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Yearly Archives: 2016

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Some of the craft beers now for sale at the Cinema Arts Centre Sky Room Cafe. Photo from Raj Tawney

The Sky Room Café has expanded its menu, now offering craft beer and wine.

According to Raj Tawney, director of publicity and promotion at the Cinema Arts Centre, located at 423 Park Ave., Huntington, this is part of a continuing effort to make the Sky Café into its own entity.

Aside from a wide-ranging menu, the Sky Café also hosts Cult Café, Sky Room Talks, Pop Culture Café, Hard Luck Café, movie trivia night and various music acts every month.

Cult Café is a new film series aimed at a younger audience that shows popular cult classic films. The first film featured was “The Big Lebowski,” which ran last Saturday and had an audience of more than 100 people. Movies to come include “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”

Sky Room Talks is a series where local film historians give talks and play clips from different films and television shows. One talk focused on the still popular “Twilight Zone” TV series from the early 1960s and was led by historian Philip Harwood.

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Northport-East Northport Superintendent Robert Banzer. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Northport school district’s security greeters are on the verge of receiving health benefits — thanks in large part to the efforts of one of their own.

Diane Smith is in her seventh year as a greeter at Fifth Avenue Elementary School, and said she has never received health benefits, despite numerous pleas.

“Before this position was created, anyone could go to the office and often stroll right down to classrooms, creating a lot of interruptions,” Smith said in an interview after the meeting Thursday night. “We finally have some boundaries.”

Greeter’s duties include monitoring who is coming and going from school buildings, assisting in late arrivals and early releases and helping parents get forgotten items to the students, among other day-to-day tasks that may arise.

According to the district supervisor of security, the position of greeters was created about 10 years ago.

Over that time, the responsibilities of the job have changed, with greater emphasis placed on security in the aftermath of violent school-related incidents like the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn.

“We [greeters] know the parents, grandparents and babysitters, as well as most of the personnel that visit our buildings,” Smith said in an email on Friday.

Smith said she has been working a second job to afford health care, while continuously searching for another job that would give her benefits, though she is hesitant to leave the Northport school district because she loves the job.

Smith said she has been expressing her desire for health care for the nine full-time greeters via letters and in person for years, to the school board and to district officials. She showed up on Thursday to take her campaign to the next level.

So far her efforts have been fruitless, but that could soon change.

“[The greeters are] going to get an opportunity for health insurance,” Superintendent Robert Banzer said during the meeting. “It just happened to be so ironic that she showed up today, because we just talked about it and kind of said, ‘Yes let’s go ahead and make it right and make sure they have an opportunity for health insurance.’”

Banzer attributed the delay in providing health insurance to the greeters to a switch from part-time to full-time designation.

Smith was skeptical when she left the meeting Thursday. She said it was more of the same rhetoric she’s been hearing since she began her battle.

However, as of Friday, she is approaching the situation with more optimism after receiving an email from Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Irene McLaughlin that established Jan. 19 as a meeting date for the greeters and members of the district to sit down and discuss health care options.

“I am very guardedly optimistic,” Smith said.

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Photo from Fathom Events

One of the most influential and highest-grossing Westerns ever made, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” rides back into movie theaters this week for the first time in 40 years courtesy of Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies.

With its iconic performances by Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, Robert Redford as The Sundance Kid and Katharine Ross as Etta Place, director George Roy Hill’s sprawling comedy-drama has delighted audiences around the world, but hasn’t been seen on the big screen in nearly two generations.

Featuring a specially-produced commentary by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, the film will be shown at more than 650 theaters around the country on Sunday, Jan. 17, and Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.

In our neck of the woods, screenings will be held at Island 16, 185 Morris Ave., Holtsville; AMC Loews Stony Brook 17, 2196 Nesconset Highway, Stony Brook; and Farmingdale Multiplex 1001 Broadhollow Road, Farmingdale. Tickets are available online at www.FathomEvents.com or at theater box offices.

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Thanks to a recently passed transportation bill in the United States Congress, small communities like those across the North Shore can more easily invest in bicycling. Stock photo

By Dan Rowe

At a time when public opinion of the federal government seems to be at a historical low, I want to commend Congress for passing the FAST Act, a five-year transportation bill, and specifically thank U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin for his support and leadership throughout the process.

I am a member of the Hauppauge, Long Island, business community and the vice president of sales for Finish Line Technologies, a leading producer of bicycle maintenance products. We employ more than 30 people year-round in our Hauppauge headquarters. We pay local, state and federal taxes while supporting the local community in a number of other ways, including donating bicycle maintenance products to local teams and cycling clubs.

Bicycling provides important benefits to our community. Making modest, cost-effective investments in bicycle infrastructure increases property values, boosts retail sales, improves transportation choices and creates healthier, more active communities. For example, several of our employees participated in our local Long Island Bike to Work Day on June 24, 2015. This one-day event was a fun and effective way of building awareness of safe cycling and bicycle commuting on Long Island.

Safe and appealing places for bicycling encourage more people to bike and good things follow. Communities become more active and road congestion and air pollution are reduced. Cities become more attractive for people to live and work. No wonder so many mayors, community leaders, developers and businesses are getting on board with bikes.

I am grateful for Rep. Zeldin’s leadership on the passage of the five-year transportation bill. The FAST Act opens the door for communities to continue to make modest, cost-effective investments in bicycling infrastructure. Thank you, Rep. Zeldin for your support of more and better places to ride.

Dan Rowe works as vice president of sales for Finish Line Technologies.

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Thurber Lumber Company is closing its doors for good this month. Photo by Giselle Barkley

After 57 years, the Thurber Lumber Company won’t be open for business after January.

The family-owned and -operated business is giving its inventory to Riverhead Building Supply, a lumber company that announced plans for expansion on Jan. 5. The latter company will also acquire several Nassau Suffolk Lumber locations including its lumberyards in Port Jefferson, Locust Valley and cabinet showroom in Bohemia. The company will still own its Huntington lumberyard, but Riverhead Building Supply will also operate out of that location.

Although Thurber Lumber is transferring its lumber and tools to Riverhead Building Supply, Thurber is keeping its property in Rocky Point. Kevin Keillor Jr., co-owner of Thurber Lumber, couldn’t disclose what he and his father Kevin Keillor Sr. will do with the property, or their asking price if they decide to sell the land, because the deal between the companies is ongoing.

John Callahan, president of Riverhead Building Supply, said his company expects to close the deal in early February. Callahan also wouldn’t disclose how much his company will spend on Thurber’s inventory and Nassau Suffolk Lumber’s three lumberyards. He said his business and the two lumber companies started discussing plans to transfer ownership last November.

“We have good relationships with all of our competitors in the area,” Callahan said. “Growth has always been a primary focus. It’s known among our competitors. If an opportunity arrives [the companies are] open to those discussions.”

Keillor Jr. and Nassau Suffolk Lumber owner Chris Van Tuyl approached Riverhead Building Supply. He didn’t specify why they decided to sell the company’s inventory but said the “business climate over the years has certainly changed.”

According to Chicago Mercantile Exchange, toward the end of September 2008 lumber prices dropped below $230/1,000 board feet. Since then, lumber prices increased to $256.70/1,000 board feet.

While the recession hit many businesses hard, Thurber Lumber, which was founded in 1931, and Nassau Suffolk Lumber, survived as they had for several decades. Twenty-eight years later, Myron Keillor purchased the property. For nearly six decades the family owned and operated the business that served a wide variety of communities in the area. While the reason behind its closing is unknown, Nassau Suffolk Lumber chose to sell because Chris Van Tuyl and his brother William don’t have another family member to take over the business.

“My brother and I don’t have any kids in the business and we started to get some offers for the property,” Chris Van Tuyl said.

Amid the property offers, the duo decided to contact Riverhead Building Supply last year. They hoped selling to a fellow lumber company would help their employees find jobs once the store closed. Riverhead Building Supply is accepting job applications from former Thurber and Nassau Suffolk Lumber employees.

Nassau Suffolk Lumber was incorporated in 1927. The Van Tuyl family was one of four families in the lumber business to come together to strengthen the company during tough economic times. The company’s Port Jefferson lumberyard was established several years later, in the late 1970s.

Although the transfer of ownership is a loss to the company, Chris Van Tuyl also said his customers and employees alike will be in good hands. Once the deal closes this coming February, Riverhead Building Supply’s new stores will be open to the public.

“There’s a lot to do in the next three weeks,” Callahan said. “We look forward to continuing the relationships that these companies have with their customers.”

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By Lisa Steuer

When the holidays are finally over and January rolls around once again, it’s a time that can be overwhelming for many people. Most likely, the holidays were filled with indulgences, a lack of exercise, pounds gained and more. Plus, a new year inspires many people to make resolutions. But all too often, those resolutions are forgotten by February.

The good news is that if you really want to make a change this year, you do possess the tools to do so — no matter what your goal may be. Adam Gonzalez, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Mind-Body Clinical Research Center and assistant professor in the psychiatry department at Stony Brook University School of Medicine. In his role as a clinical psychologist, Gonzalez provides clinical services to the community and to patients at the hospital, with a focus on a holistic way of providing care to heal the mind and body. Gonzalez and his colleagues have conducted research to support the mind-body connection and help people work on stress management skills, improve their health and set and meet behavioral goals.

So exactly why is it so difficult for so many people to actually stick to their New Year’s resolutions and make a big change? Gonzalez pointed out three main reasons: setting unrealistic goals, getting distracted or losing focus, and finally, not knowing where to start. If you want to make a big change in your life, a good way to begin is to monitor your current behavior, notice where the behavior is occurring, your thoughts and beliefs about the behavior, as well as some of the thoughts you are having while the behavior is occurring, said Gonzalez.

“If I start thinking, ‘I’m a failure, I’ll never make this change, I can’t keep up with this,’ I’m likely not to keep up with it.” — Adam Gonzalez, Ph.D.

“All of our thoughts, behaviors and emotions interact, so if you work on your thinking style or work on managing behaviors, that can affect emotions and also the behavioral outcomes,” said Gonzalez.

For instance, if someone wants to make changes in their sleep, Gonzalez would have them monitor how much sleep they are currently getting, what their current bed time is, what time they wake up, etc. If a person wants to make changes to their eating habits, that person might want to think about who these behaviors are occurring with ­— who are the friends he or she is going out to eat with and where, and think about whether anyone else is helping to drive that behavior.

“You want to get supportive people around you who actually can be there to help foster the behavior change that you’re looking for,” said Gonzalez. “If the people that are around you aren’t supportive, I would suggest addressing it head on: letting the individuals know what, specifically, you need from them, whether it’s something you need them to do or not do.”

One pitfall that many people fall into when trying to make a change is getting discouraged when a lapse in the behavior change occurs — examples include slipping on your diet, having a cigarette if you’re trying to quit, etc.

“The way you interpret the hiccup or lapse will have a profound effect on your next step. So don’t get discouraged or beat yourself up too hard when you have a lapse in the behavior that you’re trying to change,” said Gonzalez.

Another instance where many people get discouraged is when they make a goal to get to the gym a certain amount of times a week and then fail to meet that goal one week, Gonzalez noted.

“If I start thinking, ‘I’m a failure, I’ll never make this change, I can’t keep up with this,’ I’m likely not to keep up with it,” said Gonzalez. “First is recognizing it for what it is — that you missed two days this week and next week you’re going to be going to the gym the four days you wanted … or, it’s re-evaluating the goal and your plans. Maybe four times a week … [with] your schedule is a little too intense. So maybe it’s scaling back your goals and making it something that’s more attainable.”

And once you reach your goal, how do you stay motivated? Many people, after losing weight for instance, may find it difficult to stay on the path and instead go back to old habits.

juggling-w“It’s important to consistently remind yourself of why the goal is important,” said Gonzalez. “So it’s building up motivation in your mind, and sometimes we will recommend that people put Post-its around that might have motivational statements on it or something that’s very personal or relevant to them to remind them of why this goal is important.”

 

SMART goal-setting

Gonzalez shared the SMART goal-setting technique, which is used in programs at Stony Brook’s Mind-Body Clinical Research Center:

Specific: Make sure your goals are straightforward, specific, and emphasize what you want to happen. “So you don’t want to just say, ‘I want to lose weight.’ It’s good to be specific and say, ‘I want to lose 10 pounds,’” said Gonzalez.

Measurable: Make a goal that you can make measurable progress on so that you can see the change occurring, and set time frames so that you can see if you’re reaching your goal or not.

Attainable: Identify goals that are most important to you and aren’t too far out of reach. “Losing 50 pounds in three months is probably a stretch, so you want to make sure it’s something attainable,” said Gonzalez.

Relevant: The goal should be something that you’re really willing to put effort in and work toward.

Time-based: Setting a time frame can be very helpful in achieving goals. Plus, setting long- and short-term goals can help you achieve them. For instance, set a short-term goal of losing five pounds. Once you meet that goal, it can motivate you to keep making progress toward a larger weight-loss goal.

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Drummer Jarrod Beyer plays at a Gnarly Karma rehearsal on Jan. 12. Photo by Alex Petroski

Rocking out is the name of the game for a Huntington-based band of driven twentysomethings who are preparing for their biggest show yet.

On Saturday, Jan. 23, they’ll be headlining The Bitter End, a Manhattan music venue that has hosted the likes of Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga and Bob Dylan.

“It’s awesome,” Jarrod Beyer, the band Gnarly Karma’s drummer, said in an interview Tuesday. “We’re all ready for the task. This is what we’ve been working for, big shows in the city.”

Initially, Beyer said the Greenwich Village venue only offered the band a weeknight spot. However, just a few weeks later, the person in charge of The Bitter End’s booking called Beyer to tell him he had heard some of their music and felt that they were weekend quality, and would have the opportunity to headline a Saturday night show.

“It’s definitely a lot of excitement,” bassist Ryan McAdam said about the gig. “I always get a little nervous a couple of minutes before, just waiting to go on stage. We put a lot of work in, so we always feel pretty comfortable going into the shows. I’m pretty confident we’re going to bang out a great set.”

Bassist Ryan McAdam, lead singer Mike Renert and saxophonist Billy Hanley practice at a Gnarly Karma rehearsal on Jan. 12. Photo by Alex Petroski
Bassist Ryan McAdam, lead singer Mike Renert and saxophonist Billy Hanley practice at a Gnarly Karma rehearsal on Jan. 12. Photo by Alex Petroski

It turns out the Huntington community set the perfect stage for this band to come together.

Beyer, 25, graduated from John Glenn High School in Elwood in 2008, and first met Mike Renert, the band’s 29-year-old lead singer and guitarist, through a mutual friend about four years ago.

“When you play music with someone, you know in the first 30 seconds if it’s going to work, and that just happened,” Renert said about the first time he and Beyer got together to jam. “It was one of the first times in my life that I … was just like, ‘Hey, I have this song,’ and I started playing, and he played, and it was like, ‘Whoa, that’s the first song and that was exactly what I wanted to hear.’ And it just went from there.”

Renert and Beyer’s natural chemistry inspired them to expand. Beyer had been in another band as a teenager — he called 24-year-old McAdam, another John Glenn graduate from Huntington whom he had experience with.

“He came through, and he gelled with us perfectly,” Beyer said of McAdam.

The band was still missing a little something, so when Beyer heard that Billy Hanley, 25, a saxophone player who Beyer had played with in the John Glenn High School jazz band, was running a record studio in the area, suddenly there were four bandmates.

Gnarly Karma released their first studio album, “Classic Breeze,” via iTunes in September 2015. The group has a familiar but unique sound — they could be described as a distant cousin of The Dave Matthews Band, with a punk edge.

The guys credited their small-town upbringing as a vital ingredient in their success.

“It’s very small, so you know everybody, even if you don’t want to know everybody,” Beyer said. “So it’s kind of cool that, as we got more progressive into music, people who we haven’t talked to in a long time are coming to our shows and supporting us.”

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Educational production back by popular demand

A scene from a previous year’s performance of ‘Running Scared, Running Free’ Photo from WMHO

In honor of Black History Month, Long Islanders can truly celebrate the meaning of freedom with Ward Melville Heritage Organization’s acclaimed “Running Scared, Running Free: Escape to the Promised Land.” These riveting live theatrical performances, held over 150 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, will be a poignant experience about the power of the human spirit and Long Island’s connection to the Underground Railroad.

Sponsored by Empire National Bank, “Running Scared, Running Free” is an interactive production based on investigative research compiled by the WMHO and was attended by over 7,000 young people and adults when it first opened in 2005. 

Oral histories shared by Native Americans inspired WMHO to research the movement of escaping slaves from the south to Long Island and north to Canada. A St. George Production, the drama is set in the mid-1850s and is told through the eyes of “Dorcas,” a female slave fleeing South Carolina. The production shows how Native Americans, Quakers, free blacks and abolitionists assisted in the Underground Railroad through the fascinating use of secret codes in quilt patterns as a vital means of communication. It is estimated that at least 30,000 slaves, and potentially more than 100,000, escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad.

Performances will take place on selected dates between Feb. 1 to 29 at WMHO’s Educational & Cultural Center, 97P Main Street, Stony Brook Village, at 10 a.m. and noon. In addition, there will be a special evening performance on Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. with dessert and coffee or tea.

General admission is $13 adults; $12 per student (up to 35 students); $8 per student (over 35 students); Distance Learning is $250 per class connection (IP and ISPN connectivity); $1,500 in-school performance.

The program is aligned to meet National and New York State Common Core Standards and BOCES Arts-in-Education reimbursable. For further information call 631-751-2244 or visit www.wmho.org.

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Potatoes need a very acidic soil to thrive, making Long Island an ideal environment. Photo by Ellen Barcel

By Ellen Barcel

What exactly is soil pH and how does it affect your ability to grow the veggies you want? Well, it’s a measure of how acid or alkaline soil is. On a scale of 0 to 14, seven is neutral. Below 7 is acidic (sour) and above 7 is alkaline (sweet). Today, we have little kits that can be used to test soil available in garden stores, but in the “olden days” farmers tasted the soil, hence the terms sour for acidic and sweet for alkaline soil.

The soil pH affects how different plants take up nutrients. Some do better in an acidic soil, that is, take up nutrients better, while others do better in a neutral or slightly alkaline soil.

Long Island soil, for the most part, is very acidic. Test your soil and treat it accordingly based on what you want to grow. Oregon State University Extension explains it this way. Each unit of change is a 10-fold difference. Going from 6.0 to 5.0 means that the soil is 10 times more acidic, so it’s a very big change.

Potatoes do well in a soil pH that is very acidic ­— 4.8 to 5.5. This is why Long Island, going back to the early 1800s, has been known for its potato farms. Farmers had one less thing to be concerned with, namely changing the soil pH. Cornell University notes that growing potatoes in a pH of 6.0 or higher makes them more prone to scab (a disease of root and tuber crops).

Veggies that do extremely well in acidic soil (going down to the 5.0 range) include artichoke, beets, cabbage, sweet potatoes, turnips, leek, chives, carrots, radishes, cucumbers and chili peppers.

Veggies that do well in acidic soil (say 5.5) to neutral (7) include beans, broccoli and cauliflower. Bush beans are ideal as they require no staking. Summer squash, which matures in 50 to 60 days, also does well in acidic soil. Tomatoes also do well in this broad range of soil pHs as well as cucumbers.

Plants that do well in neutral (or only slightly acidic) to mildly alkaline range (7.0 to 8.0) are mushrooms, okra, parsley, peppers, yams and asparagus.

If your soil is substantially below the optimal range for what you are growing, add lime, following manufacturer’s directions. Remember that lime can take many months or even a year to break down in the soil. Read the package directions on the various types you are considering. It’s probably best to start adding the lime to the soil now in the areas where you are planning to grow veggies next year. Also remember that the soil will revert to the pH it tends to be naturally, so once you start liming the soil to reach a certain number, you need to continue to do that as per package directions each growing season.

Ellen Barcel is a freelance writer and master gardener. Send your gardening questions and/or comments to [email protected]. To reach Cornell Cooperative Extension and its Master Gardener program, call 631-727-7850.

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File photo

An Elwood bank was robbed on Thursday afternoon by a man in a black mask.

The Suffolk County Police Department said the robber entered the Chase Bank in Huntington Square Mall shortly after 2:30 p.m. and verbally announced a robbery. He allegedly went behind the teller counter and took cash from the drawer before fleeing on foot.

Police said the direction he went in was unknown.

The mall is located at Route 25 and Larkfield Road, near Elwood’s border with Commack.

Police described the robber as a 30- to 40-year-old man with a medium build who was about 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall. In addition to the black mask, he was also wearing a gray hooded jacket and jeans at the time of the crime.

Detectives from the SCPD’s Pattern Crime Unit are investigating the robbery.

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