Sal Castro, North Shore Towers and Country Club chief engineer (center), surrounded by a great
maintenance repair crew who are committed to providing uninterrupted services to the residents.
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I OCTOBER 2019 43
The Engineering
Marvel of North
Shore Towers and
Country Club
In addition to the luxury living, many amenities, first-rate
security, and year-round fun activities that North
Shore Towers and Country Club offers its residents
and members, another benefit is its design and the
engineering team that keeps it all humming.
What helps make that possible is Sal Castro, North Shore
Towers and Country Club chief engineer, who has been
working there for a total of 42 years, including as chief
engineer for the past 34 of those years.
Castro joined the North Shore Towers and Country Club
staff in 1977 and, prior to being named chief engineer,
served as watch engineer for three years operating the
energy plant there on various night shifts and energy
plant foreman for five years leading maintenance repair
crews working on generators, boilers, chillers, water
pumps, and cooling towers.
The North Shore Towers design is “unique because we
were never connected to the utility grid, so we generate all
of our own power on site,” Castro says. “On
one hand, this makes the 24/7 operation
critical, and this can be challenging. But we
have 100 percent redundancy of generators,
so while three are needed at any one time,
there are always three more ready to go if
needed, increasing the reliability.”
“On the other hand,” he notes, “during the
times there were long grid outages in the
Long Island and New York City area, North
Shore Towers had constant power, which
can be rewarding.”
In fact, the North Shore Towers plant
reliability has, on average, been “generally
better than grid power reliability over the
last 40 years,” he says.
Further explaining the unique design of the
North Shore Towers energy system, he says
its co-generators “simultaneously generate
electricity and free steam that is used to heat all the water for
domestic use in the three buildings, as well as some of the
heat and air conditioning.”
The local combined generator design, meanwhile, is
“more efficient without the long transmission lines, and
actually uses less fuel and has less overall emissions than
the same energy generated by a utility and a separate
boiler for hot water,” he says.
The end result: Residents “share in that common area
energy savings of approximately $1 million per year,
reflected in the maintenance charges,” Castro says.
For Castro, it’s been “rewarding learning the ever-changing
needs” of North Shore Towers and “helping
to design upgrades and retrofits to meet those needs,
and managing the construction of replacement
equipment after keeping the old equipment running 40
years,” he notes.
Among the many reasons Castro says he’s enjoyed
working at North Shore Towers is, “we have a great staff
who are committed to providing uninterrupted services
to our residents.” The power plant department staff
includes a total of 11 people, including one person who
handles all overnight and weekend shifts, so the residents
of North Shore Towers are taken care of around the clock,
seven days a week, he notes.
While there are “normal equipment breakdowns, they go
largely unnoticed by the residents, as standby equipment
is quickly put in use before any effect of equipment
downtime can be felt,” Castro says.
Glen Kotowski was the General Manager at North
Shore Towers on Aug. 14, 2003, when 50 million
people in eight eights and Canada lost electric power
for an extended period.
“As the darkness of night set in, I took an elevator ride
to the roof to observe few lights, other than vehicle
headlights, as I looked at Manhattan to the West, Long
Island to the east, to the north and to the south and
saw the eerie darkness,” he recalls. “Since we are not
connected to the electrical grid, the 3,000 residents of
North Shore Towers were virtually unaffected other
than by the hundreds of visitors who saw lights shining
in the darkness, following our lights to find and enjoy
the use of one of our two restaurants, our movie
theater and our air conditioning to stay cool on a hot
summer day.”
A second day that’s vivid in Kotowski’s memory is Oct.
29, 2012, when many people in the tristate area lost power
for days and weeks due to Hurricane Sandy.
“Our population temporarily doubled to about 6,000
as friends and family members of our residents sought
refuge at North Shore Towers, which maintained full
power, water and heat during and after the storm,” he
recalls. “Once again, our restaurants were available
to feed the masses and our in-house staff performed
exceptionally to provide additional service needs of
our guests while continuing to provide service to our
residents. As a retired NYPD Deputy Inspector, I have
to say it was visionary when North Shore Towers was
built to install an independent power plant capable
of maintaining power during natural
disasters and emergencies. The fact that
our equipment and feeder cables are
not exposed to the elements makes us
significantly less susceptible to the loss of
power during storms. North Shore Towers
is fortunate to have the dedication of our
Chief Engineer, Sal Castro and his staff
to do an outstanding job keep the power
plant operational and well maintained.”
Of course, in addition to its first-rate
engineering and security staff, North Shore
Towers and Country Club offers an 18-hole
golf course, five Har-Tru tennis courts,
indoor and outdoor pools, a sauna, steam
rooms, a hot tub, a state-of-the-art gym
offering classes including Pilates, and many
other activities. The Club offers classes
that include boxing and Pilates Reformer,
a special exercise machine that’s “good for
stretching your body,” says Country Club Manager Mary
Anne Langone. “A lot of our golfers take the Reformer
class because it helps with their flexibility,” she adds.
Pool activities include outdoor water classes, volleyball
and several outdoor pool parties. There are basketball
courts, boxing and billiards rooms, ping-pong and
shuffleboard also. In addition, there’s shopping, a
movie theater, barbecues, a garden club and many
entertainment events.
For more Country Club details and to book a tour, call
Mary Anne Langone at 718-428-5030 ext. 0.
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