American Cancer Society's Relay For Life Roosevelt Island Update - Still Time to Join, Start A Team Or Perform

Here's an update from the organizers of the June 15 Roosevelt Island Relay For Life

Roosevelt Island Relay For Life Organizers Meeting At Nonno's

What is Relay?



 
Relay For Life is the signature event of the American Cancer Society and is the largest non-profit movement in the world. Its goals are threefold and simple – to raise funds to END cancer as a national health concern, to CELEBRATE SURVIVORS, and REMEMBER those that we have lost to cancer. Everyone has a personal reason to stand up to cancer and FIGHT BACK. Relay is a non-competitive walking event in which people form teams and commit to having one person from their team walking a track at all times throughout the event. Relay will be a family friendly event with something for everyone. There will be all kinds of food, activities, and entertainment the entire time – for kids, teens, and adults. Find more info here: relayforlife.org/rooseveltislandny

Interested in starting a team?
Anyone of any age can start a Relay team! You can have a team of any size, and you can even include people that can't attend the event on June 15 but want to help you fundraise. Once you register your team on the Relay website the rest of your friends and loved ones will be able to join. Register here: relayforlife.org/rooseveltislandny

Residence Building Teams
Almost every residence building complex has a team registered. Feel free to join the team of your residence building! Click the link for your building to join the team:

Westview
Riverwalkers!
Rivercrossers
Manhattan Park
Island House Fights Back!
The Octagon Makes Cancer Gone

Sponsorship Opportunities for Businesses
There are sponsorship opportunities that range from $100 - $3500. Contact me if you are interested: greg.murray@cancer.org

Business Hours
I'm holding "office hours" on the Island twice a week. As long as Alphonse will let me hang out, I'll be at Nonno's enjoying the Spring weather with my laptop on Tuesdays from 4:30-6:30 and Fridays from 3-5. Stop by to ask any question you'd like.

Entertainment
Do you know a talented musician? Are you a teenager in a garage band? Are you in a middle school glee club? Perhaps you are a child prodigy with the voice of an angel?
 
If you know anyone that is interested in performing at Relay and helping us make the day fun, give them this link:  http://bit.ly/16n5ASc

Thanks Roosevelt Island!
Greg

So far, Roosevelt Island Relay For Life has 22 teams, 63 participants and raised more than $8 thousand. More on Roosevelt Island Relay For Life from previous post.

NYC Alzheimer's Association Blondes Vs Brunettes Charity Football Game Played Saturday At Roosevelt Island's Octagon Field - Over $122,500 Raised For A Great Cause

The New York City Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association played its third annual “Blondes vs. Brunettes” Powder Puff Charity football game last Saturday at Roosevelt Island's Octagon Field to

 raise funds and support for the New York City Alzheimer’s community. The mission of the NYC Alzheimer's Association Chapter is to:

... create and promote comprehensive and humane care for persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, to provide support for their families and professional caregivers, and to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease through the advancement of research. The Chapter meets this mission in the community through increasing public awareness, providing education, creating and encouraging replication of model programs, collaborating with research centers, and undertaking advocacy.

The New York Chapter provides information, assistance and support to patients, caregivers and professionals, throughout the five boroughs of New York City....

The Blondes vs Brunettes Roosevelt Island football game raised $122,500 for the NYC Alzheimer's Association.

Final count from GameDay is in. Congratulations ladies, we are officially over $122,500! You're all athletes to end Alzheimer's!
— BvBNYC (@BvBNYC) May 18, 2013

The action on the field was well played and intense as shown here by the Brunette Team Quarterback running in a touchdown



and the Blonde Team Quarterback throwing for a touchdown.



The final score was:

Final score 52-13, brunettes!But everyone's a winner today, since you raised an amazing amount of money and awareness for the cause.
— Junior Committee NYC (@alznycjc) May 18, 2013

Here's some more highlight's from Saturday's NYC Alzheimer's Association Blondes vs Brunettes Charity Football game at Roosevelt Island's Octagon field (Click video to enlarge)



and info from WPIX

NYC Alzheimer's Association programs are listed here.

Beautiful Roosevelt Island East River Sunrise This Past Weekend Reason Why One Resident Lives Here - Manhattanhenge 2013 Coming May 28, Let's Get Some Roosevelt Island Pictures

Roosevelt Island resident Lynn Strong-Shinozaki shares this photo taken last Saturday night of a beautiful Roosevelt Island East River sunset looking north (Click on photo to enlarge)

Image From Lynn Strong-Shinozaki

and adds:

Why I Live Here.

(oops- there's a correction. The picture is of Sunrise, not Sunset).

There are many great Roosevelt Island photographers. Resident David Kraut suggested this idea for Roosevelt Island photographers.

"Manhattanhenge" is a reference to the twice-a-year phenomenon when the cross streets of Manhattan line up with the setting sun. Roosevelt Island is an ideal location to view this phenomenon because we can see across the west channel right up the streets.

In fact, I took this picture from the top of the helix by the garage, in 2009

Image From David Kraut

Neil DeGrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium was the guy to name the thing. Here's the wiki:

Manhattanhenge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It might be interesting to see what kind of pictures Roosevelt Islanders can come up with. 

Manhattanghenge 2013 is coming May 28 at 8: 16 PM. According to Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

What will future civilizations think of Manhattan Island when they dig it up and find a carefully laid out network of streets and avenues? Surely the grid would be presumed to have astronomical significance, just as we have found for the pre-historic circle of large vertical rocks known as Stonehenge, in the Salisbury Plain of England. For Stonehenge, the special day is the summer solstice, when the Sun rises in perfect alignment with several of the stones, signaling the change of season.

For Manhattan, a place where evening matters more than morning, that special day comes twice a year. For 2013 they fall on May 28th, and July 13th, when the setting Sun aligns precisely with the Manhattan street grid, creating a radiant glow of light across Manhattan's brick and steel canyons, simultaneously illuminating both the north and south sides of every cross street of the borough's grid. A rare and beautiful sight. These two days happen to correspond with Memorial Day and Baseball's All Star break. Future anthropologists might conclude that, via the Sun, the people who called themselves Americans worshiped War and Baseball....

Let's get some good pictures Manhattanhenge pictures from Roosevelt Island!!!!

Report From Cornell NYC Tech VP Cathy Dove, ULURP Application Approved By NYC Council - Cornell Intends To Adopt Roosevelt Island PS/IS 217 And Minimize Construction Impact As Much As Possible She Says

Ms. Dove Speaking at May 8 NYC Council Approval of Cornell NYC Tech ULURP Application

Cornell NYC Tech Vice President Cathy Dove sends this report to the Roosevelt Island community.

I am so pleased to report that last week we reached a significant milestone – the completion of the formal land use review process (ULURP) for Cornell NYCTech.

We are very grateful to so many members of the Roosevelt Island community for the constructive and meaningful input throughout the process. Ultimately, your great support for the vision and mission of the campus set the tone for the entire process, reflected in very strong endorsements from the Community Board, the Borough President, the City Planning Commission and finally the City Council. We all owe a special thanks to Council Member Jessica Lappin for her tireless work in ensuring community needs were addressed.

We worked diligently throughout the public review process to incorporate feedback from the community into our approach – your input resulted in a more meaningful set of commitments from us. As a result of this constructive process, we were able to understand and address those topics that are most important to Islanders, resulting in a plan that maximizes the campusʼ benefit for all. The faculty, staff and students of Cornell Tech are looking forward to being an active partner in so many ways: researching ways that technology can enhance the lives of the many Island populations; providing computers and training to senior center members and the disabled community; providing a tech fair to advance technology education for the disabled; and working with the community to program outdoor space for children, among many others.

Many of you know that one of our primary goals is to help advance science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in New York City public schools. Of course, the Roosevelt Island school is of special interest. Recently, Council Member Lappin made a wonderful suggestion during the land use review process that we embraced immediately – we will “adopt” PS/ IS 217! That means that we will engage with teachers and students in many ways, such as providing training and support, after school programming, tech events, career day options, and hardware and software programming development.

We canʼt wait to start this relationship and engage the Islandʼs young people in embracing innovation and tech. Itʼs just one piece of a larger commitment to working with schools around the City on exciting new programs. Our initial focus will be on middle school students. We will kick off the effort this summer with an immersion program for middle school girls (including some from PS/ IS217) to learn coding, web design, robotics and mobile development under the mentorship of some of the industryʼs top engineers and entrepreneurs. Classes will be held on Roosevelt Island, with special thanks to our friends at Urban American for providing space at Roosevelt Landings and logistical support for this great program.

In addition to hearing a great deal about ways our programs can benefit the community, throughout ULURP we were asked to find ways to minimize the impact of construction as much as possible. I appreciate your patience as we worked through the analysis around some very complex issues, as we did not want to disappoint the community by committing to approaches that we would later discover would not be feasible. One of the most challenging topics was to identify methods for reducing the number of trucks – especially the heaviest trucks – in order to limit the impact of construction on residents and on the Islandʼs infrastructure. Consistent with Cornell Techʼs focus on innovation in everything we do, Iʼm very proud to announce that we will be undertaking the most aggressive voluntary barging program in New York City. As a result, we expect to reduce truck trips by more than half as compared to traditional building techniques. The barging will specifically target the heaviest materials, further lightening the load on Main Street and the Helix .

Soon we will be creating a construction task force with residents and other stakeholders to keep the community updated during construction, to answer questions, and to discuss topics that arise. We will also launch a website with project and construction information as we get closer to our start date, and will provide contact information so all community members can reach us directly with questions and comments. We are committed to being accessible throughout this process.

Thereʼs still a lot of work to do before we break ground in early 2014, but we are on schedule and building momentum toward a real presence for Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island. We canʼt wait!

Below are questions and answers following May 8 announcement of NYC Council Cornell NYC Tech ULUPR approval.

Here We Go Again, No Queens Bound Roosevelt Island F Train Service From Manhattan This Weekend

According to the MTA:

F Jamaica-bound trains run via the E after 47-50 Sts to Roosevelt Av

Weekend, 9:45 PM Fri to 5 AM Mon, May 17 - 20

No Jamaica-bound service at 57 St, Lexington Av/63 St, Roosevelt Island and 21 St-Queensbridge.

More information on subway service disruptions this weekend from the MTA's Weekender.

New RIOC President Charlene Indelicato Tells Main Street WIRE Change Is Coming To Roosevelt Island - Will Be Hard But RIOC Has Obligation To Make Changes Reasonable For All Parties She Says

Ms Indelicato Seated At Right During May 15 Real Estate Advisory Committee Meeting

May 18 issue of Roosevelt Island's local newspaper, The Main Street WIRE, has an interview with new Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) President Charelene Indelicato.  Click here for the entire interview.

Below are some highlights.

Ms Indelicato says about Cornell NYC Tech:

... For example, Cornell. There’s an agreement that has to be made. Although it was stated that it is solely the agreement for that piece of property and an appraisal, I think there are a lot of other issues that involve the Island, like the future of the Operating Corporation, because there’s going to be an impact. It’s a good impact. But change is always hard. And we, as the Board of Directors and the administration and the governor’s office, have the obligation to make that change reasonable for all parties.

Now does that mean everybody’s going to be happy? Very rarely. It means the traditional thing: Some people are going to be happy, some unhappy, some in the middle. But the fact is that we have to have some kind of equitable solution. Now, I know there are issues of transportation – the barging or not barging, and what happens afterward – parking, impact on the City, access to the water, all those things that we worry about, and have worried about in all the construction that has gone on here. The Island didn’t start out with buildings all here, so we’ve gone through this a number of times and we’ll go through it again, and this is a little bigger vision than most, but in truth, I think it will be good for the Island, and I think it is our job to make sure it is, because if it’s not, then I don’t think Cornell will be happy. So we have that issue....

About Riverwalk Southtown development:

... Then we have the Southtown development going – David Kramer, a very reputable guy as a developer – I need to work with him to make sure he’s happy, to make sure we’re happy. I worked with him many years ago, so, knowing that he’s unhappy, we need to look at that. The [Island] master plan was done many years ago, so knowing that he wants to make changes in it, that’s reasonable; we need to look at it. I’m very pro-development, with my background, but not pro-development that is not good for the municipality that I work for....

About quality of life improvements for residents of small communities like Roosevelt Island:

... One thing I learned working in smaller communities, ...  is that it is of utmost importance. But it’s not going to happen overnight. It just isn’t. Every time I hear it from the Board or read it in the blogs and it says, We’ll wait ’til she comes in, it’s like, Hey, I am not doing this the first day. I mean, [on that standard,] already I’ve failed.

You don’t shake up a whole organization without knowing what you’re shaking it up into....

In closing:

... I am thrilled to be here.  It think it’s going to be very interesting, very demanding, but hopefully, and I don’t mean this in a facetious way, a fun job – that there are things that can be done, that we can progress, that the Board won’t have to work 24/7, that the people of the Island will see that there is a government that cares, and a Board that cares, and an administration that cares.

It was a good interview. Click here to read the entire Main Street WIRE interview with RIOC President Charlene Indelicato.

SPONSORED POST - Earthbound Farm Picks Up Tab For Roosevelt Island Gristedes Customers Buying Organic And Eco-Friendly Groceries To Celebrate Earth Day

From Roosevelt Island Gristedes:

Last month, Gristede's welcomed Earthbound Farm to the Roosevelt Island store to celebrate Earth Day with their Every Cart Counts program. The organic produce brand took to the aisles,

in search of shoppers who were making their carts count for the earth by purchasing organic and other eco-friendly groceries.

Two lucky shoppers would have the tab for their carts purchased by Earthbound. The Earthbound Farm Cart Search Team found Roosevelt Island residents Melissa and Matt who were re-stocking their fridge after returning from a friend's wedding and Earthbound Farm picked up the bill! Earthbound Farm also rewarded organic-minded couple, Bill and Marylynn, for their cart full of healthy and pesticide-free produce. That made for a truly happy Earth Day at Gristedes.