It’s Time for the East Side to Shine
We’re ready to celebrate the greatest thing about the East Side: East Siders.
Each year, Our Town, the largest community newspaper on the East Side of Manhattan, pauses to salute dozens of New Yorkers whose accomplishments deserve to be highlighted. We call our civic awards the Our Town Thanks You, or OTTY, Awards.
Those who have been honored with OTTY awards are dazzlingly distinguished, and 2010 is no exception. This year’s East Sider of the Year, Matilda Raffa Cuomo, has been a lifelong advocate for children. As founder of the program Mentoring USA, Cuomo’s efforts now reach 15 states and 5,000 children. Read more
New York’s First Mentor
In her life after Albany, Matilda Cuomo continues to support children in need
By Dan Rivoli
Matilda Cuomo knows something about children. She has five of her own, 14 grandchildren and she is a former teacher.
When her husband, Mario, was sworn in as New York’s governor in 1983, Cuomo put that background to use by influencing policy and legislation that would promote family and protect children.
In 1987, she was appointed honorary chair to a Council on Children and Families, started by Gov. Hugh Carey.
“It gave me a segue to help the whole system,” Cuomo said. “The breakdown of the family is so devastating.” Read more
East Side Peacekeeper
For Berntsen, diplomats, football stars and pub-goers are all in a day’s work
By Marcella Veneziale
The East Side is one of Manhattan’s safest neighborhoods, but that doesn’t mean that Deputy Inspector Ted Berntsen, commanding officer of the 17th Precinct, isn’t busy. The precinct extends south of East 59th Street into Turtle Bay, Kips Bay and Murray Hill, and includes the United Nations.
“We want to make sure it stays one of the prime neighborhoods in the city,” Berntsen said.
Berntsen, whose father and uncle were both police officers, joined the force in 1989. He was working on Wall Street but sought job security in the midst of a recession. He served in the Midtown South Precinct, which covers Times Square, for 19 years, and joined the 17th Precinct two years ago. Read more
A Stellar Supervisor
Barrett is a valued resource both in and outside the precinct
By Jeremy Willinger
A long and decorated career can start on a whim. Just ask Lieutenant Stephen Barrett.
Today, he serves as the special operations lieutenant at the 19th precinct on the East Side, where he supervises 27 officers in plainclothes operations, anti-crime and quality of life issues. But it was only after he found himself growing tired of pursuing an engineering degree at New York Technical College that he considered becoming a cop.
When a friend decided to take the exam to become a police officer, Barrett, who at the time was working full-time as a computer operator for Merrill Lynch while going to school and holding down a part-time job, decided to give police work a go. After his friend decided it was not for her, Stephen persisted and entered the Police Academy in 1987. He gave his two-week notice to Merrill Lynch the next day. Read more
The Joy of Giving
From hospitalized kids to injured vets, Carroll spreads cheer wherever he goes
By Aline Reynolds
Firefighter James Carroll’s most gratifying reward seems to be no more than a smile.
Since the 1990s, Carroll, 39, and his fellow firemen have made special Christmas Day visits to burn, cancer and emergency room patients at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, singing Christmas carols and handing out toys. When Carroll joined the team, he initiated a toy drive, soliciting donations at holiday parties and elsewhere.
“James always brightens things up with the good presents,” said Kenny Ruane, a fellow fireman who dresses up as Santa Claus for the children at the hospital. “We always have more than enough toys because James knows so many people.” Read more
Work in Progress
Under siege with construction, Pecora fights for local merchants
By Marcella Veneziale
Three years ago, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority erected barricades on Second Avenue to begin subway construction. Joe Pecora was of course worried about his restaurant, Delizia, on East 92nd Street, but his concern extended to neighboring businesses as well.
“I don’t want to be the only one standing,” he said. “It just takes an effort from everybody’s part to make this area survive.”
Pecora, who lives in Great Neck, Long Island, with his wife and three children, has done his part by leading the Second Avenue Business Association. An early meeting between the MTA, city officials and business owners about the project’s financial impact ignited his inner community activist. When an MTA representative said the agency usually did not financially help businesses affected by its projects, it struck a nerve with Pecora and other owners, and led to the association’s creation. Read more
Neighborhood Dynamo
Don’t try shutting the local P.O. on Ponticello’s watch
By Shannon Geis
Standing 5-feet tall and sporting bright lipstick, Loretta V. Ponticello may not seem like much of a threat. But she has become a force to be reckoned with in Yorkville, and was a key activist credited with sparing Cherokee Post Office from a proposed closure.
A New Jersey native, Ponticello, 87, moved to the neighborhood in the 1950s, not long after she came to New York City to take a job at Chemical Bank, now part of J.P. Morgan Chase. She has always been an active member of the community, but since her retirement in 1995, she has become even more involved. Read more
East Side Green Machine
Greenmarkets, shred-a-thons and recycling events are Gallagher’s specialty
By Shannon Geis
When the subject of Upper Green Side is brought up, Sarah Gallagher starts talking a mile a minute. The organization was started about four years ago, but it has already had a large impact on the community, and Gallagher is proud to be a part of it.
Although Gallagher is an active member of the organization now, her involvement was something of a coincidence. As a television writer, Gallagher has worked on several law series, and so a local deli owner asked her for help when he got ticketed for chaining a bike to an awning.
“Because I must have experience in law,” she said, laughing. Read more
Behind-the-Scenes Expert
Breadth of knowledge and community concern fuels Gold’s advocacy work
By Dan Rivoli
Jeffrey Gold is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to community planning. He can talk at length about everything from transportation and health care policy to the environment and development. But when he is asked about his accomplishments in the neighborhood, Gold can be at a loss for words, if not downright modest.
“I’ve never claimed to be that successful,” he said, “because the neighborhood is not where I want it to be.”
Certainly not every battle has been a victory, but he’s an informed voice in the debate nonetheless. Gold convened education forums during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s push for congestion pricing, which would have charged drivers a fee for entering certain parts of Manhattan. Read more
Service and Values
At the Y, King works to support everything from daycare to senior swim
By Megan Finnegan
Charlie King, 48, remembers when the Vanderbilt YMCA felt like a massive water world. Born and raised in Turtle Bay, King and his three brothers learned to swim at the same Y that he now oversees as chairman of the board.
“I had a pretty happy childhood, and I associated a lot of those memories with the Y because that’s where we used to hang out,” he said.
That history is what first drew him to volunteer there, more than 20 years ago. Describing himself as a “fully New York-educated guy,” King went to Xavier High School, graduated from Colgate University and then earned an M.B.A. in finance from NYU’s Stern School of Business. Now a senior vice president at The Capital Group Companies, King and his wife, Cathleen Woods-King, live in Pelham, N.Y., with their three teenage sons, though King thinks they’ll move back to the city eventually. Read more
