Time passes. Memory fades. But Paula Mae Crandall left marks on Roosevelt Island that won’t be forgotten. In a community under construction, seeking its identity, she recorded four years of its earliest development.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Paula Mae Crandall and The Island View
Earlier this month, Paula Mae Crandall died. She was 90 years old and living in Puerto Rico. Her death prompted memories from her daughter, Laura Foti Cohen, of their years on Roosevelt Island. While Laura studied at NYU, her mom published The Island View from 1977 to 1981.
Sporting a theme – A Perspective of Roosevelt Island – she got her 8 page print newspaper out twice a month. Published so early in the community’s development, The View surprises with its professionalism and informed focus.
Unless you’ve been involved in print publication, you can’t imagine the complexity and hard work required. With a handful of contributors, Crandall pulled together the stories and pasted them into a format. Laura helped by typesetting in her after school hours.
All that literate architecture and construction resulted in lasting imprints of an early Roosevelt Island. They are contextually ingrained in a complex community and cleanly reported. The front page from February 17th features the Delacorte Fountain as well as a report on sub-metering contemplated for Island House.
But in a small feature below, the newspaper praises “the Maintenance Staff,” for its work during a blizzard. On the other hand, “There was too little help from the New York City Department of Sanitation.”
A Perspective of Roosevelt Island
While Crandall’s reports describe a community creating itself, it also managed to be forward-looking. The Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) is active in these pages. Community-oriented volunteers got involved in everything.
In one instance, The Island View reports that Archie Seale, owner of The Grog Shop, is being considered for the title, Mayor of Roosevelt Island. But elsewhere, an editorial wonders whether there’s even a need for such a title.
Elsewhere, RIRA’s Northgate Committee, led by Joanna Carbonetti and Jill Rivkin, considers Starrett’s plans for a “Northgate complex.” More than a decade later, that became Manhattan Park. Their main concern…? That the new complex should have “auditorium facilities.”
The Ads Tell a Story
Signaling an issue that persists to this day, Crandall’s The Island View is advertiser supported. But the advertisers are mostly off-Island. Local businesses on Main Street are not thriving.
The Grog Shop, the original liquor store at 605 Main, offers California Cabernet Sauvignon at $4.29 a bottle and Zinfandel at $3.29. La Picola Mela sells pizza and heros and will deliver with a $4.00 minimum.
Roosevelt Island Cleaners at 571 Main is already up and running. A closer look at an ad for dentist Lawrence M. Itskowitch – “a resident of Roosevelt Island” – shows that he’s still working on 40th Street. That would change, but not yet.
About Paula Mae Crandall
An activist by inclination, while bringing Roosevelt Island it’s first community building newspaper, Crandall found time for working with a start up Business Executives for National Security (BENS). She also had a radio show about renters’ rights on WBAI radio.
Crandall left Roosevelt Island in 1981, settling in Dorado, Puerto Rico. On the beach there, “she gathered up abandoned dogs and reassured them that someone cared about them.” She started a nonprofit rescue operation, Noah’s Ark, finding forever homes for them.
“Paula was smart, beautiful, athletic, cultured and engaged with the world on her own terms. She remained fiercely independent until her death,” according to her obituary.
The Daily thanks Laura Foti Cohen, Paul Mae Crandall’s daughter, for these insights and for an invaluable copy of The Island View, a pioneering perspective all but lost these days.
In addition to Laura, Crandall is survived by a son, Paul C. Foti, and two daughters, Hellen B. Foti and Lisa Gualdino, five grandchildren – Gregory, Pamela, Paige, Emily and Mark – plus, of course, her dogs, Mancha, Rubio and Millie.
The Five Amendments That Sold Out Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Island did not lose control of its southern waterfront in a single deal. It happened in five quiet steps. Five amendments. Five missed chances to renegotiate.
