Bridging a memory to Pete Sobol

The list of accomplishments and people Pete Sobol helped is too numerous to name in a story of this length, besides something would probably left out.

Sobol, died on Feb. 3, 2021 at 64, but left a lasting legacy that extends from being Inwood’s unofficial mayor, a local businessman, the founder of both Christmas Dream (raising money, buying toys for kids in need) and one of the organizers of the Inwood 5K, with proceeds going to scholarships for local graduating high school seniors heading to college.

On Monday, roughly 40 people gathered by the Seagirt Boulevard overpass — an area well known to Sobol who was usually out mowing the grass on the Nassau Expressway medians — to honor him by naming it the Peter V Sobol Memorial Bridge.

“It’s very touching,” said brother Michael Sobol, who was in business with Pete for roughly 30 years. “He was in Inwood for over 30 years and it was like a big family that he wanted to take care of. It’s very touching.”

Cedarhurst resident Syd Mandelbaum, who runs the charity organization and poverty think tank Rock and Wrap It Up!, added to the list of achievements noting that Sobol donated to the Sid Tanenbaum Basketball Tournament, helped passed the state’s Bottle Act to aid the environment, distributed food and water to day workers, and turkeys to those in need, helped to establish Gammy’s Food Pantry with Sasha Young in the Five Towns Community Center in Lawrence, where he also served as a board member, president of the board and interim executive director.  

Mandelbaum highlighted how Sobol and he advocated to help get the federal Food Donation Act in 2008 passed. “It was the fastest act to go through Congress, feeding all of America because Pete,” Mandelbaum said, adding that several years later a similar act was passed in New York with the help of State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, who represents the Five Towns.

Kaminsky and now Town of Hempstead Councilwoman Melissa “Missy” Miller partnered on getting a law passed to name the overpass in Sobol’s honor. “After Pete’s untimely passing it became unfathomable to us that someone who lived in this community or passed through this community would not know who Pete Sobol was or the work he had done,” Kaminsky said.

He recounted the story that one hot summer day, Kaminsky and his wife, Ellen, saw Sobol watering the plants along the expressway medians and Ellen said, “Why does he do that? Was he sentenced to community serve?” and Kaminsky said, “No, that’s Pete Sobol, that’s what he does.”

Miller said that it was an honor to do this because of who Sobol was. “He did everything and anything to make his community better, to make people safer, to make sure people did not go without,” she said, noting his humility. “If he knew of somebody who needed something he was there figuring out how to get what they needed.”

Both Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who knew Sobol for many years and represented a portion of the Five Towns as a town councilman before being elected county executive last November, and County Legislator Carriè Solages also noted Sobol’s community service.