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PLAYLAND FOREVER!
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STANDARD AMUSEMENTS SETS A NEW PLAYLAND STANDARD WITH ENERGIZED, ENGAGING ENVIRONMENT. PULLS OFF OPENING –EVEN CUES THE SUN –DESPITE CONSTRUCTION CHALLENGES. HUNDREDS OF SMILES YOUNG AND OLD AS STANDARD BRUSHES UP THE ATMOSPHERE
PLAYLAND PUTS ITS MAKEUP ON AND PUTS ON A SHOW!
WPCNR ENTERTAINMENT TODAY. By John F. Bailey. June 9, 2022:
The fun is back nonstop at Playland USA today as Opening Day defied the odds thanks to a resolute effort of the construction workers who got caught up just in time and unveiled a smiling, welcoming, clean and wholesome environment with spinning rides enough to keep you busy all day.
Buses of kids from groups around the area filled the park in a sun-splashed day.
Construction was not a problem or an impediment to enjoying the park. Plenty of snackbars with that great gooey pizza, fried chicken, funnel cake of the past and rides that thunder and zoom up in the sky.
The kids loved the bumper cars. Braved the ultimate roller coaster thrill the Dragon Coaster. Kiddies were entertained in Kiddy Land with minirides we oldsters all remember.
Strolling minstrels entertained the crowds and the Playland staff hired by Standard has a runthrough under intense pressure of kids waiting on line and just racing off rides and getting back on.
As a couple of parents accompanying one of the youth groups said, the kids were loving the old favorites.
Parents brought their kids, and despite opening day delay at the centrally located admissions booth located midway down from the fountain plaza where a new admissions building is still under construction, but clean and walkable, with performance space that promises a lot for the future.
The colonnades a worker told me would have strong “high hat” lights inside them when construction resumes on them in the fall and the park would have “ a lot more lighting, it will look like Times Square.”
Ambience! Plenty!
Just like old times— though some overhead arches are still under construction they are not that noticeable. The park is neat as a pin. Plenty of fresh paint as been rapidly applied.
The old rides are back big time with big noise and big thrills. You like to get cool? The Plunge ride is back, the Log Plume is back, the squeals from riders getting splashed float across the park with the “whoas!” and the roars of the power thunder. The carousel is back minus the old time circus music, that may be back shortly.
Parents will be thrilled at the spontaneous shows in Kiddy Land where entertainers involve children in dancing.
Strolling musicians entertained the crowds of children giving the Playland employees their first taste of the crowds to come. When the children community groups came in starting after 11 A.M. they could not believe they raced into the park but at modest controlled pace and gawked and lined up. The first brave young people went for the Dragon Coaster which was the most popular ride all day. But so was the intimidating Derby Racer.
Only disappointment for me was the Kiddy Land Express was still at the station and not making its rides. That is scheduled to be making its runs in 2 weeks. New track has to be tested and the engine tested I was told.
COME ON DOWN!
IT’S WHERE THE FUN STARTS AND NEVER STOPS.
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NEW PLAYLAND OPENING TODAY– GET SEASON PASS.
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WPCNR PLAYLAND TODAY. By John F. Bailey, June 8, 2022 UPDATED June 9, 2022::
Standard Amusements is scheduled to open Playland at 10:00 A.M. and closing at 3 P.M. On Friday Saturday and Sunday this weekend the new Playland opens at noon and closes at 10P.M. Next Week Playland will be open from 4 to 10 P.M. each evening on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and resume 12 to 10 P.M. hours on Friday. Admission information are at the bottom of the Pre-opening pictures shot by WPNCR yesterday.
June 10th is the last day to get the 2022 Season Pass (Includes Rides / All Ages) at the $84.99 EARLY BIRD PRICING (Regularly $129.99).
Buy your Playland Season Passes today and save before it’s too late.
The Season Pass gives you:
– Unlimited Visits
– Unlimited Rides
– No Public Blackout dates
Construction crews have made significant progress to ready Playland, the last of the oldtime amusement parks (opened in 1928) for opening tomorrow, with the old favorites, the Carousel, the Steeplechase, Kiddyland, the Log Plunge, and the lagoon, and of course, the Dragon Coaster.
Here are the rides at the New Playland as Standard Amusements opens the park today, bear in mind not all rides may be open:
THRILL RIDES: Dragon Coaster, Dragonator, Go Karts, Log Flume, Old Rye Motorcycle Factory(coming new ride), Catch a Wave, Crazy Mouse, Derby Racer (I call it the Steeple Chase), Double Shot, The Plunge, The Whip, Yo Yo.
CHILDREN’S RIDES KIDDY LAND: Kiddy Scrambler, Kiddy Whip, Motorcycle Jump, Mushroom Rider, Playland Express (train), Red Baron, Jolly Caterpillar, Himalaya, Jump N Bean, Jungle Jammin, Antique Cars, Boat Ride, Convoy, Crazy Submarine, Flying Dragons, Fun Slide, Swing Around, Sun and Moon
FAMILY RIDES: Kite Flyer, Music Express, Ye Old Mill (old favorite, back again), Tornado, Zombie Castle (oldie but a scary).
Go to playland.com for more details on the Rides, click on “Rides.”
Poor fall weather produced significant delays due to rains each week followed by a winter with more rain and steady cold temperatures. The county changed contractors in January and since then the new contractors have done come from behind construction.
Westchester County has not announced an opening ceremony, and Standard Amusements has not advised WPCNR of the status of the park going forward, or any ceremonies recognizing the beginning of Standard Amusements Playland and what new rides will be opened and when the new pool will be opening and its status.
(Editor’s Note: On the website myrye.com, in early May, Ernie Blundell, the recently appointed General Manager of Standard Amusements, said, “We’re excited for visitors to see all the hard work that has gone into revitalizing this beloved community treasure.” Blundell told the Rye website that work on the colonnades would “resume” next fall and a Plaza retail store would be added and a Plaza Restaurant would be constructed.
In that article, MyRye.com reported there is a new arcade, new Midway Games and 3 more games would added later in the summer plus 3 new rides and a new fountain light show.)
There have been outstanding efforts by the construction company to make up lost time due to the weather with weekend work for the last three weeks I believe. Here is how Playland looked yesterday.
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Hotel Space Use for Housing Homeless Now Possible as Governor Hochul Signs Law
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Governor Kathy Hochul today signed new legislation (S.4937C/A.6262B) to create more flexible rules for converting underutilized hotel space into permanent housing. Governor Hochul signed the bills with Senator Brian Kavanagh, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and housing and labor advocates.
“As New York’s housing crisis continues to impact families, we’re taking bold action, embracing innovative ideas and thinking outside the box to help ensure that New Yorkers can access safe, livable, and quality affordable housing,” Governor Hochul said. “This new law allows us to tackle the affordability crisis head-on and convert empty, underutilized spaces into homes. I thank Assembly Member Cymbrowitz and Senator Kavanagh for sponsoring this bill and taking this step to ensure that New Yorkers have a place to call home.”
“Converting underutilized hotel space into affordable housing will provide thousands of struggling New Yorkers an affordable home in locations that otherwise would have been inaccessible to them,” said Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado. “Creative solutions like this provide equity in housing and help families who are experiencing homelessness or instability.”
State Senator Brian Kavanagh said, “Allowing conversion of underutilized hotel space into affordable permanent housing represents another critical step we are taking toward ending the crises of unaffordable housing, evictions, and homelessness that have gripped New York for far too long. I thank Assemblymember Steve Cymbrowitz for his partnership in getting this bill through the legislature, Governor Kathy Hochul for her strong leadership and her commitment to delivering on the promise of ensuring that everyone has access to an affordable place to live, Mayor Eric Adams for his advocacy and for the work his administration is prepared to do to convert hotels to homes, President Rich Maroko and the Hotel Trades Council for embracing this cause and always fighting for good jobs, Ted Houghton of Gateway Housing for his expertise and tireless work to get this done, and the many providers of affordable housing and advocates for housing, homes and services for homeless New Yorkers, and sensible land use policies that balance the need for housing and economic opportunity, who all played a critical role in enacting this legislation.”
HOUSING NEEDED FOR UKRANIAN FAMILIES
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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. June 7, 2022:
Irena Portenko ( e mail below) irenaportenko@gmail.com is asking for YOUR HELP identifying possible housing for Ukrainian refugees who desperately needs housing.
Please e mail Irena if you can help. These families have gone through so much in recent months. It would be fantastic if our caring community would help these families during this tragic time in their lives. Please copy me on your e mails at pfeiner@greenburghny.com
- Last week we got a request from someone from Chabad Rivertowns with news of a family that wants to come to America at the end of June or early July.
- They have Humanitarian Parole through the United for Ukraine program. The family is from Bucha outside Kyiv, where their house was leveled through the Russian attacks. Their nest egg was there, so they lost everything except their car.
- Artem, the husband, speaks fluent English. He codes in C#/.Net and can work for a software company when he gets his work visa. His wife was an architect but worked as a homemaker most recently. They have two kids, a four-year-old daughter turning 5 in November (Kindergarten next year?) and a one-year-old son. They are currently living in Poland.
- They initially escaped across the border a week before the war started in February to Moldova. They got scared as the war began and moved to Poland as far west as possible as they were concerned the war would come to Moldova.
- Then through local contacts, I heard about a young family from Ukraine that arrived a few days ago in Dobbs Ferry through United for Ukraine from Portugal. They have family in Dobbs Ferry.
- The family members are Oleksandra Kushmela-30 years; Pavlo Kushmela-38years; and Ustym Kushmela-6years. Oleksandra was studying at Sevastopol National University of Nuclear Energy and Industry and after working at the Khmelnytska Nuclear Station. Pavlo studied English philology and worked as a seller manager after. She also has a florist diploma.
- A Ukrainian woman is here in Brooklyn with her elderly mother, who is 91 years old. The older woman arrived on a B1/B2 visa (which can be extended) back in March and needs help with her hearing aid. She is deaf, and while in transit to the U.S., her hearing device broke down. They need help with housing.
ADOPT A NEIGHBORHOOD IN UKRAINE–HELP A UKRAINIAN BUSINESS
I recently had the opportunity to interview Sergei Glazunov on my WVOX 1460 radio program. He is from Ukraine, experienced the shelters and early days of the war and now is trying to make contacts with the Westchester community – starting to make plans for the rebuilding of Ukraine. He can be reached at s.n.glazunov@gmail.com.
If you know of anyone who would be interested in helping a business in Ukraine re-start; assisting a neighborhood that was bombed during the war, connecting with neighborhood leaders in Ukraine , organizing an adopt a Ukraine neighborhood please contact Sergei.
. Here is the link – https://youtu.be/XiX0iDk4cKs
PAUL FEINER
Greenburgh Town Supervisor
QUERY: IF YOUR BUSINESS, INSTITUTION, ATTRACTION MANDATES MASK-WEARING IN YOUR FACILITY, WE WANT TO PUBLICIZE YOUR POLICY IN NEW GUIDE
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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. June 7, 2022:
We are writing to seek your help on a new project. Mandate Masks NY is putting together a guide to businesses, museums, and other public spaces in NYC and surrounding areas that are still requiring masks and other COVID-19 prevention efforts to protect people, including high-risk staff, customers, and visitors.
We would love your help on this project! Do you know of any businesses or other public spaces that are still requiring masks and other COVID-19 prevention efforts in NYC and surrounding areas? And/or can you help us find out?
To collect info, we have an online form here- https://forms.gle/eKsgsQy4FV9SRcNNA . Please fill this out with any businesses or other public places that you know of that are still requiring masks and other COVID prevention efforts. (ex: grocery stores, bookstores, museums, pharmacies, banks, laundromats, etc). We are currently focused on NYC and the surrounding areas, but may expand at a later date.
We would love your help in finding more places to add to our list! More info and tips about contacting businesses are on the form. For those on Instagram, we have been highlighting and thanking businesses that are still requiring masks on our page at @MandateMasksNY.
We have already had some businesses we reached out to reinstate their mask mandate after we contacted them about this!
If you are interested in getting more involved with the project and helping to organize, please send us an email.
Thanks for all your help!
Mandate Masks NY
Website: http://mandatemasksny.org/
Twitter: @MandateMasksNY
Instagram: @MandateMasksNY
#MandateMasksNY
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OPERATIVES OF LEV TAHOR, EXTREMIST JEWISH SECT, CONVICTED OF KIDNAPPING OFFENSES
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Mordechay Malka and Matityau Malka Convicted of Scheme to Kidnap 14-Year-Old Girl and 12-Year-Old Boy From Their Mother
WPCNR FBI WIRE. From the Federal Bureau of Investigation. June 6, 2022:
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced that MORDECHAY MALKA and MATITYAU MALKA were convicted in White Plains federal court of kidnapping following a three-week jury trial.
The defendants, members of an extremist Jewish sect called Lev Tahor, participated in a scheme to kidnap a 14-year-old girl (“Minor-1”) and a 12-year-old boy (“Minor-2”) from their mother in Woodridge, New York in December 2018.
The kidnappers then smuggled the children across the U.S. border to Mexico, where they reunited Minor-1 with her adult “husband,” who she had religiously “married” when she was 13 years old.
After the children were recovered and returned to their mother, the defendants and their co-conspirators tried to kidnap the children a second time in March 2019.
Two co-conspirators, Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner, were previously convicted of kidnapping and sexual exploitation charges in connection with this case after an October 2021 trial and have each been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
According to the allegations contained in the Superseding Indictment, other court filings, and the evidence presented at trial:
MORDECHAY MALKA and MATITYAU MALKA are U.S. citizens and members of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish sect that has been located in several different jurisdictions, including New York, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala.
In or about October 2018, the mother of Minor-1 and Minor-2 escaped from Lev Tahor’s compound in Guatemala and arrived in the United States in early November 2018.
Also in November 2018, a Brooklyn family court granted her sole custody of the children and prohibited the children’s father, a leader within Lev Tahor, from communicating with the children.
After the mother fled and settled in New York with her children, MORDECHAY MALKA and other Lev Tahor members devised a plan to return Minor-1 and Minor-2 to the Lev Tahor community. Then, in December 2018, the kidnappers took the children in the middle of the night from a home in upstate New York and transported them through various states and, eventually, to Mexico.
MORDECHAY MALKA and his co-conspirators used disguises, aliases, drop phones, fake travel documents, an encrypted application, and a secret pact to execute on their kidnapping plan. At the time of the kidnapping, Lev Tahor leadership was seeking asylum for the entire Lev Tahor community in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Following a three-week search involving hundreds of local, federal, and international law enforcement officers, Minor-1 and Minor-2 were recovered in Mexico and returned to their mother in New York.
Then, in March 2019, members of Lev Tahor again tried to kidnap the children. The leader of Lev Tahor, Nachman Helbrans, attempted another kidnapping of the children while incarcerated in Westchester, New York. MATITYAU MALKA acted as the operative on the ground to execute the attempted kidnapping.
* * *
MORDECHAY MALKA, 27, of Guatemala, and MATITAU MALKA, 30, of Guatemala, were convicted of one count of conspiring to commit international parental kidnapping, to unlawfully use a means of identification, and to enter by false pretenses the secure area of an airport, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. MORDECHAY MALKA was also convicted of two counts of international parental kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison for each count. MATITYAU MALKA was also convicted of one count of attempted international parental kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison for each count.
The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.
Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of the FBI, United States Customs and Border Protection, the Department of State, the Transportation Security Administration, the New York State Police, the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department, the Sullivan County District Attorney’s Office, the Village of Spring Valley Police Department, Special Agents with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and our law enforcement partners in Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, and Israel.
This case is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division. Assistant United States Attorneys Sam Adelsberg, Jamie Bagliebter, Jim Ligtenberg, and Daniel Tracer, and paralegal specialist Shannon Becker, are in charge of the prosecution.