Click here
for the full NY Times Sunday Routine article about Ms Short.
In June 2022 Ms Short told me
about the NY Junior Tennis & Learning program on Roosevelt Island that she
runs and is a big part of her Sunday activities.
Ms Short is the President of the Roosevelt Landings Tenants Association and
reported last August about electricity
submetering issues in the building.
Roosevelt Island resident Stephen Quandt works as a nationally recognized, certified feline training and behavior specialist, based in New York City with his company Stephen Quandt Feline Behavior Associates.
Mr Quandt is now a recently published children's book author of Happy Comes Home.
According to Mr Quandt:
I started working with cats and clients in 2002, and in time began working for the ASPCA. I now work at one of the largest open admission shelters in the country, the Animal Care Centers of NYC. My passion is to create a happier world for cats and the humans who love them, and this passion sparked an idea for my first children’s book; Happy Comes Home. My husband Thom illustrated the book and we wrote it as a way of connecting with people, children and their families who either want to get a cat, or maybe have a cat who has some behavior challenges, or just love a great feel-good story about a cat!
Photo Credit Linda Becker
The premise is we have a family: mom, dad and their child Avery who all want a cat (Avery very much wants a cat!) and they go to a shelter and find a sweet looking cat whom they name ‘Happy’. They adopt Happy and bring this wonderful cat home imagining all the great things Happy would do, like stretch out on the sofa purring, sleep at the foot of Avery’s bed, and eat yummy food while the family ate their dinner. But when they got Happy home, it was a “cat-tastrophy!” Happy scratched up the sofa, stole the family’s dinner and woke the parents up in the wee hours of the night. The parents wanted to return Happy but Happy was Avery's best friend, so something had to be done.
The family did some online research and found a certified ‘Catsultant’ named Mr. Top Cat who coincidentally resembles a feline version of myself. Mr. Top Cat appears at the door to help set things right. And what follows are a series of easy to take in teachable moments that help guide the family and Happy so that everyone can be the happiest versions of themselves. Mind you, Happy has always been a super happy cat, just a cat without manners!
Thus begins the adventures of a cat, a child, and a family trying to find the happiness so many of us seek with our feline friends. Would Happy be allowed to stay? Would Happy settle down? The answers lie in the bond between Happy and Avery, and the common sense behavior tools that Mr. Top Cat brings to the family using his deep understanding of the nature of cats.
Giandomenico Picco, an Italian diplomat who as the “chief troubleshooter” for the United Nations helped resolve conflicts across the globe, has died at 75. https://t.co/IvW0sLCv5j
Giandomenico Picco, an Italian diplomat who as a lead negotiator for the United Nations helped resolve conflicts across the globe — most notably spending nearly a year in the early 1990s shuttling around the Middle East to secure the release of 11 hostages held by terrorist groups in Lebanon — died on Sunday in Wilton, Conn., in Fairfield County. He was 75....
... Tall, sharply dressed and always discreet, Mr. Picco was something of a mystery within the U.N. bureaucracy. He would disappear without notice from the headquarters in Manhattan, only to surface a few days later in Lebanon, Iran or Afghanistan, often without having passed through border controls along the way....
... I did not do diplomacy in the
desk. I did not do diplomacy on the great halls of the UN. I actually did
diplomacy with results not with the blah blah and not with the piece of paper. In
the real theater of life.
I took home eight American hostages, which had been
kept there the longest one for five years, three British hostages and two German hostages. In the meantime and during this
operation, I was myself taken four times, blindfolded, locked up in the back of the car and eventually talked so much that
they've let me go because they couldn't take it anymore...
Condolences to Mr Picco's family, friends and colleagues.
Last July, Mr Quandt's work helping the Dogs Of Chernobyl was profiled on
NPR's Morning Edition.
According to Mr Quandt:
In 2019 I worked to help the dogs that live around the site of the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant accident of 1986 and gave a 3 minute condensed interview
to StoryCorps that was featured on NPR's Morning Edition....
Mr Quandt adds:
I'm told it will get 6-14 million listeners, crazy right?
...is a Reality Poet and the Director of the arts-and-justice initiative OPEN
DOORS, an artist collective who, prior to the pandemic, traveled around the
city sharing their poetry and stories....
Before we officially came together as the Reality Poets, we were a loose group
of wheelchair users who would sit outside the massive brick building at the
tip of Roosevelt Island, smoke and share stories. Many of us were gun violence
survivors and all of us felt there was nothing to do living in the nursing
home. In 2016 a local artist started a project for us called OPEN DOORS, and
from there the Reality Poets were born. Thanks to our vision and leadership
OPEN DOORS is now a dynamic creative collective, educating our youth and
producing artistic collaborations, including a
poetry anthology,
original play
and
hip-hop album.
During the pandemic we were dehumanized and confined inside our nursing
home. Realizing we had the microphone at the center of the storm, we began
advocating for all those living and working in long-term care, particularly
Black and brown nursing home residents who saw twice the amount of COVID
deaths as their white counterparts. In 2020 we launched the Nursing Home
Lives Matter movement and are now warriors with a mission to end racism and
ableism in long-term care.
Last Tuesday, September 19, in front of his family and friends at the Good
Morning America TV studio, Michael Strahan surprised Mr Pierce by announcing that
he was a
2023 Craig H Neilsen (CHN) Visionary Prize
recipient of $1 million.
... launched in 2020 to celebrate influential voices in the world of spinal
cord injury. The Prize was created to honor the legacy of Craig H. Neilsen
and is awarded to individuals who embody the values that were important to
him during his lifetime.
Each prize winner is awarded $1 million, respectively.
Vincent Pierce, based in New York, is a music producer, gun violence
survivor, and community organizer. He is co-director of the arts-and-justice
initiative OPEN DOORS. As an OPEN DOORS Reality Poet, he has traveled around
New York City sharing his story, poetry, and wisdom. As a teen, Vincent
moved to North Carolina, where he studied music and played on multiple
basketball teams. In his twenties, Vincent was shot while being robbed at
gunpoint, leaving him paralyzed.
In 2019, Vincent began writing poetry after he was inspired by a writing
workshop at Open Doors NYC. He started the music program ZING! which, he
says, is “showing kids from neighborhoods like the one I grew up in that
they are bigger than what their environments expect them to be.” Vincent’s
poetry and writings have been published in Wheeling & Healing: A Poetry
Anthology Edited by OPEN DOORS Reality Poets. He’s the recipient of a Center
for Cultural Innovation Grant, which enabled him to start a music program
aimed at keeping youth off the streets and in the studio.
In July 2020, Vincent launched #NursingHomeLivesMatter working for a
healthcare system that protects, respects and cares for all those in
long-term care, and for those who care for us.
I asked Mr Pierce for his thoughts on being a recipient of the David H
Neilsen Visionary Prize. He said:
I would just thank the Nielsen foundation and Good Morning America. I
would just say hard work and dedication pays off.
Roosevelt Island residents Thom Heyer and Julia Ferguson were among the family
and friends who were with Mr Pierce at the Good Morning America Studio.
Mr Heyer reports:
It was rather a surreal day on Good Morning America!
I found out September 8 about GMA wanting to do a feature story on Vince regarding his work at Open Doors, etc.
Friends and family of Vince were asked to RSVP if we could attend and to keep it a secret from Vince.
A financial amount was never mentioned--we all thought it was going to be a public acknowledgement on national television.
I was told about the million dollar check on Monday afternoon when we were asked if we would participate in holding up the numbers to announce the check.
We were asked to show up a half hour earlier than the rest of the people to set up that sequence.
We were also required to keep it a secret.
It truly was a complete surprise!
Julia Ferguson adds:
Vince looked immediately to all his team and friends from the Open Doors
Reality Poets in the moment of receiving this award. He is a very well
deserving recipient of this honor for leadership and community service.
It was an honor to participate and also a complete surprise. I only knew that
he was going to be on a special segment of GMA and that they had asked friends
to join if they could in order to cheer and applaud.
Hope everyone can make it to the NYC premier of Fire Through Dry Grass Sept
29th through Oct. 4th.
Fire Through Dry Grass is a documentary about the experience of residents and workers at Coler during the Covid pandemic. Mr Pierce composed music for the documentary. Here's the trailer for the documentary.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keller, a best-selling author and theorist of
Christianity who performed a modern miracle of his own — establishing a
theologically orthodox church
in Manhattan that attracted thousands of young professional followers — died
on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 72.
His death was announced by Redeemer City to City, an organization affiliated
with Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Mr. Keller
announced
on Twitter in December 2021 that he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer....
According to his one time neighbors Sherie Helstien:
Tim and Kathy and their 3 sons were our neighbors in 30RR when tenants were
moving in just as the complex was opening. We watched their lovely boys grow
up and had many cordial and funny conversations with all of them.
and Matt Katz:
We lived across the hall from the Keller's at 30RR for some years and then
we moved to another building. Some years later we met Tim on the Red Bus and
asked after the family.
I mentioned that we had just gotten a new cat and were looking for an
appropriate name. She was to keep our old cat, Zeke, company and warm his
bones.
Tim thought for a moment and said, "Kings, 1-4." That's all he said.
When we got home I looked up the Old Testament reference and there it was...
Abishag, a virgin who would keep old King David's bones warm although "he
knew her not." Abishag kept Zeke's (and our) bones warm for many years.
We moved to New York 10 years ago with the intent of starting new ministries
across the city.
We didn't know what to expect; moving a family of seven at that point in
time from the Midwest. However, I quickly realized a few different things.
First, I needed mentors who could help me understand the landscape of New
York. Second, I needed someone who would cheer me on and believed in what we
were attempting to do. Third, we needed financial resources that could help
us get our different ministries off the ground.
Tim was one of the first to step in as a mentor.
Redeemer City to City
(which Tim founded) invited me into a regular mentoring process where I was
able to sit with and learn from Tim regularly. They would also become one of
our biggest financial supporters to date. Tim always modeled generosity. So
many times pastors and priests become weirdly territorial, and yet Tim
continued to give away his time, his ministries' resources, and his prayer
so that we could see new churches, new community development programming,
and new ministries come to fruition across the city.
There were multiple times where we traveled back to Roosevelt Island
together from his offices in Manhattan and we would laugh at the fact that
as we walked down Main Street, more of our neighbors knew the younger guy
from the Midwest than the New York Times best selling author who had quietly
made his home on Roosevelt island as he continued his work all over the city
and world. Tim loved it.
Roosevelt island was his place of rest. He loved living on Roosevelt Island.
He loved raising his family on Roosevelt Island, and he loved that we were
starting
Mosaic Church (once Hope
Church) in his very own neighborhood. Tim held to a deep belief that if you
are to truly follow the way of Jesus, you invest your life for the sake of
the whole neighborhood. (Not just Christians, but all people).
You seek religious freedom, not just for Christians, but for all people.
Mosaic continues to aim to be a church for the neighborhood, one that
blesses all of our neighbors regardless of whether or not they ever step
into our space. In a polarized time, where the Evangelical Church does not
often look much like the Jesus they preach, Tim continued to talk about and
model the way of Christ that deeply loves all and refused to play partisan
politics. I’m grateful to have had him as a mentor, and Mosaic Church will
continue to be a place of peace, mercy, and grace because of servant leaders
like him.
He will be missed
Watch Carpool Karaoke with Tim Keller and his family as they drive around
Roosevelt Island and sing Broadway show tunes.
Molly Worthen on the legacy of pastor Timothy Keller, who died on Friday at
72: "two fundamental ideas propelled him: Biblical Christianity is not a
political position, and secular liberalism deserves theological critique."
https://t.co/JjJNo9VbIJ
Here’s my postscript of @timkellernyc. He might have been the most effective communicator of historic Christian
teachings in America. Hard to think of any pastor w/ a resume like his. I
try to explain his legacy and the void he leaves behind.
https://t.co/ZlSvno9OcU
@timkellernyc would be the first to say that all glory goes to God. It’s his work that he graciously invites us into and allows us to participate. God is at work always and everywhere.
Rossana Ceruzzi has loved animals ever since she was a child growing up in
Rome, Italy. So it's no surprise that every day, she pays a visit to the cat
sanctuary she founded on Roosevelt Island. It's the largest of three cat
sanctuaries run by the Wildlife Freedom Foundation. It all started when
Ceruzzi moved to the island 23 years ago and found a population of abandoned
cats living there....
There’s no information about what the fees might be and when they might be instituted.
I say the official word, because RIOC, which emails me almost daily, and sometimes more than once a day, has yet to announce this news to me and fellow residents through their usual means: RIOC Advisories.
The initial announcement of the fees was distributed in an advisory on February 23; the latest news has not been sent to subscribers.
As a Public Relations professional, I follow the Code of Ethics of the Public Relations Society of America, the national professional membership organization. I consider these guidelines to be best practices.
Under the rubric of Disclosure of Information, the Code of Ethics states:
Open communication fosters informed decision making in a democratic society.
The intent is: To build trust with the public by revealing all information needed for responsible decision making.
Here I give my colleague Akeem Jamal, AVP, Communications, a resounding F on the announcement of the suspension of fees.
Even if he is not a member of PRSA, as someone who has an undergraduate degree in Communications & Media Studies, and as someone who served for more than three years as Deputy Communications Director for the City of Yonkers, Jamal should know better.
There’s no rationale for this miserable job on the announcement.
Posting a notice to 1,944 followers on Instagram, 1,235 followers on Twitter and 49 friends on Facebook does not build trust with the public. On the contrary, it undermines trust among the subscribers who learn the news by other means.
— Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (@RIOCny) March 9, 2023
Nor does it approach revealing all information needed for responsible decision making by the 12,000 residents who do not connect with RIOC on social media. It’s the reverse; people cannot decide in the absence of timely and relevant information.
Ask yourself, why would RIOC notify its social media contacts but NOT the subscribers to the RIOC Advisories?
Could it be they were taken aback by the (predictable) backlash and petition regarding the extravagantly high fee structure?
Or were they hoping to hide from the elected officials who berated them for their injudicious fees?
If it’s important enough to create a flashy graphic design and post it to the RIOC accounts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, it’s important enough to share the details via the usual RIOC advisory.
In other words, lather, rinse and repeat, the same way the fees were announced in the first place.
Meanwhile, keep your eye on the RIOC Advisories. Maybe a notice of the revised fees will be distributed by email. Or maybe not.
Learn more about public relations from our Roosevelt Island neighbor Janet Falk.
Roosevelt Island is a mixed income, racially diverse waterfront community situated in the East River of New York City between Manhattan and Queens and is jurisdictionally part of Manhattan. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which connects Roosevelt Island to the rest of Manhattan, has become the iconic symbol of Roosevelt Island to its residents.
The Purpose of this Blog is to provide accurate and timely information about Roosevelt Island as well as a forum for residents to express opinions and engage in a dialogue to improve our community.
