Jazz Saxophonist Speaks At Bd. 3 Meeting
BY THOMAS COGAN

Jimmy Heath, tenor saxophonist and retired faculty member of the Queens College music department. Heath, who turned 80 last year, was a leading member of the postwar jazz movement. Carter Kennedy recited a list of jazz luminaries he had played with that included Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker and could have been much longer.

The February meeting of Community Board 3 had a smaller load of contentious or celebratory issues than its January counterpart. It was held at its usual site, I.S. 227, the Louis Armstrong School, in Corona and featured an appearance by, and tribute to, another jazzman, saxophonist Jimmy Heath. The board considered some business matters and a proposal to deal with the alleged highhandedness of the Board of Standards and Appeals. Another proposal called for a dog run in Jackson Heights.

The first of the business ventures before the board's Land Use Committee was an application for renewal of the variance for a physical culture establishment, or gym, at 107- 24 37th Ave., an alternate address being 37-16 108th St. Though Giovanna Reid, the board's district manager, said she knew of no complaint about the place, others said it had inadequate exterior lighting, lacked an entrance for the handicapped and needed street trees. Hamlett Wallace, chairman of the committee, said that requests to the owner to correct these problems had been issued periodically since 2001 and had not only gone unremediated but also had drawn no response from the owner. Wallace said the owner, through his attorney, Eric Palatnik, sought a 10- year extension of the variance; Wallace was in favor of only a five-year extension. He quickly discovered that several people wanted to give the owner nothing at all. A motion for a five-year extension was not carried; the vote was almost unanimously against approval.

Two of the three liquor license applications scheduled for Business and Economic Development Committee consideration were postponed. The third was an application for a new license by a man named Carlos Ponce, who wished to establish the Temptation Night Club Bar at 37-74 103rd St., the site of another bar until repeated violations forced the owner to abandon the establishment. Ponce faced considerable skepticism from board members. He had never owned such an establishment; it was known that the existing violations at the address had not been corrected and two other bars are nearby, but well within 500 feet of the site. The committee voted to turn down the application, and it appeared a full board vote would oppose it also. But Arturo Sanchez of the board said the case against the application was unfair. Ponce, he said, was trying to establish himself as an immigrant businessman on a commercial strip where there are several vacancies on the street and that could use a little business. Violations that Ponce inherited are being used against him, Sanchez said. The certified public accountant who is advising Ponce was the accountant for the old owner and knew of the violations, but at no time has done anything about them, according to information available to the board. Should Ponce be blamed for the CPA's lack of due diligence? it was asked Sanchez called it another instance of blaming the victim. Michael Anthony Nardiello, another board member, complained that Ponce was being patronized and was told that someone with his lack of experience would not be able to handle the difficulties of running such a business. Ultimately the license application was turned down, though the vote was close.

Residents of the Dorie Miller cooperative residences on Northern Boulevard between 112th and 114th Streets had attended the January Board 3 meeting to protest a plan to build a 13-story hotel-condominium-commercial office complex across the boulevard from the residences. By the date of the February meeting of Community Board 3, matters had not notably worsened or improved. Reid said the man who proposes to build the complex has agreed to take time out and look over how it might be done differently. Bridgett Edwards, who at last month's meeting denounced the project, encouraged other Dorie Miller residents to maintain an attitude of resistance. Speaking after her was Carolyn Carter Kennedy, of the Louis Armstrong House & Museum, 34-56 107th Street. Her reference to Dorie Miller was by way of hailing one of its residents, Jimmy Heath, tenor saxophonist and retired faculty member of the Queens College music department. Heath, who turned 80 last year, was a leading member of the postwar jazz movement. Carter Kennedy recited a list of jazz luminaries he had played with that included Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker and could have been much longer. Heath said he moved into Dorie Miller many years ago on the advice of two other jazz stars, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and trumpeter Clark Terry. At the meeting, someone asked him to play, but smiled and said, "Nobody asked me to bring my saxophone."

Carter Kennedy also introduced Selma Heraldo, 83, who called herself a lifetime Corona resident long familiar with the most famous of Corona's residents, and who had some anecdotes about Louis Armstrong and the trumpeter's house on 107th Street. For one thing, she said, he bought it sight unseen in the mid-1940s, trusting his wife and another woman to find a place for him in the neighborhood. Also, at the height of his international traveling schedule, Heraldo added, he would spend only about a month's time there during any year.