On a blustery evening in early January, a Garden City South husband and father of three, James Gottlieb, was pulled over on a Franklin Square street by someone who he thought was a cop in a police cruiser and shot to death when the man turned out to be an impostor. In December, Elmont's Leslyn Stewart and her two young daughters buried NYPD Detective Dillon Stewart, who was shot and killed in the line of duty.
In the following pages, the Herald eschewed words for pictures in our Year in Review to tell the story of the last 12 months. The Gottlieb and Stewart tragedies were two of the top stories, and are included with other big news events that shaped 2005. This space is dedicated to the stories and newsmakers, both good and bad, that didn't make it inside.
The triumphs
Newsmakers in Elmont made a lot of noise in 2005.
Elmont Memorial High School's academic prowess was honored when the College Board released its first-ever Report to the Nation on Advanced Placement participation and performance in America's public schools, ranking No. 1 in the country, with 23 African-American students scoring 3 or higher on a scale of 1 to 5.
The school's girls' varsity basketball team, the Lady Spartans, were 20-2 and advanced to the Nassau Class AA finals, only to lose to Massapequa High School in the championship game, 68-62, at C.W. Post.
The work of Elmont School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Palandra -- who retired in July -- and the school board facilitated the purchase of the Alva T. Stanforth School property from the Sewanhaka Central High School District in 2004, and local residents will soon have a state-of-the-art library at their disposal. Construction began on the new building, across from the current branch, and should be completed by next spring. In one fell swoop, two community objectives were met: getting rid of the long-vacant Stanforth building and creating a hub that will hopefully spur business growth along Hempstead Turnpike.
Also on the construction front, Broadval LLC, a Suffolk County development group, was given the green light by the Town of Hempstead to build a 388-unit condominium complex for senior citizens on the former site of the Salvation Army Wayside Home for Girls on Dutch Broadway, on the border of North Valley Stream and Elmont.
The Elmont School District's six elementary schools raised more than $22,000 for North Shore Animal League America and the AmeriCares Humanitarian Foundation after Hurricane Katrina. The product of one of those schools, rapper Konchis (born Destin Snowden), was discovered by producers who have worked with recording artists Beyonce Knowles and Pink, and released his first single, "On the Way Up."
A little piece of Elmont is now in Cambridge, Mass.: Sewanhaka High class of 2005 valedictorian Adenike Adewuyi, who was born in Nigeria, where she lived her early years under military rule, began classes at Harvard. She studies biomedical engineering.
In Franklin Square, Jim Minor, 78, was honored for 50 years of service to the Franklin Square & Munson Fire Department, just months after suffering a stroke.
Franklin Square resident Jennifer Corrado, a fourth-grade teacher, rode her bike 275 miles from Chesapeake, Md., to New York City to raise money for charity. Sal Climenti displayed his own form of goodwill when he adopted from the North Shore Animal League America purebred boxer brothers Petey and Rocco, which were rescued from a Louisiana animal shelter that had flooded after Hurricane Katrina.
The tragedies
In addition to the losses of Gottlieb and Stewart, both Franklin Square and Elmont had their share of heartbreak in 2005. A single mother from Franklin Square, Susan Ambrosino, 26, was found in the trunk of her car in Jamaica, Queens, shot once in the head. Ambrosino's ex-husband's brother, Steven Schiovone, was charged with her murder.
Thomas Maloney, 20, of Elmont, was arrested on a charge of first-degree manslaughter for the stabbing death of 19-year-old Thomas Battaglia outside the victim's Third Avenue, Franklin Square, home. The charge was upgraded to second-degree murder after police discovered a phone call to the victim just before the brawl. Police said that the events leading up to the incident began a few hours earlier, when Battaglia agreed to let his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Laurita, and Maloney, her new boyfriend, visit the dog she and Battaglia had purchased together while they were dating. Police say the meeting did not go well, and that over the next few hours, angry phone calls were exchanged.
According to police, at 10:20 p.m. on June 26, Maloney made his last phone call to Battaglia. After the call, police say, the two men got into a brawl, with Battaglia wielding a baseball bat and Maloney a knife. Within minutes, Battaglia had been stabbed twice in the chest. His mother, whom witnesses described as hysterical with grief, held her son until help arrived.
Two Elmont men, David Coy Sanchez, 25, and Elquin Astaiza Ceballos, 19, were killed when scaffolding they were dismantling at a siding installation job in Floral Park struck overhead high-voltage power lines.
Syed Hussain, 71, of Elmont, was struck and killed by a car while crossing Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont.
During Franklin Square's annual Bavarian Beer Festival at Plattduetsche Park Restaurant, Eric Mattmuller, 31, and Patrick Ryan, 29, both of Syosset, walked up to a black man who was talking to a white woman, and Mattmuller allegedly cracked a ceramic beer stein twice over the man's head. Witnesses said Mattmuller and Ryan shouted racial slurs as they were hauled out of the bar by staff. Before police could arrive, they fled, but they were arrested a month later after interviews with Plattduetsche employees and patrons. Both men pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree assault as a hate crime, and the case is still pending.
Mario Mazzei, 41, of Elmont was using a wet-dry vacuum to siphon gas from his boat in the driveway of his Greenway Boulevard home when a spark set him and his wife ablaze. Both suffered severe burns.
Elsewhere you'll find our new feature, the Year in Review in pictures. Enjoy it - and have a happy and healthy New Year.
Year in Review
Thirteen-year-old Julio Sanchez, of Floral Park, accidentally hangs himself while playing with a rope in a tree on Hendrickson Avenue in Elmont with some friends. Police said his head became entangled in the rope and a friend tried gnawing through it but couldn't free him.
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Candidate for county legislature Ali Mirza had an impressive showing on Election Day, ultimately losing but putting a scare into Republicans and 10-year incumbent John Ciotti. In defeat, Mirza made a resounding point - a Democrat could win this district.
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NYPD Officer Dillon Stewart, who lived in Elmont with his wife and two children, was gunned down by a man police said shot an off-duty cop during a mugging weeks earlier. More than 20,000 people attended his funeral in Brooklyn, including a contingent of police officers from the Nassau County Fifth Precinct, which protects Elmont and Franklin Square. He was posthumously promoted to detective.
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An Elmont School District staple for 17 years and superintendent since 1998, Dr. Maria Palandra stepped down at the end of the 2004-2005 school year. Under her leadership, math, science and English scores soared and the district became one of the most improved in the state. She was succeeded by longtime Elmont Memorial High School principal Al Harper.
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H. Frank Carey High School Social Studies Department Chairwoman Theresa Capra resigned amid allegations she elevated grades on Global History Regents exams and instructed teachers to do the same in 2002 and 2003 while an assistant principal at Cobble Hill School for American Studies in Brooklyn. This lead to an investigation by Sewanhaka Central High School District to comb through social studies Regents tests taken under Capra's supervision by Carey students. No abnormalities were found in the grading.
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Behind the indefatigable backfield tandem of juniors T.J. Humrich and Matt Zaffuto, the H. Frank Carey Seahawks varsity football team reached the conference championship game for the first time since 1978. Their Cinderella season ended at the hands of a finely tuned Garden City team in the Nassau Conference II final, but Head Coach Matt McLees has the building blocks of his young team in place for another run in 2006.
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Garden City South and Franklin Square residents teamed to successfully defeat a wireless communications company's proposal to install antennae on the West Hempstead Water District tower on 7th Street and Roxbury Road. Fearful of the long-term health implications from the antenna radiation and adamantly opposed to the tower becoming an "eyesore," a group of neighbors started a petition writing campaign and lobbied local officials to join their fight. Their persistence resulted in the water district board of commissioners resolving to deny Omnipoint Communications Inc. - and all communication businesses - license to install antennae on the site.
H. Frank Carey High School teacher Bart Badalucco returned from an American Red Cross feeding operation in hurricane-ravaged Orange, Texas and started a fund-raising campaign for the town's school district and two churches that raised nearly $15,000 in seven weeks.
