March 8–14, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 13
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Awarding entrepreneurs
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce celebrates with gala
By Maya Harrison
for Brooklyn Paper
It was an award-winning
party!
Hundreds of the borough’s
top business leaders gathered
at Downtown’s Brooklyn
Bridge Marriott hotel on
Feb. 25 to celebrate local entrepreneurs
at the Brooklyn
Chamber of Commerce’s annual
Winter Gala — an evening
chock-full of merriment,
music, and quality hobnobbing,
said an attendee.
“It was an amazing event.
There were great networking
opportunities, and the violinist
was incredible,” said Ernesto
Perez-Mir, vice president
and chief nursing officer
at Methodist Hospital.
Spectrum News NY1 anchor
Pat Kiernan emceed the
festivities, and presented sev-
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Chair Ana Oliveira with honorees Eladia Causil
Brooklyn Chamber of Congress
Rodriguez, founder and owner of Eladia’s Kids; Domenick Cama, president
and chief operating officer at Investors Bank; and Sid Davidoff, senior partner
at Davidoff, Hutcher & Citron LLP; along with Chamber head Hector Batista.
of children’s learning center
Eladia’s Kids, Eladia Causil-
Rodriguez, who received the
Outstanding Small Business
Owner of the Year Award.
The Chamber’s recently appointed
President and Chief
Executive Officer, Hector Batista
, and its Chairwoman Ana
Oliveira presented each honoree
with a trophy, with Batista
telling the crowd of roughly
400 that the award winners —
and all members of the business
boosting group — play
a vital role in keeping Kings
County’s economy strong.
“Brooklyn’s business community
has driven the borough’s
emergence as an economic
and cultural force, and
the Chamber’s Winter Gala is
a celebration of that. As New
York’s economy continues to
evolve, the Brooklyn Chamber
of Commerce will advocate
for businesses and help
them adapt to the changing
landscape,” Batista said.
This year’s fund-raising
gala raised a whopping
$280,000, according to Chamber
spokesman Michael Johnston.
eral awards to notable Chamber
supporters, including the
President and Chief Operating
Officer of Investors Bank, Domenick
Cama, who won the
Corporate Titan of the Year
Award; legal eagle and Senior
Partner of Davidoff, Hutcher
and Citron LLP, Sid Davidoff,
who took home the Power
Broker of the Year Award;
and the founder and owner
Just how close is too close?
Fearless
Living
By Stephanie Thompson
it is “safe” to leave between
people.
“Don’t get too close,” I’ve
been told after I connect anew
with a total stranger whom I
can’t stop talking about.
But I don’t listen. And I
never have.
Relationships are by no
means easy. They are often
painful, and messy. And yet I
remain fearless in connecting,
and seemingly incapable of following
the old adage, “Twice
bitten, once shy.”
Perhaps I never learn my
lesson because, as painful as
loving people can be, I’m always
a sucker for feeling great
feelings, for letting someone
get closer, even when all signs
tell me to do otherwise.
Sometimes, when I make a
new friend and my life seems
to morph and change as a result,
I wonder, “Why on earth
would I let another person
change me?!” And then I remember:
because we are interconnected.
Humanity is a
woven quilt of people from all
across the world, who many
times share more similarities
than differences, and who must
interact in order to better understand
one another.
Lately, in my life, those people
include folks from Africa,
and Jamaica, where my family
just visited . Next month,
I am travelling to Turkey for
a friend’s wedding, where I
know I will connect with more
amazing people.
Keeping an emotional distance
from these folks can be
tricky, because I overshare
— telling them my secrets,
and making myself vulnerable.
They, in turn, will share
private tidbits with me. And
suddenly, any “safe” space between
us is gone.
In fact, I would argue the
connections I make with people
are anything but safe. A
good therapist would guide me
against them (I know from experience).
I might be diagnosed
as “codependent,” or as having
“obsessive-love disorder,”
or with a condition I just discovered
called “Disinhibited
Social Engagement Disorder,”
which handily pathologizes my
talking to strangers.
And yet … I still believe
in love, and opening myself
to feeling it for the many special
strangers I meet.
In Jamaica, my family and
I couldn’t escape the music of
native son Bob Marley, whose
tunes were ubiquitous on the
island, and whose smiling
face — topped by the long
dreadlocks that indicated his
spiritualism and belief in the
Rastafari religion — was everywhere.
Marley, and his messages
of love and togetherness, are
adored in Jamaica and the
world over. In his short 36 years
of life, he sired 11 children with
seven different mothers (at last
count). Online videos feature
his wife, lovers, and children
talking openly about how they
learned to share his love, even
though it was painful.
Indeed, love is complicated.
But Marley’s inability
to “maintain a safe distance,”
coupled with his deep, visceral
understanding of the need for
love in the world, allowed him
to quite brilliantly communicate
the idea that we have to
connect with one another in
real ways.
We have to be brave, and intimate.
We have to get past the
barriers we’ve built, no matter
the countless stupid reasons
we erected them for.
Safe distances be
damned.
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Driving back to Brooklyn
from the distant
borough of Staten Island,
I noticed a sign posted
just before the entrance to the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
telling me and other drivers
to “Maintain a safe distance.”
“Of course, it is always safer
to keep clear of other cars,” I
thought. “No one wants a pileup
on the bridge.”
But then I thought some
more, and began to shake
my head, and laugh. I may
have even muttered aloud,
to no one but myself, “Right.
Good luck.”
Sure, maintaining a safe
distance from the cars in
front of mine was possible, I
thought. But generally, New
Yorkers are known to leave
little room. And who is to say
what really defines a “safe”
distance anyway?
As it continued to flash
“Maintain a safe distance,”
the sign seemed a metaphor
for other relationships in life
— and the amount of space
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