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Read the press release here.

CB1 Welcomes 5 New Members Including Architect, Entrepreneur and Shop Owner

LOWER MANHATTAN — A marketing entrepreneur, a wine shop owner and an architect are among the five newest members of Manhattan’s Community Board 1.

Borough President Scott Stringer and local officials appointed the new members after reviewing 550 applications for the 311 available posts in Manhattan community boards.

CB1 Chairwoman Catherine McVay Hughes said she was “very excited” to welcome the five new members — Sarah Currie-Halpern, Elizabeth Lewinsohn, Kathleen Gupta, Marco Pasanella and Jason Friedman — who all come to the board with a strong commitment to Lower Manhattan.

TriBeCa resident Sarah Currie-Halpern, 31, is one of the youngest members of the board, but she’s already shown a strong passion for community involvement, especially when it comes to the environment.

Since 2007, Currie-Halpern, who runs her own consulting firm, SAC Marketing, has been the vice chair of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board of Manhattan, a committee appointed jointly by Borough President Stringer and New York City Council members that advises officials on the development, promotion and operation of the city’s recycling program.

Currie-Halpern is also a board member of the New York League of Conservation Voters, a group that helps voters learn about candidates and elected officials environmental record.

“I’m really looking forward to joining the board,” Currie-Halpern said. “I’ve lived in TriBeCa for several years — I love the neighborhood, and I want to keep improving environmental issues in Lower Manhattan.”

Currie-Halpern said increasing and improving open space for the public, as well as opportunities to compost, are some of the things she’d like to work on during her tenure.

Another TriBeCa resident, Elizabeth Lewinsohn, joins CB1 this year as well. The Yale-educated lawyer is involved in several community groups including the Jewish Community Project, Friends of Hudson River Park and Hudson River Park Mamas.

She also comes with a background in policy analysis and homeland security.

The lone Battery Park City resident to join CB1 this year isn’t really that new at all to the board.

Kathleen Gupta, a longtime Battery Park City denizen, is currently a public member of CB1. Gupta, who recently retired after serving for the past 22 years as the chief development officer of the Henry Street Settlement, a nonprofit service agency in the Lower East Side, was also a CB1 member from 1983 to 1993.

Marco Pasanella, another Lower Manhattanite with a strong history in the area, also joined the board.

Pasanella, a South Street Seaport resident who owns popular Pasanella & Son, Vintners wine shop, has long been active in his waterfront community.

But his efforts have stepped up in the wake of the storm. Pasanella, who lives above the shop with his family, has been helping to rebuild the hard-hit neighborhood in the months since Sandy. First, though, he also had to reconstruct his entire wine store, which was wiped out by the floods.

Pasanella's South Street neighbor Jason Friedman has also been appointed a CB1 member.

Friedman is a 34-year-old architect with Joseph Pell Lombardi & Associates, a firm that specializes in restoration, preservation and adaptive re-use of buildings.

The new CB1 positions were left vacant by several stalwarts of the board, including former chairwoman Julie Menin, who stepped down to run for borough president, as well as Harold Reed, a beloved member who died in January.