These seniors couldn’t get a new lease on life.
The Midwood Senior Center shut its doors on June 28 and moved to a temporary new home more than two miles away in Canarsie after the center’s landlord — officials at the synagogue in which it operated — refused to renew the lease. One local stalwart of the center said she was sad for her older friends who likely wouldn’t be willing or able to trek to a new center in another neighborhood.
“I’m really concerned for a lot of the other people, who are much older,” said Linda, who declined to give her last name. “I think that’s hard for people to assimilate into another center and go someplace else.”
The center was housed at Avenue I and 49th Street, inside the B’nai Israel of Midwood synagogue for more than a decade, and operated by the Millennium Development Corporation. Its new temporary home is at the company’s Abe Stark Neighborhood Center, on Farragut Road between E. 103rd and E. 104th streets.
Officials from the synagogue and Millennium could not be reached by press time.
A rep from the city Department for the Aging said it is working with Millennium to evaluate new sites, and that seniors wishing to go to the new center will be able to get there via free transportation to and from the center, departing from the Dollar Tree at Utica Avenue and Avenue I at 9 and 10 am during the week of July 13.
Seniors can also get free transportation from the Dollar Tree to the Glenwood Senior Center — just half a mile away, on Avenue H at E. 57th Street — which is operated by Catholic Charities, and the Christopher Blenman Senior Center in Crown Heights, on East New York Avenue, operated by the Fort Greene Council.
Millennium’s other local senior centers are in Mill Basin, at Avenue U and 68th Street; Bergen Beach, at Bergen Avenue between Avenues W and X; and Marine Park, at Fillmore Avenue and Stuart Street.
Linda said that chief among her worries was the fact that the Midwood Senior Center was also one of the area’s only spots for overheated seniors to flock to during extreme weather.
“It’s also a cooling center, so now with them closing, a good portion of the area has no cooling center, which should be among the city’s thoughts,” she said.
