Serving New Hyde Park, North New Hyde Park, Herricks, Garden City Park, Manhasset Hills, North Hills, Floral Park
$1
Friday, April 29, 2016
Vol. 65, No. 18
N E W H Y D E PA R K
’S DAY MOTHER Gift Guide Dining &
MOTHER’S DAY SHOPRITE MARAGOS BLASTS DINING, GIFT GUIDE OPENS IN NHP POLICE FINANCES PAGE 33-48
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• april 29, 2016 tions special section / litmor publica a blank slate media
NHP officials worry about crossing plans
E A R T H D AY M U S I C
Proposal to send roads under tracks raises concerns about traffic, property B y N oah M ans k ar New Hyde Park and Mineola officials heard more from engineers last week about possible plans for eliminating street-level Long Island Rail Road crossings and make way for a third track. Department of Transportation engineers presented about a dozen options for removing Mineola’s two crossings, Mayor Scott Strauss said. But their primary plan for New Hyde Park would involve closing Covert Avenue for about a year to send the road underneath the tracks, Mayor Robert Lofaro said, which he thinks is “just not workable.” “We said to them, ‘At this point we need you to go back to the drawing board and really be creative here,’” Lofaro said. Engineers met last month with officials in communities with the seven street-level crossings along the 9.8-mile stretch of the LIRR’s Main Line where Gov. Andrew
Cuomo and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority want to add a third track. Cuomo has pledged to eliminate the crossings, which he says endanger safety, back up traffic and add to train noise, in his $1.5 billion plan as he tries to distinguish it as less invasive than one the MTA proposed in 2005 and abandoned three years later. In an April 20 meeting, representatives from the MTA and Cuomo’s office told New Hyde Park and Garden City officials that sending traffic underneath the tracks would be the most feasible way to eliminate the at-grade crossings at Covert Avenue, South 12th Street and New Hyde Park Road, Lofaro said. Engineers told them each crossing would take six to nine months to finish, he said. While the village has been in “listening mode” since Cuomo announced the third track in January, this proposal creates major Continued on Page 63
Photo courtesy of Herricks Public Schools
Denton Avenue School celebrated Earth Day with representatives from the Town of North Hempstead on April 20, when a special assembly was held to acknowledge the importance of the environment. Student Riya Perguval was selected as a volunteer to help singer “Tall Paul” lead the Earth Day songs.
Search for knife-wielding thief top priority, cops say B y N oah M ans k ar
of robberies spanning 16 miles and nearly two months. The crime has “thrown a Nassau County police are new twist into a very complex investigating Monday morn- investigation” because it is the ing’s robbery of a New Hyde first the serial robber has perPark Subway shop as the 11th petrated in the morning, Detecknifepoint holdup in a string tive Lt. Richard LeBrun said at
a news conference Tuesday. “This subject is now priority No. 1 for the Nassau County Police Department,” said LeBrun, commading officer of the Public Information Office. Police said the man, deContinued on Page 64
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