40 under 40 Class of 2010: I’m in!
As editor of Long Island Business News, I watched for years as professionals across all fields, all of whom had packed together lifetimes of achievements in less than four decades, were singled out by the paper as 40 people under 40 most likely to bear the torches of Long Island leaders past and present.
Once named to the 40 under 40, awardees are almost expected to take ownership of the region’s future and push it in the right direction. Take a look at the list of previous honorees and you’ll see that many have embraced that challenge.
In my years at LIBN, I had quietly hoped that one day I would do enough good, help enough people and display enough promise to have my name even be considered by the selection committee.
With my name thrown in by an amazing friend, this year they considered me. And to my utter surprised, I was selected to be in the Class of 2010.
I’m still having a hard time believing it’s true, in large part because I don’t feel equal to the honor. But as it sinks in, I’m reminded of the mentors, friends and colleagues who have at times encouraged and cajoled me into action, and at times advised restraint when necessary. The list is long, but they include my parents and grandparents, best bud Dominick Miserandino, Stony Brook Journalism School Undergraduate Director and former Newsday columnist Paul Schreiber, LIBN Publisher John Kominicki, Energeia Partnership leaders Paul Tonna and Nancy Englehardt and my Class of 2007 colleagues, and Press Club of Long Island board members over the last 10 years.
But most of all, I thank my wife, Angela, whose love and support has been unwavering and whose patience as I’ve thrown out crazy ideas and spent many nights away on causes dear to me is, remarkably, still intact.
Thank you all. I”ll do my best to continue striving to live up to your examples.
3rd place for Interactive’s election blog
News 12 Interactive’s 2008 live election night blog took home a third place PCLI Media Award at the Press Club of Long Island’s annual awards dinner on June 4.
The blog was done by staffers at four election headquarters across Long Island. Each producer was given a Flip cam and a laptop, and in four hours, we produced nine raw videos and about 30 quality posts. We also had a producer at headquarters firing off Twitter updates throughout the night.
On a mission
From Long Island Business News
Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem
Carl Corry
09-08-2006
It was December 2001 and the emotional wounds of 9/11 were still fresh. My brother Chris and I took the 90-minute drive to Bay Ridge to see Dad before he left for the restaurant. Dad owned a 40-seat Italian bistro on Third Avenue – a polished gem with a steady stream of regulars.
On one side sat Brooklyn’s political elite. On the other, the neighborhood’s top mobsters. The two sides joked and drank together as if they were the best of friends. Until, of course, they exited the front door, and the world assumed its proper balance.
Even though I knew my father regularly dealt with the seamier side of society, I was surprised by the phone conversation he’d had while Chris and I watched the football game, waiting for Dad to go with us for a couple of slices.
“Yes. I’d like you to pick up four people from the Brooklyn penitentiary,” he said, giving the dispatcher instructions to the restaurant. “Around 3 o’clock. And I’d like a car to pick them up around 8. Thanks.”
Chris and I looked at each other. We didn’t say it, but we were both thinking: Did you hear what I just heard?
Dad didn’t give us an explanation after he hung up, and we didn’t ask. My brother and I ate some pizza with Dad, stopped by our grandparents’ house, then headed home.
That’s when our stepmother, Roberta, called.
“You wouldn’t believe what your father just did,” she said from her cell phone.
“I’m sitting next to him in the car and he calls some taxi service to confirm the pickup of four people from the Brooklyn penitentiary. He wants to bring them to the restaurant,” she said. “My mouth fell open. Then he tells them he wants a car to come get them and bring them back. To prison!”
I tell Roberta that Chris and I had the same reaction.
“That’s not the half of it! But it’s not what you think. Instead of being a bad thing, it’s one of the nicest things in the world.”
It turns out the people being picked up were missionaries from the South. They were among the volunteers cleaning up apartments in Battery Park that were damaged when the twin towers fell. This group helped Joe and Susan Guzman, friends of my father and Roberta. The Guzmans’ apartment overlooked the World Trade Center. Their windows were blown out by a vortex created by the tumbling debris.
Furniture, books and keepsakes were sucked clear out of the apartment, and Susan would have been sucked out, too, if she hadn’t locked herself in the bathroom just in time.
The missionaries, who waded through inches of gray dust for weeks to help salvage peoples’ homes, were staying in prison cells at the penitentiary. And as a token of appreciation, Dad’s friends offered to pay for their dinner at the restaurant.
With another tough day waiting for them, the missionaries needed to get back early.
Around 8 p.m.
Dad and Roberta picked up the car fare.