Wave Hill Weekly Events: Dec 13 – Jan 2 | Winter Solstice & Mystery Nights, Forest Bathing

 

Winter Haven at Wave Hill returns this December!  Gearing up for our Opening Weekend with the annual Artisan Market, wreath-making, music and more! Bronx Beer Hall comes to Wave Hill Saturday evening for a beer hall and food truck party. Our popular Winter Solstice Wishes returns again this year – with an additional adults only evening Pub Night co-hosted with An Beal Bocht.  

 

Come for one of these festive events, or simply enjoy the natural beauty and serenity of our gardens at night!  

  

 

Mystery Night at Wave Hill 

Fri, Dec 13, 6:00PM – 8:45PM 

$65 Non Member; $50 member, includes admission to the grounds. 

Registration encouraged 

 

Step into an old-time Hollywood mystery adventure. Mingle with a cast of characters in this whodunit adventure. Bribe suspects for clues and gather information to uncover the stealthy guest who is ending a few film careers all too early. Just be careful, because you could be next! Dress in your best evening wear and suits—this is a refined party, after all. Feather boas are optional!     

 

 

Family Art Project: Festive Food Figures 

Sat, Dec 14 10:00AM – 1:00PM   

Sun, Dec 15, 10:00AM – 1:00PM 

Free with admission to the grounds  

Registration not required 

 

As winter approaches, it’s time to enjoy the fruits and veggies we grew and harvested in warmer months. What food does your family make for a special day? Let's use papier-mâché to create the festive meals that bring our families together.    

 

 

Holiday House Tour 

Sat, Dec 14, 1:00PM – 1:30PM 

Thu, Dec 19, 1:00PM – 1:30PM 

Sat, Dec 21, 1:00PM – 1:30PM 

Free with admission and admission to the grounds is free on Thursdays 

Registration not required 

 

Every December, Wave Hill House is decorated with plants and natural materials to celebrate the winter season. Join a thirty-minute tour highlighting the decorations and brief history of Wave Hill House.  

 

 

Forest Bathing in the Winter Landscape 

Sun, Dec 15, 12:00AM – 2:00PM 

$30, including admission to the grounds. Wave Hill Members save 10% 

Registration required 

 

Bundle up and explore Wave Hill’s serene winter landscape using all of your senses.  Awaken your mind and body on a forest bathing walk through the winter gardens with certified nature therapy guide Cindy Olsen. Benefits include boosts to the immune system, cardiovascular strength-building, stress reduction, improvement to cognitive functioning, and deepening connections to nature and the self.  Space is limited; adults only, please.  

 

Winter Solstice Wishes 

Thu, Dec 19, 4:30PM – 6:00PM 

Thu, Dec 19, 6:30PM – 8:00PM 

Free, and admission to the grounds is free on Thursdays 

Registration encouraged 

 

Celebrate the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice, with cookie-decorating and warm wishes for the season. Bring the whole family to craft beautiful Winter Solstice lanterns and light them with your wishes for the New Year in our enchanting gardens. (2 free sessions)  

 

Family Art Project: Create Your Year- Hello 2025! 

Sat, Dec 21 10:00AM – 1:00PM   

Sun, Dec 22, 10:00AM – 1:00PM 

Free with admission to the grounds  

Registration not required 

 

Prepare for the new year by creating a calendar highlighting your favorite part of every season. Get creative as you use bright colors to capture the excitement of each month. Hang it up and enjoy it all year long! At 11:30am families can enjoy a holiday-inspired storytime program in the Gund Theater, all ages welcome.  

 

Winter Solstice Walk 

Sat, Dec 21, 3:30PM – 4:30PM 

Free, with admission to the grounds 

Registration encouraged 

 

Bundle up and explore the serene winter garden on the shortest day of the year, guided by Senior Horticultural Interpreter Jess Brey. As the setting sun casts long shadows across the landscape, enjoy a stroll among seasonal botanical wonders including majestic evergreens in shades of gold and green, fiery red-twig dogwoods, and bedazzled shrubs with pink, purple and red berries. Ages 10 and older welcome with an adult.   

 

Winter Solstice Pub Night 

Sat, Dec 21, 5:00PM – 8:30PM 

$65 including admission to the grounds; $50 for Wave Hill Members 

 

Celebrate the Winter Solstice with a joyful evening of Irish music, whiskey tasting, seasonal cocktails and creative pursuits! Co-presented with An Beal Bocht, our majestic Armor Hall is transformed into a lively pub for one evening of merriment, perfect for a night out with friends and loved ones.  

Enjoy traditional and contemporary Irish music with vocals, guitar and fiddle, courtesy of Shannon Brown and John Walsh, with special guest Bernadette Fee. Sample a selection of tasty whiskeys and chat about spirits with our friends from MS Walker, a 5th-generation family-owned importer and distributor. If you feel inspired, drop by our crafting station to create a festive crown with natural materials and fairy lights to commemorate the solstice.   

 

Holiday Tea at Wave Hill 

Dec 26–29; Jan 2–5, Seating times 11:30AM & 1:30PM 

Adults $56; Children $36 with adult. Includes admission to the grounds. 

7-Day advanced booking required 

Our annual Holiday Tea is the perfect way to celebrate the holiday season with your loved ones! Enjoy delicious tea sandwiches and delectable pastries with a specialty tea selection served in historic Wave Hill House festively decorated for the holidays. Provided by our exclusive partner Great Performances, this custom menu incorporates seasonal ingredients, inspired from their own organic farm, Katchkie Farm.  

 

WINTER HOURS STARTING NOV 1: 10AM–4:30PM, Tuesday–Sunday 

Shuttle Service Free from Subway and Metro-North, Thursday–Sunday 

Council Member Eric Dinowitz - City of Yes, Final Vote

 

New York City Council Member 

ERIC DINOWITZ

Proudly serving the neighborhoods of Bedford Park, Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Norwood, Van Cortlandt Village, Spuyten Duyvil, Wakefield, and Woodlawn

11th Council District, Bronx · 277 West 231st, Bronx, NY 10463 Tel: (718) 549 - 7300

 

City of Yes

Dear Neighbor,

The NYC Council voted to pass the Mayor’s City of Yes plan, with Council modifications, by a relatively slim margin of 30-21. The goal of this plan is to make it easier for developers to build more as-of-right housing (housing that bypasses community input) and to increase housing density throughout the city. From the beginning, I had strong concerns about the impacts of this proposal, and skepticism about its impact. I want to thank every constituent that contacted me with your opinion. I heard you.

This proposal and my vote have been many, many months in the making. Throughout the process, I have held numerous community forums, communicated frequently with my constituents, shared a litany of updates to the plan, and attended meetings with local community boards and civic organizations to gather input. 

This proposal, billed as an “affordable housing production plan,” does little in the way of building affordable housing. Instead, it is an “as of right housing production plan.” There is no guarantee that this plan will yield more affordable housing, but there is a guarantee that it will remove more community input from land use decisions. 

With your feedback in mind, I advocated for important changes to the original plan to protect much of our community from overdevelopment, ensure parking minimums were not completely abolished, maintain environmental protections, and secure much-needed investments in our current affordable housing stock and infrastructure. 

Although the plan that passed yesterday ultimately fails to meet the needs of our community, I worked with the NYC Council’s Land Use team to make critical changes to the Mayor’s proposal that protect District 11 from some of the most egregious elements of the original plan. Additionally, Speaker Adrienne Adams led negotiations that yielded an additional $5 billion commitment for investments for infrastructure and affordable housing, including rehabilitating vacant apartments and supporting Mitchell-Lama housing. 

I have long been, and continue to be, a fighter for housing affordability that meets our community’s needs. The legislation I authored and passed to streamline the SCRIE process will help thousands more older adults freeze their rent and stay in their homes; I continue to host housing and tenant advocacy organizations in my office monthly; I have spearheaded tax exemption legislation for the preservation of affordable apartments in my district; I consistently advocate for term sheets from HPD that incentivize the production of two and three-bedroom apartments, rather than an oversaturation of studios and one-bedroom apartments; I have negotiated rezonings in the district to ensure the production of 100% affordable housing; and I secured hundreds of thousands of dollars for neighborhood resource centers to help keep people in their homes. 

Housing in our city is far too expensive, but through community action, legislation, negotiation, and budget advocacy, I have facilitated the production of more affordable housing and worked to keep current housing affordable for many residents. Housing is a right, not a privilege, and I will never stop fighting to protect everyone. More still needs to be done to make our city one that is affordable and welcoming to individuals and families.

A proposal that seeks to build more housing cannot come at the expense of the quality of life for those already living here. There were numerous concerns raised with me over the past few months with this proposal: it would require even less community input for new development, allow for developers to knock down more smaller homes to build taller buildings with no investment in infrastructure, strain community resources with no investment in those resources, and reduce parking significantly, all while circumventing the typical environmental review process. Obliterating community oversight, while removing environmental reviews, would leave the community vulnerable to the whims and wishes of developers, who would be given carte blanche. This proposal ultimately shifts power away from the community and into the hands of individuals not familiar with our neighborhoods and who, at the end of the day, leave our community behind, leaving us to deal with their decisions that went unchecked at any point in the process.

We have seen the impact of unfettered as-of-right development. Too often, the experience in District 11 is that when development happens, the community is cut out of the process and no permanent housing is even built. When as-of-right housing is actually built, it is often built without the community in mind. This community has seen too many buildings constructed that are not permanent housing, and housing that is built is saturated with studio and one-bedroom apartments, and as little parking as possible. 

Speaker Adrienne Adams and the Land Use team went to great lengths to improve this plan from its original proposal and secure promises from the Mayor. However, like many government promises, it is unclear where this money will go or how much of it will benefit The Bronx, let alone District 11. 

Moreover, I did not have the opportunity to vote on individual components of the plan. While some elements are good, this plan removes power from community members and places it in the hands of developers who may not have our community’s best interests in mind.

A plan that takes power away from the community is not something I can support. We need community-driven solutions to our housing crisis, not one-size-fits-all policies that sideline us.

Ultimately, I found the City of Yes plan, in its totality, to be the wrong way forward. That is why I voted no. 

I am deeply grateful to the hundreds of constituents who reached out to my office, attended community meetings, and made their voices heard. Your input was invaluable in shaping my decision. We will continue to stand together to make our city affordable, to create a greater economy for everyone, and to build and rehabilitate affordable housing for individuals and families seeking to prosper in our great city. 

My goal will always be to represent the community I serve and ensure that your voice is heard at City Hall.

Council Member Eric Dinowitz Council Member Eric Dinowitz Chair, Higher Education Chair, Jewish Caucus District 11 dinowitz@council.nyc.gov

Telemarketer Sentenced for $67M Health Care Fraud and Money Laundering Scheme

 

A Florida man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud Medicare by billing over $67 million for medically unnecessary genetic testing.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Jose Goyos, 38, of West Palm Beach, was employed at a call center that engaged in deceptive telemarketing calls targeting thousands of Medicare beneficiaries and their physicians. Goyos managed the so-called “doctor chase” division of the call center, which contacted the primary care physicians of targeted Medicare beneficiaries and tricked these medical providers into ordering medically unnecessary genetic tests based on medical paperwork that the call center created. For example, Goyos directed call center employees to falsely represent to providers that the Medicare beneficiaries were “mutual patients” who had requested these genetic tests and that the beneficiaries had medical conditions justifying genetic testing, when neither statement was true.

Goyos and his co-conspirators then used those doctors’ orders to submit claims to Medicare for expensive and medically unnecessary genetic tests. The results of these tests often were not sent to the Medicare beneficiaries’ primary care physicians and were not used in the treatment of the beneficiaries.

In total, between May 2020 and July 2021, Goyos and his co-conspirators submitted over $67 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, of which Medicare paid over $53 million.

In October 2023, a jury convicted Goyos of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Nine additional Florida residents were previously sentenced for their roles in the conspiracy:

• Daniel M. Carver, 38, of Boca Raton, was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison.
• Thomas Dougherty, 42, of Palm Beach, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
• John Paul Gosney Jr., 42, of Parkland, was sentenced to seven years and 11 months in prison.
• Galina Rozenberg, 42, of Hollywood, was sentenced to four years in prison.
• Michael Rozenberg, 61, of Hollywood, was sentenced to four years in prison.
• Ethan Macier, 25, of Boynton Beach, was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.
• Louis “Gino” Carver, 33, of Boca Raton, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
• Ashley Cigarroa, 32, of North Lauderdale, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison.
• Timothy Richardson, 31, of Lantana, was sentenced to two years in prison.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida; Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI Miami Field Office; and Special Agent in Charge Stephen Mahmood of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG) Miami Regional Office made the announcement.

The FBI and HHS-OIG investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Reginald Cuyler Jr. and Andrew Tamayo, along with former Trial Attorney Patrick J. Queenan, of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sara Klco, Marx Calderon, and Sandra Dermici for the Southern District of Florida are handling asset forfeiture.

The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. Since March 2007, this program, currently comprised of nine strike forces operating in 27 federal districts, has charged more than 5,400 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $27 billion. HHS-OIG and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services work collaboratively as Strike Force partners to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes. More information can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.