BY FRED CHERNOW When Sinclair Lewis wrote his prize-winning novel, Arrowsmith, he didn’t know he would alter the life a 12-year-old boy in Lawrence, Long Island. Young Marty Mines grew up in a middle class family; his father was in the garment business, and it was expected that Marty would follow him. “I felt I wanted to do something more exciting after reading about this noble doctor,” recalls Mines, now a retired internist. “I wanted to be a doctor . . .I wanted to do something intellectually challenging.” When he graduated high school, he joined the Navy because they promised him training as a medical corpsman. Upon discharge, he went to Bucknell University and Downstate Medical School where he completed an internship, then residency in internal medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New MARTIN MINES, MD Doctor to the Stars York. It was there that he met his to-be wife, Joan. The two married and lived on her earnings as a nurse and his $50 a month stipend that included room, board, and laundry. However, things got tighter when Joan became pregnant with their son, Daniel. To supplement his meager income, Mines got a coveted job working nights for a “Broadway Doctor,” and had to be on call to provide medical aid in the theaters, restaurants, and hotels, in central Manhattan. He cared for Lena Horne who had a series of ear infections, among many other Broadway stars. Once, when Judy Holiday was appearing in “Bells Are Ringing,” she announced after a matinee that she couldn’t possibly do the evening performance because she lost her voice. Mines stepped in, and after an examination, some sprays and antibiotics she “knocked them dead” at the evening performance. “I learned a lot in medical school and my residency, but Broadway was my reality,” Mines recalls. When it was time to open his own office he chose a location in Hempstead, where he ran a private practice while living in Merrick where three more children were born: Julia, an artist and writer now living in Amherst, Massachusetts; Emily, a teacher at the Dalton School in Manhattan; and Richard of Roslyn who designs and furnishes corporate offices and medical facilities. As his private practice grew, he took on seven associates in cardiology, gastroenterology and pulmonology. “One highlight of my career in internal medicine was when one of my very sick patients needed a heart transplant. This was very rare in the 1960s, but I was able to contact Dr. Michael DeBakey in Texas and sent the patient to Baylor. This was only the eighth heart transplant in the United States and a success. Throughout my career I met some fascinating people; one was my fellow classmate and co-resident Milton from Downstate and Mt. Sinai Hospital. His wife, Joyce, was very interesting in that she had a truly photographic memory. She could study a page of statistics or other data and memorize it in minutes. This was 1955, and she was encouraged to compete on the very popular television quiz show, “The $64,000 Question.” She boned up on the sport of boxing. You guessed it, she was the psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers who won the money and went on to become a major TV star. Since 2002 I have become a college student once again, this time at the PEIR group at Hofstra University. This is a group of retirees engaged in lifelong learning. I attend four days each week and enjoy it immensely. The people and offerings are both stimulating and challenging.” EDITOR’S NOTE: Board member Fred Chernow will be writing for the North Shore Towers C o u r i e r monthly so be sure to look for his column. CO-OP TAX RELIEF BILL PASSED BY LEGISLATURE BY MELISSA CHAN The State Legislature has passed a longawaited tax relief bill for city co-op and condo owners, despite a cluster of lawmakers who voted against it. The bill, approved by the State Senate and Assembly, includes raising a partial tax abatement from 17.5 percent to 25 percent and extending the J-51 program to June 30, 2015. The abatement reduces the difference in property taxes paid by Class 2 co-op and condo properties and one, two and three family homes in Class 1, and the J-51 gives owners partial property tax exemptions for capital improvements. “This is a major victory for the vast majority of co-op owners in northeast Queens, including thousands of senior citizens on fixed incomes,” said Assemblymember Ed Braunstein. But seven Democratic state senators and seven Democratic assemblymembers opposed the omnibus bill, which included a measure that gives tax abatements to 15 plots in midtown and downtown Manhattan being developed as luxury condominiums and office buildings. “This bill only benefits the rich,” said State Senator Ruben Diaz of the Bronx. “It is a multimillion dollar program of rent exemptions and abatement for landlords who renovate their buildings.” He said it does nothing to protect tenants. Diaz said he feared capital improvements under the J-51 program would lead to landlords raising rents on their tenants. “To vote for this bill, we might be sending the message, an impure message, that we are only working for the landlords and against the tenants,” Diaz said. State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky said she voted in favor of the bill because of the vital abatements to city co-op and condo owners but believed the abatements to luxury developments were a “giveaway of city money.” “The developers would be building this anyway. They don’t need the tax abatement,” she said. “We unfortunately can’t pick and choose the parts of the bill we want to vote for.” State Senator Brad Hoylman of Manhattan said he was “outraged” the abatement extensions were put into a packaged bill and “rushed through the Rules Committee onto the Senate floor with only 30 minutes’ notice.” “The bill subverted the normal committee process and required an ‘up or down’ vote, which was difficult as the bill contained some provisions that gave me and my Democratic colleagues pause,” he said. The bill requires another Senate vote before Governor Andrew Cuomo can sign it into law. Its assurances come after panic spread throughout co-op and condo communities at the end of June, when the Legislature adjourned session without extending the J-51 program and the expired abatement. Fear mounted in November after elected officials said the Legislature would not reconvene to pass promised relief. A pair of audits released last year by the city’s comptroller office found the Department of Finance at fault for causing upheavals in condo and co-op property values — a determining factor in property taxes — when it changed its formula for calculating them in fiscal year 2011-12. North Shore Towers Courier n February 2013 27
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