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Bosworth & Israel Announce NEA Our Town Award for North Hempstead


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 21, 2015
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Bosworth & Israel Announce NEA Our Town Award for North Hempstead
$75,000 grant will be used to transform Town Dock with arts

North Hempstead, NY – North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth joined with U.S. Congressman Steve Israel and the Town Board today to announce the Town has been awarded a $75,000 Our Town grant by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which will support a Maritime Heritage Town Dock Resiliency Project in Port Washington that incorporates art into the project. According to the NEA, through a cultural resource survey and collaborative visioning process, the Town will transform the dock from an underused parking lot into an attractive, interactive park with green infrastructure, natural and built art elements, and spaces for community gatherings and arts programming that connect to the area’s maritime heritage. The Town of North Hempstead is partnering with Long Island Traditions, a local folk arts organization, and Landmark on Main Street, a community and performing arts center, to engage the community in working with an artist to design a new Town Dock Park that will strengthen the community’s social and physical resilience.

The NEA provides grants for arts-based community development projects that contribute toward the livability of communities to help transform them into lively, beautiful, and sustainable places with the arts at their core. The grant was secured thanks to the advocacy of U.S. Congressman Steve Israel and U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, both of whom met with Supervisor Bosworth back in April to discuss the grant, among other projects.

“This is exciting news for the residents of North Hempstead and would never have happened without the tremendous support from our federal representatives,” said Supervisor Bosworth. “Instead of reconstructing Town Dock with just concrete and steel, it will instead be turned into an artful and dynamic destination space that will connect to the area’s maritime heritage, while also serving as an important economic driver for the area.”

“I am thrilled that this grant will help revitalize and showcase the beauty and historical importance that Town Dock brings to Port Washington. As the North Shore continues to rebuild from Superstorm Sandy, projects like this will help bring our culturally diverse community closer together while turning an underused parking lot into a green park and public space,” said Rep. Steve Israel.

“This federal investment will help transform an underused parking lot at the Town of North Hempstead dock into a state of the art space for community gatherings and arts programming,” said U.S. Senator Chuck E. Schumer. “This is such a clever and innovative way to rebuild the Town’s hard-hit dock and will help bring the community even closer. I am pleased that the National Endowment for the Arts has provided this funding and I look forward to the success of the new ‘Town Dock Park.”

North Hempstead’s award was one of 69 Our Town grants awarded this year by the NEA, totaling almost $5 million. The Town’s Maritime Heritage Town Dock Resiliency Project initiative is an effort to incorporate creative placemaking, or a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of a public space, in order to reconstruct the town dock, which was damaged by Superstorm Sandy.

The Town Dock in North Hempstead is located at 347 Main Street in Port Washington. When Superstorm Sandy hit the Town of North Hempstead, critical infrastructure, including the dock was destroyed. The damage was so severe that 55,000 tons of tree and landscape material and 12,000 tons of construction and demolition material were collected as the sidewalks, curbs, gutters, shoreline, storm basin, seawalls and dock were torn apart. Prior to Superstorm Sandy, the Town Dock was a central location for dockage services, pump-out services, fishing areas and parking areas. The federal funding will increase the dock’s utility to make it a center for community engagement. Today’s announcement of the NEA Funding, will allow the project to begin and the dock to be restored and improved.

The National Endowment for the Arts is a federal organization that was founded in 1965 to engage Americans in the arts.

Have you tuned into North Hempstead TV lately? View all of our great programming on Channels 18 or 63 on Cablevision or Channel 46 on Verizon, or visit www.myNHTV.com or www.youtube.com/townofnorthhempstead.


Congressman Israel and Supervisor Bosworth share a laugh.

 


Supervisor Bosworth addresses the crowd. From left, Town Clerk Wayne Wink, Councilwoman Anna Kaplan, Councilwoman Lee Seeman, Councilman Peter Zuckerman, Congressman Israel, Executive Director of the Landmark on Main Street Laura Mogul, Councilwoman Dina De Giorgio, Executive Director of Long Island Traditions Nancy Solomon, and Receiver of Taxes Charles Berman.



From left, Congressman Israel, Receiver of Taxes Charles Berman, Councilwoman Kaplan and Supervisor Bosworth

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