VOL. 75 No. 27
Second Class Postage paid at Post office at Hempstead, N.Y. 11550
July 3 - 9, 2025
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Protesters march in Hempstead By SCOTT BRINTON
Special to the Herald
Courtesy Reine Bethany
new York Secretary of State Walter Mosley, left, and Hempstead Mayor Waylyn Hobbs, Jr., discussed the Cooper Square portion of the downtown Overlay Zone during a tour of the downtown Revitalization initiative projects on June 30.
Tour showcases vision for Hempstead downtown revival State officials visit transformation one By REINE BETHANY Special to the Herald
A tour of Hempstead’s Downtown Overlay Zone revealed the extent of the new construction that will replace empty buildings and unoccupied plots of land in the village’s commercial core. State funding, especially the recently awarded $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant, has provided a triumphant boost to a cluster of proposed projects. Eight of the projects were visited on the June 30 tour. Hempstead Mayor Waylyn Hobbs, Jr., Deputy Mayor Jeffery Daniels, and Community Development Agency Commissioner Danielle Oglesby led New York Secretary of State Walter Mosley, Deputy Secretary of State Kisha Santiago, and Nassau County Legislators Olena Nicks and Scott Walker on a walk that began with 1 Helen Keller Way, which the village bought to become a central village hall and police station. Comments and questions from Mosley helped to clarify future projects.
Hearing that Parking Lot 1 (across Front Street from Hempstead Town Hall) is slated to become a 336-unit apartment development, Mosley asked, “How much of this is going to be workforce and permanent affordable housing?” “This unit is market-rate with ground floor retail,” Oglesby said, “geared toward students and medical professionals. We have other units north on Main Street that are 100 percent affordable.” “In Hempstead, compared to our neighbor, Garden City,” Hobbs said, “we are the center of low-income housing, so as we’re building, we want to make sure that we mix market-rate with affordable.” “Right, right, build up your tax base,” Mosley added. Two Main Street buildings intended for redevelopment currently contain businesses. Vybz on the Main and several law offices occupy 24 Main St. The rear part of the other building, 20 Main St., once held the village traffic court at 16 Cooper St. West; it now contains Beauty of New York, which moves millions of dollars of COntinued On Page 9
Angela Lampe arrived in the United States from El Salvador in 1963 as a domestic worker earning $50 a month. Soon after, she threw herself into advocacy for the civil rights movement of Dr. Martin Luther King and the labor rights movement of César Chávez. Lampe, 88 and living in Massapequa, was among more than a 100 demonstrators who gathered at the Rosa Parks Hempstead Transit Center, commonly called the NICE Bus terminal, to protest the continued presence of Immig ration and Customs Enforcement agents on Long Island streets. The demonstrators marched through Hempstead’s downtown business district to a Home Depot and then to Hempstead Village Hall. “We are here because there is so much injustice,” said Lampe, who earned a degree in social work in 1979 and became a licensed social worker. “What I want to see is a legal process that everybody deserves. Doesn’t matter what country you come from, you deserve to be heard.” Lampe spoke under the shade of a small tree on this 85-degree day while marchers behind her chanted, “This is what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” A media advisory from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and Hempstead-based Workplace Project promoting the Sunday march read, “Over the past weeks and months, we have experienced a series of brutal ICE raids across Long Island, including the areas of Hempstead, Uniondale, Freeport, Roosevelt, Westbury and more. Masked men with guns are grabbing people and forcing them into unmarked cars with no warrant and no regard for due process.” Earlier this year, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman assigned 11 Nassau County detectives to work with
ICE agents to round up and deport immigrants suspected of crimes. The county officers, he said, do not take part in immigration raids. ICE officials have acknowledged the right of demonstrators to lawfully protest federal policy. They add that they are upholding the nation’s immigration laws and are prioritizing public safety by arresting and removing criminal offenders and immigration violators from U.S. streets. Dafny Irizarry, president and founder of the Long Island Latino Teachers Association, challenged such claims, telling the crowd that ICE agents are also targeting law-abiding students for detention and deportation. “We stand with you to stand together in support of our immigrant children,” Irizarry said. “Schools are learning places. ICE has no place in our schools.” Irizarry said immigrant children are suffering. ICE officials “say they’re coming for criminals,” she said. “That is a lie.” The crowd responded, “It’s a lie.” Miguel Alas, 62, assistant director of the nonprofit Workplace Project in Hempstead, said in an interview, “We are here to let the community know what is happening with immigration … At the same time, we are also showing, denouncing, this way of doing things.” Alas said he believes recent raids, in which immigrants, documented and undocumented, are taken into custody without due process—and often without knowing the identities of the officers detaining them—equates to a form of violence. “They use terror as a way to threaten people,” he said. Susan Steinmann, 80, of Mastic Beach, stood on the sidewalk loudly chanting, “ICE out, ICE out!” Steinmann said she sees a growing “police state” that is primarily targeting immigrants of color for arrest, detention COntinued On Page 2