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Athletes choose their colleges Page 2 Vol. 32 No. 15
APRIl 10 - 16, 2025
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By MADISoN GUSlER mgusler@liherald.com
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Dormers • extens ions Complete Home re novation speCialists
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From vacant dreams to theater reality
Lynbrook firefighters fundraise for Burn Center The 4th Battalion Fire District and the Nassau County Firefighters Burn Center Foundation hosted Nassau County’s yearly Firefighters Burn Center Benefit at the Malverne Fire Department headquarters on Sunday. The event was attended by firefighters from the Malverne, Lakeview, East Rockaway, Lynbrook and Rockville Centre. “The Foundation supports the burn center at the Nassau University Medical Center,” said John Hennig, a director on the Burn Center Foundation board and exChief of the Rockville Center fire department. The Nassau University Medical Center houses a $ 6 . 7 m i l l i o n , 12,000-square-foot bur n center. With sophisticated technology, specialized surgeons and nurses at NUMC can treat up to ten patients at once, with designated beds for critical and acute care. “This burn center is it for Nassau County, most of Long Island,” said Hennig. “It stretches from the middle of Queens and out to Suffolk County, this is the Burn Center.” Experienced staff help burn victims with immediate pain and long term healing, with a support team to guide patients with the long process and
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By AINSlEY MARTINEZ amartinez@liherald.com
Courtesy East Rockaway School District
Jethro Jacquet received an honor from the Scholastic art and Writing awards, the longest-running recognition program for creative high school students across the country.
East Rockaway student earns national recognition By AINSlEY MARTINEZ amartinez@liherald.com
An East Rockaway JuniorSenior High School student received an honor from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the longest-running recognition program for creative high school students across the country. Jethro Jacquet, 17, earned a gold medal for his digital photograph titled, “Stalker,” which
he created as part of a weekly photography challenge in his Introduction to Photography class. He chose to explore the theme of awakening for the assignment, composing a striking portrait with dramatic lighting in a dark room. The black-and-white photograph focuses on a wide-eyed Austin Mullings, a fellow junior in Jacquet’s class, with Continued on page 10
For years, Tony Leone, 53, said he had an obsession with vacant commercial properties, and every time he walked past a building with a For Sale sign plastered on the window, he’d have the same thought: Could this be a theater? About five years ago, while he and his wife, Marla D’Urso, walked past a restaurant for sale in Valley Stream, Leone vo i c e d h i s l o n g s t a n d i n g thought. He recalled her casual, yet sincere suggestion that he try to buy the building. “I was just dreaming,” Leone recounted telling his wife. “You mean this dream could come true?” That particular building didn’t work out, but Leone and D’Urso eventually turned his fantasy into a reality with Strongbox Theater, at 40 Main St. Strongbox, a name that nods to both the banking term for a safe-deposit box and its role as a black box theater, now occupies the former East Rockaway National Bank and Trust Company building, which had been vacant for seven years before the couple purchased it in 2020.
Festival schedule An evening of six 10-minute plays at 8 p.m.: ■ First weekend: May 2-3 ■ Second weekend: May 9-10 ■ Third weekend: May 16-17 Bethany Congregational Church, 100 Main St.
The pair plans to open the professional theater with a bar and lighter fare in spring 2026, which will host local creatives in theater, comedy and music. In May, Strongbox will produce a shor t play festival directed by John Torres, of Long Beach, in collaboration with Bethany Congregation Church at 100 Main St. Torres and the actors have rehearsals at the theater, and will join the stage at the church to celebrate the theater’s fullContinued on page 8