Bethpage-Tribune_1969-04-17

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Serving Bethpage•- Plainview - Island Trees - Plainedge - Seoford
Vol. 3 No. 25 Thursday, April 17, 1969 10« per copy
r ^ ' •'• ' " " J Citizens Unite
The Publisher's Desk} ,n F , a i n e d 2 e
A d « d ^ d ^ d i A
Long Island's first multi-level
enclosed-mall shopping center
will rise next year on a 42-acre
tract on Hempstead Turnpike in
Levittown.
Developer of \he 2-story $20
million Nassau County retail
complex at the intersection of
Wantagh Avenue is FMR, Lie. of
Great Neck, a Feldman Brothers
firm with a background of a
quarter century of commercial
and industrial construction here
and abroad.
The new 900,000 square foot
Feldman center, as yet unnamed,
will feature a pair of department
stores, each occupying about
200,000 square feet. Discussions
are underway with several major
department store chains which
have "shown interest in the
location. A Path-Mark super­market
already has signed for a
maximum ,of 60,000 square feet.
Until now, regional shopping
hubs in 2.5 million-population
Nassau and Suffolk Counties have
held to a single level, even though
multi-level retail centers have
not been uncommon in other areas
of the United States and eastern
Canada.
The climatized enclosed mall
came to Long Island in 1962 witb
the opening of the N.K. Winston
Corp. 68-acre Walt Whitman
Shopping Center in Huntington.
Not until last year did the 100-
acre Roosevelt Field Shopping
Center in Garden Cily enclose
its mall. The third year-round
mall was introduced on Long
Island on March 13th when
Winston opened its 102-acre
Smith Haven Mall in Suffolk
County astride the Smithtown-
Brookhaven town boundary. The
70-acre Mid Island Plaza com­plex
in Hicksville expects to
cover its main concourse this
year when a new Klein's depart­ment
store is completed.
Feldman will carry out the
vertical motif with a number of
innovations. Eight of the site's
42 acres will be allocated to
all-weather double-level park-ing,
with approximately 5,000
cars to be accommodated in both
structured and single-level park­ing
areas. An internal minibus
service will carry shoppers from
their cars to each entrance of
the shopping complex, and
covered walkways to the mall will
be available for customers who
would rather not ride.
The mall will include a day
care center and playground, an
innovation styled both to attract
shoppers and aid in recruiting
women to fill an expected 2,000
jobs at the two anchor stores and
satellite shops. The shopping
complex, will serve as a "village
green" with a number of meeting
and exhibition rooms available
free to local community and non­profit
organizations.
Sid Feldman, spokesman for
the developer, figures his center
will have in its primary trading
area some 515,000 Nassau and
Suffolk County residents whose
homes are within a 15-minute
drive of the site. These shoppers
would come from eastern Hemp­stead
Town, the most populous
township in the nation, and
western Babylon Town. A
secondary trading radius would
include another 500,000 Islanders
who reside in the towns of Oyster
Bay, Huntington, and North
Hempstead.
Nassau-Suffolk is one of the
nation's fastest-growing subur­ban
belts with a January 1, 1969
population estimated at 2.5
million by the Long Island Light­ing
Company, an increase of
58,000 in a year. The affluent
Island market produces
Declaring that they "deeply
regret the recent disorders at
Plainedge School ..Board
meetings," a number of residents
of the district have organized an
ad hoc committee which will
concern itself with matters
related to developments at the
March meetings of the Plainedge
Board of Education. •
(It was at a noisy, emotion-charged
meeting on March 13,
attended by almost 4,000 persons,
that the school board voted not to
consider any of the recom­mendations
of a Task Force
subcommittee which had
presented to the Board a 41-page
report entitled "Bridging the
Racial Gap in Education." At a
meeting on March 18, called to
deal with some routine matters
that had not been reached on the
previous meeting's agenda,
vociferous demands were made
by many of the approximately
1,000 persons present for
assurances that the report" would
never be considered by the
Board.)
The Ad Hoc Committee, ac­cording
to Donald Passer of 24
Poplar Street, Massapequa, the
acting secretary of the group,
hopes to enlist the cooperation of
all Plainedge residents who are.
interested in "orderly public
meetings, a hearing for all sides,
consideration of facts rather than
fiction, and a discussion of the
report which was rejected
without a public review of its
He urged those in-
New President
Long
about $5.5 billion in retail sales
annually, with each thousand of contents. _
new population estimated toyield terested to write to the Plainedge
another $2 million a year at citizens Ad Hoc Committee at 564
local cash registers. Hawthorne Street, Massapequa,
Already under construction on N w y k
Long Island by Feldman Brothers
are a 150,000 square foot Great
Neck office building and shopping
centers in East Meadow and
Rocky Point. Over the years, the
firm has erected hangars and
terminals at OTlare Airport in
Chicago, Atomic Energy Com­mission
laboratories, missile
sites and missile production
plants, and commercial or in­dustrial
structures worth over
$1 billion in construction.
Wilbur Breslin, Pres. of
Breslin Associates Corp., was
the broker instrumental in
making the sale of the 42-acre
shopping center property to the
lay's Appliance Feldman Brothers. .
Changes Name
To Mr. K
Jay's Appliances operating lor
the past 3 years in Levittown has
changed its name to Mr. K. Home
Appliances, Inc. The change was
made to provide for expansion.
Leo Kasden, owner announced
store policy will remain the sam,e(
with the "same customer ser­vice,
merchandise value and
personnel. Charlie Sterbjni of
Plainview and Richard Picone of
Levittown will still be ready to
serve you.
Obsolete Vehicle
Service Announced
ByLooney
Nassau Police Commissioner
Francis B. Looney today advised
residents that starting May 1st,
local precincts will maintain a
list of wrecking firms, willing to
pick up* or receive old or in­operative
automobiles and other
vehicles. *»
"We are instituting this new
service," Looney said, "to dis­courage
the abandonment of ve­hicles
on the public highways."
(Continued from Page 6)
SIGNING OF PATROLMANS BENEVOLENT
ASSOCIATION CONTRACT with Nassau County is
witnessed by (at rear, 1. to r.): Richard Sinski, of
Sunset Ave., Glenwood Landing, President, Detectives
Association; Charles Wright, of 307-6 Hicksville Rd.,
Bethpage, 1st Vice-president, PBA; Andrew Heberer,_
of 235 Woodbury Rd., Woodbury, 2nd Vice-president,
Detectives Association. Contract signers (in
foreground) are: Edward Lecci, of 134 Shelter Lane,
Levittown, President, PBA: and Cpunjy Executive
Eugene H. Nickerson.
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BURTON JOSEPH
On Tuesday evening. April
15, 1969 at 9:15 p.m. in the
Community Meeting Room of
the 1st Presbyterian Church 474
Wantagh Ave., Levjttown.
Burton Joseph was inducted as
President of the newly char­tered
Levittown-South North
Wantagh Republican Club,
Mnc. '• *v " ' * '
Gaining his early education in
the Old Bethpage and Far-mingdale
schools. Joseph
graduated from-the Long Island
(Continued on Page 7)
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NoW it is official—-according to the latest r e ­ports
the State Public Employment Relations Board
(PERB) reversed an earlier decision of its own
hearing examiners and holds the Bethpage Teachers
Union responsible for the teachers strike in the
Bethpage District last October*
The two-week strike caused a furore in the com­munity
and parents joined a picket line protesting
the Union's walkout.
Some students rallied behind the teachers and this
only added to the difficult situation.
The recent decision places a penalty on the
Bethpage Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO
affliate) by suspending its dues deduction privileges
for six months. It could have suspended the dues
deduction privileges up to 18 months. However,the
three-man PERB Board while placing the blame
for the strike on the local teachers union took into--
account the circumstances leading to the strike.
Union President Guido H. Agostine of the Beth­page
Teachers Federation was "disappointed" with
the new ruling and it was indicated that the tfeachers
would no doubt appeal the decision through the
courts.
At the present time the Union still represents
the Districts teachers and negotiations for the 1969-
70 contract are currently underway.
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