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Photo from Pixabay

The print news industry is concerned about a proposed bill by New York State.

Currently, the state Senate is working on legislation sponsored by Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach). According to the bill S1185B in the Senate and S1185A in the Assembly, called the Extended Producer Responsibility Act, if passed, the act will require the producers of covered materials “to develop and implement strategies to promote recycling, reuse and recovery of packaging and paper products.”

Producers of certain waste materials will need to have an approved producer responsibility plan to sell or distribute their products, either by complying individually or joining a producer responsibility organization. The plan would have to be submitted to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation for approval.

Companies of waste products such as plastic bottles and paper products will have to contribute to plan costs to compensate municipal budgets, which will transfer the cost of recycling from the municipalities to packaging and paper product producers.

In an email to community newspaper publishers, Michelle Rea, executive director of the New York Press Association, asked NYPA members to reach out to their legislators to ask that the bill be amended to remove newspapers.

“Newspaper publishers have been good stewards of the environment for decades,” Rea said in the email. “In 1989 New York’s newspaper industry entered into a voluntary agreement with the State of New York to increase their usage of recycled newsprint to 40% by the year 2000.  Recycling damages the fiber in newsprint, so a minimum of 50% new fiber is required to maintain quality. Newsprint with too little new fiber tears when the presses are running and causes the ink to blot.”

Rea added that newsprint accounts for less than 7% of solid waste, newspapers are compostable, as well as reusable, biodegradable and the ink is nontoxic.

“S1185A will not increase or improve the recycling of newspapers — it will simply shift the cost of recycling from municipalities to newspapers,” she said. “Newspapers are already suffering from revenue declines caused by COVID-19 and big tech platforms. Burdening newspapers with the cost of recycling will result in layoffs, further eroding citizen access to essential local news and information.”

According to Kaminsky, newspapers and magazines combined make up 15% of New York state curbside recycling.

“I understand that our publishing industry, especially with newspapers, is in a precarious position, and we certainly don’t want to do anything to harm their ability to get news out to the public, so these are certainly issues that we’re grappling with,” he said.

In the state Assembly the bill is sponsored by Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket). He said newspapers were not included in an Assembly bill drafted last year and the concentration was on plastics which he feels is the main problem.

Englebright added that the bill is currently in the working stages and adjustments will be made before the legislation is finalized. He agreed that newspapers are already largely recycled, and the direction of the bill was to clean up the mixture of paper and plastic.

He said helping to prevent the comingling of plastic and paper is important.

“We’re just trying to put our local municipalities in a position of being able to move toward having markets again,” Englebright said. “When China closed the market [in 2018] it had a profound impact on local municipalities, but it’s also a wakeup call that we can’t just send mixed plastic and paper and different species of plastic, no less all mixed together, and expect that another country’s going to be able to make any more use of it than we can.”

Englebright added that many plastic producers use different types of plastics from polyethylene to polypropylene to polyvinyl chloride which can make recycling difficult.

“The capture of newspapers was certainly not something that was the intention of our Assembly bill drafters, and I suspect it’s the same with the Senate,” he said. “This is a process, and we’re early in the process. We are going to be refining these bills.”

Kaminsky said there is no date yet as to when the bill will be brought to the state Senate floor, and the earliest it will be is sometime in April.

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Peggy Loucks holds up photos of her late father, Allen Ulmer, and his creation, Micro-Face. Photo by Julianne Mosher

A character who ended up in the public domain is now being resurrected, given a new life. 

Photo from Peggy Loucks

Peggy Loucks, of Port Jefferson, received a call last month from a co-host with NPR’s “Planet Money” podcast — a show that tries to find creative and entertaining ways to make sense of big, complicated economical processes — asking for her blessing regarding her late father, a comic book artist.

One time, the podcast made a T-shirt, tracing the supply chain from the cotton source to the factory. It purchased and followed the travel of 100 barrels of crude oil from ground to gas, and even launched a satellite. 

In February, the podcast decided it wanted to purchase a superhero. 

Kenny Malone, a co-host with the show, said that “Planet Money” wanted to investigate the superhero entertainment economy. He was joined by fellow host Robert Smith.

“Superhero movies had become the highest grossing movies — the merchandising around superheroes was also incredibly large,” Malone said. “So, we wanted to understand this.”

Malone noticed that characters who were making tons of money were not new — they were all characters that were between 40 to even 70 years old — and they are part of the two major superhero conglomerates, Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

“We had this idea,” he said. “What if we tried to buy a superhero off one of those companies? What if we tried to buy one of their older characters that is just not very well known? And then we could try to figure out how to build a mini-superhero empire.”

In need of a hero

The three-part series, which aired on Feb. 12, 19 and 26, dove into the team’s attempt to buy a superhero off Marvel — originally asking to bid for Doorman, whose superpower is to turn into a door. He never had his own movie for obvious reasons. 

After several attempts to contact Marvel for interviews and to purchase the unhinged superhero, they declined and eventually stopped responding. 

“We think they declined for an interesting economic reason,” Malone said. “Even the silliest unknown character has the potential to become a $10 million, $100 million piece of intellectual property.”

In its first episode of the series, “We Buy a Superhero: Origins,” the duo mentioned “Guardians of the Galaxy” character Groot who was once deemed undesirable, but who is now a pop-culture icon. 

The guys behind “Planet Money” had to find a new tactic. They were on a mission. They began looking into copyright law and what happens to a creative entity when it gets moved to the public domain. 

“Every piece of copyright eventually falls out of copyright and gets put into the public domain where it is fair game for anybody to do something with,” Malone said.

Photo from Loucks

Part of it is to incentivize creativity, he added, where the creator can get exclusive rights to it, and make a profit. But the other part of it, is as a country when copyright law was established, was that if people hold onto that copyright forever, it could stifle creativity. 

“A second phase of creativity can be spawned, and people can do things with those characters, songs, books,” Malone said. “And much to our delight, we learned characters fall into the public domain. Superheroes will eventually fall into the public domain.”

Malone and Smith began delving into the world of public domain superheroes, going through hundreds upon hundreds of characters who once graced the pages of books. 

“We stumbled across this character that we could not believe was real,” he said. “We couldn’t believe it was not custom made for us.”

That character was from the golden age of superheroes, created in the 1940s featuring a mask and giant microphone upon his face as his power. His name was Micro-Face, who appeared in Clue Comics from Hillman publishing. 

A podcaster of the past

“This is basically like a 1940s podcaster, even though they didn’t know what a podcast was yet,” Malone said. “We loved it.”

Micro-Face was in the public domain — so he was fair game to do anything with — but the guys at “Planet Money” wanted to find out more about this lost superhero. That’s when they found out that the artist who created him, Allen Ulmer, had a daughter who was still alive and living right here in Port Jefferson. 

According to Loucks, Ulmer, who passed away in 1984 at age 64, was an artist back in the golden age of comic books. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he studied at the Pennsylvania School of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, but always loved creating his own comic characters. 

“So, he moved to New York City and joined the art league there,” Loucks said. 

Ulmer began working for several different comic book companies, including Marvel, DC and Hillman. He took a break from drawing when he served in World War II, but then came back from the war and continued his artistry until the 1950s. 

But during that time, there was an attack on the superhero industry that no one could help save. Between the McCarthy era, plus the backlash among parents who blamed comic books for their children’s delinquency, comic books became censored and hundreds of artists and publishers lost their jobs. 

“My father was on that blacklist,” she said.

Photo from Peggy Loucks

Now 83, and a retired librarian from the Middle Country Public Library, Loucks was just 5 when her father initially created the superhero now getting a facelift.

“Micro-Face was one of his favorite characters [who] never had the chance to take off,” Loucks said. 

When Ulmer lost his job, he moved his family to Long Island where he was a founder of the Port Jefferson Arts Festival and a member of the Art League of Long Island of Dix Hills. He began focusing on fine art and educational film, never doing comics again.

For whatever reason, the publisher decided decades ago not to renew the copyright for Micro-Face, leaving the character to fall into the public domain. 

Malone and Smith knew they didn’t necessarily have to ask Loucks for her permission to use the character, but they felt it was right to talk to her, find out more about his creator and keep that legacy alive. 

“My father would have loved this,” Loucks said. “You know, who would have thought that after all these years? Here comes this character back into the public eye again.”

The future of Micro-Face

Malone said that now that the three-part series is completed — and available for streaming online now — they will continue working toward actually creating a comic book based on Micro-Face. 

Working alongside comic book industry leaders, the team plans on writing a book based on the grandson Tom Wood — the alter ego of Micro-Face originally drawn by Ulmer in the ’40s.

“This person is our new character and he works in radio like us,” Malone said. “So, this is going to allow us to write in some plot points about business and economics and have a little bit of learning … but this is fundamentally still a comic book and is inspired by the direct heritage to the character Peggy’s father created.”

Malone said he does not know the exact release date of the comic book, but it is currently being worked on by the new Micro-Face team at “Planet Money.” Joining the podcasters are Alex Segura, co-president of Archie Comics and friend of Malone, Jerry Ordway, Peter Krause, Taylor Esposito and Ellie Wright — “all of who know what they’re doing when it comes to building a comic empire,” Malone said. 

He added that to continue with the “Planet Money” way of immersing themselves into the actual process, they will be updating listeners every step of the way. 

Peggy Loucks holds up photos of her late father, Allen Ulmer, and his creation, Micro-Face. Photo by Julianne Mosher

“We’re very excited about it,” Malone said. “You start these things, and you don’t know where they’re going to take you, but Peggy is just amazing and her father really was prolific. It makes me very sad to think that he clearly was very good and very creative, and the industry just was rocked in a way that knocked a lot of people out of it.”

While listeners and comic book lovers wait for the revival of Micro-Face, T-shirts are currently available on NPR’s website featuring Ulmer’s original design. Proceeds from the sales go back to the nonprofit National Public Radio to support radio shows and reporting.  

“Peggy told us that she was very excited about this,” Malone said. “Her father would have liked this project, so that made us very happy and made it make us feel good going forward with this.”

Stay tuned.

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) File photo by Sara Meghan Walsh

To hear that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has been accused of sexual harassment is distressing, but to read that many elected officials would like to see the governor resign or be impeached is just as disappointing.

While all of the women’s allegations should be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly, Cuomo just like any other American deserves due process. Innocent until proven guilty is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. He deserves that process, too.

To ask the governor to resign or impeach him, would not only go against due process, but it would go against the wishes of the majority of New Yorkers who voted him in office.

We understand that Cuomo has exhibited behavior in the past that may seem aggressive or arrogant. The potential that he could have committed such acts is there, but until the alleged victims and witnesses are thoroughly questioned, a decision about his future as New York governor must be put on hold.

No matter what the outcome, this is a lesson for all. For men, it’s time to understand that women are their equals and must be treated as such. Women are not playthings or ornaments to be ogled or fondled at a man’s desire. Females just like males have talents and skills and contribute to society. Just like their male counterparts, they have the right to feel comfortable in their workplace and every space for that matter.

The 20th century is more than 20 years behind us. Women are more than wives and mothers, they are teachers, doctors, lawyers, legislators, journalists, scientists, CEOs and so much more. It is time to recognize and respect the strides women have taken throughout the decades by treating them with the respect they deserve. No person should ever feel uncomfortable in any circumstance, especially in a workplace, because they feel someone will touch them in inappropriate places or talk about uncomfortable topics.

But it still happens. No matter how many sexual harassment trainings there are, there is always someone somewhere who thinks it doesn’t apply to them.

And it doesn’t have to be someone inappropriately touching you or making you do something you don’t wish to do. It could be a remark, a comment, an email or a note. We’ve seen and heard it all. For years, women didn’t want to speak up. They felt like they couldn’t. Now, thanks to the #MeToo movement and other women sharing their stories, they are able to discuss what they’ve been through and people are now listening.

For women, this is a reminder to speak up when we see something inappropriate. If someone crosses the line, it’s OK to say, “No,” or “Stop.” Or, whatever you need to say or do to make the behavior stop. If it continues, have the strength to report the person to human resources and file a complaint. Even in social situations, it’s OK to tell family and friends you will no longer be at social gatherings if a certain person attends.

Of course, as human beings, we all have different boundaries and senses of humor, but if you laugh at a joke that you know women will find offensive, don’t hesitate to say, “I know I laughed, but others may find that inappropriate.”

Last but not least, we must educate our boys and girls. It’s important that they learn that everyone should be treated equally. We must always take their pains and discomforts seriously, ask the right questions to get to the heart of the matter. This way they can forge ahead in life knowing that if they feel boundaries have been crossed, they have the confidence to speak up.

Women and men have been at odds for too long. It’s time to unite. It starts today with respect for all and believing that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

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Photo from Pixabay

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

No matter how much uncertainty and anxiety clouds our lives, the passion that inspires us can  penetrate the haze.

My retired neighbors, whom I see regularly on our walks, have shared their lives with us over the last year, offering news updates about their two grown children as well as their pursuit of vaccinations. Amid all the other news, they shared a development in their backyard that has completely captivated their attention.

Andrea and Bob said they were doing their usual gardening, trimming their bushes and reseeding their lawn, when they noticed something new next to their grill. Two mallards had decided to nest in a nearby bush.

The presence of this nest has captivated them to such a degree that it’s clear that the first place they look when they return from their walks is in the direction of the nest. They are eager to see whether their visitors, whom they assure us will take about the same 28 days to hatch that it takes between each of the two Moderna vaccinations for COVID, have pushed their way out of their eggs.

Each day, the parent mallards swim in their pool, taking short breaks from their early parenting duties to wade back and forth in a water body that Andrea and Bob assure us won’t have any chemicals or even salt until later in the summer.

They seem so thrilled to host their new guests that the bird droppings or other germs that might clog their filter or encourage bacterial growth don’t seem to concern them.

Indeed, they are so focused on these duck eggs that they have told anyone who ventures in their backyard, including insect control experts, not to spray or go near the nest.

Just to make sure the nest remains undisturbed from human activities, they have also put sawhorses — the kinds of temporary fencing police use to control crowds and building managers use to keep people away from exclusive entrances and exits to buildings — on either side of the nest.

Once the ducks hatch, they plan to take pictures from their window or around their yard, sharing them with friends and family.

The excitement this nest has created not only speaks to the Groundhog Day nature of our lives, but also to the core passion some people feel for nature.

When the right kind of animals appear, and I suspect a young raccoon or a nest of vultures wouldn’t make the cut, people will go well out of their way to support those creatures and to encourage the safety of their young.

Perhaps the arrival of spring and the renewal and hope it brings offers a fitting backdrop for the affection and appreciation of this collection of eggs.

After all, this spring in particular is unlike any other, as people hope to get vaccinated, emerge from their versions of hibernations and plan, tentatively, for the next steps over the next few months and year.

We will hopefully see friends and family we haven’t seen in months or even a year and, in some cases, will also visit with extended friends and family fortunate enough to have added new life to their ranks as well. Despite the baby bust, two sisters in my wife’s extended family gave birth to baby girls within weeks of each other. They will have their own stories to tell, passed down to them from their parents and extended family, about the unusual and challenging environment into which they were born.

In the meantime, however, Andrea and Bob can plan for something in the next few weeks that is unexpected, unplanned and wonderful: the hatching of new ducklings.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

For the first time in many months, I went out to a restaurant for a meal. It was breakfast and I was joined in this remarkable activity by a good friend who, like me, has had both vaccine shots plus the requisite 14-day period for the second one to take effect. There was no one else in the restaurant, although by the time we left, a couple of tables, in the distance, were occupied. It felt … familiar yet a little odd … to be sitting there, waiting to be served. We all wore masks, the waiter and the two of us, at least until the food arrived and we were about to eat. It was nice eating hot food instead of the cooled down takeout meals in the aluminum or Styrofoam containers we occasionally had brought home. 

The food tasted delicious, perhaps partly because I was savoring those first bites. And the pleasure of sharing the experience with someone across the table whom I had only spoken to on the phone during these many pandemic weeks was a delight. I could see her face, and not just her eyes and eyebrows. How lovely it all was. How normal!

In fact, according to a front page article in The New York Times this past Monday, we seniors who have been twice vaccinated have become the “life of the party.” We older folks, who got the shots ahead of everyone else, are “emerging this spring with the daffodils, tilting [our] faces to the sunlight outdoors. [We are] filling restaurants, hugging grandchildren and booking flights.”

The article goes on to declare an upside-down world of generational reversal in which the older folks are drinking the martinis and crowding around the bars instead of the more typical scene populated by the younger set. Two-thirds of Americans over 65 have started getting vaccinated and 38 percent have completed the process compared to 12 percent of the general population. Many older people are still maintaining cautious lives as mutations of the virus may pose unknown threats, and the unvaccinated are still at risk if those who have had the shots turn out to be inadvertent carriers. Of course, this is the demographic segment that also has suffered the most losses, as the senior, more medically vulnerable were the main cohort stricken by the deadly coronavirus.

Still, despite the greater risks, recent studies have shown that the older generation throughout this pandemic was less concerned with the threat of COVID-19 and was associated with better emotional well-being and more daily positive events. Under the constant stress, their coping skills were relatively strong, a benefit of aging, and they reported less stress.

As of Monday, 60 million Americans had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, more than 31 million are fully vaccinated, and more than 2 million people are being vaccinated every day. But we know that the pandemic is not over by any means, and the worst possibility at this point would be for us to suffer another surge the way European countries presently are.

It’s still hard to know what is safe. Despite the science, there are several unanswered questions. including how long vaccinated protection will last and whether the vaccines can continue to defend against the new, more contagious and more virulent variants. We can gather in private homes with small groups of likewise vaccinated without masks or distancing and even with single families whose members have not yet been inoculated but are at low risk for developing severe illness should they catch the virus. This best applies to grandparents who may now visit unvaccinated children and grandchildren without masks and social distancing.

In public places, however, those who have had their shots should still wear their masks, practice social distancing, avoid poorly ventilated spaces and frequently wash their hands. Long-distance travel is still discouraged.

We are so near and yet still so far.

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Magician Alexander Boyce. Photo from Vanderbilt Museum

Get ready to be amazed! 

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will offer private, in-person magic shows on Friday, April 2, and Friday, April 9, featuring the renowned magician Alexander Boyce. 

You can reserve a group ticket for up to 12 people, members: $120; non-members $130. Individual shows are 30 minutes long.

The Alexander Boyce Magic Show is an amazing sleight-of-hand and mind-reading event. Boyce has performed on national television, at The Magic Castle in Hollywood, and was recently featured in The New York Times. The Times has called Boyce “sophisticated.” The Philadelphia Inquirer said he is “enchanting.”

The recent New York University graduate also performed in the long-running hit Speakeasy Magick at the McKittrick Hotel in NYC.

Time Out New York called the show, “highly skilled close-up magic that really leaves you gasping with wonder.” Recently, he was one of the first American magicians to be invited to entertain in Cuba since the revolution.

For more information, or to make a reservation, call 631-854-5579 or visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org.

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Photo by Julianne Mosher
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Photo by Julianne Mosher
Some of the metals recycled at Saturday's event. Photo by Julianne Mosher
Photo by Julianne Mosher
Metals donated by residents at the Metal for Tesla event. Photo by Julianne Mosher
Photo by Julianne Mosher
A statue of the great inventor. Photo by Julianne Mosher
The lab. Photo by Julianne Mosher
Photo by Julianne Mosher
Tesla's lab. Photo by Julianne Mosher
A sneak peek inside the Tesla lab. Photo by Julianne Mosher
With the right funds, the vacant and vandalized lab will be turned into a beautiful new center. Photo by Julianne Mosher
Another behind the scenes look at the lab. Photo by Julianne Mosher
One of the vacant buildings to be turned into the visitor center. Photo by Julianne Mosher

In an ongoing process to keep Nikola Tesla’s legacy alive on Long Island’s North Shore, the first-ever “Metal for Tesla” event was recently held, benefiting both the environment and the nonprofit’s cause.

The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, located in Shoreham, is Nikola Tesla’s last remaining laboratory. A sad, but interesting history, the lab has been working toward becoming a science museum, that celebrates science, along with the history and contributions of the famed scientist and inventor. 

But the funds aren’t always easy to come by, and it’s taken the support from dozens of sponsors, fundraising, grants and crowdsourcing to get where they are today. 

On Saturday, March 20 from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., over 250 people attended the site and more than 16,000 people around the world shared the event to recycle in their areas and donate to the Tesla Center online. The center partnered with Gershow Recycling. 

Science Center Executive Director Marc Alessi said they have recycled metal on the premise before, and since taking over the site, have recycled up to 62 tons (or 124,000 pounds) of metal. That has equated to be about $6,500.

This year, they raised approximately $9,500 in metal, plus the value of four cars, to support the rebuilding of Tesla’s lab into a museum and global science center for all. 

“It’s money that goes toward the mission, which is rehabilitating the lab and opening it to the public,” Alessi said. “But the mission is also spreading Nikola Tesla’s ethos … he was someone that was advocating for sustainability, conservation and the use of renewable energies in the 1890s. And in retrospect, he was right on the money.”

A man before his time

Alessi said that during the height of Tesla’s career, people didn’t know what he was trying to do. Born in what is now Croatia, and of Serbian descent, Nikola Tesla immigrated to the United States in 1884.

“But he was a man of the world,” Alessi said. 

He began working at the Edison Corporation, where he was immediately seen as a genius. Upon his research, he began realizing that alternating current systems — compared to Edison’s direct current systems — would be more beneficial and safer option. 

“With one power plant, you can power many neighborhoods and factories,” Alessi said. “Under Tesla’s use of AC, and the way he put it together, it could power motors …. Direct current, you would need a power plant every two miles. Can you imagine what our environment would be like if they tried to electrify doing that?”

He believed that energy didn’t have to be a rich man’s luxury. Energy could be available to all and powered naturally. He believed he could power the whole Northeastern seaboard with Niagara Falls. 

Tesla and Edison became engrossed in a battle, leaving Tesla to attempt to start his own company with plenty of struggle. Throughout his career, he had his ups and downs.

“Even though he had over 200 patents and invented radio, remote control, the speedometer, and the technology behind neon lighting, fluorescent lighting and early forms of X-ray,”  Alessi said, “Tesla didn’t look at other inventors as competition.”

For example, Guglielmo Marconi used 17 of Tesla’s patents to help create his single transmission. 

In the early 1900s Tesla acquired the Wardenclyffe property in Shoreham to test his theories of being able to wirelessly transmit electrical messages, funded by J.P. Morgan. The property housed a huge 187-foot tower for the purpose.

In 1903 creditors confiscated his equipment, and in 1917 the tower was demolished. The concrete feet used to hold the structure can still be seen on the property today. 

Tesla was eventually cut off, causing him to lose control of the site. The property became a film processing company in the early 30s, where harsh chemicals were dumped into the ground. The contaminated property was sold again and became shuttered in 1987. 

A decades-long cleanup ensued, and in 2007 the property was put back up for sale. 

The community — locally, nationally and even internationally — came together to fundraise to buy the property, preserve it and make it a real historic site. 

“They did a crowdfunding on Indiegogo, and at the time, it set a world record,” Alessi said. “They raised 1.4 million in six weeks, from 108 countries and 50 states — 33,000 donors,”

The site

Over the last few years, things have been moving along for the Tesla Science Center site. Through more fundraising and big-name sponsors (like Elon Musk who contributed some money), plans are continuously on the way. 

In September, renovations were completed on the chimney and cupola of Tesla’s historic laboratory, originally constructed by architect Stanford White in 1902. This project was funded by a grant from the Robert Lion Gardiner Foundation — a foundation here on Long Island that focuses on funding to restore historic sites.

Alessi said the project costs about $20 million and so far, $10.2 million has been raised. Permits with the town and DEC are still under review to begin working on the site’s visitor center — a small white house in the front of the property, which had nothing to do with Tesla. He’s hoping for the demo permit and the center to be completed this year. 

“We will continue to raise capital,” he said. “We need at least five-to-10 million to finish the lab building and put exhibits there.”

Part of the process includes rebuilding the significant 187-foot tower that was once on the property.

“It was the tallest structure on Long Island, it went up almost 200-feet into the ground,” Alessi added.

Tesla had envisioned 14 towers around the world, with power plants similar to what the Wardenclyffe lab was. 

“The beauty of it, is this guy wanted to provide free energy to everybody,” he said. “Imagine everybody having free power with 14 power plants. It’s a beautiful story — and that’s what the part of what the tower was supposed to be.”

Bringing the metal back

It all comes full circle, Alessi said, and it’s quite ironic. 

“When Tesla lost control of the property, they demolished his famed tower, sold it for scrap and recycled it,” he said. “So now, we’re asking people to bring metal back to the site, so that we can restore the site, and one day we build the tower, too.”

Alessi said that since taking over the property, the center has always encouraged people to donate recycled metal to the bin on site. This year was the first time a whole event was dedicated to it. 

“This is something we plan to do every year,” Alessi said. “It helps raise funding for the lab, but it also helps celebrate who Tesla was. I think it’s a really great event.”

And people can still continue to donate metal to the cause.

“This is a guy that in the 1890s said, ‘Don’t go down the path of coal … we need to be sustainable,” Alessi said. “We need to conserve, so it makes us feel like we’re making him proud by doing this on his site.”

This article was updated to fix historical inaccuracies. 

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Photo by Julianne Mosher

A pandemic couldn’t stop a group of local residents from growing their nonprofit. 

Established in 2010, Strong Island Animal Rescue is a 501c3 that focuses on answering local calls regarding injured, abused and neglected animals.

“We started out with cats and dogs, and then we saw a need for wildlife rescue,” said vice president of the rescue Erica Kutzing. 

Just last week, president of Strong Island Animal Rescue Frankie Floridia, of Port Jefferson Station, helped save a raccoon in Bohemia that was trapped in a car grill, after the driver hit it and got stuck.

Within minutes, Floridia and other volunteers safely removed the animal, who is expected to make a full recovery.

Frankie with a baby deer. Photo from Erica Kutzing

“We’re available 24, seven days a week for abandoned and abused animals,” he said. “We’re a local rescue that likes to give back to the community and we’re always here for everybody. That’s the way it’s been, and we’d like to keep it that way.”

Whether it’s a trapped raccoon, a deer with a paint can stuck on its head, a mother cat and her kittens found in a shed or an abused puppy left on the side of a road, Strong Island has dedicated their lives to helping animals. 

Kutzing, of Sound Beach, has more than two decades of animal rescue and animal medicine experience.  

“I think back to when I was 12-year-old little girl who started out more than 22 years ago,” she said. “And I don’t think I ever expected this to actually happen. It was always a dream, but seeing it come to fruition has been like an out of body experience — even though we’re doing it during a pandemic.”

Floridia said that the pandemic has made it hard for fundraising efforts, since before the lock downs they were able to hold events.

“It’s been a tough year for us, not having those events that we have usually every other month,” he said. “Fundraising is all based online now, and thank goodness for that, but we can’t wait to get back to having an event in the place and being able to do stuff like we did before.”

And just this month, they were gifted one generous donation — a new property.

Neighbors of Floridia, Valerie Rosini and Alan Haas, had owned a home in the area that they knew would help the group out. 

Right now, the location is under wraps while they clean up the space, but Floridia said he plans on using the three-acre property as a clubhouse and meeting space for their dozens of volunteers.

Erica Kutzing and Frankie Floridia in front of their secret new clubhouse in Port Jefferson, joined by pup Dolly, daughter Shea, Valarie Rosini and Alan Haas. Photo by Julianne Mosher

Surrounded by woods, wildlife roams the backyard, making it the perfect spot for animals to feel safe, while animal lovers plan their next move. 

“He wants to do something good,” Rosini said. “These guys don’t even take a salary.”

The couple said they could have sold the massive property to developers but knew that the cottage and woods surrounding it are special. If they cleared the area, birds, deer and other wildlife could have lost their home. When Rosini sold the spot to the volunteers, it became a new partnership and friendship of neighbors helping neighbors.

“Alan’s been coming down, Val’s been helping out the rescue … so it’s not only getting them motivated to be part of the rescue, as well,” Floridia said. “We’re all helping each other and we’re saving animals.”

Kutzing said the property will give them the ability to turn the space into an actual meeting space, instead of utilizing their homes. 

“Eventually we’ll be able to turn this into our dream,” she said. 

And the extra room will be helpful as the team gears toward their busy season — baby season. 

To keep doing what they’re doing, Strong Island is always looking for the public’s help in raising funds and donations. 

Floridia said people who want to contribute can follow Strong Island Animal Rescue on Facebook or Instagram, and visit strongislandanimalrescueleague.org.

“We’ve always been the type of group that gives to the community,” he said. “And hopefully, it’ll come back.”

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Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan, Executive Director of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum Jennifer Vacca/Zoot Shoot Photographers

By Melissa Arnold

Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan is no stranger to the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport. She’s been on staff at the museum for 11 years now in a variety of roles before being named executive director last year. The California native has spent time living on both coasts, all the while developing a deep love for the arts and culture. Those passions ultimately led her to Long Island and the historic estate she is honored to care for. 

Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan, Executive Director of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum
Jennifer Vacca/Zoot Shoot Photographers

How did you get interested in museum work? 

I guess it started when I was a young child. My mother is an artist and we often visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. From that early age I was enthralled with the art of other cultures, which led me to study fine arts and anthropology in college.

What are your major responsibilities? 

Right now, my primary focus is to carefully steer the museum through this extraordinarily difficult time and to see that it thrives into the future. I am directly involved with managing the museum’s day-to-day functions, and work with our incredibly talented staff to develop our programming. Recently, that’s included virtual education, astronomy and natural-history programs, rotating exhibitions, and engaging outdoor events.

What attracted you to the museum and what are some of your favorite things about it now?

I was initially attracted to the cultural aspects and the beauty and history of the estate and the mansion. Those facets represent a unique opportunity to connect a wide range of educational themes and to bring history to life. 

The Vanderbilt is a living museum of a singular era in American history. From the late 19th century to the 1930s, more than 1,200 of the country’s richest and most powerful individuals built sprawling summer estates along the north shore of Long Island, known as the Gold Coast. William K. Vanderbilt II’s Eagle’s Nest is one of the few that remain. 

I love that we’ve become not only a regional destination but also an attraction for international visitors. During the last few years, we welcomed guests from more than 40 countries.

One of my favorite secluded spots on the property is the Wishing Well Garden. It’s a lovely, peaceful place to sit and reflect. My favorite building other than the mansion is the large, Tudor-style boathouse. Its covered porch offers striking panoramic views of the Northport Bay, where Mr. Vanderbilt anchored his yachts and began his voyages.  

Tell me a bit about the museum’s history and what it has to offer. 

Mr. Vanderbilt wanted a summer place far from the bustle of New York City. He found this property and bought it 1910. He told friends that on an early visit, he saw an eagle soaring over his property and decided to call his estate Eagle’s Nest. He built the mansion in stages and finished it in 1936.

He loved the natural world and the oceans, and explored them during voyages on his yacht. He created a marine museum on his estate and called it the Hall of Fishes. It was the first stage of what became his larger museum complex. He opened it to the public on a limited basis in 1922.  

Mr. Vanderbilt circumnavigated the world twice. Not just for pleasure, but also to build his museum. Eventually he amassed the largest collection of privately assembled marine specimens from the pre-atomic era. We have 22 wild-animal habitat dioramas and a collection of more than 40,000 objects. Two collection highlights are a 32-foot whale shark and a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy.

Do you have a favorite event at the museum that you look forward to? 

For years, my highlight of every summer has been Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra, who have performed for 13 years in the Mansion courtyard. The beautiful Spanish architecture makes guests feel as if they’ve been transported to a romantic evening in Latin America. I also really enjoyed our Halloween Wicked Walk and holiday Bright Lights events last year.

What do you feel you’ve brought to the table as director so far? Do you have goals for the museum?  

Steering the Vanderbilt through the pandemic-induced crisis has been a challenge of a lifetime. Safety has been paramount. Beyond that, I firmly believe that my most important job has been to empower and motivate the staff and to create a positive and collaborative environment. We are all protective of this special place. The pandemic shutdown allowed us additional time to concentrate on grant writing and fundraising and to uncover new opportunities. Financial stability is our most important goal, and we aim to build upon innovative programming that will produce essential income. 

A very exciting project is the reclamation of Mr. Vanderbilt’s original nature trails. Hikers can wander through forested sections of the estate and stop at vantage points that offer spectacular views of the bay.

Our virtual astronomy and natural-history education outreach to regional schools has been very successful, and we’re looking to expand that.

Another important goal is to digitize the collections. In doing so, we’ll be able to share more details of Mr. Vanderbilt’s fascinating life and global explorations. We’re starting with the Vanderbilt’s collection of 6,000 photos. 

We are renovating Mr. Vanderbilt’s large, four-bay garage to create an up-to-date version of the existing Vanderbilt Learning Center with enhanced technology.

What else is in the works?

Our restoration projects are moving forward. We’re working on the exterior of Normandy Manor, the mansion facades and bell tower, and Nursery Wing. 

Very important to the museum’s future is the Historic Waterfront Project. We are looking for donors to help us restore the boathouse, granite seawall, seaplane hangar, and esplanade. It has been closed to the public for a long time and is the museum’s greatest current challenge.

How did the museum function last year? Did you offer masked tours, virtual events, etc.? 

All staff that were able to work virtually began to do so immediately. Their support and dedication is how we’re getting through this time. Many are longtime colleagues who know and understand the museum and its operations well. News of a pandemic was certainly shocking, but we pulled together as a strong team and have been navigating these turbulent times very well. 

The museum-education and planetarium staffs began right away to create virtual programming. They made downloadable projects for children that presented intriguing facts about animals and birds in the natural-history collections. We posted the projects on our website so parents could print images for their children to read, color or paint. The planetarium produced astronomy learning videos on topics such as exploring Mars, rockets, black holes, and using a telescope. On June 12, the state allowed the museum to reopen its estate grounds safely. 

We built a large screen and held movie nights in our parking lot; offered exterior architectural tours of the mansion; and bird talks and owl prowls with an ornithologist. We offered mini-wedding ceremonies and elopements. We created a Halloween ‘Wicked Walk,’ and a December holiday ‘Bright Lights’ event with social distancing policies.

In the fall, when we were able to open the buildings at 25% capacity, we offered small-group mansion tours and planetarium shows before closing for the winter months.

What do you have planned this year?

The staff has many projects underway, including an installation in the newly restored Lancaster Room of the exhibition “Alva Belmont: Socialite to Suffragist,” which explores the women’s voting rights activism of Mr. Vanderbilt’s mother, Alva Belmont Vanderbilt. 

Our first big outdoor event for 2021 will be Vandy Land. It’s an outdoor game day for everyone It will open on March 27 and run through April 3. Actors will portray kid-friendly characters, and we’ll have vendors, crafts, musical entertainment, refreshments, and the Easter Bunny. 

As a special Vandy Land attraction, we will commemorate Mr. Vanderbilt’s original estate golf course by building an 18-hole mini-golf course. Everyone who plays in what we’re calling the William K. Vanderbilt Golf Classic will be entered into our big prize drawing. After school vacation is over, we’ll keep the golf course open every Saturday and Sunday during the day through the end of April, and on Thursday through Saturday evenings, too.

Why do you think the Vanderbilt Museum is such a special place? 

The atmosphere is magical. This is one of the only remaining Gold Coast mansions. We offer a glimpse into the past. The mansion has been kept exactly as it was when the Vanderbilts lived here. In particular, the rooms display personal effects — a teapot and cup on a side table next to Rosamond’s bed, books and papers on William’s desk, and open suitcases with clothes in the guest rooms. The impression this creates is that the family is living there, but has stepped out for the afternoon.

When you walk the grounds, the smell of salt air complements the view. You see hawks and osprey soaring overhead, and the striking Spanish architecture of the mansion. The experience is relaxing and soothing. It’s a visual and sensory trip back in time.

Why is it so important to keep this part of Long Island’s history alive? 

The Vanderbilt family and its vast railroad holdings were essential in the development of this country. When you walk through the mansion and museum, you are surrounded by rare fine and decorative art and furnishings, some of it centuries old. It’s a time-machine stroll through a storied era of elite, privileged lives on Long Island’s Gold Coast. 

We are an informal education institution, as Mr. Vanderbilt intended. The museum continues this mission through its education programs and offerings — to the public and to more than 25,000 schoolchildren each year. It’s important to keep this all but vanished history alive for future generations.

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium is located at 180 Little Neck Road in Centerport. For more information, including events, spring hours and admission rates, please visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org or call 631-854-5579.

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The crime scene outside Dunkin' Donuts in the village. Photo from Margot Garant

This story was updated to include more details provided by the SCPD:

Suffolk County Police Homicide section detectives are investigating a homicide that occurred in Port Jefferson on March 24.

According to a representative from the SCPD, an adult male was fatally shot on Main Street, near West Broadway at approximately 3:35 p.m.

Sixth Precinct officers responded to a 911 call reporting a man shot in front of 122 Main Street. Upon arrival, officers found a man on the ground with a gunshot wound.

The man was transported to St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson where he was pronounced dead. His name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Mayor Margot Garant said the two individuals involved in a dispute were not from the area and a new camera located on the corner of the site was able to capture the altercation. The camera is hooked up directly to the SCPD Real Time Crime Center.

“We’re very sorry to see this happen,” Garant said. “This just shows that nowhere is exempt from gun violence, but we are committed to keeping our village safe.”

She added that code enforcement and the village are working diligently alongside the police department throughout the investigation.

On March 25, SCPD released the victim as 25-year-old David Bliss Jr. of Shirley.

This is an ongoing story. Check back to TBR News Media for updates.

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