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Vol. 29 No. 4
JANUARY 20 - 26, 2022
Principal sues St. Christopher’s for discrimination By cRiSTiNA ARRoYo RodRigUez carroyo@liherald.com
Courtesy Timothy Gely
FoRmeR PRiNciPAl TimoThY Gely is requesting a trial and seeking compensatory and punitive damages, including attorneys’ fees, from St. Christopher’s School in Baldwin, St. Martin De Porres Marianist School in Uniondale and the Diocese of Rockville Centre Department of Education for racial discrimination and retaliation.
The former principal of St. Christopher’s School in Baldwin, Timothy Gely, filed a civil lawsuit in Nassau County Supreme Court Jan. 6 against the school and St. Christopher’s Roman Catholic Church for “race discrimination and retaliation he suffered in response to a campaign of hatred coordinated by racist parents against him.” Gely is requesting a trial by jury and seeking compensatory and punitive damages from St.
Christopher’s, St. Martin De Porres Marianist School in Uniondale and the Diocese of Rockville Centre Department of Education, including attorneys’ fees. In June 2020, the lawsuit alle g es, a Black student received several handwritten racist and threatening hate notes in her desk after returning from remote education, calling her a “slut,” “slave” and “monkey,” and telling her to “go hang yourself ” and “this is why cops kill people like you.” In response, Gely, a SpanishContinued on page 3
Secondhand shops offer nostalgia on their first anniversary By KARiNA KoVAc kkovac@liherald.com
On the Baldwin-Freeport border sit two secondhand shops full of history and nostalgia. Hidden Thrift and Cabinet of Curiosities are nestled next to each other at 52 Mill Road in Freeport. The stores, which are celebrating their first anniversary, offer tangible memories of simpler days in Freeport and Baldwin. Invited to buy out estate sales from Long Island, especially in Baldwin, the shops host different vendors. Sam Pardo, 36, a co-manager of Hidden Thrift and vendor at Cabinet of Curiosities, grew up
in Freeport, but has many childhood memories in Baldwin, including riding the famed Nunley’s Carousel, which operated from 1940 to ’95, and can now be found at the Nassau County Children’s Museum in Garden City, still running. “I remember going there as a kid and having multiple birthday parties… and I remember when it closed, it wasn’t a nice time,” Pardo recalled. Tending to the shop, Pardo has noticed changing trends in Baldwin, with many people trying to buy back nostalgic items from their childhoods. Pardo said the “psychology of simpler days, of all the fun that [people]
m
emories are a lot of what we are . . . History is where we come from.
KAReN moNTAlBANo Baldwin Historical Society
used to have,” is why many adults with disposable incomes seek the toys they played with in the 1970s and ’80s. Karen Montalbano, 63, of the Baldwin Historical Society, has held many Baldwin Public
Library lectures on the history of Baldwin and collects turn-ofthe-century postcards. “Memories are a lot of what we are . . . History is where we come from,” she said. Objects help people remember where they came from, Montalbano and Pardo said, with Pardo adding that one of the heartwarming parts of working
at the shops is hearing people recall their pasts through the mementos that he sells. “Some of my favorite objects are ones that have brought back memories for other people that they tell me, ‘Oh, I had that as a child and my grandmother had that.’ They are monuments or beacons to the past,” he said. Continued on page 3