Long Island neighborhood named New York's best place to live gives locals new swagger: ‘Why not us?'
Massapequa Park has got that swagger.
The Long Island enclave is basking in the glow of earning the title of New York's best place to live in a US News & World Report ranking — with locals saying 'why not us?'
It's some welcome attention after some unwanted association with the Gilgo Beach serial murder suspect and an ongoing fight to keep the local school's 'Chiefs' name and logo in the face of a state ban on Native American imagery.
'This is the place you want to start a family,' said lifelong resident Michael Cassano, owner of American Beauty restaurant in Massapequa Park Village.
The Park — as it's nicknamed — is simply different because of the moxie and mettle of the upbeat, take-no-crap population of around 17,000, Cassano added.
'With that comes a pride — you see it in the fight to keep the Chiefs logo,' he said. 'Everybody is getting behind it, just how everybody gets behind this town for all sorts of things.'
The neighborhood not only made New York's best but was among the top150 in America in the ranking, scoring high in quality of life categories.
Both old and new residents said they weren't surprised, viewing the town as the perfect slice of Americana and great values, sitting pretty on the water east of New York City — which bombed toward the bottom 50 of over 850 rankings.
Cassano's wife, Maria, 44, added that the South Shore area, where a median home goes for $746,500, per Realtor.com, is one where 'we know each other's names.'
She used the example of how the town rallied to support the family of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller as a vast majority of residents lined the busy Merrick Road out of respect for his funeral procession in the Spring of 2024.
'To see our community come together, that's a norm for us,' she said. 'I think this town brings families together.'
The Cassano testimony paints the town in a much brighter light than what was seen after the 2023 arrest of lifelong resident and Berner High School graduate, alleged Gilgo Beach killer Rex Heuermann.
Even that wasn't enough to dampen the good vibes in the village, which has since rocked back to normal since the worldwide press left First Avenue.
The devastating news didn't deter Vinny and Allie Frazzetto, both 30, from closing on their home walking distance from the notorious Heuermann house last summer, either.
'The long-standing reputation that Massapequa Park has, the good schools, core values, and the wonderful community prevailed over anything else,' Allie Frazzetto said.
Massapequa Park also scored high on public safety stats in the new ranking, as it is in US News and World Report's safest-ranked community in America for 2024.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman praised Mayor Daniel Pearl for doing 'an outstanding job' in other areas of residential needs.
That's why both Frazzettos called it quits on Bayside, Queens, as they're getting ready to raise baby No. 1, whom they're expecting in September.
'I love that you have the opportunities that a big district would give you, but the feel of a small neighborhood,' Allie Frazzetto, originally of Garden City, added of Jerry Seinfeld's hometown.
'I feel like you get the best of both worlds.'
Her husband, originally of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said he's excited for his little one to have friends on the block to play with as he grows up, just like dad did in the early 2000s.
'We wanted the great school districts that Massapequa has, and we wanted the backyard, we wanted that next chapter of life,' he said.
And Massapequa High School's baseball, softball, and both girls and boys lacrosse teams all won county titles this spring.
'We have winners and successful people. It doesn't happen by accident,' town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joe Saladino, a Massapequa grad.
'It happens because of tremendous support from the parents and the families. The community, and especially the school district. It reflects so well on everyone.'
The Park is also home to a diverse range of blue- and white-collar walks of life that Rishi Matadeen, 43, a long-time manager at popular watering hole Johnny McGorey's, sees nightly.
'You could come off the LIRR and you could be in construction clothes…you come and sit down and you could sit next to a guy that works on Wall Street, who makes $400,000 a year,' he said.
'And there's no awkwardness…everyone feels comfortable here, so that's the beauty of it.'
Matadeen was first 'a little shocked' to hear the news of being named No. 1 — but then it all made sense.
'You start to put things in perspective a little bit and realize you take things for granted,' he said.
'And you go, well, why not us, right?'
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Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Long Island neighborhood named New York's best place to live gives locals new swagger: ‘Why not us?'
Massapequa Park has got that swagger. The Long Island enclave is basking in the glow of earning the title of New York's best place to live in a US News & World Report ranking — with locals saying 'why not us?' It's some welcome attention after some unwanted association with the Gilgo Beach serial murder suspect and an ongoing fight to keep the local school's 'Chiefs' name and logo in the face of a state ban on Native American imagery. 'This is the place you want to start a family,' said lifelong resident Michael Cassano, owner of American Beauty restaurant in Massapequa Park Village. The Park — as it's nicknamed — is simply different because of the moxie and mettle of the upbeat, take-no-crap population of around 17,000, Cassano added. 'With that comes a pride — you see it in the fight to keep the Chiefs logo,' he said. 'Everybody is getting behind it, just how everybody gets behind this town for all sorts of things.' The neighborhood not only made New York's best but was among the top150 in America in the ranking, scoring high in quality of life categories. Both old and new residents said they weren't surprised, viewing the town as the perfect slice of Americana and great values, sitting pretty on the water east of New York City — which bombed toward the bottom 50 of over 850 rankings. Cassano's wife, Maria, 44, added that the South Shore area, where a median home goes for $746,500, per is one where 'we know each other's names.' She used the example of how the town rallied to support the family of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller as a vast majority of residents lined the busy Merrick Road out of respect for his funeral procession in the Spring of 2024. 'To see our community come together, that's a norm for us,' she said. 'I think this town brings families together.' The Cassano testimony paints the town in a much brighter light than what was seen after the 2023 arrest of lifelong resident and Berner High School graduate, alleged Gilgo Beach killer Rex Heuermann. Even that wasn't enough to dampen the good vibes in the village, which has since rocked back to normal since the worldwide press left First Avenue. The devastating news didn't deter Vinny and Allie Frazzetto, both 30, from closing on their home walking distance from the notorious Heuermann house last summer, either. 'The long-standing reputation that Massapequa Park has, the good schools, core values, and the wonderful community prevailed over anything else,' Allie Frazzetto said. Massapequa Park also scored high on public safety stats in the new ranking, as it is in US News and World Report's safest-ranked community in America for 2024. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman praised Mayor Daniel Pearl for doing 'an outstanding job' in other areas of residential needs. That's why both Frazzettos called it quits on Bayside, Queens, as they're getting ready to raise baby No. 1, whom they're expecting in September. 'I love that you have the opportunities that a big district would give you, but the feel of a small neighborhood,' Allie Frazzetto, originally of Garden City, added of Jerry Seinfeld's hometown. 'I feel like you get the best of both worlds.' Her husband, originally of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said he's excited for his little one to have friends on the block to play with as he grows up, just like dad did in the early 2000s. 'We wanted the great school districts that Massapequa has, and we wanted the backyard, we wanted that next chapter of life,' he said. And Massapequa High School's baseball, softball, and both girls and boys lacrosse teams all won county titles this spring. 'We have winners and successful people. It doesn't happen by accident,' town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joe Saladino, a Massapequa grad. 'It happens because of tremendous support from the parents and the families. The community, and especially the school district. It reflects so well on everyone.' The Park is also home to a diverse range of blue- and white-collar walks of life that Rishi Matadeen, 43, a long-time manager at popular watering hole Johnny McGorey's, sees nightly. 'You could come off the LIRR and you could be in construction clothes…you come and sit down and you could sit next to a guy that works on Wall Street, who makes $400,000 a year,' he said. 'And there's no awkwardness…everyone feels comfortable here, so that's the beauty of it.' Matadeen was first 'a little shocked' to hear the news of being named No. 1 — but then it all made sense. 'You start to put things in perspective a little bit and realize you take things for granted,' he said. 'And you go, well, why not us, right?'
American Military News
9 hours ago
- American Military News
Kansas City Super Bowl rally that ended in deadly shooting lacked necessary security, lawsuit says
Attorneys for three women who were caught in the flurry of gunfire at the end of the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade and rally in February 2024 have filed a lawsuit against the city and a handful of other defendants, saying the event lacked security protocols that could have prevented the incident. The shooting near Union Station — which killed one woman and injured dozens of attendees, including Erika Reyes, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and her two children — was a 'preventable calamity, borne of systemic failures and negligence from the top down,' according to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in Jackson County Circuit Court. The three women, Reyes, Esmeralda Ortiz and Kathleen Martinez, were near the gunfire and had close relationships with shooting victims, according to the lawsuit. Reyes, her two children and one of Martinez's children were struck by gunfire, attorneys wrote. 'While the terror of February 14 was perpetrated by young men with pistols and short-barreled rifles, responsibility for the shooting does not lie solely with them,' said Patrick Stueve, an attorney for the women, in a statement. 'This tragedy was also the result of negligence at multiple levels. We are pursuing this action not only to advocate for the victims of this tragedy, but to hold all parties accountable and to ensure safer celebrations for our community moving forward.' While police officers were spread throughout the parade route and rally areas, the rally had no security measures — checkpoints, metal detectors or barriers, the lawsuit said. Those security measures are necessary at mass gathering events and would have stopped the tragedy, attorneys wrote. Officials have said a dispute between two groups erupted into gunfire that sent attendees at the rally scrambling for cover. Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a 43-year-old Johnson County mother and local DJ, was fatally shot. Many others were injured by gunfire, and others suffered broken bones, brain injuries and dislocated joints, as they fled the area. 'This case is especially important now, given both the likelihood of another Celebration Rally, as well as the certainty of another mass gathering event at the Liberty Memorial, when the 2026 FIFA World Cup takes place,' the lawsuit said. The lawsuit requests damages as well as a court order requiring organizers to implement security standards like checkpoints, barriers, scanners and to work with third-party security consultants for future events. After the 2024 violence, local leaders considered changes to a potential celebration event if the Chiefs had won Super Bowl LIX and whether to forgo another mass rally. Earlier this year as the Chiefs began their postseason run, Mayor Quinton Lucas told The Kansas City Star that one option would have included a ticketed rally followed by a parade. The rally would have included security checkpoints like those fans go through at sporting events. In a statement provided to the Star on Tuesday, Kansas City spokeswoman Sherae Honeycutt said, 'The City of Kansas City recognizes the widespread impact the Super Bowl rally shooting had on our community. The City condemns the criminal actions that brought violence to what should have been a celebratory event. While the City has not yet been served with the petition, we will review it carefully once received and respond in accordance with the law.' Prosecutors filed criminal charges against Dominic Miller, Lyndell Mays, Terry Young and three youths following the shooting, and the lawsuit also names the three men and three unnamed individuals as defendants, saying they fired into the crowd with 'malicious intent.' Also charged were Fedo Manning, Ronnel Williams Jr. and Chaelyn Groves, in connection with guns that were used in the shooting, and those three men are also named as defendants in the civil lawsuit. Charges alleged the men were involved in illegal straw purchases and trafficking of firearms, not that they were among the shooters. Also named are Union Station, the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission, O'Neill Events & Marketing and Flyover Event Co. LLC, which the lawsuit said were involved in organizing the event. Frontier Justice LS, LLC, The Ammo Box and R.K. Shows Mo. Inc., which the lawsuit states were connected to the sales of guns used in the shooting, were also named. Frontier Justice allegedly sold 23 firearms between May and October 2022 to Manning and should have known that Manning was involved in gun trafficking, the lawsuit said. The Ammo Box allegedly ignored 'clear signs' that Williams was purchasing a firearm for someone else, the lawsuit states. Groves allegedly gave Williams the funds to buy the firearm at an R.K. Gun Shows event in November 2023 when he was 19 and not legally allowed to purchase a pistol. The gun was later found outside Union Station following the rally shooting. No hearings have been set in the lawsuit. Other defendants in the case were not immediately available for comment Tuesday. ___ © 2025 The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Children at play in Jeff City: Secretary of state and legislature upend 22 lives
Missouri's coffers are so flush with cash that the governor and legislature have committed $1.5 billion to keep the Chiefs and Royals from moving to Kansas. Meanwhile, nearly two dozen state employees have been needlessly fired, their lives upended because of a secretary of state who appears to have no human decency and a childish feud among Jefferson City politicians. I have seen the resulting carnage firsthand. As one of dozens of volunteers at the Missouri State Archives, I visit the wonderful research room in Jeff City once a week to help staffers dig into public requests for information. This past week, the research room was emptier and significantly less joyful. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins had mercilessly eliminated 17 of the 60 employees under his purview in the Records and Archives Division the previous Friday. For good measure, he canned five of 16 workers in the State Library upstairs from the Archives. Hoskins became Missouri's secretary of state, a job that includes running elections, handling business filings and protecting the state's public records, after winning the November election in a landslide. He ran on a pro-MAGA, anti-woke platform, so maybe it's no surprise he would pull such a stunt. You might remember Hoskins, a former state senator, as one of the three Freedom Caucus members who maliciously — and wrongly — identified an Olathe man in social media posts as the shooter at the Chiefs' deadly Super Bowl celebration in 2024. He never apologized, and the falsely accused man was found dead in April as he pursued lawsuits against the three public officials. Now Hoskins has turned his attention to other innocent victims, and the situation stinks to high heaven. It resulted, by all appearances, from a feud between him and his former Republican cohorts in the state Senate — primarily Mike Cierpiot of Lee's Summit. This much is certain: Hoskins is solely responsible for how he dismissed these 22 state employees under his leadership. With no notice or even a suggestion that anybody might be fired, his victims were ambushed at their desks one by one. They were walked into a meeting room, where a supervisor, a human relations person and a state legal counsel informed them they were unemployed as of the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Then, after getting a few minutes to clean out their desks, they were escorted out of the building. Hoskins was nowhere to be found, of course. He evidently didn't have time in his schedule, just as when he was asked for an interview on the matter. He did send an email statement in which he boasted about his agency's operation, then said, 'This is not a decision I wanted to make, nor one I would ever make lightly.' His spokeswoman, Rachael Dunn, followed with, 'Secretary Hoskins did not choose these cuts — the legislature did.' As that great Missourian, Col. Sherman T. Potter of 'M*A*S*H,' liked to say, 'Horse hockey!' Usually, a story about job cuts such as these transitions into something like, 'This is part of wider cuts caused by the budget crisis' or 'an economic emergency.' But, no, there is no budget crisis or economic emergency in Missouri. Just some grownups acting like children. It is no secret in Jefferson City that Hoskins and his Freedom Caucus cronies made a lot of enemies in the General Assembly over the past three years by holding the lawmaking process hostage as they promoted their far-right agenda. Things got personal between Hoskins and Cierpiot. The Lee's Summit Republican decided to lob a grenade at his foe by pushing through a budget amendment earlier this year to cut 25 of the secretary of state's roughly 60 unfilled full-time equivalent employees (of 267 total positions) and $680,000 from a fund that helps pay salaries. But Hoskins chose to trim real people instead of unfilled positions. Caught up in the fracas were 22 faithful employees, including at least two who were due pay raises of 10% in the next fiscal year under the new budget rewarding longtime employees. It's probably just a coincidence that Hoskins eliminated them just before their raises were to kick in and put a bigger dent in his budget. State Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, a Jefferson City Republican, issued a statement saying in part: 'The budget we passed did not require any layoffs or cuts to current staff. … The decision to cut current employees and use that money elsewhere ultimately lies with the secretary of state.' Although Cierpiot and other senators have confirmed that sentiment, Dunn insists her boss 'had no choice' and 'our hands were tied.' Even if that were true — and she and Hoskins might be the only people who think so — Hoskins could have distributed the cuts throughout his agency so that one department wasn't so thoroughly ravaged, especially when that department works so intimately with the public. He could have stepped up to publicly defend the reasons for his actions. He could have treated the victims of his purge with some semblance of humanity. Instead, he issued canned statements and played the blame game. Dunn used the word 'dignity' in describing the firing process. Sure, if you consider it dignified to treat your employees as if they were enemies of the state. 'There's no dignity here,' Bob Priddy said. Priddy knows dignity. The near-legendary Missouri broadcaster also knows the State Archives, which he called 'the most visible part of the secretary of state's office.' He's on the board of directors of the Friends of Missouri State Archives and is a former president of that group. The veteran of Missouri politics also writes a blog, and he was working on a new entry last week. 'It basically says that the state Senate and the secretary of state are engaging in a urinary contest, and the only people getting wet are the more than 20 people who don't deserve to get wet.' Still, Priddy maintains a somewhat optimistic outlook. 'I'm hopeful there can be some grownups in the room that can get together and work this thing out,' he said. 'But history is not in favor of grownups these days in the Capitol.'
