The Ward Melville Patriots homecoming game ended on a high note. While the score was close, when all was said and done, the team edged out Central Islip, 13-12, in a Division 1 game. The Patriots now are 3-1 in the league while Central Islip fell to 1-3.
Ward Melville will travel to Brentwood Oct. 9. Game starts at 1:30 p.m.
Setauket Presbyterian Church has a new addition, and the congregation is inviting community members to share in their joy.
On Oct. 16 the church will host an organ dedication. This year a new Glück Pipe Organ was installed in the sanctuary incorporating pipes from the church’s old organ, and after playing the instrument the last six months to make sure it was hitting all the right notes, it is now ready to be formally dedicated with world-renowned organist David Enlow from New York playing at the dedication event.
Jean Hrbek, a longtime church member, said while some fundraising was done most of the money came from the Gillespie Trust. The fund was established in 2016 when the church, along with five other philanthropic entities, was named a beneficiary of a $100 million charitable trust from the estates of Kingsley Gillespie and his son, Kenyon Gillespie. Setauket Presbyterian receives 10% of the annual 5% distribution required by law of such trusts every year.
Hrbek said an organ was first installed in the 1812-dated church in 1919 and was replaced in 1968. She said the new full pipe organ, with 1,200 pipes and designed by company president Sebastian M. Glück, is a beautiful addition to the church and the sound is incredible.
“It just fills the whole sanctuary,” she said. “It’s really magnificent.”
Because an organ needs to be custom-built to the place it is going to be played in, it was constructed inside the church, Hrbek said. The designer also took into consideration the church’s architecture when designing the new organ so it blends in.
Interim Pastor Kate Jones Calone said watching the building and installation process was amazing and an interesting learning experience.
“I learned a lot from seeing how they built the instrument and also thought about what was the right kind of instrument for this particular worshipping community … the technical skills that went into it was incredible. It is really fascinating to watch, and despite the fact that I’ve been hearing organs play all my life, I had never really seen this process up close.”
The church’s director of music Noby Ishida said the 1968 organ was used every day until recently. He added that as an organ gets older, listeners can notice the difference in the sound. He said a lot of parts wear out over time. Leather is one of the significant parts and as it ages it gets looser. The material can even become porous and develop holes. Ishida said while it’s customary for organ pipes to be sent out to be cleaned, over time constant repairs can lead to costly mechanical issues.
The new organ has the latest equipment, too, with an electronic device where it can be prerecorded with presets, according to Ishida.
“Everything is modernized, so that you focus on playing the organ,” he said.
The musical director said every church has its own acoustical space, including the size of the sanctuary and things such as carpeting which absorbs sounds, and the Presbyterian church has carpeting, so some extra pipes were needed. Ishida said even the pedals add to the quality as they provide the bass underpinning that he said gives the “foundation of the harmony.”
Jones Calone said that music is a meaningful part of worship life and sacred music is written for the organ. She added that music even helps many people learn scripture. The pastor sees the new instrument as an investment that will enrich worship life for current as well as future congregants.
“I think a lot of people, myself included, find that music in worship lifts us up, it strengthens us, it challenges us,” she said.
The pastor said the congregation is looking forward to the community hearing the organ on Saturday, Oct. 16, at the church. There will be two dedication events at 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Setauket Presbyterian Church is located at 5 Caroline Ave.
By Jennifer Corr
Chants like “My body, my choice” echoed through big cities like Washington, D.C., and Manhattan Saturday as part of the Rally for Abortion Justice, and that same passion made it to what is known as Resistance Corner at the junction of Route 347 and Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station.
The national Rally for Abortion Justice movement, according to the Women’s March Network, comes after comes after the Supreme Court’s rejection of an emergency request to block the Texas Heartbeat Act.
Coming into effect Sept. 1, the bill bans abortion at the point of the “first detectable heartbeat,” which could occur as early as six weeks into pregnancy — a point that many are just finding out they’re pregnant. At least 13 other states failed to attempt enacting similar bans after being blocked by courts.
“I believe in a women’s right to choose,” said protester Bryan Campbell, who was pushing a stroller occupied by his infant. “I think it’s ridiculous what’s going on in Texas and I’m here to support the women in my life: my partner, my friends, my daughter. This is for their future and for everyone’s future.”
Campbell was one of hundreds of men, women and children who gathered on the busy corner, holding signs in protest of such laws. Some even took to dressing up as characters from the “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a best-selling novel and TV series that depicts a totalitarian society that treats women as property.
Donna Reggio was among those dressed in red robes and white bonnet.
“It’s a dystopian fantasy that’s no longer a fantasy,” she said. “We’re going backward with women’s rights and we’re here to show that we don’t want to go there anymore.”
Before Roe v. Wade — a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 that protected a women’s right to have an abortion without excessive government restriction — only more affluent women had access to safe and legal abortions. However, it is estimated that between the 1950s and ’60s, the number of illegal abortions, either self-induced or done through often dangerous or even deadly procedures, ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million a year.
Rally organizer Shoshana Hershkowitz, of Long Island Social Justice Action Network and Suffolk Progressives, was on Resistance Corner Saturday to make sure her daughter did not grow up with fewer rights than she was able to enjoy throughout her lifetime.
“Our own congressman [Lee Zeldin (R-NY1)] tried to overturn Roe in the past year,” she said. “We can’t just think of this as a somewhere-else situation. It was happening right here.”
That’s why the LISJAN and Suffolk Progressives joined with grassroot organizations like Long Island Progressive Coalition, Long Island Activists, New HOUR for Women & Children – LI, Show Up Long Island, NY02 Indivisible, Planned Parenthood, among others, to prevent impediments in a woman’s reproductive rights from happening anywhere — including here in New York.
“We just put out the word to the different Facebook groups and [other various groups] who are invested in keeping our rights and getting women in office,” said Kat Lahey of Long Island Rising, adding that several speakers including Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) were also in attendance. “You can see that there’s a high demand to keep women’s reproductive rights.”
But not all were in support of the movement. Along with some disapproving remarks made by drivers who were passing by, one woman stood on the other side of the highway holding a sign, with photos of babies, that read “Please love me, I love you.”
The woman would not disclose her name, however she did share that she goes to her local Planned Parenthood every Saturday morning to pray. She said she was especially upset about New York State’s allowance of late-term abortions.
Yet the 2019 law, passed on the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, only allows late-term abortions when the mother’s health is in danger.
When asked about the counterprotester, Hershkowitz said that she was more than welcome to cross the road and speak with herself and other organizers. “But I’m not changing my mind,” she said.
It was not the first time that groups like New HOUR and LISJAN gathered on the corner, as they also showed up for issues ranging from gun safety to the Trump-era ban on refugees from majority-Muslim countries.
“Our community has come quite accustomed to gathering in this space and standing up for what we believe in,” Hershkowitz said. “So really, it’s like we almost have muscle memory because of having to gather here for so many years.”
Mather Hospital’s annual month-long breast cancer awareness community outreach event, Paint Port Pink, kicked off this week in Port Jefferson village.
Pink lights were lit on Oct. 1 across the village and throughout surrounding communities to honor and raise awareness for breast cancer during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Several dozen local businesses are participating, adding the sparkling lights to their storefronts, windows and doors.
Lamp posts along main street in Port Jefferson shine bright pink with the goal to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection, encourage annual mammograms and bring the community together to help fight this disease.
One in eight women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime, according to Mather Hospital. In 2021, an estimated 281,550 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in women in the U.S., along with 49,290 new cases of non-invasive (in situ) breast cancer.
About 2,650 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in men in 2021.
As of January 2021, there were more than 3.8 million women with a history of breast cancer in the U.S. This includes women currently being treated and women who have finished treatment.
Oct. 15 is Wear Pink Day, and people are encouraged to dress themselves — and their pets — in pink and post their photos on social media with #paintportpink.
Then send those photos to [email protected] they will be included in a collage on the hospital’s Facebook page.
This week a Stony Brook Village Center icon closed its doors for the last time after 27 years in business, and residents wonder how it will ever be replaced.
At the end of July, the owner of Pentimento Restaurant, Dennis Young, began informing customers that his lease wasn’t being renewed. Frequent visitors to his establishment started a Facebook page and petition on Change.org to save the restaurant and show their support. Many even protested in front of the business and throughout the shopping center. They also rallied in front of Gloria Rocchio’s house, the president of Eagle Realty Holdings and The Ward Melville Heritage Organization.
Unfortunately, the owner and the board of Eagle Realty, the landlord, couldn’t come to an agreement after Young forgot to give notice about his intent to renew last year, 365 days before his lease expired as specified in the agreement.
The Village Times Herald and the TBR News Media website featured five articles within the past two months on the closing and protests, and some of the stories also appeared in The Times of Smithtown. Talking to all parties involved, hearing the different sides of the issue, it was apparent there was more to the impasse than forgetting to renew a lease. A couple of matters couldn’t even be discussed because lease negotiations between private businesses are private matters.
We are saddened that something couldn’t be worked out. Especially since Young was hoping to retire in the near future and extending the lease and being able to sell the business to someone else would have meant he could have walked away with something more in his pockets.
A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the closing of Book Revue in Huntington village. Just like the iconic bookstore drew people to Huntington with its eclectic selection of books and celebrity author signings, the restaurant has done the same in the Three Village community by serving up its delicious meals and more.
As one reader wrote in a letter to the editor last week, in the last 27 years the restaurant served as the place “where we have celebrated birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and religious milestones. It’s where we have had our first dates and our first jobs.”
Regular visitors to Stony Brook Village Center would find that on the nights the restaurant was closed, the parking lot in the section of the shopping center it is located on was practically empty. When it was open, it could be difficult to find a spot.
When people come to eat in a restaurant, especially if they have to wait for a table, they’ll visit nearby stores. And, Pentimento has been a big attraction for both locals and residents from surrounding towns. As we mentioned in our editorial about Book Revue, sometimes the closing of a popular establishment can have a domino effect. We hope this won’t be the case with the village center.
We’re not quite sure what will replace Pentimento, but it will take a long time for residents to create new memories in whatever business goes into the empty space.
We thank Young, restaurant manager Lisa Cusumano and the staff for their service to the community, and we wish them all the happiness in the world.
Serving customers for almost three decades, Eastern Pavilion is making a comeback as a fine-dining Asian Fusion restaurant.
The family run restaurant has become a place of refuge, relaxation and dining for residents. As soon as customers walk in, they will see the newly renovated restaurant that co-owner David Lin describes as elegant with a “Manhattan vibe.”
Before the pandemic started, founder Bao Lin had thought about retiring. However, he decided not to when his three sons, David, Raymond and Jason, decided to take on the responsibility of running the business with the goal of making it bigger and better than ever before.
“We grew up in the restaurant industry and wanted to keep the family business alive,” David Lin said. “We realized how happy the restaurant made us and we loved interacting with the customers.”
Having a loyal clientele base that has continued to designate Eastern Pavilion as its favorite restaurant, David said he can pick up the phone and know customers without even asking for a name.
“A lot of the clients that we have, we honestly consider a part of our family,” David Lin said. “We have customers that started with us 30 years ago, so that makes us want to push through and have this restaurant here for the next generation.”
It isn’t only the family hospitality that customers love about this restaurant, but the quality of the food, too. According to David Lin, the restaurant has a new master sushi chef who trained in Tokyo and introduced a Szechuan chef as well, so there is plenty of variety for anyone looking to grab a bite.
An additional bar has also been added to the restaurant, where Jason Lin highly recommends Eastern Pavilion’s signature drink, which combines cold sake, premium Japanese yuzu, vodka, peach syrup, seltzer and their secret ingredient, a special tea from overseas.
Comparing the cocktail to a Starbucks refresher, Jason Lin said this is the perfect summer pick-me-up.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about making my customers and the community happy,” Jason Lin said. “Especially after the COVID-era, we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and spend our time revamping this place.”
Another must-have dish both Jason and David Lin recommend for first-time customers is their General Tso’s chicken, which they describe as the “bread and butter” of Eastern Pavilion.
The dish includes deep-fried, battered white-meat chicken cubes sautéed with spicy red peppers. To top it off is their in-house special tangy sauce. According to Jason Lin, this sauce has been perfected through trial and error for many decades and is very unique.
For more information on Eastern Pavilion, go to www.eprestaurant.com or visit the restaurant at 750 Route 25A, Setauket.
A celebration of a local harbor returned Sept. 25.
After canceling last year due to COVID-19, the Setauket Harbor Task Force was able to hold its annual Setauket Harbor Day at the Town of Brookhaven dock and beach on Shore Road in East Setauket.
The free event included boat tours of the harbor, kayaking, marine science exhibits and more.
The local nonprofit, which advocates for improving water quality and protecting and restoring marine habitats, hosts the annual event to help residents reconnect with the harbor.
On Friday, October 1st at 5:00 p.m., as part of the final day of the Three Village Farmers Market, the Three Village Historical Society (TVHS) will lead a fun, family friendly, interactive presentation on the United States Flag Code, led by former Regent of the Anna Smith Strong Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution and current Trustee of the TVHS Board Holly Brainard. Complimentary US Flag Code booklets will be available for guests and TVHS will raffle off a new flag kit for all guests that sign up, in person, at the Three Village Farmers Market.
Children and adults will learn why the flag is important and how to properly handle the flag. Guests will learn other fun facts like what it means to turn a flag upside down and how to properly dispose of a flag.
The new flag drop box, that will be unveiled, was generously painted and donated by BSA Troop 2019 and will be maintained by BSA Troop 355. In conjunction with BSA Troop 355, TVHS will collect any torn or tattered flags, throughout the year, to properly dispose of (according to the US Flag Code) at a later date. The retired flag drop box will be available and accessible to all on the grounds of TVHS at 93 N. Country Road in Setauket.
Native shrubs and herbaceous perennials that are valuable for pollinators and in a bird-friendly habitat will be for sale at the Four Harbors Audubon Society Fall Plant Sale on Oct. 2 at the Safina Center, 80 North Country Road, East Setauket. 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. FHAS members only, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. open to the general public. For more information, call 675-1803 or visit www.4has.org.
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