History and service to older adults are key themes at H&H benefit bash

May 3, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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Brooklyn Eagle and sister papers, with 350 years of publishing, cited by Heights and Hills.

PIERREPONT STREET—”Bash” seems inappropriate, but a celebration it will be. Lots of history, humor and the inspirational services to older adults and their caregivers will be the themes of a May 15 event hosted at the venerable Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont St. Ticket purchasers and supporters will be helping Heights and Hills, a remarkable service agency that takes care of more than 3,500 older adults and their care-givers in 19 Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Dozier Hasty The evening will honor the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and her five affiliate sister publications, which include the Brooklyn Heights Press (founded 1937) and the Brooklyn Record (founded 1938). The Eagle group includes the Brooklyn Daily Bulletin that began publishing five days a week in 1955 and merged with the revived Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1996. Taken collectively, the group of five weeklies and one daily have been publishing continuously for more than 350 years. Also honored May 15 will be four older adults who work at the Eagle group, whose combined ages may well exceed 350 years!

Dozier Hasty, publisher of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, will describe in brief detail his own aging process and the impact of three well-known ailments: the Peter Principle, Murphy’s Law and… (what WAS that third item?). He will also bring along a num Patricia Higgins ber of large-print posters depicting historical events that were in the Eagle pages since 1841. Copies of a number of maps, posters and books relating to Brooklyn history will also be given as gifts to supporters of Heights and Hills.

“I remember volunteering at Heights and Hills—then called Heights and Hill Community Council—in the 1970s,” Hasty recalled. “Along with many others, I delivered hot lunches to home-bound older adults. I was really inspired by their appreciation and willingness to share their memories. For example, a lady who lived alone in one of the St. George Tower studio apartments had been a Rockette dancer at Radio City Music Hall in her youth. I think having us listen to her stories was more important to her than the food we brought.”

Dennis Holt Today, Heights and Hills continues the mission to help older adults live independently and with dignity. A multi-lingual staff has taken the mission far beyond the Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill area in which it was founded in 1971. More than 19 neighborhoods are served, and the innovative Caregiver Program provides support to those family members, friends and neighbors who provide immeasurable unpaid assistance in shopping, cooking, bathing, bill-paying and dealing with health care red tape.

Among the Brooklyn Eagle group to be honored will be Henrik Krogius, 83, a retired Emmy Award-winning producer of NBC news. After retirement, Krogius, who grew up in the Heights, became editor of the Heights Press. Also to be honored will be popular sage columnist Dennis Holt, 77, a former editor of the Brooklyn Phoenix and currently a regular contributor to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Heights Press. Photographer Don Evans, 93, who actively took photographs for the Eagle and Heights Press until an illness about a year ago, will also be honored, along with Patricia Higgins, ageless, who served as advertising manager for the Heights Press for almost 40 years.