Paul LaRocco

Nov 20, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

Matthew Sherwood measures the cost of Bethpage Community Park contamination in missed opportunities. The 41-year-old investment manager, who is blind and walks with a guide dog, said the park four blocks from his home "could be a safe place" to take his 3-year-old daughter to — if much of it wasn’t a fenced-off plot of tainted soil. "It's frustrating hearing stories from others using it when they were a kid: ‘A family place;’ ‘A beautiful park,’ " said Sherwood, a Bethpage resident since 2016.

Nov 11, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco |Keshia Clukey

Donald Trump flipped numerous Democratic strongholds on Long Island on his way to taking a decisive majority of local voters for the first time in his three presidential campaigns, according to a Newsday analysis of unofficial results. More than 53% of voters in Nassau and Suffolk cast their ballots for Trump. He won Suffolk for the third consecutive election and captured Nassau for the first time, becoming the first Republican to win there since 1988.

Sep 4, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

Three miles from the Brookhaven landfill sits the state's only auto shredder south of Albany. Crushing cars and appliances at the rate of one every eight seconds, Gershow Recycling's vast Medford operation yields mountains of scrap iron sold to steel mills across the country while extracting other metals, down to the smallest bits of aluminum and copper that technology can detect. By weight, the company says it salvages 77% of what it takes in.

Jul 31, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

A broad range of elected leaders are calling for a new health study following the discovery of chemical drums beneath the Grumman dumping ground that became Bethpage Community Park. The lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans in federal, state, county and town offices — told Newsday the New York State Department of Health is overdue to conduct a comprehensive review of cancer and other illnesses in the area where Grumman’s historic disposal of toxic waste polluted soil and groundwater.

Jun 20, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

This timeline was reported and written by Paul LaRocco. For decades, Grumman Aerospace was celebrated for its gift of land to the Town of Oyster Bay that became Bethpage Community Park. Generations of local families enjoyed the grounds — until 2002, when the park's ballfield first closed due to contamination in the soil. Since then, the true impact of how Grumman used the site before the donation has revealed itself slowly.