All Roads Lead to...Progress
Driveway built to connect Touro College of Dental Medicine and the main New York Medical College campus
July 2016 - In more than one of the speeches at the July 13 Driveway Groundbreaking Ceremony celebrating the construction and progress of the roadway which will connect 19 Skyline Drive with the main NYMC campus, the question was asked: “What’s the Big Deal about a Road?” Quite a lot, it turns out.
In more than one of the speeches at the July 13 Driveway Groundbreaking Ceremony celebrating the construction and progress of the roadway which will connect 19 Skyline Drive with the main NYMC campus, the question was asked: “What’s the Big Deal about a Road?”
Quite a lot, it turns out.
These “engineering marvels,” said Alan Kadish, M.D., president of Touro College and University System and New York Medical College, “have had a profound impact on human development for centuries, both physically and philosophically.” As Dr. Kadish elaborated, roads facilitate the movement of people, goods, information and ideas, they offer efficient and safe routes for travel, and they provide a critical means of connection. View the Driveway Groundbreaking Ceremony photo gallery here.
Dr. Kadish, along with several local politicians and NYMC administration and faculty members, also reflected on the significance and success of this particular NYMC-Westchester County-Mount Pleasant collaboration before participating in the ceremonial “dig.”
The pedestrian-friendly approximately quarter-mile driveway will provide safe travel between 19 Skyline Drive, which houses NYMC offices and facilities as well as the new Touro College of Dental Medicine, to the main NYMC campus.
According to Jerome D’Imperio, vice president of real estate construction, design and development at Touro and NYMC, who has been referred to as the “guiding star” of this deceptively complicated project, the project team has also been working closely with environmentalists to convert the natural landscape—a seasonal wetland to a permanent wetland - in order to ensure the year-round usability of the road and preserve the plants and nature that exist there today.
Edward C. Halperin, M.D., M.A, chancellor and chief executive officer, concluded the ceremony saying, “Roads represent a journey. It’s a wide way leading from the past to the future, the first of a series of actions that will lead to more great things happening at New York Medical College and the Touro College and University System.”
Ready to move the earth were, from left: Thomas J. Abinanti, NYS Assemblyman; Francis L. Belloni, Ph.D., NYMC dean of the Graduate School of Basic Medical Sciences; Dana Mordue, Ph.D., NYMC associate professor of microbiology and immunology and secretary of the faculty senate; Jay P. Goldsmith, D.M.D., founding dean, Touro College of Dental Medicine at NYMC; Jerome D’Imperio, vice president of real estate construction, design and development at Touro and NYMC; Alan Kadish, M.D., president of the Touro College University System and NYMC; Edward C. Halperin, M.D., M.A., NYMC chancellor and chief executive officer; Dee DelBello, chief executive officer and publisher of Westfair Communications Inc., and member of the NYMC Board of Trustees; MaryJane Shimsky, Westchester County Board of Legislators; Kevin J. Plunkett, Westchester Deputy County Executive; Carl Fulgenzi , Mount Pleasant town supervisor; andRobert W. Amler, M.D., M.B.A., NYMC dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practice and vice president of government relations.
