WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR REALTY REALITY. From the Westchester County Department of Communications. June 23, 2022:

(White Plains, NY) – Westchester County Executive George Latimer joined members of Westchester County’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Board, The LOFT LGBTQ+ Community Center, Monadnock Development and HANAC announced Westchester’s first LGBTQ+ friendly housing development that will bring 140 units of affordable senior housing to downtown White Plains. It will also include a larger space for The LOFT LGBTQ+ Community Center to continue to support its advocacy, education and health programs.

Latimer said: “This partnership will lead to the creation of a safer space for everyone, not just for LGBTQ+ people. We want our Westchester neighbors, no matter what age they are, to know this County is inclusive, their identity is accepted and they can make a home here. Affordable housing has been a priority for my administration and we want to reach all corners of the County with this opportunity. It will address the pressing needs of the LGBTQ+ community while expanding the vital services provided by The LOFT.”

White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach said:

“Diversity produces vibrant communities. White Plains is a special place to live, work and play due in large part to its diversity. The project developed by the LOFT, Monadnock Development and HANAC embodies the best of the city. The addition of affordable senior housing and a space for a beloved community organization in the City of White Plains is a win-win.”  

The LOFT LGBTQ+ Community Center will occupy more than 7,000 square feet of a newly constructed building on the Southwesterly corner of Court and Quarropas Streets in White Plains. HANAC and Monadnock will own and operate the housing components and work with The LOFT to ensure all seniors feel welcomed.

While the housing is not exclusively for members of the LGBTQ+ community, this is the first housing complex in the County that is friendly and supportive to LGBTQ+ residents with services being provided by the LOFT at the community facility space to assist with healthcare and more. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force estimates there are over three million LGBTQ+ seniors in the United States with that number expected to double by 2030.

Executive Director of The LOFT LGBTQ+ Community Center Judy Troilo said:

“There was a time in our history, in the not so distant past, when members of the LGBTQ+ community weren’t living long enough to need senior housing.  There was also so much fear associated with identifying as LGBTQ+ publicly.  This housing today is a symbol of how far we have come. Granted, we still have a long way to go, but this is a tremendous day.  Our long-standing goal of providing Westchester’s LGBTQ+ elders with safe, affordable, and affirming housing has arrived! In addition, our brand-new center will include space for our growing programs, and a home for a partner provider to offer medical and mental Health services specifically to LGBTQ+ individuals and families here in Westchester County. Having all these incredible services under one roof is truly groundbreaking and will no doubt become a model for others to follow nationally.”

Chair of the Westchester County LGBTQ+ Advisory Board Christopher Oldi said:

“The addition of much needed senior affordable housing is a paramount concern for the community. Oftentimes, LGBTQ+ seniors are discriminated against or ostracized. We want our aging population to know they are welcome here in Westchester County. The Westchester County LGBTQ+ Advisory Board applauds the partnership between The LOFT and HANAC Development to construct senior affordable housing in downtown White Plains. The Board is so pleased that The LOFT will find itself in a new space, more accessible to public transportation, with the ability to reach an even wider swath of the queer community in Westchester (and beyond) than it already does. The Advisory Board looks forward to continuing to collaborate with The LOFT and HANAC as they embark on this incredible journey together!”

Chair of Monadnock Development Nick Lembo said:

“Producing high quality, affordable senior housing is a critical part of the Monadnock Company identity.  For almost 50 years, we have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to house vulnerable senior citizens in the best possible accommodations. We are energized by the opportunity to partner with HANAC and continue our mission in collaboration with Westchester County and the City of White Plains to provide best in class affordable senior housing. Furthermore, we are looking forward to having The LOFT provide essential services to the LGBTQ+ community out of our development. We thank County Executive Latimer for his vision and leadership.”

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WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. June 21, 2022:

Good morning from White Plains New York USA where it’s 59 wpcnr degrees.

Yesterday school maintenance workers were setting up the long rows of white chairs on beautiful Loucks Field in preparation for the middle school and high school graduations this week.

The perfect rows of over 550 seats shown spectacularly in late afternoon sun. Just as the graduates hold the future of this country and the hope it has held aloft to the world for the last 246 years.

It crosses my mind that in our town and towns big and small across the land this week perhaps today’s graduates are the most important graduates in many years. Arguably, they are one of the toughest classes of graduates in a long time.

As Pomp and Circumstance, the march that opens every graduation, starts I hope this graduation will send a different message deliver a different theme not of pursuing dreams and success and you can do everything. This week’s speakers need to give them a mission like no other.

The graduates have come through three years of at-home remote learning, the isolation of not seeing their friends, the alienation of mask-wearing and negative vibes from persons not wearing masks and persons wearing them feel towards each other.

They have not been able to enjoy class learning in the traditional way socially distanced in class rooms. Imagine not being able to pass notes in class – not being able to sit next to your friends in study hall trying to crack up your old buddy Chuck Cannizzaro—a great old friend of mine –with jokes to get him thrown out of study hall – singing songs in the hall… and of course seeing a teacher with a mask on… that was not the typical school experience. 

One student at a recent library event described this was were first year back in high school and how traumatic it was getting reacquainted in a real high school environment for the first time. These graduates of 2022 have had to be tougher then the millions of graduates before them. and they face a big challenge in the state of this county, state and every state in this country all at odds with one another..

I cannot stress how important it is that the graduation addresses of the Valedictorians and student leaders and academic speech makers be different. The well-wishes and laudatories should address the need these graduates have to be coached to a different level of qualities as they head into colleges, jobs in the community and a cruel environment their wages cannot handle.

The message need to deliver not just the need to do well and follow their dreams. (For many their dreams are harder than ever to achieve.)

The sages on the stage need to raise the level of challenge: emphasize to the Classes of 2022 to spread the message of respect  for working together with one another to heal and advance the legacy america has in world history.

This nation saved the world three times in the last century with the blood of graduates no older than those graduating this week.

This nation found a vaccine for the greatest plague since the Black Death and the influenza of 1918. Discovered the polio vaccine. The smallpox vaccine. Revolutionized medicine. Advanced communications exponentially to bring the world closer together, and sadly provided the means to tear the world apart.

Today’s messages to graduates  and the hearts of parents in the stands I hope will find the inspiration and realism to lay out the path for these graduates who must follow for the sake of lives throughout the world and have the courage to follow — a path of respect, doing what is right in the eyes of God that Voice in your Head you always hear that always shows you what to do, and tells you when you are doing wrong. 

If the graduates do not hear that message the mission they have: bringing not the attitude of selfishness and person success but being  big brave responsible persons very very quickly to bring healing, health hope and direction to make us all united and respectful of one another as Americans first together.

The Graduates of 2022 have a huge burden on their shoulders.

They are the last hope as are the Graduates of 2023, 2024, 2025 and beyond.

Looking at the past, but learning from it.

Building back the nation one person at a time until America the Beautiful is Beautiful once more.

E pluribus unum

OUT OF ONE, MANY.

And when they have finished their never-ending mission to build us back one person at a time they can look back with pride.

One significant effect of Pomp and Circumstance is its sound of always marching foreward as its strains wash across the field, filling parrents with tears and the sounds of their children leaving them taking new steps without them, hoping for the best, but worrying, always worrying about them. Will they be happy? Will they do better than I have?

For the graduates, the cadence and relentless crescendos and refrains of Pomp and Circumstance beckon and present the challenge of the unknown life ahead, intimidating and commending just the same.

These graduates of 2022 if the messages are right will know what their mission is in their behavior, their challenges and know what must be done. Kids always see the truth.

If the new generation of graduates succeeds, there will be a different nastalgia, a looking back that will be filled with pride and new hope and achievement.

As we salute the graduates and bade you our prayers we know you have to do the job we have failed to do.

Please pick up the pieces for us. When they do, the graduates of today and future will look back at the job they did with a melancholy and a sense of achievement

Chuck Berry captured this melancholy in his record Oh Baby Doll.

Oh baby doll, when bells ring out the summer free
Oh baby doll, will it end for you and me?
We’ll sing the old alma mater
And think of things that used to be

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WPCNR THE SUNDAY  BAILEY. By John F. Bailey. Republished from The CitizeNetReporter of June 17, 2007:

My father gave me four pieces of advice in life: Always drive an air-conditioned car. Always centrally air-condition your home. Stay out of court.

And don’t sit in traffic.

Always take the service road on the Long Island Expressway. (He would have loved a Garmin.)

In retrospect, his advice has served me well.  I am always comfortable. I sit out traffic delays in comfort. I have not made lawyers rich.

He was not an emotional man. He was a banker and always wore suits to work. I have fond memories of going to meet him when he got off the train in Pleasantville – when  the train tracks were at grade with Manville Road.

I was most impressed as a young child by how he always smelled of coal cinders when he got off the train – lcommuter’s cologne.

Sadly on today’s electric trains you do not get that. You always heard those steam engines coming. You could see them: Clouds of very busy and industrious black smoke streaming at the horizon down the line. He’d get off the train.

My mother would move over and he’d drive the old Hudson Hornet home. He always spoke quietly. Never raised his voice. Drank scotch and soda in the winter. Gin and Tonics in the summer and he smoked Philip Morris’s, Marlboros, then Kents.

He set up a Lionel train set in our basement – perhaps our unspoken connection. When I was sent in by train for the first time to meet him at the office during Christmas time, He’d have his secretary greet me at Grand Central Terminal which still is a very big and scary place to me.

He would take me to lunch at Jack’s Monte Rosa restaurant on 49th Street – which I thought was a very great place. When I first went to it with him, I was a little disappointed that it was not more glamorous but I was really impressed that Jack the owner greeted him by name. I thought that was great that my Dad was greeted with respect.

When I first started working in Washington, D.C. in 1968 I ate regularly at a restaurant below the television station WMAL-TV where I worked, it was called Marty’s Italian Village.  Marty, the owner (who looked like Humphrey Bogart, the only thing missing was the white sport coat) started calling me when I came in around 7 PM, ‘Hi John, how are you?” People would look at me. They thought I was big.  I liked that. Feeling big in my small world.

When my father came to visit me in Washington where I worked. I took him around town. I told him when he got off the plane. “Hi, Dad, welcome to my town.” I wanted to impress him. (I can’t say that was original, I borrowed that from the WMAL midnight to 6 disc jockey.)

We’re always trying to impress our fathers.

Another Father time was when my Dad came out for Dad’s Day at college. I mean this was a big thing to me. He watched me do play-by-play of a football game from atop the press box in 15 degree weather. It was cold. But he watched. Acted impressed. He hated cold weather.

Another time he impressed when I lost a job where I was working at the television station that I had been being considered for. And I told him how unfair it was, he put things in perspective:

“Puggy,” he said,  “The film manager wasn’t going to put you in as his Assistant if you were going to be bucking him all the time.” It put things in perspective. No false sentiment. No making me feel better, he was tough enough to teach by being realistic while telling me not to feel sorry for myself.

Then later in my career when I was fired out of a job completely blindsided. He again intervened, saying to me he thought what the agency head had done was a terrible thing. I needed that at the time.

He also, in a very supportive move, told me if I could make $1,000 a night writing a free lance direct mail package, I should keep trying to do that. It was the launch of a career where I worked for nobody, my time was my own, and enabled me to be a better parent.

Dads are there to say the right things to you at the right time–if you’re lucky. Sometimes it is not always the right thing, but they try. Often, if you’re lucky, as I was, they say the right thing. And not the wrong thing.

With my father, who was not really my father, since I was an adopted child, it was never all about him, it was all about you.

When I bought my first house in White Plains. He never criticized the house. But when I sold it, he complimented me, “I think it’s great how you came out of it (the crummy first house).” They’re personal trainers.

The good ones  train you to run a race. If you stumble, no one hurts more than they do. When you succeed, no one is prouder.

They know what you should do, but they can’t tell you, because you won’t do it if you’re a kid.

But the more subtler of them tell you any way in hopes it will sink in to the rebellious offspring mind. My dad was subtle.

Another fond memory: My father took me camping once at a friend’s cabin in Pennsylvania. Funny thing was there was such a great comic collection we wound up sleeping in sleeping bags on the porch of the cabin. That was funny.

Another time when I was being threatened in college over a position at the radio station, I asked him if I should just abdicate and assign a play-by-play position to the person who was being forced on me. He advised me to “stick to your guns,” so I reported the threat to the Dean.

That ended the physical threats.

The position was compromised, but I was never threatened again.  He never shared my love for baseball and sports. In fact he never played catch with me all that well.

But one night he took me to the Yankee-Tiger game on September 1, 1961. It was 95 degrees and humid at the 8 PM first pitch at the big ball park, 65,000 in the grand towering stands. The Tigers and Yankees were tied for first place. Into the night the teams battled in a scoreless game. The Taggas kept getting into threats. Whitey Ford did not have it. Casey kept changing pitchers to put out Detroit threats. It was three stifling, sweating hours later and it was still 0-0. Then the Yankees strung two singles and Moose Skowron won it with a clear sharp single. My father hated hot weather. He stayed to the end.

I mean I could have made the big leagues (pipe dream) if he played catch with me more. But that’s a small criticism.  I wish I had more of his financial acumen. But I do not.

As you grow into your 30s and 40s, little things they say to you you begin to understand. My father never struck me, but always disciplined me with quiet words. I have not always been that way as a parent myself, being somewhat volatile. I wish I had his even temperament. He always asked me to take care of my mother. And the only time he really got mad at me was when I had made my mother upset with me.

He was a little like John Wayne in movie roles in the way he disciplined. But my Dad was real.

I remember he would say admonitions quietly. Such as when I got an F in an English course at college. He told me, that was the last F I would get at Ohio Wesleyan, because the next one he would stop paying my tuition.

That had an effect. And that was when tuition was only $3,000 a year.

So, on Father’s Day, I think of him as I do every day of my life. I become more like him every day. He is always lingering in the background of my thoughts. I do not know what he would think of what I am doing now.  But, he’d say — “If that’s what you want to do. Do it.”

He also would say, “You have to make yourself happy.”

How true.

I also think, even today of what advice (laconic as always) he’d give me in a situation. And I wish I could discuss property taxes with him.

I especially have to salute him, because I am an adopted child. That alone makes me appreciate his love and acceptance with a sense of awe to this day.

You never outgrow your need for Dad.

You miss him and appreciate him always.

Your Dad is immortal.