coney Island Avenue when Rudy, sitting in the row behind her, kept pulling her pigtail and hitting her in the head. Well, those “love taps” worked—they’ve been husband and wife for 56 years. The Barones are keeping pace at 54 years.

Even bandleader Barry Bloom, who provided musical entertainment, got into the act—proposing to his love, Susan. And she said yes!

Borough President Markowitz toasted all of the Brooklyn sweethearts with champagne, joined them for a spin on the dance floor accompanied by the love ballads of their youth, and capped off the festivities with wedding cake and sugar-free treats.

This year’s gathering was the sixth hosted by BP Markowitz, who happens to celebrate his birthday on Valentine’s Day and was smitten right here in Brooklyn when he met Jamie in the summer of 1999 on the beach at Kingsborough College. They were married at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden that November.