Daily Archives: December 24, 2018

THANK YOU: Nearly 250 toys donated to Town & Village holiday drive

Dr. Bonnie Robbins of Mount Sinai Beth Israel says this drive has become more crucial to the families the hospital serves. (Photo by Sabina Mollot)

By Sabina Mollot

Readers of Town & Village have once again made the holidays a little brighter for children stuck in hospital rooms as well as the families utilizing the outpatient clinics run by Mount Sinai Beth Israel by donating nearly 250 toys to this newspaper’s annual drive.

Gifts for kids of all ages were donated this year including instruments, jewelry making kits, board games, action figures and fashion dolls.

Town & Village’s partners on this longstanding community tradition are Stuy Town Property Services, the management of Waterside Plaza and M&T Bank on First Avenue and 23rd Street, who all provided convenient toy dropoff sites.

Bonnie Robbins, PhD, coordinator of children and family services at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, has said in recent years it has been more challenging to get enough toys to meet the needs of patients. This has been, she suspects, in part due to the economy but also competition from other drives for donations from individuals and toy retailers.

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13th Pct. Community Council holds holiday dinner at Hane

Event guests, including, in the back, Frank Scala, Community Council president; Deputy Inspector Steven Hellman, commanding officer of the 13th Precinct; and another guest (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

The 13th Precinct Community Council held its annual holiday dinner for members at Hane Sushi in Stuyvesant Town on Monday evening.

About 30 regular attendees of the monthly community council meetings were at the dinner, including the precinct’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Steven Hellman, Executive Officer Ernesto Castro and community affairs officers John Considine and Detective Vincent Arlotta. Community Council President Frank Scala thanked the officers for their work in the community throughout the year and Hellman said that he was looking forward to continuing the work in the neighborhood next year.

“It’s been a tough year but we’re making progress,” Hellman said. “We’ll be focusing on connecting more with the community in the upcoming months.”

Letters to the editor, Dec. 20

Cartoon by Jim Meadows

Transparency needed on NYCHA ‘fix’

The following is an open letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio:

On Wednesday evening, December 12, Mayor de Blasio announced on TV that he’s getting $24 billion to fix apartments in public housing or New York City Housing Authority. Funding, he said, will come from federal, NY State, NY City, as well as from city land and air rights sold to developers.

I’ve been writing and talking to elected politicians for years about not selling our NY City land because they are only temporary employees elected to administer our property and all necessary services for the well-being of the real persons who reside in NYC.

The land should be rented to developers for 80 to 100 years and air rights should be very well-studied; then, the elected mayor selects qualified persons to verify and/or be sure that all is working well, according to signed contracts before the jobs have been performed.

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