Wantagh couple shows care for community

Joseph and Dorothy Cieslewicz know that people’s lives really do depend on them. As the owners and managers of Park Avenue Gardens, an apartment complex in Wantagh, they are responsible for ensuring that dozens of people have safe, comfortable places to live.

The couple was honored by the Wantagh Chamber of Commerce with the Small Businessperson of the Year award at a breakfast at the Crest Hollow Country Club on Oct. 23. Sponsored by the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce, they were among more than three dozen professionals from across the county to be recognized, with each local Chamber choosing a recipient.

Joseph Cieslewicz took over the business in 1995 from his father, Joseph, and uncle, Theodore. He is the general partner and is responsible for overseeing a 33-unit garden apartment building.

The apartment complex opened 50 years ago, Cieslewicz said, and has been family owned and operated since the beginning. He is responsible for making sure all repairs and capital projects are completed. Cieslewicz said he takes pride in the condition of the building and makes sure it is well maintained. For example, he said, he has a schedule in place to upgrade appliances in apartments, to ensure that these items are replaced before they break.

Currently, the company is in the process of renovating all the bathrooms, Cieslewicz explained.

He noted that the building’s most senior tenant has been living there for 41 years. The company does not have a website, and mostly gets its tenants through word-of-mouth recommendations, and from networking in the community. That is why Park Avenue Gardens has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce for the past decade, he said.

“Small business is a really critical thing for a local economy,” he said. “The Chamber addresses a lot of local issues.”

His wife, Dorothy, who began working there in 1993, is the managing partner, serving as the bookkeeper, handling rentals and leases, and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the building.

She is a native of Smithtown and has lived in Wantagh since she and her husband were married in 1989. They met while working at the Nassau County Police Department and have two children, Joe, 22, and Tom, 19. Both boys were members of Boy Scout Troop 656 and became Eagle Scouts, with Dorothy having served as a Scout leader.

Joseph, a lifelong Wantagh resident, graduated from high school in 1975, earned his associate’s degree in criminal justice from SUNY Farmingdale in 1977 and his associate’s degree in fire protection technology from Corning Community College in 1995.

He has been an active volunteer in the Wantagh Fire Department since December 1975, and retired as professional firefighter and lieutenant with the Garden City Fire Department after nearly a quarter century.

Floyd Earl, a member of the chamber’s Board of Directors, said that when he became aware of a good deed the Cieslewiczes did for a member of the community, they became the obvious choice for this year’s award. Learning about a resident who had a faulty air conditioning system installed, they sent their maintenance staff to take a look, and determined it was not repairable. The Cieslewiczes then paid $3,500 to have a new system put in.

“That’s the kind of spirit we like to see by Wantagh businesses in helping Wantagh residents,” Earl said.

Joseph Cieslewicz said it was an honor to receive the award, and said he and his wife and just two regular business people looking to make an honest living. “It think it’s nice,” he said. “I look at it as we do the same thing that everyone else does.”