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HALF HOLLOW HILLS Copyright © 2012 Long Islander Newspapers, LLC.
Online at www.LongIslanderNews.com VOLUME FIFTEEN, ISSUE 3
N E W S P A P E R
LONG ISLANDER NEWSPAPERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS/MEDIA BUSINESS OF THE YEAR 28 PAGES
THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012
MELVILLE
Canon HQ Set To Open In Six Months Exterior construction nearly complete on their 668,296 square-foot ‘green’ facility mkoehler@longislandernews.com
A pumpkin farm just three years ago, the future North American home of Canon is starting to look like the headquarters for an international corporation. Canon Executive Vice President Seymour Liebman opened the doors to 1 Canon Park – figuratively since they aren’t actually installed yet – to Long Islander Newspapers last week for the first media tour since construction began. The groundbreaking ceremony for the 668,296 square foot facility was two years ago on May 3, 2010. Cement was poured that September and a ceremonial placing of the first beam occurred early in January 2011. Today the former farm land is covered by five stories of office buildings and two parking garages. Two separate, rectangular office buildings are connected through narrow passages and a lobby, flanked by a parking garage on each end. Nearly all of the structural work is complete, with large glass windows also installed throughout all five floors. In fact, at least half of the walls have already been drywalled.
The basement is a one-story maze of cinderblocks. When completed, the cellar level will house a large data center, HVAC equipment and electric substations converting power from two LIPA feeds for the building. The first floor is expected to be home to a print center, showroom for various Canon devices, conference rooms, fitness center for employees and cafeteria. The cafeteria, Liebman said, will seat about 560 people and have a full, active kitchen on premises. Employee workspaces will occupy from the second floor up. The vice president said they favored open workspaces over offices for most employees. The few necessary offices, he added, are located in the corners of each floor. Both parking garages appear to be nearing completion. They will house a combined 1,600 parking spaces, as well as 12 charging stations for electric cars. An additional 200 spaces will be available on ground level for visitors.
Half Hollow Hills photo/Mike Koehler
By Mike Koehler
(Continued on page A27)
This temporary elevator used by contractors on the back of the facility will be demolished once construction ends.
DIX HILLS
Holocaust Survivor Shares His Story Leo “Leibel” Zisman talks about experience at Chai Center after 40 years of silence Half Hollow Hills photo/Stephanie DeLuca
Leo “Leibel” Zisman shares his experience in the Holocaust with members of the Chai Center.
By Stephanie DeLuca sdeluca@longislandernews.com
Leo “Leibel” Zisman’s father cried to a Rabbi as they were rounded up before the Nazis invaded his hometown, asking him to bless the boy. Zisman believes that blessing is what allowed him survive through the years of the Holocaust. Zisman shared his emotional journey with about 40 congregants at the Chai Center in Dix Hills on May 3. The Holocaust survivor and author of “I Believe” said he decided to speak about his experience after 40 years of silence so that he could inform a younger generation about the truth of the Holocaust. “The youth don’t know it,” he said. “Every person that survived had a story. Unfortunately, so many did not write and they died and their story went down with them… That’s what drives me to speak. I’ll speak until doomsday.”
Zisman, 82, was born in Kovno, Lithuania. The Holocaust began when he was just a young boy. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazis deported millions of Jews to ghettos and concentration camps, where they were murdered, mainly by burning and gas chambers. The Nazis invaded Lithuania when the author was 13 years old. He was shipped into a confined ghetto within his country, surrounded by fences and 10-foot-high barbed wire. “About every 50 feet, there was a soldier 60 feet high with a machine gun. At night there were projectors so you could not escape,” he said. Within three and a half years, Zisman was transferred to six different concentration camps. He said during that time there were many selections where everyone was placed in what was similar to a football field and then they were transferred to (Continued on page A27)
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