A modest crowd gathered last Sunday for a fundraising event at the Elks Club on Lakeville Road to help save the New Hyde Park Police Athletic League Clubhouse on Denton Avenue.
They bought spaghetti and meatball dinners for $10 apiece and bought raffle tickets to help support the facility that has been an integral part of the community for youth athletic leagues.
But it will take more than spaghetti dinners to raise enough funds for the PAL facility, which has been seriously damaged by two floods caused by rainstorms during the past five years.
The New Hyde Park Police Athletic League Clubhouse is still hoping to receive the $200,000 state grant promised by former state Sen. Craig Johnson and withdrawn by the Democratic state Senate leadership last December after Johnson lost his re-election bid in the 7th state Senate district to Republican challenger Jack Martins.
Martins has been working to restore at least a portion of those grants, according to Nick Caras, president of the New Hyde Park PAL.
“We’re still suffering from equipment we weren’t able to replace. It’s tough when you have a groups of kids who are waiting for you to open and you’re worried about doing the programs,” Caras said.
Even in its current state – unable to use the center court of three basketball courts because of a badly buckled floor surface – the center is maintaining after-school and weekend programs in karate, golf- tennis, along with activities for younger children. But it has been unable to rent the facility to adults for youth league sports.
“The key to us is to still make affordable programs for people. We just want affordable programs with professionalism,” said Caras, who first became involved with basketball programs at the PAL center 34 years ago.
The PAL facility has been hobbling along for the last few years with $135,000 from insurance on the building and a $100,000 grant from Nassau County Legislator Richard Nicolello for an engineering study, according to Artie Catania, PAL building commissioner.
Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman also has been supportive of PAL’s efforts to restore the gym, according to Nassau County Police Officer Kevin Worth, director of the New Hyde Park PAL program. The town owns the property the PAL facility occupies and has already approved plans for the renovations.
“We were self-sufficient. We didn’t need help from anybody,” Catania said.
With the $200,000 grant promised by Johnson, it appeared as though the PAL facility could hope to recoup its former status and be self-sustaining once more. But the withdrawal of those funds last year has left the local PAL and the future of its recreation center in limbo.
Caras said the primary benefit of Sunday’s fundraising event was to increase the community’s awareness of the PAL’s plight.
Problems with the PAL clubhouse started with flooding after a heavy rainstorm in October 2005, when overflow from a sump behind the facility inundated the parking lot adjacent to it with three feet of water, Worth said in an interview in July. The water flowed under the eight-inch concrete block supporting the gym floor, cracking the concrete and the gym floor.
The gym floor was restored with $135,000 from an insurance claim filed at the time. But Worth said the repair work wasn’t sufficient to withstand another major rainstorm in July 2007.
The sump overflowed again during the storm and the accumulation of water in the parking lot flowed under the concrete floor, leaving one of three basketball courts in the gym badly buckled and cracked and covered the entire surface of the gym with mud and water.
A second claim of $135,000 has simply gone to basic upkeep and staff costs. The scale of the programs at the facility, where 500 local grade schoolers and teenagers were participating in basketball, baseball, lacrosse and karate annually, has been cut back considerably in the wake of the second flood.
