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Andrew Vitelli

Eye on the Olympics for Curling: How Briarcliff’s Megan Stopera Surprised Everyone Including Herself

August 18, 2023 by Andrew Vitelli

Throughout her childhood, the sport of curling was unavoidable for Briarcliff’s Megan Stopera.

Her father, Bill, was a lifelong curler who narrowly missed the Olympics in 2013. Her brother, Andrew, was also a distinguished curler, bringing the family across the world to watch him compete and moving to Minneapolis after college to be at the sport’s epicenter.

But for 15 years, Megan was utterly uninterested. She’d roll her eyes when the conversation in the household turned to curling strategy. She’d travel across the world – to South Korea, to Scotland, to Canada – to support her brother at tournaments and competitions, but she would spend most the contest looking at her phone instead of the ice.

“They always wanted me to do it, but I was just super stubborn,” Megan, now 16 and entering her senior year at Briarcliff High School, recalls. “I never really wanted to do it, so I almost feel like they gave up on it.”

The turnaround came when Megan, then 15, went to watch her brother compete in the Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebraska. When she came home, she announced to her family: I want to curl now.

“That was a shock to all of us, quite honestly. We didn’t expect that,” Bill Stopera said. “She was always, ‘I’m not curling. I’m never following in any of your footsteps. I hate curling.’ It’s pretty funny.”

L-R: Bill, Megan and Andrew Stopera

Less than two years later, Megan Stopera is among the best young curlers in the country. In April, her team won the silver medal at the US Junior Curling Championships. Earlier this year, she won the gold medal in the U.S. Club Curling Championships.

“It still baffles my mind how fast she developed,” Bill says. “Once the switch flipped,” he adds, “Megan was ‘all in.’”

“I just knew I wanted to be like my brother, and go as far as he’s gone,” Megan explains. “I understood how much work that was going to take, and I was willing to do that work. And I got on the ice a couple of days later with my dad and I just loved it, and I’ve been practicing ever since.”

Megan began heading to the Ardsley Curling Club, a 91-year-old institution in southern Westchester, nearly every day, according to her mother, Perri. She spent hours each day on the ice and had an experienced coach in her father.

Bill Stopera, the youngest of nine children, started curling in 1976, when he was just eight years old. Growing up in Schenectady, just north of Albany, he first got on the ice when his family joined a local curling club as a social activity. He played sporadically throughout his youth; he was more focused on basketball.

Bill moved to Westchester in 1997 and a few years later started curling again at Ardsley Curling Club. He soon rediscovered his love of the sport, and his talent, and started thinking about competing. “That’s when I realized maybe I could play with the best players in the world, arguably,” says Bill, an insurance broker. “I like to compete. I like to win. And I found out pretty quickly that I was as good as anyone at the club.”

Bill’s team won the US curling championships in 2012; in 2013 he finished third in the Olympic trials, just missing out on a spot in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Unlike his sister, Andrew began curling more or less as soon as he was big enough to throw the 40-pound curling stone. He attended Hackley High School in Tarrytown, where a teacher set up an after-school curling club. Unlike his father, he stopped playing basketball his sophomore year of high school to focus on curling.

“After my freshmen year it was like, ok, if I want to be really good at curling, as good as I hoped I could be, I had to commit to it,” says Andrew, now 25. “I loved competing, loved hanging out with the people I already knew and who I got to meet.”

Andrew was one of the top teen curlers in the nation, with his team finishing second at the US Junior Curling National Championships. His men’s team finished third in the Olympic trials two years ago, while his mixed doubles team finished ninth.

Megan was watching from the stands at those Olympic trials when she decided it was finally time for her to embrace the game that meant so much to her family. While her love of curling came overnight, she says her talent for it did not.

“I definitely took a few months for me to even learn how to slide correctly,” she says. “And I would say I didn’t feel like I was that great until just a couple months ago.”

Andrew now has his eyes set on the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, though he will need to get past gold medalist John Shuster, who beat him out in the Olympic trials for the 2022 Olympics and a decade earlier finished first when Bill Stopera’s team finished third. Megan also hopes to one day qualify for the Olympics, and the two have talked about pairing up for mixed doubles when she is a bit older.

“I make the joke to my current [doubles] partner that she’s got another three years, and then she might be on the outs,” Andrew says. Nine years apart in age, having curling as a common passion has brought Megan and her brother closer together.

“They definitely spend a lot more time together, and they talk about it all the time now, which they didn’t have before,” says Perri Stopera, a speech language pathologist. “And, of course, the father daughter relationship has just blossomed together.”

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: Briarcliff High School, Curlers, Curling Champtionship, Megan Stopera

Area Journalists Address Alarming Trends Hurting Journalism, but also Relay Reasons for Optimism

April 24, 2023 by Andrew Vitelli

Chappaqua Library Panel on the Future of Local Journalism.  Photo by Andrew Vitelli

Fewer Reporters, Social Media & Artificial Intelligence Challenges, and an ongoing Funding Puzzle were Discussed at the Chappaqua Library Panel Event

David McKay Wilson, now a columnist for The Journal News, began working for the Gannett in 1986. At the time, he recalled, “every town was covered, every school board.”

“You got that Sunday newspaper that was like this,” he said, using his hands to signal the edition’s heft. “That of course has all changed.”

Wilson was one of four journalists on a panel on the future of local journalism held March 22 at the Chappaqua Library. The panel was moderated by Inside Press publisher Grace Bennett.

Martin Wilbur, editor-in-chief of The Examiner, expressed a similar concern, recalling that in the past every community and school district would be covered by its own fulltime reporter.

“When you consider just in about 30 years, the diminishment of that, it is alarming,” Wilbur said. “At The Examiner, I feel like a guy with one water bucket, and I’ve got 10 places where my roof is leaking, and I am running around.”

The diminished presence of local news was a major theme of the panel discussion. Since 2005, Bennett noted in her introductory remarks, some 2,500 newspapers have closed in the US, a quarter of the total, with the Covid-19 pandemic accelerating that trend.

“The influence and purpose of journalism and the value of the Fourth Estate has been clear for centuries,” remarked Bennett. “In trying times like these, our nation could use not less journalism, but more, and we need new government funding and research and a template for saving and even expanding journalism.”

(L-R): “Future of Local Journalism” panel moderator Grace Bennett, Inside Press, with Panelist Martin Wilbur, Examiner News, Chappaqua Library Program Coordinator Joan Kuhn, Panelist Michelle Falkenstein, freelance writer, and Panelists David McKay Wilson and Asher Stockler, Journal News.
Photo by Denise Mincin

 

Modern Day Tech Challenges

“It is very difficult to adapt the traditional structure of news to a lot of newfangled media,” said Asher Stockler, a government accountability reporter for The Journal News. “I don’t know how I could condense a story, let’s say, about police brutality into a TikTok.”

While local newspapers have been shut down or scaled back their staff, there’s been an explosion of low-quality news sources.

“In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 54% of Americans got their news sometimes or often from social media, the number one source being Facebook,” said Michelle Falkenstein, a freelance culture reporter. “So, it is alarming, really.”

A handful of social media sites have a tremendous impact on what articles get views and clicks, a dynamic Stockler called “one of the biggest threats” to a robust news industry. Clickbait headlines can skew a social media site’s algorithm to promote vapid regurgitations of old stories.

“Even with, ‘if it bleeds it leads,’ a lot of times it was a sensationalized version of some sort of actual basis,” Stockler said, referring to the old adage that gruesome stories were typically featured prominently. Often with clickbait, he said, “there is no new information.”

And then there is the effect that 280-character tweets and 30-second reels have had on the attention spans of news consumers.

“You can’t write long anymore,” said Falkenstein. “If I get 800 words, I feel like I hit the jackpot.”

Addressing Artificial Intelligence

Soon, reporters will have to contend with advanced AI – artificial intelligence – which Stockler called an “impending disaster.”

AI can be a reporting tool, he acknowledged, but there is a danger if it is used to replace instead of supplement the reporting process.

“What do you do when an algorithm creates something libelous or something defamatory?” Stockler asked. “I just think it is going to open a rift in terms of whatever trust is left in the content generation business.”

Despite all the headwinds facing local news, the conversation was far from all gloom and despair. Social media brought with it some benefits, the panelists noted, including the ability to engage with their readers.

“I’m a boomer and I love Facebook,” said Wilson. “I know that is not popular in some settings but I really do.”

Wilson said he posts all his stories on Facebook and other social media sites.

“Part of my journalism is being on Facebook and having these interactions with people who I know,” he said. “It’s an engagement that I enjoy, and I think that it has got to be part of journalism today.”

Certain parts of the country, Falkenstein explained, are news deserts, where there is little to no coverage of what is happening locally. “People end up paying more to live in these communities, because they are not aware of things that are going on with taxes and that sort of thing or pet projects that might come up,” she said. “They also don’t vote as much. They don’t feel as invested.”

Better News in Places Like Westchester

Though the local news scene is less robust than it once was, Westchester and the Hudson Valley have “bucked the trend a little bit,” Bennett posited.

“In Westchester, we are relatively lucky. There is an informed citizenry or a citizenry that wants to learn more about what is going on,” said Wilbur. “And there is enough disposable income among businesses and organizations that a lot of places around the country do not have.”

And while the platforms and the technology may continue to change, the key to retaining readers’ trust is much the same – “doing really good work,” he added. That includes transparent sourcing, printing opposing opinions, and running corrections when necessary.

“We don’t know the next platform or the next thing six weeks, six months, six years. We just know it’s going to change, and it’s going to continue to change,” concluded Wilbur. “And the organizations that survive are the ones who will best be able to adapt to whatever might come their way.”

 

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: Artificial Intelligence, Asher Stockler, Chappaqua library, David McKay Wilson, Examiner News, Funding for Publications, Future of Journalism, Future of Local Journalism, Grace Bennett, Inside Press, Journal News, journalism, Library Panel, Local Journalism, Martin Wilbur, Michelle Falkenstein, Newspapers, Publications, Social Media

How Will Shortz Turned Pleasantville into a Table Tennis Mecca

June 1, 2022 by Andrew Vitelli

PHOTO BY DONNA MUELLER

On February 19 Will Shortz, a Pleasantville resident and The New York Times puzzle editor, saw his Wordle streak come to an end. 

Shortz knew the word began with S and ended with “ILL” – but instead of choosing a word that contained multiple potential second letters he guessed through the possibilities: skill, spill. He was out of guesses before trying the correct answer, “Swill.”

“I was surprised how much it hurt me to lose,” Shortz, explains a few days later. “So I am not going to let myself lose again.”

Shortz, a puzzler with few peers in the world, takes such vows seriously. In 2012, Shortz had just opened the Westchester Table Tennis Center in Pleasantville and set out to play ping pong all 366 days of the year. But on October 3, Shortz was at the World Puzzle Championship in Kraljevica, Croatia and got lost on the way to a tennis club he had lined up to play after the tournament.

“The club wasn’t where I thought it was going to be, and I arrived just as they were closing,” Shortz recalls. “I don’t speak Croatian, so what could I say to them as they are leaving?”

Shortz has not let it happen since. Despite his busy schedule, a global pandemic and frequent travel, he has spent a chunk of his day on the table for more than 3,500 days in a row, as of press time. His streak is probably a record, although no one officially keeps track.

“Will does not travel unless he has an itinerary of where he’s going to go, the club he is going to play,” says Robert Roberts, Shortz’s close friend and travel companion, the manager of the tennis club, and a three-time Caribbean table tennis champion. 

This tendency towards obsession has served Shortz well as a puzzler. Shortz started making crossword puzzles when he was around eight years old and by the time he sold his first at age 14, to his national Sunday school magazine Venture, he knew he wanted to make puzzling a career. By 16, he was a regular contributor to Dell puzzle magazines. At the University of Indiana, he received a specialized degree in enigmatology, or the study of puzzles; he is believed to be the only person in the world with such a degree. 

In 1993, Shortz joined The New York Times as puzzle editor. The puzzle team has grown to include six members, but at the time it was a department of one. He’s helmed the department going on three decades, in addition to his role as puzzle master on NPR’s Weekend Edition. He founded both the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the World Puzzle Championship, and each year travels across the world for the latter.

While not on the level of others who have passed through his club, Shortz is also a very good ping pong player. He is rated 1600, or upper intermediate, putting him in the top half of tournament players while not at a championship level (your correspondent, a mediocre ponger, narrowly avoided a goose egg when the two last faced off nearly a decade ago). 

Though the sport seems to hold little in common with puzzling, Shortz sees parallels between his two passions.

“From the participants standpoint, when you do it you get completely wrapped up in the activity, focused on solving the puzzle and winning the game and you forget everything else in the world,” Shortz says. “And when you’re done, you’re ready to go back to the world. It is a great feeling. It refreshes you.”

And it is in the table tennis world that Shortz has turned Pleasantville into a national destination, drawing the best players from across the globe to one of the largest table tennis centers in the United States. 

“I’m really proud of it,” says of the Westchester Table Tennis Center, which Shortz opened in May 2011. “I love it when people come into the club, look around and go, wow. Because when you think of a table tennis facility you think of something cramped with a low ceiling and dim lighting. And when you come into our place, it is professional.”

PHOTO BY DONNA MUELLER

Coming to Pleasantville

Shortz grew up on an Arabian horse farm in central Indiana and stayed in his home state to attend university. But after college, his budding puzzling career drew him to the New York metropolitan area.

“If you want to be in puzzles, New York is the area to be,” Shortz says.

Shortz moved to Stamford, Connecticut in 1977, then four years later to Forest Hills, Queens. In 1993, he found a three-story Tudor in Pleasantville and fell in love both with the town and the property.

“I was in Forest Hills for 12 years. And it always felt like a stage for something else. It didn’t feel permanent,” he says. “I remember I bought this house, and the first morning I walked down those steps saying, this feels like home.”

In 1999, folklorist Steve Zeitlin and author Stefan Kanfer founded the Rivertowns Table Tennis Club, which eventually rotated between Hastings-on-Hudson, Ardsley and Tarrytown. Shortz joined in 2001. 

In 2004, a new puzzle craze hit the US, this one focused on single-digit numbers. 

“When I first heard about Sudoku, I thought, ‘There has never been a popular number puzzle so I am dubious about this,’” he recalls. “Then when I tried one and I understood the addictiveness of it, I became an enthusiast.”

In 2005, Shortz published his first Sudoku book. It sold more than a million copies. He’s since published dozens more; by 2006 he had sold more than five million copies, according to an NBC News article, and that summer he said that he was making more money from Sudoku than he was for The New York Times. 

He has now published hundreds of Sudoku books, and it was his Sudoku bonanza that provided the money for Shortz and Roberts to open the Westchester Table Tennis Center in 2009. 

The Club

The table tennis center comprises 30 tables spread throughout multiple rooms and abundant space between each table. In contrast to the stereotypical claustrophobia-inducing basement ping pong club, the Pleasantville center’s high ceilings make the facility seem even larger than its 21,000 square feet. 

The club was the largest in the US when it opened, Shortz says; though it was expanded during the Covid-19 shutdown and is now bigger nearly by half, larger clubs have opened elsewhere. 

“Initially, it was hard,” recalls Roberts. “Trying to build a club of this magnitude is not easy, especially seeing that we had a lot of competition in the city.”

The club had the advantage of starting with much of the existing membership of Rivertowns Tennis Club. It has grown from there, and now has roughly 200 members. 

It has become a destination for some of the world’s top talent, particularly for the club’s tournaments, which Roberts describes as the best in North America. 

“The United States does not rank well internationally in table tennis,” Shortz explains. “The top men’s players, if they want to get good, they have to go abroad.”

Now, the best players from abroad are coming to Westchester. On the day Inside Press visited the club, Nigerian Olympian Olajide Omotayo, ranked 92nd in the world in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) male world rankings, was teaching a class on spin serves. Croatian Andrej Gacina, ranked 20th in the world at the time, won the club’s Westchester Open tournament in 2016, while 46th-ranked Bojan Tokic of Slovenia won it in 2014 and 2017. 

“We are doing our part for increasing the popularity of table tennis in the United States and the level of skill of players,” Shortz says. 

Something for Everyone

Most of the players who pass through the club are, of course, not nationally ranked and harbor no Olympic ambitions. 

“There are kids who say, ‘This takes the stress away from school. Coming here, I get to relax,’” Roberts says. “There are a lot of adults who, I don’t know what’s going on in their life, but they say, this here basically saved them.”

The club also holds frequent special events. On Wednesdays, the club holds a program for people with Parkinson’s disease. Shortz founded PingPongParkinson in 2017, which aims to halt the progression of the disease by using ping pong as a form of physical therapy.

“When the ball comes over the net, they start their stroke and the shaking stops,” Shortz says.

The club also occasionally holds novelty contests, with players using a miniature paddle or a giant ball. 

Shortz has yet to turn the center into profitable business, instead using his New York Times salary and book sales to fund the venture. “It’s a big expense, actually. It doesn’t make money,” he says. “I’m hoping eventually it breaks even.”

This is just one of Shortz’s pong-related goals. He has already played at a ping pong club in all 50 states, and now hopes to play in more countries than anyone else in history (he’s hit 40 so far).

But Shortz has challenges outside of the ping pong table. For the Times, he and his team still must sort through some 200 crossword submissions each week and narrow it down to one puzzle each day. 

“We look for something fresh, interesting, never done before. Maybe it has a playfulness or a sense of humor about it. Then we look at construction,” he says. “If the theme is good, then we look to see if the fill is interesting, lively, colorful, juicy, with as little stupid obscurity or crosswordese as possible.”

He or his team then rewrite many of the puzzle’s clues–usually around half–before publication. Reference books are piled in each room in his home to help with this task.

And in January, the Times announced that it has paid low seven figures to buy Wordle. As a puzzle the game will fall under his purview, though Shortz says he has no plans to make any changes.

“I’m a big fan. I play it every day,” he says. “My hope is not to mess up the game.”

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: Crossword Puzzles, Leisure, Pleasantville, recreation, Table Tennis, Table Tennis Tournaments, The New York Times, Westchester Table Tennis Center, Will Shortz

Elks Bring OLD GLORY to Armonk Recreation Center

February 24, 2022 by Andrew Vitelli

In 2019, Mid-Westchester Elks Lodge #535 received an unexpected gift from a local resident –a 59-inch-by-43-inch beautifully crocheted American flag.

When Elks member and Armonk resident Arthur Adelman saw the work, he immediately thought of the Hergenhan Recreation Center as a perfect destination.

“I knew right away that the seniors in the Hergenhan center would really admire it and love it,” Adelman tells Inside Press. “And in fact, I brought it there and showed it to them and they were all amazed and loved it.”

The Elks first planned to hang the crocheted work–whose origin is unclear–in the center but decided otherwise after realizing that it was not in the best condition. The episode brought to light, however, that there was no American flag in the building, which is used for a wide range of meetings, gathering and community events.

“We all thought that it was a great idea,” Adelman said. “We just needed a better condition flag.”

As of this January, a 4-foot-7-inch by 4-foot-6-inch American flag now hangs in the center thanks to a donation from the Elks lodge. The flag is displayed in a frame with plexiglass along with a plaque that reads “Donated by Mid-Westchester Elks Lodge # 535 Armonk, NY.” A commemoration ceremony was originally set for January 20 but was delayed due to snow. 

While the flag itself was not particularly expensive, the framing and plaque put the cost upwards of $1,000, according to Adelman. As a patriotic organization–one that supports several veterans’ organizations and initiatives–the Elks were eager to make sure a flag is proudly displayed at the center. 

The lodge also hope that the commemoration and the prominent display of Old Glory sparks further recognition for the 154-year-old Elks, a charitable and patriotic organization open to all American citizens, and leads local residents to think about joining the group. 

Increasing Awareness

“The two purposes are visibility and recruitment,” says Adelman. “Younger people these days don’t join organizations as much. So our priority, and the reason we are doing this, is to let everybody know in North Castle and beyond that the Elks exist.”

The Mid-Westchester Lodge was initially three separate lodges–one in Mt. Kisco, one in Port Chester, and one in White Plains–with each lodge having its own building. But in March 2009, with membership declining, the three lodges merged to form one central lodge. The Elks now meet on the second and fourth Wednesdays each month at the American Legion in Armonk. 

“Most Elks lodges have their own buildings,” says Adelman. “Some of them not only have their own buildings, they have swimming pools, they have tennis courts.”

The sale of the three properties, however, left the Mid-Westchester Lodge with a sizeable war chest. This has allowed the organization to fund a range of activities and initiatives. 

“The motto is ‘Elks care, Elks share.’ And fortunately because the three lodges that constituted our lodge all had buildings and sold them, we have a very nice treasury and we can afford to be generous.”

The Elks have supported dozens of local charities, fundraisers, and community events, including grants to The Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry, Cerebral Palsy of Westchester, and the North Castle Public Library. The organization also supports several youth sports teams, including youth football and little league. The Elks are especially engaged in programs supporting veterans, participating in the Memorial Day and Veterans Day Ceremonies at the North Castle American Legion; providing a grant to the Montrose VA Food Pantry, and sponsoring long weekend cabin stays for 8 to 12 disabled veterans for Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing.

The pandemic initially forced the Mid-Westchester Lodge to move most of its meetings to Zoom in 2020, but once vaccines became widely available, they were able to resume in-person meetings while masked and socially distanced. 

“That’s worked out fine,” Adelman says. We’ve not really had a diminution in attendance.”

A changing world–one which the online metaverse has made smaller while at times weakening the bonds between neighbors–has challenged community-based organizations like the Elks. But Adelman hopes that anyone willing to give their time and service to help their community considers the Elks. 

Filed Under: Armonk Cover Stories, Cover Stories Tagged With: American Flag, Arthur Adelman, Hergenhan Recreation Center, Mid-Westchester Elks, Old Glory

How the Armonk Chamber Helped Businesses Weather the Covid Crisis

August 17, 2021 by Andrew Vitelli

Neal Schwartz, President, Armonk Chamber of Commerce Photo by Chad Kraus

When COVID emerged as a crisis in March 2020, many local businesses were forced to close their doors while others saw their revenues dry up. But for the Armonk Chamber of Commerce, this time was as crucial as any since Neal Schwartz became president more than a decade ago.

The chamber has historically hosted a range of community events, held regular meetings, and published a directory of members. But most chamber members, Schwartz says, are generally passive participants that changed when business owners found themselves in uncharted waters as COVID hit. Suddenly, their businesses’ survival depended on navigating a host of new federal programs and incentives like Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and on finding ways to keep their business running through restrictions and panic over the virus. Some businesses, like dental offices, had help from their industry groups, but others turned to the chamber.

“We became a conduit for using information from the state, the county and the federal government,” Schwartz explains. “It was invaluable to those members who weren’t connected to some of those other associations.”

The chamber helped connect its members to Zoom calls and other events that helped members navigate the new terrain and explore their options. It also created an app to give residents up-to-date information about which businesses were open. 

When necessary, the chamber organized its own events, bringing in chamber-affiliated accountants who were well-versed on the available recourses to answer member questions. 

“A couple of chambers [elsewhere] almost stopped functioning [during Covid], because they had their set activities and those activities didn’t happen, and they were kind of at a loss,” County Executive George Latimer explains. “The Armonk chamber made the transition that you had to make once you realized that Covid was going to shut down the normal activities.”

Latimer continues, “What they did was they morphed into providing the information and to some extent material [such as] PPE that the businesses needed.”

Spotlighting the Armonk Chamber of Commerce, Top Row, L-R: Neal Schwartz, president; Bharti Gupta, board member; Ed Woodyard, member; Shari Ascher, Director of Policy & Programs, Westchester County; George Latimer, Westchester County Executive Second Row, L-R: Ken Sassano, board member; Catherine Censullo, board member; Tammi Ecker, board member    Photo by Chad Kraus

The county government had access to both information and resources to help businesses but did not have the manpower to connect with every business from Yonkers to North Salem. 

“Sitting at the county level looking at 45 communities, how do we reach the business communities and small businesses? We can’t do it on our own. We don’t have the bandwidth,” Latimer says. “But when we know that we’ve got a chamber of commerce that is working–that is having Zoom meetings and exchanging information–then we can channel through the chamber and the chamber has the relationships with the local businesses.”

The county, for example, had access to free masks and sanitizer to give to businesses. But walking up and down every street in every city, town and village in Westchester distributing it was not possible, Latimer says. 

Instead, the chamber determined the local needs and the county dropped off supplies at a central location. The chamber then worked to distribute these supplies throughout Armonk. 

When certain workers such as restaurant servers became eligible for the Covid vaccine before the general population, the county again worked through the Armonk chamber and other local chambers to inform businesses whose employees would qualify.

County Executive George Latimer / Photo by Chad Kraus

But perhaps the biggest role the chamber played was in working with business owners through the federal assistance available.

“The saving grace for a majority of businesses was how they navigated through the loan portion of the federal offerings that were there,” Schwartz says. “Depending where the numbers were for a business, they may have done reasonably okay if they took a PPP loan, which didn’t need to get paid back.”

Despite (or, in a sense, because of) their falling revenues and the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, the chamber saw new businesses joining to take advantage of these offerings.

“We picked up more members than you would expect in the middle of a pandemic,” he says. “There weren’t a ton of them, but there were people who began to appreciate that this chamber stuff has value.”

Haves and Have Nots

The pandemic and resulting shutdown did not hit all industries with the same force, Schwartz says. Some industries thrived even through the lockdowns, while in other fields businesses struggled to stay in business or were forced to close their doors. 

Home improvement was a sector that thrived, he notes. Trapped in their houses all day, local residents decided it was a good time to put in a pool, or redo their lawns, or make long-needed home improvements.

“The businesses that did well were the businesses that supported home life,” Schwartz says. “Some of them saw years that they haven’t seen before.” But many other businesses, particularly those that depended on traffic flow, struggled. It is hard to quantify exactly how many businesses went under, Schwartz says; he estimates some 10% of their members. 

Armonk is now well on its way to recovery, he says. 

“We are seeing these empty spaces get filled pretty quickly, considering everything,” he says. “It is not all doom and gloom at all.”

Latimer sees a similar picture on the county level, with sales tax receipts above where they were in 2019 pre-pandemic. Still, businesses face ongoing challenges.

One is the difficulty hiring workers, which Schwartz attributes in part to generous unemployment benefits distributed under the latest Covid relief bill.

“It went too far, so it was hard for restaurants to keep the staffing everywhere across the country,” Schwartz says. “People said, ‘Listen, I am getting more money to stay home and not go to work.’”

Latimer attributes the labor shortage to several factors, including the unemployment benefits, ongoing concerns about Covid, and an increasing preference for jobs with regular, stable hours. 

A Decade Leading the Chamber

Schwartz, who owns Armonk-based College Planning of Westchester, joined the chamber after opening his business in 2004, looking for the networking benefits the chamber would bring to his then-fledgling franchise. 

“I had bought all this equipment, furniture, systems, and I had no customers,” he remembers.

The chamber was helpful to him as he got his business, which specializes in tutoring, college counseling and ACT/SAT preparation, off the ground. But its activities at the time were limited to a sidewalk sale or two each year. In 2010, he stepped in as president and worked to build the chamber into a bigger player in the community.

Before he took over as president in 2010, he recalls, chamber activity was mostly limited to one or two sidewalk sales each year. When Schwartz stepped into leadership, he and his colleagues on the board scaled up the organization’s activity. 

In 2012, he launched cider and donut events. It’s grown from there, with 11 music events this summer, a “citizen of the year” award, a much larger Cider and Donut Festival, and regular chamber meetings. The chamber’s website has also been greatly improved, and now publishes the “Everything Armonk” community guide and business directory.

To learn more about the Armonk Chamber, please visit www.armonkchamberofcommerce.com

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: Armonk Chamber of Commerce., Cider Festival, George Latimer, local business, Neal Schwartz, PPE, Surviving Covid, Westchester County

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