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Vol. 26 No. 11
MARCH 7 - 13, 2024
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Where is Polk Street Principal Torossian? By NIColE WAGNER nwagner@liherald.com
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Champion Spartans Elmont High School’s boys’ basketball team captured the Nassau County Class AA championship last Saturday, beating South Side 51-34 at Farmingdale State College. Story, additional photos, Page 6.
For a month, students at Franklin Square’s Polk Street School have been without a head principal to greet them during morning drop-off. At a special meeting of the school district’s Board of Education on Feb. 28, emotions ran high as parents spoke of the beloved principal, Gilbert Torossian, with tears in their eyes, asking why he hadn’t been in school and how they could support him. Students noticed Torossian’s absence beginning the week of Feb. 5. Lynette Solina, of Franklin Square, said she felt that the lack of notification for weeks was “really disappointing.” She said her son, who is in second grade, immediateContinued on page 10
Businesses work to rebuild after downtown fire By JUAN lASSo and ANGElINA ZINGARIEllo jlasso@liherald.com
In a matter of hours on Jan. 27, a chaotic fire, which started at Jadwiga’s Polish American Deli on West Lincoln Avenue, swept through the heart of the village’s business district, trampling over a trio of locally-owned cor ner stores on Ro ck aw ay Ave nu e – L o n g Island Hearing Center of Long Island, Valley Stream Pharmacy, and Orange Skye Day Spa. T he destr uction leveled against the storefronts, all of which have stood there for ye a r s, a n d i n s o m e c a s e s
decades, was so complete that they were practically dislocated from the village’s downtown. Now, their business owners are struggling to make their stores whole again, and for most of them, questions of where to restart and how soon remain unclear. For Dr. Lar ry Cardano, owner of the Long Island Hearing Center, it was not long after the fire he began scouring for a new location for his hearing practice – and he found one. His new officespace, located at 20 West Lincoln Avenue, is a stone’s throw away from his original spot, which he openedin 1996.
While some elements of the new office space are still under construction, Cardano’s been seeing patients since early February. What’s more, he says that despite the tragic loss of the original office, the new space represents a net gain for himself and his patients. “Our patients don’t have to travel that far from the original site,” he said he refashioned the new office space in a w ay t h a t a l l o w s h i m t o upgrade his equipment based on the newest methods of treatment. The Hearing Center’s quick rebound, however, appears to be an exception.
Donations pour in to restore downtown stores For the businesses that remain, it stands to reason that replacing what was lost has not been simple. For weeks, family, friends, and employees of the affected business owners have looked online for outside donations. Jadwiga’s Polish American Deli is one of them.
For those unfamiliar with Jadwiga’s, the once narrow storefront, operated by Jadwiga Strzepa and her family for nearly two decades, had garnered a reputation as the go-to destination for traditional Polish products, ranging from well-known classics like kielbasa to lesserknown items like pickled mushContinued on page 14