________________ LONG BEACH _______________
ALL RA DD HHEER
HERALD Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach
Presented by
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2021
lichoiceawards.com $1.00 Vol. 32 No. 31
Nomination Details Inside
MF DooM to be honored Saturday
Shark sightings nearby
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JUlY 29 - AUGUST 4, 2021
Superblock project could start soon By JAMeS BerNSTeIN jbernstein@liherald.com
Christina Daly/Herald
Splashing through the summer Rafi Jones, 6, ran through a water tunnel at the Clark Street Playground in the Canals. More photos, Page 3.
Construction of the Superblock project, the largest development in Long Beach in decades and the focus of discussions among city officials and builders for nearly 40 years, may begin by the end of this summer, the developer said earlier this week. Scott Burman, principal of Engel Burman, the Garden Citybased developer, said that “many of the elements required to move forward by the end of summer are coming into alignment.” The Nassau County Industrial Development Agency approved the project last summer, after years of fits and starts. “Since
IDA approval, the Engel Burman team has been hard at work to check the many boxes required to achieve that milestone,” Burman said. “We are confident that we will be able to make that announcement before autumn arrives.” “It’s been a long time coming,” Richard Kessel, chairman of the IDA’s board of directors, said at a July 22 meeting. “I am very optimistic the closing is imminent It’s possible construction could begin before the end of summer,” Kessel added. He said that Engel Burman had been “very cooperative about the need to secure as much union labor as possible.” And Kessel Continued on page 12
Lifeguard Roy Lester remains on duty, no Speedo required By JAMeS BerNSTeIN jbernstein@liherald.com
From his perch atop a lifeguard stand at Field 6 at Jones Beach, Roy Lester looks out on what he has gazed upon since he was a teenager: the rolling blue blanket that is his beloved Atlantic Ocean. Now 71, Lester has fought age and the state of New York, which operates Jones Beach, to remain in his seat above the crowds on the beach, and to maintain his view of the sea. Lester began the third year of his second chapter as a Jones Beach lifeguard at the beginning of the summer. Three years ago
he won a court fight in State Supreme Court in Mineola against the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, which wanted to deny him his lifeguard job because — and this is why his lawsuit went viral — he refused to take the state “rehire” swimming test clad in a tight-fitting Speedo swimsuit, which he considered unseemly for senior lifeguards. Lester said last week that the time may be coming for him to vacate the white wooden stands he has loved all of his life, and retire. Not right away, he insists. But he can now see the day. “Eventually,” he said. “I can see that.”
I
challenged the rules. And I won.
roY leSTer Lester is a well-known figure in Long Beach, a self-proclaimed “loudmouth” who appears at almost every City Council meeting and rarely misses a chance to ask questions, particularly about municipal spending and the budget. In June, Lester, who campaigned independently in the Democratic City Council primary, was among the top vote-get-
ters, and will run for a seat on the council in the November election. Given the overwhelmingly number of Democratic voters in Long Beach, he is likely to win a seat. He is no newcomer to elections. He has run five times — sometimes winning and sometimes losing — for seats on the Long Beach school board, and
was once the board’s president. Lester, a bankruptcy attorney, has always reserved his summers for the beach. He got his first lifeguarding job in 1965, when Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello were making beach-blanket movies. And he did not stop working summers until 2007, when he showed up at Continued on page 4