By JERRY GLEESON
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: July 6, 2007)

The weekly "Jazz and Blues at Dusk" series kicks off at 6:30 tonight at the Yonkers Waterfront amphitheater, and it's the sort of event Steve Sansone relishes promoting.

The new executive director of the Yonkers Downtown/Waterfront Business Improvement District, Sansone has a long resume of service in the city's cultural arena. The concert series, sponsored by Con Edison, runs Fridays through Sept 7. Sansone will tell you that when the shows conclude at 8 p.m., there's still plenty of nightlife left in the district, and he names both new and renovated restaurants that compete for hungry and thirsty patrons.

Residential and commercial construction in recent years has been transforming sections of a business district whose commanding view of the Hudson River was undercut for years by shabby or vacant storefronts. The BID, a not-for-profit formed five years ago, assesses a 6 percent tax on the roughly 250 property owners within its borders, producing about $400,000 annually for a range of services aimed at boosting the business environment.

Sansone succeeds Ronald Law, a former member of Rudy Giuliani's mayoral administration in New York City, who resigned last December after a little less than two years in the post.

Jacqueline Bouet, owner of The Loft Dance and Fitness and a BID board member, said the organization was looking for a successor who would maintain a higher profile. In February, the board announced Sansone would take over the $80,000-a-year post.

"Steve is out there on many levels," Bouet said, "and he really cares. That's probably the biggest asset you've got, somebody who's passionate about the area."

Sansone's family immigrated to Yonkers from Italy in 1904. His father, Larry Sansone, was a Teamster who worked for the city's Parks Department. Steve Sansone attended Sacred Heart High School, then taught ballroom dance to help cover his expenses at Manhattan College.

Sansone, 48, talked about his new job during an interview at the BID's sidewalk-level offices on Hudson Street. A steady stream of car horns and other traffic noise drifted in throughout the morning. Here is an edited summary of the conversation.

Q:Why did you apply for this job?

A:I guess it brought in everything I've been doing in my life. I worked for 25 years in Manhattan for the state attorney general's office and I was doing a lot of volunteer work here with the arts and the community, and I built up quite a few relationships. I have tremendous love for the city and specifically the downtown.

Q:What was your chief memory of the downtown?

A:Mom used to take me downtown to a bingo parlor, I think that was after Weight Watchers meetings (laughs), and to the stores. My family was originally from High Street.

Q:What's changed the most?

A:There's a tremendous vitality and revitalization happening here. It's a very interesting and eclectic BID because you have the dynamics of the folks that have been here, and the folks that are coming here anew. It's a great fusion. There's something for everybody down here. There's affordability when it comes to restaurants, there's views, there's the waterfront. The people are great.

Q:Why did you get the job?

A:I think I established a lot of relationships within the community, and I have a history of working with different organizations. One of the arts organizations that I'm involved with up at Untermyer Park had success in bringing people from all over the county to the park. And last year I was fortunate enough to be hired to work at the Riverfest (as producer), and it was tremendously successful. It was a lot of teamwork; 30,000 people down here in one day.

I've also got a background as being an advocate, whether for the community or through my last position. At the attorney general's office, we were involved in landlord-tenant negotiations; I worked with the co-op/condo division, a regulatory agency. It was necessary for us to facilitate discussion and listen to both sides and somehow bring people together.

Q:Talk about a few short-term goals.

A:Branding the BID, and working with our marketing firm (Thompson & Bender of Briarcliff Manor) that we brought on board to make sure that people know about the BID itself. The other important issue is quality of life in the downtown. I've been walking around and identifying areas such as lights that are out, street signs that are missing, facades that may need some improvement.

Events are very important to bring people together. I'm a firm believer, from doing Riverfest last year, that foot traffic is very important to many of these businesses down here. We've upped our communication on when there are events down here. Folks should know - not (on) the day of the event, but well ahead of time.

We also have the dynamic of being close to the city. The events that you have to do have to be a little out of the box because folks go to Manhattan. So what do we do different here? It's a city, but it's a city with a neighborhood feel.

Q:If I'm a business owner, what's BID doing for me?

A:I think the Web site that we have (www.yonkersdowntown.com) is a good business directory. We can also be a resource to hook folks up to the (city) Office of Economic Development, where they might have programs there. We also have a discounted commercial refuse program that we offer to the merchants.

That's the challenge, finding the commonness between all these business owners. I guess that's what the BID is. We are the common ground in a sense, because you have big developers here and you have the small mom-and-pops. And you have folks who are new and folks who have been here for decades. It's just a matter of everybody working collectively for the benefit and vitality of the downtown. They all have the same interests.

There's a lot of new buildings on the waterfront. There's going to be a lot of new residents that are going to be moving here in the next couple of years. They can benefit tremendously by what's in the downtown, as far as services.

I think the BID is going to grow with the revitalization of the downtown. A lot of things are going to happen down here. This BID needs to be very flexible to what's happening. We are not here to determine what is going to be. We are, I believe, a responsive organization.