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Yearly Archives: 2020

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METRO photo

By Fr. Francis Pizzarelli

Father Frank Pizzarelli

School has just begun. In our county, we have a wide range of educational opportunities and experiences. Each school district is attempting to respond responsibly to all families and their children. That is a very complex and challenging dynamic because every school community is so vastly different.

It continues to amaze me that very simple and basic practices that are evidence-based are so complicated to embrace for a number of people in our midst. We have allowed our destructive political rhetoric to impair our common sense and basic efforts to support some very basic common-sense practices that protect all of us.

My college students both on campus and online are an inspiration. They are open and insightful. They are hungering to learn and genuinely make a positive contribution to our community that will make a profound difference in the future.

This pandemic is a powerful opportunity for us to draw closer together. It’s an opportunity to build new bridges of understanding and compassion. It’s an opportunity to challenge the bigotry and hatred that has become so infectious.

These are challenging times. We can look at these challenges as burdens that are burying us under or we can see them as opportunities for change and transformation. There are so many life lessons to be learned, if we have the courage to take the blinders off and listen.

We will never return to the life we once knew before the pandemic. However, we have an opportunity to create a new tomorrow that is rich with opportunity and possibility that can be life-giving, if we have the courage to live differently.

There are so many life lessons to be learned. This pandemic has brought families together. People are talking and connecting in ways that were never imagined. Many of us have had to rearrange our priorities. A growing number of people have become more other-centered than self-centered. I have witnessed countless random acts of kindness that have changed people’s lives.

It has been refreshing to listen to the next generation of leaders talk about making tomorrow’s America better and stronger, more inclusive and respectful; a place where diversity and difference are seen as a blessing and not a curse.

The America that my students speak about is an America filled with promise and opportunity for all, grounded in a respect for the dignity of every human person. It is an America that will not tolerate hateful rhetoric; that will respect people’s right to peacefully protest injustice and give voice to the voiceless. It is an America that empowers every citizen to dream dreams and believes those dreams can come true.

Fr. Pizzarelli, SMM, LCSW-R, ACSW, DCSW, is the director of Hope House Ministries in Port Jefferson.

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The historic building that houses The Jazz Loft on Christian Avenue in Stony Brook. Photo from WMHO

Tom Manuel, founder of The Jazz Loft in Stony Brook, is always grateful when someone comes along and offers a helping hand, but during the pandemic, his gratitude is overflowing.

The Old Stone Jug, above, prior to being moved to its current site in 1940. Photo from Tom Manuel

Before New York State’s mandatory shutdowns, the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation awarded The Jazz Loft a grant in the amount of $40,000 to match funds coming from local resident and patron Dan Oliveri.

The money is being used to renovate the southwest section of the basement, which is under the Old Stone Jug area of the venue. The undertaken has been dubbed Project Coal Bin, Manuel said. While the basement dates back to 1941, the Old Stone Jug was built in approximately 1770. The grant also covers equipment needed to archive information.

“What’s exciting is it’s going to be a multipurpose space where the grant was designed not just to redesign the space but to outfit it as an area that will be used for our archiving,” The Jazz Loft founder said.

He added that the Stony Brook University Department of Computer Science worked last year to design the computer programming for the archiving, which will open up doors for other grants in the future for additional archiving and preservation.

“It’s amazing how a group like the Gardiner foundation could allow so many great things to happen even indirectly after their grant is done,” he said.

He called RDLGF a lifeline for nonprofits and a “blessing for people on Long Island.” The admiration is mutual.

Kathryn Curran, right, and The Jazz Loft founder Tom Manuel, left, in the Count Basie Garden. Photo from Tom Manuel

“The Jazz Loft is an exceptional organization that engages the community on many levels,” said Kathryn Curran, executive director of the RDLGF. “The adaptive reuse of their historic building brings new and inventive life to this early structure celebrating the history of jazz through performances and art and artifacts.”

While the grant process was lengthy, Manuel said it was an excellent experience for him where before the pandemic he sat in on a grant-writing workshop given by Curran, and was able to exchange ideas with others. He said it was inspiring to learn about grants and the bigger picture of the longevity of nonprofits and the history of Long Island.

“After a while you realize, wow, it’s not so much about me writing this grant anymore,” he said. “It’s about The Jazz Loft being here for 100 years. This is about being responsible with what has been entrusted to me.”

Manuel also praised RDLGF for the funds they granted to nonprofits during the pandemic. Curran said the board was aware of the new problems nonprofits faced in 2020, and in June the board members approved a limited reimbursement grant to historical societies. The grants were intended to help organizations cover expenses during unscheduled closings. In total, RDLGF awarded more than $63,000 to help pay bills over a three-month period.

As for Project Coal Bin, Manuel said work began a couple of months ago. He indicated before major construction could begin, the old drop ceiling had to be removed in the section of the basement, while the plumbing and the electrical system needed to be updated. Manuel said when a person is downstairs and looks up, the hand-hewn beams of the Old Stone Jug are now visible after 80 years following the removal of a plaster ceiling.

The section of The Jazz Loft is called the Old Stone Jug due to its facade and was added by philanthropist Ward Melville, who moved the structure from its original location and made it an addition to what was once the original Stony Brook firehouse. It was then used as the Suffolk Museum, the forerunner of The Long Island Museum. Before it was moved, the Old Stone Jug, through the decades, was utilized for town meetings, operated as a tin shop and was used to store molasses jugs.

Manuel said they named the new section of the basement the Coal Bin after a former establishment in Southampton called Bowden Square. The owner Herb McCarthy’s mother would cook southern food and play jazz music for Black patrons in the basement, called the Coal Bin, during a time when Southampton was segregated.

Manuel said renovations in The Jazz Loft basement are projected to be completed before the end of the year.

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Mount Sinai High School. File photo by Barbara Donlon

Mount Sinai Superintendent Gordon Brosdal announced Thursday afternoon in a call to parents that the entire campus would be closed Friday, Sept. 25 after a high school student tested positive for COVID-19.

The Mount Sinai High School Student was in cohort A, which goes to in-person classes on Monday and Tuesday, according to school board trustee Ed Law in a post to social media. The student has siblings in both the elementary and middle schools, so the district announced it was being cautious and closing all schools for Friday.

All students will be using remote learning that day. 

On Monday schools will be closed in observance of Yom Kippor. The district said students are planned to return to school Tuesday, Sept. 29.

 

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Dr. Mark Cherches

Dr. Mark L. Cherches, of Port Jefferson, died Sept. 18. He was 85.

Dr. Mark Cherches

The well-known area dentist was born Sept. 22, 1934 in the Bronx. After graduating from New York University College of Dentistry in 1959, he served in the U.S. Army as a captain and was stationed in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

He moved to Rocky Point in 1962, and then moved to Port Jefferson in 1969.

Dr. Cherches practiced dentistry in both Rocky Point and Port Jefferson for 55 years. He was fiercely devoted to his patients and provided dental education programs to both the Rocky Point and Port Jefferson school districts. 

Dr. Cherches was a past recipient of TBR News Media’s Person of the Year award for Health and Medicine and received the Theodore Roosevelt Award from St. Charles Hospital for his extraordinary commitment and volunteerism to the hospital.

For decades, he donated his time as director of the dental residency program at St. Charles Hospital and as a supervising dentist at the Cleft Palate Clinic at St. Charles. He was also on staff at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital, now called Mather Hospital.

He was an active member of the Port Jefferson Lions Club for over 55 years and was an active member of the North Shore Jewish Center since 1962. He was an avid skier, golfer, tennis player, bicyclist, photographer, boater and fisherman. He had a lifelong passion for learning.  Later in life, he volunteered his time to the Long Island Veterans Home in Stony Brook.

Cherches was preceded in death by his wife, Shirley. He is survived by his son, Gary (Kate); his son, Eric (Barbara); and by his two beloved granddaughters, Joanna and Carly. He is also survived by his beloved sister, Helen Weissman; and by many loving nieces and nephews.

Arrangements were entrusted to Beth Shalom Memorial Chapels in Smithtown, and internment took place at Washington Memorial Park. Donations in Dr. Cherches’ memory can be made to North Shore Jewish Center or to the Dental Clinic at St. Charles Hospital.

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‘Spookley the Square Pumpkin’

In partnership with the Smithtown Historical Society (SHS), the Smithtown Center for the Performing Arts presents a performance of “Spookley the Square Pumpkin: The Musical,” the story of a square pumpkin living in a round pumpkin patch, in the open air outdoor space behind the SHS’s Roseneath Cottage, 239 E. Main St., Smithtown on Oct. 10, 12, 17, 18, 24, 25 and 31 at 11 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. Masks are required for this socially distanced production. All seats are $18 at www.smithtownpac.org.

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The statue of St. Charles outside the hospital. Photo by Marilyn Fabbricante

So much attention has been paid to the people who come down with COVID-19, the inability to breath, being put on a ventilator and the struggle to deal with the massive influx of patients seen just a few short months ago. 

Laura Beck, the VP of rehab at St. Charles, says they have taken what they learned from other rehab programs and used them for COVID patients. Photo from St. Charles

However, not nearly as much focus has been paid to those who struggled and survived the ordeal, particularly those with lasting health impacts.

That’s something St. Charles Hospital is trying to rectify with a new Post COVID Rehabilitation Program, which offers physical therapy for those who are still feeling the health impacts of living with the virus.

The rehab program officially started Sept. 7, and currently has two people starting their recovery. Hospital rehab officials said they are hosting evaluations with more people to initiate them into the group setting.

Laura Beck, St. Charles’ vice president of rehabilitation, said there is very little available data that discusses exactly what are the health impacts of people after they’ve already suffered through the virus, but anecdotally, people have described profound muscle weakness, joint pain and many issues with patients’ ability to breath, even long after they have come off a ventilator. One study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in July, showed that close to 87% of hospitalized COVID patients reported lingering symptoms for two months or more after the fact.

Building off the rehabilitation program the hospital has for pulmonary patients, St. Charles has designed the new COVID rehab with the same mindset.

“The most frequently reported symptom that does exist is shortness of breath and fatigue, followed by joint pain,” she said. “All three of those things are frequently addressed by physical therapy, and were commonly addressed in our pulmonary rehab program. We had the staff and experience to address these things.”

Post-COVID patients are given an initial evaluation and then are put into a group setting to be treated by a physical therapist, similar to what St. Charles does in other rehab settings. Toward the end of each patients’ time they are given another quality of life assessment as well as an endurance test to see how much they improve physically. 

A few outpatient care facilities have launched post-COVID rehabilitation, but St. Charles is one of the first major hospitals on Long Island to offer an in-house clinic in a traditional group setting. 

How many physical therapists eventually get involved depends on how large the program becomes. Currently the class size is kept small to try and space people out and adhere to social distancing. For patients that cannot tolerate a group program, Beck said they do plan to offer a more one-on-one situation until they can be put into the full exercise class.

Director of St. Charles’s Rehabilitation Services Pattianne Ruppel said most likely people who are feeling lasting effects of COVID are older, though that’s not always the case. Those who were young and/or asymptomatic likely wouldn’t feel any lasting symptoms. 

Because so little is known about what are the true lasting health effects from being crippled by the coronavirus, the St. Charles officials in charge of rehabilitation said this is also a chance to start gathering data on what is common amongst post-COVID patients. If they get enough people in the program, the St. Charles officials said they could even look to put out their own information.

“We would all love to say that some time in the future we won’t need this program,” Ruppel said. “We still see people with these lasting respiratory symptoms, so I definitely see a need for sure.”

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Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini. File photo by Alex Petroski

The Suffolk County District Attorney Wednesday released a massive indictment of 13 individuals and several companies for allegedly conspiring to defraud using fake identities. 

In what’s called a synthetic identity fraud scheme, the defendants are charged in a 108 count indictment of using stolen social security numbers to obtain over $1 Million from fraudulent loans and credit card accounts from financial institutions.

The indictment was announced in a press conference held Sept. 23 with DA Tim Sini and Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart. The investigation started in August, 2018 when a member of the DA’s financial investigations started tracking a suspect of identity fraud at several banks and credit unions on Long Island. They would eventually discover the defendants allegedly created more than 20 identities and obtained loans and credit accounts from 19 different institutions. They said the investigation was conducted alongside the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, California police and DAs as well as several credit bureaus. The investigation is still ongoing, Sini said.

Of the 13 individuals charged, Viki Osredkar, 35 of East Northport, was charged with multiple counts of grand larceny, falsifying business records and scheme to defraud. Osredkar is one of 10 from Long Island to be charged by a grand jury. 

An additional three companies have been charged with money laundering. District Attorney Tim Sini said all these companies are owned by the same individual, Adam Arena, 43, of Corona, California.

“Some of the people involved in this scheme had strong financial backgrounds and recruited individuals who were down on their luck, offering them cash, for assistance in this operation,” Hart said in a release. “Together, they stole more than a million dollars but fortunately, our dedicated team unraveled their plot and are holding the perpetrators accountable.”

The crime goes like this: participants would allegedly create synthetic identities by associating a stolen social security number with a different name, address and date of birth. The social security numbers usually involved children, recent immigrants, elderly or anyone else not likely to monitor their credit history.

Perpetrators would allegedly make the identities more legitimate by applying for phone accounts, email records, library cards and more. They would then allegedly build credit for the fake identities. Using that credit, they would take out loans and credit card accounts. They would use this credit to the maximum amount allowed but the balances would never be paid.

Among the banks the individuals allegedly defrauded included State Farm, USAA, Suffolk Federal Credit Union, Teachers Federal Credit Union among many others.

“This is an extremely complex crime and it can be very difficult to identify the perpetrators, but the team who is investigating and prosecuting this case meticulously followed the evidence and unraveled this scheme, which has far-reaching impacts on everyday citizens,” Sini said in a release. “We will seek justice for all of the victims — both the financial institutions that have been defrauded and the individual victims whose identities were stolen by these criminals.”

 

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Photo courtesy of Sweetbriar Nature Center

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Sweetbriar Nature Center heads to Stony Brook and Setauket for special family friendly events on Saturday, Sept. 26.

Sweetbriar visits Reboli Center

In perfect harmony with its current exhibit, Wild and Wonderful by Vicki Sawyer, the Reboli Center for Art and History, 64 Main St., Stony Brook welcomes the staff of Sweetbriar Nature Center and some of its resident animals including owls for an outdoor nature talk from 2 to 3 p.m. Rain date is Sept. 27. Free. To make a reservation, call 751-7707 or email [email protected].

Sweetbriar Raptor Sketch Night

Join Gallery North, 90 North Country Road, Setauket for a special Raptor Sketch Night from 3 to 5 p.m. Sweetbriar  Nature Center in Smithtown will bring over birds of prey for a workshop that will bring nature lovers and artists together for a unique evening of sketching and learning. $40 per person, $60 for a family of four includes all materials. To register, visit www.gallerynorth.org/thestudio. For more info, call 751-2676.

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Tesla volunteers celebrate restored chimney is capped with an iron wellhead, finishing the first official renovation to the Nikola Tesla’s famed Shoreham laboritory. Plans are continuing to create a museum and science center in the space. Photo by Kyle Barr

Last Saturday was a day of firsts, both in the proverbial and the concrete. On a day which showed the first real touch of cool fall weather after an oftentimes blistering summer, so too did the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe put its finishing touches on what’s expected to eventually be a full museum and learning center for the North Shore.

Tesla Science Center capped off its chimney construction with the famous wellhead. Photo by Kyle Barr

On Sept. 19, the center unveiled its newly reconstructed chimney sitting atop the historic building constructed by the brilliant but notorious architect Stanford White in 1902. The small crowd of volunteers and local supporters cheered as the newly reworked 1,200-pound black-iron crown, also known as a wellhead, was lowered down onto the chimney via crane. The iron crown was originally repaired by a local blacksmith while a team of volunteers worked to give it a fresh sheen.

It was a touching moment for the several volunteers who came to watch the final piece laid on top. Many of those have been with the project since the local nonprofit Friends of Science East bought the property through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in 2013. They have helped clean the grounds, landscape the property and be there for the multiple fundraising events. If you asked the volunteers gathered there, they would tell you the chimney was originally used to vent heat and exhaust from a Westinghouse dynamo that famed scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla used to generate power for his experiments in wireless energy and communications.

As excited as those gathered were, the ceremony came just a little more than a week after Suffolk County police said an unknown person or persons broke into the science center earlier this month and graffitied the inside and smashed windows just underneath the now-reconstructed chimney.

Police said the vandals entered the science center, located at 5 Randall Road, Shoreham, sometime between Sept. 7 and 12. Whoever it was apparently spray-painted “WTF” on one of the walls and another acronym on a toilet. The damage was valued at approximately $3,000.

Kevin Cahill, a project manager for Skyline, stands in front of the new renovations. Photo by Kyle Barr

But by the weekend following the vandalism, all windows had been fixed, and there wasn’t one downcast face amongst the spectators.

Marc Alessi, executive director of the science center, said the chimney restoration in total cost around $230,000, and much was covered thanks to a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. Original plans were just to reconstruct the top portion of the chimney, but structural issues quickly became apparent, and they ordered that the entire piece be remade. Work originally started in May, but the ongoing pandemic pushed back construction awhile.

The center tapped Long Island City-based building restoration company Skyline Restoration to perform the task. Kevin Cahill, a project manager for Skyline, said each brick was designed to match both the color and size of the original structure. Though the company is hired on other historic projects, this one, he said, is special. 

“It’s exciting bringing back something that’s so old and keeping it to what it was originally was,” he said. “We redid the windows exactly how they originally were — the brickwork, matching the mortar colors, bringing it back to the exact dimensions it originally was.”

Though in doing the reconstruction, Cahill said numerous other significant discoveries were made while doing construction June 5. Inside the building, beneath the chimney is an arched-brick opening in the base, something that connected several tunnels leading off in different directions. Finding those, Cahill said he crawled through in the dark, wondering what he would find. Unfortunately, the path was blocked by some collapsed brick, but that might have covered up another entryway.

Alessi said these tunnels could have had something to do with Tesla’s famous Wardenclyffe Tower, which the lab site was originally built for. It was designed to allow electricity to travel wirelessly, but so much is still unknown of how it would work. He added the site’s hired historic architect may make more details on that available in the near future

Tesla Science Center capped off its chimney construction with the famous wellhead. Photo by Kyle Barr

For Jane Alcorn, president of the science center’s board of directors, it was a stunning moment watching the iron cupola lowered down onto the chimney. She was at the head of Friends of Science East when it originally bought the property, and though it has been slow coming to this moment, she said this project was never something they wanted to rush.

“We said we were going to do this right, not fast,” Alcorn said. “This is really the first section of the lab that’s been restored, so we are well on our way.”

The center has raised around $10.2 million for its museum and science center project, about halfway toward its total $20 million goal. It’s enough to get started, Alessi said, and the next stage of the project is to remove the large metal-walled building abutting the historic lab, leaving the building looking like it was originally intended to. After that, it’s on to constructing a welcome center where an old house sits on the southwest end of property and developing its programs. 

The Tesla Science Center’s executive director added they are still in the process of getting demolition permits from the Town of Brookhaven, but hopes that part should be finished around the end of October. 

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