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Empowering a brighter future
Vol. 25 No. 38
HERALD Higher Education
Inside
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Island Choice Awards • long Nomination Guide Inside
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SEPTEMBER 15 - 21, 2022
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bellmore
Saving Bellmore’s abundant trees Wild Ones organization campaigns to change town’s tree ordinance trees left very soon.” Long Island Sound Study, an organization specializing in the hat’s happening to restoration and protection of the all the trees? Sound, also provides some data That was the about tree loss on Long Island. question last week During the earliest stages of its as community members from settlement in the 1620s, the Merrick, Bellmore Island was 95 perand surrounding cent forest. In 1998, areas met at the Merthat number was rick Golf Course to below 60 percent. discuss tree loss in The creation of the area, and start farmland and the planting the seeds to development of subgrow solutions. urbia are considered Over the last few major contributors years, residents of to this decrease. Merrick and BellWild Ones, a nonmore noticed a numgovernmental, nonber of trees being profit organization cut down, whether with a mission to CHRISTINA by private property promote environMclAuGHlIN owners or developers mentally sound landbuilding new homes. Cornell Cooperative scaping practices There are areas and preserve biodiExtension of Bellmore and versity, now has a Merrick, as well as Long Island chapter, nearby communities, known for created in February by a handful an abundance of trees, including of Merrick residents. The orgathe neighborhood of Merrick nization doesn’t necessarily Woods. Merrick resident Andrea want to restore the forests Long Martone told the Herald earlier Island once had, but rather save this year that she counted 27 what is left. trees taken down in just a fiveMunicipalities across the block radius. Island have tree ordinances, and “If we continue at this rate,” some are very strict, according Martone said, “there will be no Continued on page 4
By JoRDAN VAlloNE jvallone@liherald.com
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Jordan Vallone/Herald
Remembering the fallen, 21 years later At the Bellmore Fire Department’s annual Sept. 11 memorial ceremony, wreathes in honor of volunteer and New York City firefighters Kevin Prior and Adam Rand, who died on 9/11, were placed in front of the department’s memorial. Bellmore firefighter Sean McCarthy, who died in 2008 of a 9/11-related cancer, was also honored. Story, more photos, page 3.
Movie theater shuts down amid property ownership changes By JoRDAN VAlloNE jvallone@liherald.com
Merrick Cinemas V, on Broadcast Plaza in Merrick, has closed, just five years after it opened. The movie theater, at 15 Fisher Ave. — at the entrance to the plaza — has been in operation there for about 20 years. It reopened under its most recent owner, Dean Theodorous, in October 2017. At the end of August, its signage and movie posters were taken down, and replaced by a simple message: “Theater closed. Goodbye, Merrick.” According to a statement on the theater’s website, the lease for the property is expiring, and the
building is to be sold. “Despite our efforts to keep the theater open, the new buyers were unwilling to provide us with a new lease,” the statement said. Joe Baker, a Merrick Chamber of Commerce board member, said that at one point there were three movie theaters in town. Baker used to own the maroon-colored house, where he had a coffee shop in the 1980s and ’90s, next to what was then a catering business, before it became a movie theater. When Merrick Cinemas V closed suddenly, it came as a shock to many — including Baker. “It’s interesting,” he said. “Sad, but interesting.” Continued on page 18
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e see the numbers and pictures of where we used to be to where we are now.