Police are searching for a couple who stole groceries in Centereach. Photo from Suffolk County Police Department
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police 6th Precinct Crime Section officers are seeking the public’s help to identify and locate two people who stole merchandise from a Centereach store.
A man and woman allegedly stole steak and shrimp from Stop & Shop, 260 Pond Path, July 20 at approximately 6:30 p.m. The stolen merchandise has a combined value of approximately $300, according to police.
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about these incidents can contact Suffolk County Crime Stoppers to submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220-TIPS (8477), texting “SCPD” and your message to “CRIMES” (274637) or by email at www.tipsubmit.com. All calls, text messages and emails will be kept confidential.
St. Charles Hospital’s renowned rehabilitation department has a new second-in-command. Laura Beck, a current employee at the hospital and a Miller Place resident, was recently promoted to Vice President of Rehabilitation.
Beck will be responsible for overseeing both inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation for St. Charles as well as recently implemented programs geared toward sports medicine; treating lymphedema, a condition that leads to fluid build-up and swelling; and vestibular rehabilitation, an exercise-based program aimed at alleviating balance and gait issues.
St. Charles Hospital’s new Vice President of Rehabilitation Laura Beck. Photo from St. Charles Hospital
Beck has been working at St. Charles in various positions for 26 years, and she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Therapy from Quinnipiac College, which is now Quinnipiac University. Her first position as a physical therapist was at St. Charles, and she returned to college and received her Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration and Policy from Stony Brook University.
“I am very excited for the opportunity,” she said. “St. Charles has an extremely long history, over 110 years, of excellence in rehabilitation that I am very proud to be a part of, and I am very excited for the chance to further our program, continue to grow, and continue the tradition of rehab we have had here for so many years.”
Beck has had served in many roles in her tenure at St. Charles. She started out as a staff physical therapist in 1991 and was promoted to a senior level physical therapist in 1994. Two years later Beck was promoted once again to supervising physical therapist, overseeing other therapists while still seeing patients herself. Beck started her focus on outpatient rehabilitation in 2000, when she was promoted to center manager of the Port Jefferson outpatient office.
Acknowledging her knowledge and acumen in rehabilitation, the hospital promoted her to director of Outpatient Rehabilitation, Pediatric Rehabilitation Services, and Offsite Contracts in 2003. In that position, which she held until just recently, she oversaw the daily activities of all nine of St. Charles’ outpatient rehabilitation locations across Long Island, which treat more than 10,000 patients every year, according to the hospital’s website.
Jim O’Connor, the executive vice president and chief administrative officer of St. Charles Hospital, was optimistic about Beck’s ability to fill the position and further the progress the rehabilitation department has made.
“There is a lot of opportunity to grow services … I don’t know that change is the word, I just think we have to continue to grow, stay current, and stay topical with evidence based practice.”
— Laura Beck
“Laura brings a wealth of experience to her new role for which her responsibilities include leading and directing all administrative functions of both the Inpatient and Outpatient Rehabilitation Departments,” O’Connor said. “Additionally, she will provide leadership oversight in the development of short- and long-range goals for programmatic development and financial planning as well as recommend new or revised policies and operational procedures in all administrative areas.”
Beck said she is prepared to seek new opportunities for the rehabilitation department and work to update and improve the services that are already being provided at the hospital and at outpatient locations. When asked if she would make any changes to the rehabilitation department as a whole, Beck remained pragmatic.
“There is a lot of opportunity to grow services,” she said. “We are the only inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Suffolk County, so I think we have a lot of opportunities to grow and improve the technology that is available to our patients. I don’t know that change is the word, I just think we have to continue to grow, stay current, and stay topical with evidence based practice.”
The Port Jefferson Station post office has a new postmaster.
Matthew Bertsch, previously the United States Postal Service postmaster in Syosset for three years, started his position in April and said since then has worked to ensure all day-to-day operations go smoothly. He said his top priority is to make sure mail gets delivered, accurately and timely to the community.
“It really is all about the community,” Bertsch said. “I want everyone to understand that my door is always open to them. If there’s an issue, just ask for a little understanding and I’ll be more than happy to discuss with them what the issue is and how we can resolve it.”
When he’s not at work, he umpires baseball at the collegiate level and helps with varsity football. Living in Selden with his wife and three daughters, he said he’s very family oriented.
He encouraged members of the community to stop by the post office, located at 544 Jefferson Boulevard, at any time to discuss possible improvements or suggestions on what the post office can do to better serve them and the community.
Brightview Senior Living is looking to construct a 170-unit facility on about nine acres of land off Route 112 in Port Jeff Station, illustrated above within the red box. Image from Google Maps
Another large-scale development project is in the works for the Port Jefferson Station area.
Brookhaven Town approved a zone change at its July 12 meeting paving the way for the construction of a 170-unit assisted living facility on Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station on a parcel near The Meadow Club banquet hall. With plans already progressing in recent months to construct a 244-unit residential complex for senior citizens on North Bicycle Path just off of Route 112 and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s allocating of $8 million in funds for a roughly 100-unit project for affordable and homeless housing on Route 112 near East Grove Street, this will be the third property set for massive development in a roughly mile and a half stretch of the state highway.
Baltimore-based developer Brightview Senior Living will be building and operating the assisted living facility, as it does with each of its 35 properties, according to Vice President of Development David Holland, who spoke during a town public hearing on the zone change July 12.
“We intend to be long-term citizens of Brookhaven and strive to be good neighbors to all who are around us,” Holland said.
The VP said the company expects the majority of its tenants to be in their 80s and 90s and in need of regular, daily care. Brightview’s current site plan for the approximately nine-acre plot of land includes a three-story building with dining venues, a theater, a pub, a library, indoor and outdoor lounges, as well as its own sewage treatment facility for the site.
The property was previously owned by area resident Jeff Kito and his family dating back to the 1950s, he said during the hearing. Kito is the former president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association and lives on the nearby Canal Road currently. He said he and his brother decided to sell the property about three years ago and sought to find a developer interested in building something along the lines of what Brightview proposed. He said he has met with neighbors in the vicinity to discuss the plans.
“I think we’ll have a great facility for the community,” he said.
Kito’s former colleagues in the civic association submitted a letter to Brightview dated Jan. 25, 2017, stating the members had no objections to the project.
“We look forward to working with your firm as this assisted living facility proposal is further developed in our Port Jefferson Station Terryville Hamlet,” said the letter, signed by then-President Ed Garboski, who is now the vice president.
Current President Sal Pitti said in an email the civic association still has no objections related to the project. Town Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) and Anthony Guardino, an attorney representing the applicant at the July 12 hearing, each said they had received a single letter from a community member in opposition of the development in addition to several in favor, including one signed by all homeowners on Patty Ann Court, which is also nearby the boundaries of the parcel. The property is expected to have a significant buffer from other residential properties that will include sizable evergreen trees.
Holland indicated a demand for such a facility exists in the area, as Brightview determined about 1,500 assisted living beds are currently available in the town.
About 16 percent of Suffolk County’s population is 65 or older, according to the website www.censusreporter.org, which is slightly higher than the New York state and United States rates. Port Jefferson Station’s 80-plus population is substantially larger — about 20 percent — than that of the state and surrounding region, according to the site.
The Town of Huntington hosted its 5th annual tournament at Coral Park July 21
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Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
Teens competed in the Town of Huntington's 5th annual co-ed basketball tournament at Coral Park July 21. Photo by Kyle Barr
The Town of Huntington hosted its fifth annual Co-Ed Basketball Tournament at Coral Park in Greenlawn July 21.
Teens between the ages of 12 to 18 came out for a number of friendly half-court games in a round-robin tournament. Those games were followed by an alumni game with teams made with graduates from area high schools. While the kids played, event organizers stood on the sidelines and shouted advice and encouragement to the young players on the court.
“We do this every year to keep kids out of trouble,” tournament organizer Vernon Lowe said. “Somebody did it for me when I was growing up, and somebody should do it for them.”
Several kids were given awards for being recognized as Most Valuable Player by the tournament organizers. Huntington High School student Omari Stephen, who plays boys’ junior varsity basketball team, and Leisaan Hibbert, of Dix Hills, were awarded MVP for the youth tournament. Damique Reddick, a 2016 graduate of John H. Glenn High School in Elwood, won MVP for the alumni game.
A dispute inside a Port Jefferson Station pool hall resulted in the shooting death of a 27-year-old man July 22.
Suffolk County Police Homicide detectives are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred inside Billiards DBM, located at 1604 Main Street in Port Jefferson Station at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday night, according to police.
Following an altercation, Albert Luis Lopez Rodriguez was shot inside the hall, police said. Rodriguez, 27, of Selden was pronounced dead at the scene by a physician assistant from the Office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner.
The investigation is ongoing. Detectives are asking anyone with information about the incident to call the Homicide Squad at 631-852-6392 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.
The Tyler Brothers General Store once housed the Setauket post office. Photo from Beverly C. Tyler
By Beverly C. Tyler
My great-aunt Annie, Anna Louise Tyler (1863–1943) lived her entire life in the house I grew up in on the corner of Main Street and Old Field Road in Setauket. For more than 80 years, from about 1850 to 1931, the Tyler Brothers General Store stood on the same corner in front of the house close to the road. For all those years the Tylers also served as postmasters, and the post office was located in the general store.
Anna Louise Tyler, center, was an early postmaster, while her sister Corinne, right, ran the general store. Photo from Beverly C. Tyler
Anna Tyler was appointed Setauket’s 11th postmaster Nov. 12, 1897, and she served the community until 1915. At the time of her appointment, she was 34 years old. She was the niece of Capt. Israel Bennett Tyler (1830–1895) who served as postmaster 19 years from 1870 to 1885 and again from 1889 to 1893.
In 1895, after the death of Israel Tyler, Capt. Charles Tyler, my great-grandfather, carried on the store until two years before his death, when he became ill and passed away June 12, 1899. From 1897 on, the post office and store were run by Annie and Corinne Frances Tyler, spinster daughters of Capt. Charles Tyler.
The mail was brought to Stony Brook and Setauket by the Long Island Rail Road. For most of that time, mail was delivered twice a day. It was carried to the store and post office and handed to Annie Tyler for many years by Adolph Pfeiffer who began mail service with a horse and wagon. In the winter months, he used a horse and sleigh. According to an article in the Three Village Herald in 1965, “Occasionally when the roads were almost impassable, the mail was taken by Mr. Pfeiffer on horseback, or even on foot — pulling the bags on a sled. Later with the advent of the automobile, he became agent for the Franklin automobile, and these as well as other makes of cars were used for transporting the mail.”
The entrance to the post office in the West Setauket store was through a side door on the left (north) side of the building. The northern third of the store was the post office and the remainder, from the front door over, was the general store. Annie Tyler was postmaster and her sister Corinne (1858–1941) ran the general store.
The general store was the center of the small community, which included about 100 families and numbered less than 800 people. The school on the Village Green, the churches and the new library around the Green and the grist mill on the lower pond were also a part of the community’s hub. The general store and post office building was a center for communication and gossip as well as a place to tell stories and swap
information about the latest farm equipment, the weather and, of course, politics.
“We were a big family, and we was always down there. Sometimes Poppa paid once a week. They kept track of it and I could get anything. They never asked no questions.”
— Lucy Keyes
Telephone lines were first installed from a central office in Northport in 1896. In the last few months of 1899, central offices were established in Port Jefferson and Smithtown. According to historian Kate Strong, the first telephone subscribers in Setauket were her father Selah B. Strong, her uncle Thomas S. Strong, Annie Tyler’s store and the Setauket railroad depot.
Lucy Keyes, who was born in 1900, remembered in a 1989 interview that when she was 6 or 7 and going to school on the Village Green, she would walk home, stopping first at the post office.
“They were such nice ladies,” Keyes said. “Miss Annie took care of the mail … Miss Annie used to make money orders and everything … We went there to pay land taxes.
“Miss Corinne took care of the store. They kept it open even during lunch — Miss Corinne and Miss Annie switched. It was open until after mail at night. There were two mails — a morning and an
evening mail. We used to trade with Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. It came in the mail.”
Keyes recalled that Corinne’s brother Henry Tyler helped her at the store.
“Momma and Poppa brought all their groceries there,” Keyes said. “We bought canned goods, salt pork, potatoes, bread and even bananas in later years. We were a big family, and we was always down there. Sometimes Poppa paid once a week. They kept track of it and I could get anything. They never asked no questions.”
Lucy Keyes was one of 12 children of Jacob and Hannah Hart born between about 1880 and 1910. An 1889 “day book” for the “Tyler Bro” store lists “Jacob Hartt” 34 times in a two-month period. One entry included “1 box blueing, 1 jelly roll, 4 barrels, 3 butter tubs, 1 box, 1 bag flour, 5 candles, 1 loaf bread, 1 bot. vinegar, 1 lb lard,” all for $2.42.
Keyes remembered a candy case in the store that contained a number of selections.
“You would get four or five round things for a penny,” she said. “Jawbreakers, three or four for a penny; and stick candy was a penny a stick.”
By 1915, the automobile was beginning to change the buying habits of local residents who found a wider range of goods and services in specialty stores. The telephone was bringing gossip and information directly into the home, and Parcel Post was bringing catalog shopping into the home. The post office in Setauket was also becoming an independent operation and would soon outgrow the general store where it had coexisted for so many years.
Beverly C. Tyler is Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society at 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.
We are now in a molecular age in which individual genes can be sequenced and their functions studied.
By Elof Axel Carlson
Elof Axel Carlson
You are a multicellular organism. In fact you have about 37 trillion cells. That’s 37,000,000,000,000 if you like numbers. Cells were first described in 1665 by Robert Hooke who looked at cork bark under a crude microscope he had invented. The cells he saw were empty boxes. He believed this was the cause of cork’s buoyancy.
It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that lenses and stain technology developed to reveal detail inside cells. It also permitted several biologists to promote a theory that all cells arise from pre-existing cells and that organisms are composed of cells.
In that stage of our knowledge of life, scientists worked out mitosis (how cells divide) and meiosis (how cells form reproductive cells). They learned that chromosomes carried the genes, or hereditary units, that produce all the components and cellular types in an organism. In the last half of the 20th century they learned how to take apart and put together components of the living cell.
We see multicellular life among plants and animals around us, but we cannot see single-celled organisms without a microscope. Microscopic single cells exist for bacteria, certain algae, certain fungi and most protozoa. The presence of multicellular organisms goes back to about 2.5 billion years ago with filaments of cells in ancient rocks.
About 20 years ago I was delighted to read about experiments by Nicole King (UC Berkeley) showing that one-celled organisms, similar to those found in sponges, could be selected to join in clumps. That has been greatly extended to algal cells (Chlamydomonas, Volvox) and fungi (yeast).
William Ratcliff at Georgia Tech recently published results of selection for larger and heavier yeast cells that settled down on the bottom of test tubes. He isolated some that developed adhesions. From continued selection (hundreds of generations of yeast) he obtained some that formed flakelike arms or branches and that reproduced by breaking off branches.
King, who continues her work, has isolated more than 300 genes associated with multicellularity, many of them found in single-celled organisms. By combining different groups of genes, she can increase the likelihood of producing multicellular units.
Multicellular organisms can be simple like balls or they can be complex with specialized tissues and organs. They can dig deeper into the earth or extend their range from a few feet to miles or across continents. There have been millions of species that constantly change the way the surface of the earth appears. We are now in a molecular age in which individual genes can be sequenced and their functions studied.
If I see a picture of myself, I see my surface of skin and hair clothed or unclothed. With X-rays I can see my bones, but not as well as a human skeleton mounted in an anatomy laboratory. I have seen what my tissues look like from a box with a hundred or more slides that I studied at NYU as an undergraduate.
I have lived through the discoveries of identifying my genes as made of DNA, and we are now capable of sequencing them and understanding what they do. Each finding adds to both our medical knowledge for pathologists and to basic science in understanding how a living organism works.
I would not be surprised to see experiments that will produce synthetic multicellular organisms using genes from different organisms to produce differentiated cells for each task desired. It will be a biological engineering that goes beyond applications to the pharmaceutical industry. Think of them as microscopic or miniature tools. Imagine tools snipping away tumors less than a millimeter in diameter. Imagine such tools extracting and expelling miniature pellets of gold and rare metals from ocean water.
For those who worry about unintended consequences of applied science, two things are important to consider. Such experiments should be well regulated by ethical and safety review boards by universities, hospitals and corporations. The odds of such synthetic organisms are remote. Similar safety concerns in the 1980s accompanied the development of genetically modified bacteria and yeast cells, which today continue to produce human insulin for diabetics, human growth hormone for children with pituitary hormone deficiencies and hundreds of other modifications.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
A Qwik Ride vehicle currently on the streets of Patchogue. Photo from Qwik Ride
A new transportation service is ready to hit Huntington Village’s streets this August.
Qwik Ride plans to roll out a free shuttle service across downtown Huntington, offering visitors who park further away a ride to or between area restaurants, bars and stores with a simple click of an app or flagging down a ride.
“This transportation could be used in suburban areas where you have to find your parking spot, and you don’t want to leave it,” said Daniel Cantelmo, co-founder of Qwik Ride. “Where parking is so tough, people have turned around and left.”
Cantelmo said he and his fellow co-founder John Yancigay first came up with the business concept while on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee.
“This transportation could be used in suburban areas where you have to find your parking spot, and you don’t want to leave it.”
– Daniel Cantelmo
“We saw this free shuttle service that would take you anywhere in Nashville,” he said. “We thought it was pretty cool.”
This May, Cantelmo said they launched the service in his hometown of Patchogue using modified six-passenger golf carts to shuttle customers from the waterfront restaurants and bars to downtown businesses. The electric-powered vehicles are enclosed with a full set of doors, have heat and can continue to run through inclement weather — except for snow, according to Cantelmo. He said Qwik Ride has provided more than 700 free lifts to Patchogue passengers this month as of July 13, and he expects that number to continue to grow.
“We’ve had a lot of success in Patchogue,” Cantelmo said. “We know Huntington is going to follow suit. Huntington is a little more condensed.”
He sees the free shuttles as a potential solution to what he called a “twofold” parking problem in Huntington. First, area business employees come into work early and take up front-row or prime parking spots in the village throughout their eight-hour shifts, according to Cantelmo. Second, there are plenty of parking lots on the outskirts of town that are underutilized because they require a long walk.
“Uber is helping that situation, but we are taking it one step further,” he said.
The two co-founders reached out to Huntington Chamber of Commerce and Huntington Business Improvement District to invite business owners down to The Paramount to talk about the new service they would be launching with two vehicles, adding up to three more with time for a total of five shuttles.
“It sounds like a great idea to free up some parking in town,” Ellen O’Brien, executive director of Huntington’s chamber said. “It’s innovative, it’s free, it’s cutting edge and it will free up parking spaces.”
“It sounds like a great idea to free up some parking in town.”
– Ellen O’Brien
The Paramount in Huntington is one business that was already on board with asking its employees to park further out to free up spots for customers. Adam Ellis, the theater’s director of marketing, said Paramount staff has been utilizing Huntington Town Hall’s lot for the last year and a half to use a shuttle bus to get back and forth to work.
“We hope the Qwik Ride program will help other businesses in town to offer their staff alternative transportation to their job while parking further from town to open up more spaces for guests as a way to improve parking in town,” Ellis said.
The free shuttles are paid for by advertising, according to Cantelmo, as local businesses are invited to buy space on the outside of each vehicle. He hopes these same businesses will commit to getting employees involved in parking in distant lots and hailing a Qwik Ride.
“Everyone has truly got to be on board,” Cantelmo said. “If The Paramount is on board but Honu [Kitchen & Cocktails] isn’t, then all it will do is open up more parking for Honu. The community has to work together, and everyone has to be on board. Then it will benefit everybody.”
One movie at the Stony Brook Film Festival this year will have some local flavor.
Not only were scenes from the film “Dean Darling” shot on Long Island, it features former Setauket resident Allison Frasca. The 26-year-old actor and 2010 graduate of St. Anthony’s High School plays Jaclyn in the movie, which was filmed at various locations throughout the Town of Smithtown including the train station, Short Beach and the Smithtown Center for the Performing Arts.
Additional scenes from the coming-of-age drama were filmed at Brooklyn’s Coney Island. Written and directed by Calogero Carucci, the film, in addition to Frasca, features Douglas Towers, from Smithtown, Joel Widman, Theodore Bouloukos and D.C. Anderson.
“Working locally was really amazing,” Frasca said. “It felt really cool to film in places that I grew up around. Calogero Carucci is a fantastic talent with such a strong passion and vision. He knew exactly what he wanted with such detail and the result was a truly gorgeous film.”
According to Frasca, the film follows 20-year-old Dean Darling, who shortly after both his parents die in a car accident searches for truth through eccentric family members, old friends, erratically formed relationships and filmmaking.
Currently living in Manhattan and working in theater and film, Frasca has appeared in other movies including
“Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue,” “Neurotica,” “Toss It!” and “L.I.P.S.” More information about the actor can be found at www.afrasca.com.
The world premiere of “Dean Darling” will be screened at the Stony Brook Film Festival July 21 at 4 p.m. The festival runs from July 19 to 28 and is produced and curated by the Staller Center for the Arts. The screenings are held at the center located on the campus of Stony Brook University, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook.
For information on the festival, visit www.stonybrookfilmfestival.com.
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