Many of you may not have heard about our family and the tremendous support that we have received over the years. We have always been there to serve MTA's customers, no matter what hardships we had to endure along the way. In 1966, the newsstand at the Croton Harmon Station was not in operation, so my grandfather Jerry Marafito was approached by Mat Collins, Director of Real Estate of the New York Central. Here is what he had to say about the situation: “The railroad is just interested in the restoration of service to our customers. Just supply those people with their daily newspapers. How you do it is your business, but get them off my back!” The location had to be completely gutted as the vermen infestation made this necessary. Jerry paid to have the stand rebuilt at his own expense. In 1972, the entire station was moved south and a building was erected at ground level. Once again, the railroad leased the space to my grandfather but he had to get his stand built by himself with no monetary help from the railroad. Luckily, some of the expense was absorbed by the New York State Commission for the Blind. The space allotted to my family made it possible for us to increase the level of service we provided to MTA's customers. In April of 1982, the MTA wanted to put our stand out for bid and this started an avalanche of criticism and controlled rage directed at the MTA. Initially, our customers jammed the MTA switchboard with thousands of phone calls. This was followed by an outpouring of support from the local community, some had never ridden the train but were upset that a large corporation could interfere with good service being provided. As a result we submitted a petition with over 5000 signatures and a boatload of letters from local businesses, area government officials and prestidgeous members of the corporate world. We are happy to report that the MTA retracted their decision to put the location out for bid. In 1986, my grandfather passed away from cancer and my grandmother Theresa (Terry) took over the helm and was tasked to get a loan to pay for this major building effort, 40000 dollars later and we had a stand that was the largest we had to date and we were able to increase the service we provided to our customers both with breakfast offerings and hot dogs and other selections for afternoon hours. In 1990, once again, the entire station was relocated, now at bridge level where passengers had to use stairways to the bridge from the parking lot and then those that led down to the platforms. The MTA gave us the space and we had to build our own stand. The building of this structure was made even more difficult due to the design of the ticket office which was angular and we had to conform with this style. On March 18, 2008, a day that my family will never forget, found my grandmother who is totally blind, having her cigarette down on the platform level since smoking was not permitted in the station proper. To make matters worse, the elevator that she used normally was out of order that morning and she had to use another one and the last words that we ever heard from her were, “I know my way!” Nanny would stand by the elevator that would bring her back upstairs. Upon entering the elevator, somehow someone got the doors to reopen and my grandmother thought that she was upstairs having heard the door open and proceeded to get out and walked to her left and fell off the platform. An Amtrak train was coming through at track speed and there was no way that anyone could help her and thus she was run over by two engines. From that point on my mom Nance Marafito Cohen was now your lessee for this property. In 2016, the entire station was remodeled and we were briefly located back downstairs to the old station building. When Nance was finally able to move in upstairs, she found that the space allotted to her was one third that of the original stand that was demolished during the renovation Nance’s recent five year lease expired last year with no renewal and has been on a month-to-month agreement since then. So here we are now, in June 2017 with our family livelihood in jeopardy knowing full well that just as in 1982, there is no way that we can compete with a franchise or other corporate entity, it would be ridiculous to believe that we can! The situation demands that once again, we have to reach out to our local community for help as we did in 1982 and hope that the MTA will retract the bidding for this location. There are 7,350 people that pass through the station every day. We want to accumulate the same number of signatures.