News & Events
‘Building New York’ is Theme of 2004 Best of New York Award Dinner
Daniel Libeskind
Hon. Charles A. Gargano‘55
Hon. Brian M. McLaughlin
Roland Lewis, Habitat for Humanity
Steven R. Butler ‘75
The New York City College of Technology Foundation will host a “Building New York” salute to Daniel Libeskind, internationally acclaimed architect and Ground Zero master planner; Hon. Charles A. Gargano, Empire State Development chairman and vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey; and Hon. Brian M. McLaughlin, New York State Assembly member and president of the New York City Central Labor Council, at its 2004 Best of New York Award Dinner on Monday, May 24, in the Trianon Ballroom at the Hilton New York in Manhattan.
Also to be honored are Habitat for Humanity/New York City, which has made the dream of home ownership a reality for nearly 100 New York families, and Steven R. Butler ’75, a graduate of City Tech’s architectural technology program and an associate with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP in charge of many of the firm’s most prestigious planning and construction projects.
Guest Presenters
Guest award presenters include Hon. Matthew Goldstein, chancellor of The City University of New York; Gabriel P. Caprio, president and CEO of Amalgamated Bank; Angelo Vivolo, noted restaurateur; a representative of Home Depot; and City Tech Alumni Association President Yvonne Riley-Tepie ‘92.
Honorary Dinner Chair, Master of Ceremonies and Entertainment
The event will begin at 6 p.m. with a Guest of Honor Reception and networking opportunity. This year’s Honorary Dinner Chair is City Tech hospitality management program graduate and celebrity chef Michael Lomonaco ’84, chef/director of Noche and co-host of the Travel Channel’s popular food show “Epicurious.” FOX News Channel anchor and correspondent Julian Phillips will serve as Master of Ceremonies. Entertainment will be provided by The Lion King Ensemble from Disney on Broadway’s award-winning musical.
The Honorees
Daniel Libeskind, an international figure in architecture and urban design, is well known for introducing a new critical and multidisciplinary discourse into the field. His practice includes the design of major cultural and public institutions, commercial projects such as shopping centers and department stores, large-scale master planning projects, stage design, installations and exhibitions. In 2003 he won the design competition and commission for the World Trade Center Ground Zero Site.
His practice in architecture began with the building of the Jewish Museum Berlin, a competition he won in 1989. The museum opened to international acclaim in September 2001. Other major projects include The Felix Nussbaum Museum for city of Osnabrück, Germany, and the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, England. He is currently designing The Spiral Extension to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; “Westside,” an urban scale entertainment and shopping center in Brünnen, Switzerland; the Maurice Wohl Convention Centre at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv; the Extension to the Denver Art Museum in Colorado; the Danish Jewish Museum Copenhagen; the Post-Graduate Centre at London Metropolitan University; the Extension to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; the Military Museum Dresden; and sets for Wagner’s Ring at the Covent Garden, London.
Libeskind has taught and lectured at universities worldwide and is currently a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Frank O. Gehry Chair at the University of Toronto. He has received numerous awards, including honorary degrees and the Hiroshima Art Prize presented to an artist whose work promotes peace. Considered a major influence on a new generation of architects specializing in the development of cities and culture, he has published widely and has been exhibited in major museums and galleries worldwide.
Ambassador Charles A. Gargano ’55, a graduate of City Tech’s civil engineering technology program, has served as chairman of Empire State Development (ESD) and vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey since 1995. At ESD, the ambassador advises the governor on economic policy and implements key initiatives to further strengthen New York State’s economic competitiveness in attracting businesses and new jobs to the state.
Also at ESD, Gargano has brought important capital investments to New York State, including the revitalization of Times Square and the redevelopment of a new Pennsylvania Station. His work heading up the “I Love New York” tourism campaign led to his most recent appointment to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Tourism Advisory Board. Since 9/11, Ambassador Gargano has led the economic recovery and oversees federally subsidized programs for Lower Manhattan.
As vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, he is the governor’s principal aide in implementing interstate shipping and transportation policies, bringing multi-billion dollar investments to John F. Kennedy International Airport to return it to its role as the premier gateway to the United States.
The ambassador’s distinguished career in public service followed a successful career as an engineer and principal with Long Island-based J.D. Posillico Engineering and Construction. He has served as regional director of the Association of General Contractors in America and as chairman of the New York State Society of Professional Engineers in Construction. In 1988, he was appointed ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago by President Reagan and later re-appointed by President Bush in 1989.
Hon. Brian M. McLaughlin, a member of the New York State Assembly and president of the New York City Central Labor Council, joined the electrical union training program as an apprentice after graduating from high school and later became a journeyman electrician, following in the footsteps of his farther and grandfather.
Since his election to the New York State Legislature in 1992, Assemblyman McLaughlin has represented the 25th District, which includes 10 prominent Queens neighborhoods and is one of the most ethnically diverse legislative districts in the country. The author of more than a dozen state laws, he is chairman of the Real Property Tax Committee and a member of the Assembly’s Standing Committees on Aging, Alcoholism and Drug Abuse; Cities; Transportation; and Ways and Means. Earlier, he served as chairman of the Administrative Regulations Review Commission, which oversees the rule-making process to ensure that agency rules remain faithful to the spirit and letter of the law.
Assembly McLaughlin has been a leading figure in New York’s labor movement for more than 20 years. Before his election to the Legislature, he served as pension director of the electrical industry and was a member of the board of directors of the Queens Overall Economic Development Corporation, Community Board 8 and the local Little League. He was a business representative of Local Union 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO and is now a board member of United Way of Greater New York and the New York City Council on Economic Education. The Assemblyman is a Democratic District Leader and also serves as president of the New York City Central Labor Council, an umbrella organization of some 400 local unions representing more than 1.5 million working men and women.
Habitat for Humanity/New York City’s parent organization, Habitat for Humanity International, is the progeny of a once-wealthy Americus, Georgia, couple who sold all of their possession and donated their fortune to the poor, giving rise to this international faith-based, ecumenical concern that has built or restored more than 150,000 homes for families in need worldwide.
The New York City affiliate is one of more than 1,500 U.S. affiliates of the international organization committed to uplifting America’s families and communities, not just to the construction of homes. The local affiliate was created in 1984, when the city was selected as the site of the first Jimmy Carter Work Project. To date, Habitat for Humanity/New York City has helped make the dream of home ownership a reality for nearly 100 New York families from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.
Through volunteer labor and tax-deductible donations, Habitat builds and rehabilitates simple, decent homes with the help of the future homeowners. Habitat homes are sold to partner families at no profit, financed with affordable, no-interest loans. In lieu of a down payment, homeowners invest hundreds of hours of volunteer labor on their own houses and those of other family partners. The homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments are recycled into a revolving fund that is used to finance new constructions. It is not a giveaway program, but a joint effort in which those who benefit from the venture are involved in the work.
What continues to appeal to former President Carter is Habitat’s commitment to building community along with housing. Within the “safe harbor” of a construction site, volunteers also build bridges across barriers of race, class and ethnicity and create new levels of respect between people of different beliefs and backgrounds.
Steven R. Butler ’75, a graduate of New York City College of Technology’s architectural technology program and an associate with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, has served as architect’s representative on many of the firm’s most prestigious construction and planning projects. These include a new mixed-use tower that will serve as Random House headquarters; J. P. Morgan Chase building at Downtown Brooklyn’s MetroTech Center; a 745-bed diagnostic treatment facility at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center; Continental Airlines Global Gateway at Newark Liberty Airport’s Terminal C; Times Square Tower at 42nd Street and Broadway; a new research building for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, which is presently under construction; and the award-winning design for a new trading facility for the New York Stock Exchange.
Butler currently serves on the Academic Advisory Commission of New York City College of Technology’s Department of Architectural Technology and was a major force in the development of the department’s new baccalaureate degree program. This program is one of the few in the country to emphasize restoration and renovation in the preservation of the urban fabric of America’s great cities. In addition, he is also an instructor at the College, who brings to the learning experience of his students the enormous benefit of his vast knowledge acquired through working on major architectural and construction projects.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's work ranges from the architectural design and engineering of individual buildings to the master planning and design of entire communities. The firm has conceived, designed, and built projects that include corporate offices; banking and financial institutions; government buildings; public and private institutions; health care facilities; religious buildings; airports; recreational and sports facilities; university buildings; and residential developments. The firm has completed more than 10,000 projects in 50 countries.
Presidential Farewell
City Tech President Fred W. Beaufait will open the awards ceremony with remarks on the important role the College’s graduates have played over the past 60 years in building and maintaining New York. Beaufait will be retiring this fall, and this will be the final Best of New York Award Dinner over which he will preside.
Dinner Proceeds
Proceeds from the annual Best of New York Award Dinner are a major source of the unrestricted funding that helps support the City Tech Foundation-sponsored scholarship and other financial assistance programs upon which so many of the College’s students depend. For tickets and additional information, call 718.260.5025.
