Rename post office to honor Leonard Stavisky

The Linden Hill Post Office in Flushing will now bear the name of a late local politician after officials dedicated the office in honor of State Senator and Assemblymember Leonard Stavisky.
“For every issue that begged for leadership, Leonard was there,” said Congressmember Gary Ackerman, who officiated at the renaming ceremony on Monday, May 21. “We owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude.”
A bronze plaque in Leonard Stavisky’s honor will hang permanently inside the post office, located at the corner of Union Street and 31st Road.
Last year, Ackerman’s legislation to rename the facility was cosponsored by all 28 other members of New York State’s Congressional delegation, and in September 2006, the bill passed unanimously in Congress.
A bevy of local elected officials - Assemblymembers Audrey Pheffer, Ellen Young, Nettie Mayersohn and Rory Lancman, Councilmembers John Liu and Tony Avella, and former Borough President Claire Shulman - were on hand for the renaming. In addition, the Flushing Postmaster William Rogers gave the event’s introduction.
At the ceremony, both Stavisky’s wife, State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, and son, Evan, a political consultant, spoke.
“To Leonard, education was so important,” his wife said. “If Leonard were here today, he would say let’s not forget nowadays kids who need the same opportunity that he had when he was a kid.”
A native of the Bronx, Leonard Stavisky earned his Bachelor’s from City College and both his Masters and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Ackerman joked that Leonard Stavisky earned his doctoral in African-American studies before the subject truly existed at the university level.
A professor for more than 40 years, Leonard Stavisky also served as Deputy to the President of the New York City Council from 1954 to 1960 and was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1966, serving there until he succeeded Ackerman in the State Senate. Toby Ann Stavisky now holds the same seat in the Senate that her husband held from 1983 until his death in 1999.
For more than eight years, Leonard Stavisky also served as the Chair of the Assembly’s Education Committee, and Ackerman credited him with presiding over the body during “one of the most productive periods in the history of the Education Committee in the State of New York.”
“On a personal note, I had the benefit and the privilege of learning so much from Leonard Stavisky,” Ackerman said.
Evan Stavisky credited Ackerman for leading the push to rename the post office, even though Ackerman and Leonard Stavisky had not always seen eye-to-eye.