______________ VALLey streAm _____________
A salute to champions
Honoring ‘Health Care Heroes’
County talks water safety
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VOL. 35 NO. 28
JULY 4 - 10, 2024
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Work halted at LIRR’s Gibson station By JUAN LASSO & NORA TOSCANO jlasso@liherald.com
Courtesy Valley Stream Central High School District
Families, teachers and alumni gathered to celebrate the graduation of Valley Stream’s North, Central and South High School seniors, marking the end of an extraordinary educational journey defined by a whirlwind of historic events.
After historic four years of a ‘new normal,’ V.S. grads celebrate By JUAN LASSO jlasso@liherald.com
They came by the dozens — families, teachers, and alumni — to watch this year’s graduating Valley Stream seniors walk the stage and be handed their diplomas. The district’s trio of high schools — North, Central, and South — each held their ceremony last week, marking the final and most significant milestone of the Class of 2024 with the familiar fanfare of previous years. But this was no ordinary graduating class — whose past four years of high school could hardly be described in ordinary terms. After a global virus had sent the nation
into lockdown, members of the Class of 2024 spent their freshman year in a fearful cloud of isolation and restriction. They learned behind computer screens. They sat masked in quiet, slimmed-down, and socially distanced classrooms. As the pandemic faded and online remote learning was phased out, they navigated the thawing of social life in person. They experienced what it meant to go to school under a “new normal” amid the backdrop of a notso-normal world — burdened by historic and ongoing challenges from rising school gun violence to mounting mental health challenges to widespread political unrest. CoNtiNued oN page 10
A legal roadblock with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation has forced the construction of the waiting room at the Long Island Rail Road’s Gibson station to stop cold in its tracks. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has called the roadblock unavoidable, but temporary, amid its plans to upgrade the Gibson waiting room. Charles Pincus, a Gibson commuter, calls construction a chronic nuisance that has left riders like him in suspense over when doors will open again. “There’s been no explanation and no accountability whatsoever in this,” said Pincus. “Every other place gets a station except ours.” Major overhauls to Gibson began late last year with the calendar circled for this April for station renovations to be completed. It has now been over two months past the expected deadline, and a peeved Pincus is puzzled over why, in his eyes, commuters were not adequately infor med of the delay.
MTA officials say signage was updated to give notice of the delay. Meanwhile, transit workers must wait for clearance from the state historic preservation office to continue their alterations due to the station’s historical importance and its need to be preserved from overly invasive changes.
State preservation office hits the brakes on station renovations Village historians ag ree without question on the station’s historical worth, having been around for nearly a century. Its origins trace back to its eponymous founder, William Gibson who built the structure in 1929 to the tune of $55,000. For years, Gibson legally wrangled with the Long Island Rail Road to give his residents access to the region by rail. The railroad eventually ag reed under one condition: he would build the station himself — and so he did — and so it stands today. New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation officials requested documentation from the MTA in April on the windows proposed to replace the existing CoNtiNued oN page 19