In mid-July, West Hempstead residents began voicing their concerns about Halls Pond Park on Facebook. The park, at the intersection of Nassau Boulevard and Hempstead Avenue, is a central green space in the community, but the manmade pond, which also serves as a stormwater discharge basin, had been overwhelmed with litter and silt buildup.
Residents called on Nassau County and local legislators to take action, clean up debris in the pond and help beautify the public park. Maureen Mahoney and Neal Rosenblatt, who, as president and vice president of the West Hempstead Community Support Association, had been working to improve Halls Pond Park for years, were excited by community members’ determination.
“Halls Pond is the entry way to our hamlet,” Mahoney said. “We want our best foot forward for the community and visitors. Halls Pond is not a project that started this year — it is the culmination of years and many previous leaders making improvements to the park.”
With their guidance, residents gathered at a town hall meeting in late July, and over the ensuing weeks, debris in Halls Pond was cleaned up, the flooring of the children’s playground was replaced, and the state of the park continues to improve.
Mahoney and Rosenblatt are not only steadfast advocates for the park, but regularly raise their voices for the entire West Hempstead community. For all they have done and continue to do, from planning holiday events to focusing on keeping residents safe, the Herald is proud to name them its 2025 People of the Year.
Mahoney, 65, and Rosenblatt, 68, have both lived in West Hempstead nearly their entire lives, attending West Hempstead schools and continuing to be active in the community for decades.
Mahoney, who works part-time in an office, joined the WHCSA over 10 years ago, when her father, Henry “Ed” Miller, who served as treasurer, could no longer fulfill the position. “She felt it was important to follow in his footsteps, to make sure the town continues to thrive through the WHCSA,” Sarah Alvarado, Mahoney’s daughter and the organization’s current treasurer, said.
Mahoney served as treasurer until she took over as president following Rosalie Norton’s retirement in 2020.
“She’s extremely motivated,” Alvarado added. “If you ask her to get something done, she does it with pride, and as quickly and efficiently as possible. She’s always looking for more ways to help our small town, and do as much as she can with the limited resources we have as a volunteer group.”
Mahoney organizes monthly meetings of the WHCSA board to plan community activities, formalize the group’s budget and discuss community issues. She oversees the annual West Hempstead Community Street Fair, the Memorial Day Parade, the Sept. 11 Memorial Service and the Holiday Children’s Party and Tree and Menorah Lighting, as well as biannual community cleanups at Halls Pond Park.
“We’re an organization that supports the community,” Mahoney said. “We’re all volunteers and have a vested interest in our community, so we try to effect change.”
Rosenblatt, a retired retail manager and the former WHCSA quality of life chair, joined the organization about 15 years ago. In that role, and as its vice president, he has worked with the Town of Hempstead and Nassau County on resolving local issues. He also helps new residents in the community navigate living in a hamlet.
“People don’t really know who to go to or how to get things done,” Rosenblatt said. “I’ve been very proactive in the community, so I decided this was something that I wanted to get more involved in.”
But Rosenblatt’s involvement in the WHCSA dates back even further, to when he became an inspector in Nassau County Auxiliary Police Unit 116. At 18, he joined what was then called the Civil Defense Force because he wanted to help his community.
“This is his 50th year of volunteering in West Hempstead,” Brandon Rosenblatt, Neal’s son, said. “This shows how invested he is, the time he spends and how much he cares about helping and giving back.”
Rosenblatt now oversees auxiliary units in the Nassau County Police Department’s 5th Precinct, which encompasses West Hempstead, Lakeview and Malverne Park as well as Elmont, Franklin Square, Valley Stream and parts of Floral Park, Garden City and Lynbrook. He serves as a liaison between the community and the department.
Advocating for Halls Pond and beyond
Mahoney and Rosenblatt began focusing on the long-running Halls Pond project five years ago, with many improvements have taken place in the past two years.
“It's just a special place,” Brandon Rosenblatt said, recalling his father taking him and his two sisters to Hall Pond Park to play or run by the police auxiliary building in the park. “It’s a place that he spends so much time trying to take care of because it’s really meaningful to him, and has been for a very long time.”
In July 2024 and again in April 2025, Rosenblatt joined Nassau County Legislator William Gaylor and the county’s deputy parks commissioner, Mike D’Ambrosio, in walks through the park to identify issues that needed to be addressed.
“Halls Pond Park is open to anyone just driving by,” Rosenblatt said. “There is no residency requirement to get in. People use it for everything — to take wedding photos, for small-scale get-togethers, to picnic, to sled. It’s used daily, and we want to keep it maintained.”
Of the 20 items that the trio determined needed work, some have been addressed, including dredging the pond, replacing the ripped rubber playground flooring with safer mulch, the addition of new, reinforced garbage receptacles and improved waste removal for both the park and the pond.
“It was necessary to clean up Halls Pond this summer,” Mahoney said. “The project was started and scheduled based on our tireless involvement with Nassau County Parks to address these issues.”
Other work has yet to begin: installing additional lighting to ensure safety, building a new gazebo, and improving landscaping near the veterans memorial. Mahoney and Rosenblatt have already met with representatives of Legislators Carrié Solages and Olena Nicks, who will each represent parts of West Hempstead in the redrawn 3rd and 5th districts, respectively, in the interest to continuing the park’s progress.
“The community wants more — and we ask, but unfortunately there are budgets and restrictions,” Mahoney explained. “If people are really interested in getting results, they, as taxpaying citizens, need to contact their legislators on their own, as well as what we do.”
As if their efforts at Halls Pond weren’t enough, Mahoney and Rosenblatt worked with the Town of Hempstead to organize the first community cleanup of Hempstead Avenue in October. And Mahoney has collaborated with Heatherwood developers on the planning and design of the Heritage Westminster apartment complex being built on Hempstead Turnpike, which will bring more than 400 new units to the hamlet.
This year, Rosenblatt has also worked with the town to install new stop signs on Westminster Road, and to introduce parking restrictions on Fairlawn Avenue. He has also helped address commercial vehicles’ illegal parking on Baldwin’s streets and with the removal of signs and posters from public property.
“He really takes a lot of pride in trying to clean up the community,” Rosenblatt’s son said. “I think because he’s lived there his whole life, he wants the community to be the best it can be.”
