Nearby: Demolition Starts at Ex-Psychiatric Center

Some of the stories Patch reported on from around Long Island.

Heavy machinery dug into the first of 19 buildings to be torn down during the first phase of demolition at the former Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital Monday, leaving a former patient turned filmmaker, wondering if enough is being done to commemorate what has happened there.

Lucy Winer was one of a dozen or so people who came out to witness the first official tearing down of one of the many buildings still standing on the property.

Art is serious business. And in Riverhead, local officials are eyeing the arts as a way to boost ecomonic vitality.

To that end, East End Arts will host a forum, "Arts Means Business," on September 20 at the Suffolk Theater on East Main Street in downtown Riverhead from 9 a.m. till 1 p.m. The goal of the event is to bring together business owners, artists, elected officials, community leaders, non-profit organizations, and community members to discuss the critical importance of partnering with the arts to foster economic vitality, boost revitalization, and build competitive advantage.

Babylon Rotary Plans 'Dirty Sock Run'

The Babylon Rotary Club will be hosting its 7th Annual 10k Dirty Sock Run this Sunday, August 19th starting at 8:00 a.m. The annual "Babylon Village Classic" takes runners through a U.S. Track and Field certified and sanctioned wooded trail and only 2/10 mile paved – rain or shine.

The Dirty Sock Run is held annually to help bring in donations of food and funds for many of our local food shelters for our area's most needy. Throughout the past six races, the Babylon Rotary Club has been able to raise over $100,000 for Babylon Clergy Cluster Food Pantries. In addition to the healthy fun, the club hands our t-shirts to runners as well as a new pair of socks.

A Seaford gun store owner has been awarded $5 million following a federal jury verdict Wednesday that ruled his business was damaged from a wrongful Nassau County police arrest in 2007.

Bellmore resident Martin Tretola and his business, T&T Gunnery on 3778 Merrick Road in Seaford, were awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages by the federal jury in Central Islip, according to court records.

Tretola, who also owns a T&T Tactical in Garden City Park, filed his suit against Nassau County in 2008 following a June 2007 arrest for first-degree reckless endangerment on the basis that he was operating an illegal makeshift gun range inside the Seaford store near an active natural gas line. The charge was later dropped but the arrest left Tretola and T&T Gunnery out of business for around a year until his necessary licenses were reinstated on June 23, 2008, according to court documents.

Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli said they plan to file a motion contesting the jury's verdict in hopes it will be set aside.

Friends and family gathered Thursday afternoon at  in Great Neck to remember Pepe Ast Chouake, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor.

in Great Neck on Monday when, just while stepping out of her car, she was pinned underneath it as it rolled backwards, according to Nassau County Police.  

Speakers at Chouake's funeral told of her harrowing childhood in Eastern Poland, on the run from the occupying Russian communists, and then the Nazis.