Friends of the Greenway chair Charlie McAteer submitted this photo by Trail Steward Dave Wang which perfectly captures the original intent of the Port Jefferson Station-Setauket Greenway as these two wild turkeys ‘By-Pass Port Jefferson’ by using the trail last week. He writes, ‘Guess these birds too are enjoying our community gem.’ Join the group for their next clean up on July 23 at 9 p.m. starting at the Port Jeff. Station trailhead.
Volunteers clean up the Greenway Trail in Port Jefferson Station on April 17. Photo by Herb Mones
Volunteers clean up the Greenway Trail in Port Jefferson on April 17. Photo by Herb Mones
TREASURING OUR TRAILS
The Port Jefferson Station trailhead of the Greenway Trail was the recipient of some much needed love on Saturday, April 17, just in time for Earth Day. Led by the Three Village Community Trust’s Friends of the Greenway Trail Stewards Charlie McAteer and Herb Mones, volunteers spent the morning picking up litter and dead branches and painting over graffiti. Join the group on their next cleanup on Saturday, May 15 at 9 a.m. For more information, email [email protected].
Cole Swensen, a Boy Scout in Miller Place Troop 204. created a bench and concrete pads along the Setauket-Port Jefferson Station Greenway Trail. Photo by Kyle Barr
With the weather warming, and with more people available to take walks while home from work and school (maintaining social distancing, of course), one local Boy Scout’s Eagle Scout Service Project has made a lasting impact.
Port Jefferson resident Cole Swensen, a member of Miller Place Boy Scout Troop 204, installed a bench, along with concrete pads on the Setauket-Port Jefferson Station Greenway Trail earlier this month.
“I’m happy with the finished product,” Swensen said.
Swensen, a senior at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School in Port Jefferson, said he and his dad use the trail often for running and biking and saw there was a need for a new bench, made from wood composite, at the top of the hill just after the westernmost trail entrance in Setauket. The young man also installed three concrete pads on the trail, one at his new bench and two more at existing benches.
“These pads not only clean up the look of the benches and trail, but they also prevent the area in front of the benches from getting muddy,” Swensen said. “It also is a place for strollers to easily get off the main trail.”
Charlie McAteer, the chair of the Friends of the Greenway, said Troop 204 has been a huge boon to the trail, having done five projects with the Greenway, with one more still in the planning phase. This new project comes just as the Greenway is getting increased usage thanks to more people looking to spend time outdoors while maintaining a distance from others.
“This is a remarkable commitment to the Setauket to Port Jeff Station Greenway Trail,” McAteer said. “The community will be enjoying these for decades.”
The high school senior said he had been working on the project since before last summer but had to put it on pause after a severe bike accident led to a concussion. He conducted his fundraising last month, just as things with the coronavirus crisis were starting to close in. Still, he managed to raise about $1,000 toward the project. The build was over a three-day period with the bulk of the work centered on installing the new bench and making sure the concrete pads were leveled against the slope of the hill.
Swensen said he is still waiting on the finalized paperwork for his Eagle Scout application, since all offices are closed everything now has to be mailed.
After graduating high school, Swensen expects to attend SUNY Maritime to study naval architecture, involved in designing the hulls of boats and ships.
Swensen’s father, Eric, said his son has been interested in boats and sailing since he was young.
Local residents at the February PJS/T Civic meeting contest with developers over a planned addition to the Nesconset Shopping Center. Photo by Kyle Barr
A potential pad building in the middle of the Nesconset Shopping Center parking lot has some PJS community members agitated, but property owners say such an addition will help keep the shops viable long-term.
Design plans for the new proposed pad building at the Nesconset Shopping Center. Photo by Kyle Barr
The shopping center, located along Route 347 slightly west of Terryville Road, is owned by Brixmor Property Group, a national retail property corporation. The proposed pad would include a 7,000-square-foot, single-story island that would house two separate storefronts.
Brixmor representatives said the two fronts would house a dentist office and a bank, respectively. Plans say the Bethpage Federal Credit Union, currently located at the far western end of the shopping center, would move to the building that would include a drive-through. Reps added they are in talks with Aspen Dental, which has offices in upstate New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, for the other space. Town of Brookhaven zoning for the property would remain the same, retail J-2.
Nicholas Andreadis, the regional vice president of leasing for Brixmor’s north region, said Bethpage Federal Credit Union would likely vacate the shopping center if it isn’t able to secure a drive-through.
At a Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic meeting Feb. 25, representatives of Brixmor and its hired architects came to speak on the proposed addition.
Some residents had concerns with the location of the pad, especially in how it effectively bisects the parking lot. The lot has three entrances from Nesonset Highway, and the middlemost one would be directly in front of the proposed storefront. A central lane running through the parking lot currently allows drivers to go back and forth parallel to the highway, but plans show the lane would be cut off just before the middle entrance. Cars would have to stop and either go around the pad or stop at several stop signs. Company representatives said this was at the request of the town to slow down traffic through that area.
The changes would reduce the total number of stalls by 25 from 599 to 574.
The shopping center is currently full of stores including a Dollar Tree, Five Guys burgers and fries and Carnival Restaurant & Pizzeria. There is only one vacant location. On Saturday, a new art studio One RiverSchool of Art & Design opened its doors at the shopping center.
Some residents complained they have used the central lane to bypass having to go onto Route 347 and skip the confusing and often dangerous intersection between the highway and Norwood Avenue. Sal Pitti, the civic president, said taking such shortcuts is, in itself, unsafe.
Site plans for the pad building show a 7,000-square-foot addition in the center of the parking lot, mandating a reconfiguration of traffic patterns. Photos by Kyle Barr
“That’s where a lot of the problems start when people try to come in and out of the parking lot,” Pitti said.
Will Zieman, 6th Precinct COPE officer, also spoke to the problems of using that parking lot as a cut through.
“Is it reasonable to predict what people are going to do off 347?” he said. “It’s very hard for you, as a driver, to predict what another vehicle will do coming out of that shopping center.”
Though, as Port Jeff Station resident Jennifer Simoes put it, even being forced to drive in front of the storefronts because of the new pad is itself dangerous for pedestrians.
“I don’t want to go in front of the storefronts either, because I don’t want to hit anyone who’s coming out with their pizza,” she said. “I’m not going to want to go in there, and there’s another Dollar Tree and Marshalls in the
other direction.”
Pitti agreed the larger issue comes from increased pedestrian traffic in an often busy parking lot.
Charlie McAteer, the civic’s recording secretary, also suggested the company look at how pedestrians were to get from the pad building to the main shopping center.
“What I’m seeing where you’re walking right now, you’re going to end at a walkway and you’re into striped parking, and you will have to walk between parked cars,” he said. “There will be people who want to go to the bank and then go eat.”
Reuben Twersky, a project director for Brixmor, said people will often ignore walkways and crosswalks and routes even if they were created.
“We would like to do it in as safe a manner as possible,” he said.
The area along Route 347 has been a particular hotbed of issues with both vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Last year, 17-year-old Jenna Perez, an employee at Five Guys, was killed in a hit-and-run while crossing Nesconset Highway outside a crosswalk.
In addition to the changes in parking lot design, Brixmor plans to reduce the height of lights to 20 feet and add 19,000 square feet of landscaping to the front of the property bordering Nesconset Highway.
The company is also looking to redo and move the sign displaying the names stores within. Designs show the proposed sign going 26 1/2 feet up from the ground on new brick pylons.
Philip Butler, an attorney from Hauppauge-based Farrell Fritz, said the company’s next steps are to submit final comments to the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals by March 11. After the zoning board of appeals gives approval for variances, then the company will be back in front of the Planning Board to look at traffic and parking. The company is also awaiting on New York State Department of Transportation on a traffic study before it can move fully ahead.
Volunteers help revitalize the Terryville Road community garden Oct. 5. Photo by Kyle Barr
One would have never known there was a garden on the side of Terryville Road in Port Jefferson Station. Vines had strangled the fence that bordered the road, and to anyone without some local knowledge practically anything could be behind those rusting chain links.
Comsewogue students Sarah Thomas and Briana Rodriguez tear apart vines at the community garden. Photo by Kyle Barr
Now, those driving past see something completely different — a full garden with planting boxes, a greenhouse and a large sign reading “Community Garden.”
Over the course of Oct. 5, close to 20 community leaders, volunteers and young people looking for high school service hours hacked at weeds, shrubs and vines, quickly bringing the place back to a presentable standard.
The garden property is owned by the Comsewogue School District, and for years had been operated by the Comsewogue Youth Center, according to district officials, but the crew suddenly ceased operations nearly a decade ago. Since then vines overtook the fence, and the site faded from many locals’ memories. While the grass was maintained by the district, the rest of the site was left to its own devices.
“The lady who took care of it eventually moved, and after that it fell to squalor,” said Sal Pitti, the president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association.
As the volunteers moved in, many were surprised by just how well the property had survived after years of neglect. Only a few wooden pieces had to be replaced, such as needing new 2-by-4 lumber for the wooden benches and for a few new planters, along with new Plexiglas for the greenhouse door. Otherwise the civic leaders were pleasantly surprised.
Members of the PJS/Terryville Civic discuss ideas for the garden. Photo by Kyle Barr
“The bones of this is in relatively good shape,” said Charlie McAteer, civic corresponding secretary. “Maybe it needs some paint, maybe it needs a touch up.”
In just a few hours, a mountainous pile of plant debris had already formed by the gate onto the property.
Local landscaper Kevin Halpin, of Halpin Landscaping, said he was contacted via Facebook by civic vice president, Ed Garboski. The day before the cleanup, Halpin came in with appropriate equipment, and did much of the heavy lifting along with cutting the grass. He said he will come back on request to help with whatever needs doing.
The area, he said, needs that extra effort and TLC.
A number of high schoolers from the area also showed up to lend a hand.
Comsewogue students Sarah Thomas and Briana Rodriguez laughed and joked around as they plied a bundle of rough vines apart.
“It was a huge mess, there were vines everywhere,” Thomas said. “It’s definitely a lot cleaner without all the vines and stuff. I think a lot more kids might come here.”
Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) arrived midday Saturday and immediately started picking up litter from the side of the road in front of the garden gate. She said cleanups like this are good ways for community members to make a difference in an immediate and tangible way.
A sign for the Community Garden was surprisingly intact. Photo by Kyle Barr
“They’re usually very effective ways of getting people involved,” she said.
Pitti said he is looking to work with the school district to see if other students looking to get service hours in the future could work in the community garden.
“As much as the kids get into it, they’re welcome to come,” the civic president said.
The civic leaders are looking forward to next spring, where they will start planting vegetables and flowers, hoping that they maintain a staunch group of locals to tend the garden. Once the garden starts growing, they plan to donate the food to neighboring St. Gerard Majella R.C. Church for its food pantry, and if they grow even more, they will share with other churches in the area.
The Greenway Trail runs between Port Jefferson Station and East Setauket. File photo by Rachel Shapiro
The Friends of the Greenway is hosting another cleanup event for the Setauket to Port Jefferson Station Greenway Trail on Saturday, Aug. 29, from 8 to 10 a.m.
Volunteers who want to help mow, prune, clip and beautify the community hiking and biking trail should bring gloves, trash bags, clippers, mowers, brooms or shovels along with any gardening tools. The helpers can choose an area on the trail to beautify and head straight to work — but please contact Charlie McAteer from Friends of the Greenway at [email protected] to report the location — or they can report to one of the trailheads for an assigned task.
Participants can also help distribute information to trail visitors at either the Port Jefferson Station end or the Setauket end of the trail.
The Greenway Trail runs between Limroy Lane in East Setauket and the New York State Department of Transportation parking lot in Port Jefferson Station, near Route 112 at Hallock Avenue.
To take part in maintaining the trail apart from the cleanup event, contact McAteer to find out other ways to help.
The Greenway Trail runs between Port Jefferson Station and East Setauket. File photo by Rachel Shapiro
With the summer in full bloom, the Friends of the Greenway will mow, prune, clip and beautify the Greenway Trail — and the group would like community help.
Volunteers for the event, this Saturday, July 25, from 8 to 10 a.m., should bring gloves, trash bags, clippers, mowers, brooms or shovels along with any gardening tools. They can choose an area on the hiking and biking trail to clean or report to a trailhead for an assigned task.
The Greenway Trail, which opened in 2009, runs from Limroy Lane in East Setauket to the New York State Department of Transportation parking lot in Port Jefferson Station, close to Route 112.
A monthly effort to clean the trail will help maintain the community connection. Volunteers who cannot make the Greenway’s monthly beautification schedule can contact Charlie McAteer from Friends of the Greenway at [email protected] to find out other ways to help.
Nick Kordis, Ronne Cosel, Charlie McAteer, Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), Brookhaven Town Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) and Herb Mones stand next to the newly planted memorial tree in honor of late North Shore activist Michael Cosel, on Wednesday, July 8. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
Michael Cosel left a lasting impact on the Three Village community, and his neighbors returned the favor.
A memorial cherry tree was planted on Limroy Lane at the Setauket-Port Jefferson Station Greenway Trail on Wednesday, July 8, in honor of Cosel, 69, who died in May, but his work as co-founder of the Greenway project will live on for decades to come. Some of his former colleagues joined with elected officials to make sure the roots take shape the right way.
“Mike was the person to call for the project,” said Charles McAteer, another co-founder of the Greenway. “He got many different groups involved, and was an integral part of the trail.”
McAteer said the Limroy Lane location of the memorial cherry tree was very fitting, beyond just being near the trail that Cosel had worked so hard for.
He said Cosel had always envisioned installing kiosks at various locations of the trail, so people using it for walks or bike rides could access maps or simply sit in the shade. This memorial tree, McAteer said, is located right next to one of the two kiosks of the trail, and inside the kiosk is an article remembering Cosel.
Herb Mones, a founder and trustee of the Three Village Trust, helped sow the seeds in Cosel’s name and said the late activist will be very missed, and that he always had a smile, kind words and guidance to offer others.
“There is a big gap without him, but hopefully we can fill it with flowers and continue the memory of him,” Mones said.
Ronne Cosel, Michael’s wife, said she and her husband frequented the popular North Shore trail, both riding their bikes and going for long walks throughout their 44 years as Setauket residents.
“This trail was very significant for Mike, he was very passionate about it, especially that it was accessible for everyone,” Cosel’s wife Ronne said.
Cosel is survived by his wife and their two children, a daughter and a son.
Cosel was also actively involved in community service pertaining to children with special abilities. The Cosels’ son Andrew, 43, has cerebral palsy. Ronne Cosel said accessibility was a key factor because of their son.
“He offered his expertise freely to anyone who needed it, and had a long history of community activism,” she said.
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