Florence Lisanti, a former village trustee, deputy mayor and historian in New Hyde Park who helped start the village’s annual street fair, died on June 26. She was 91.
The village Board of Trustees meeting last Thursday started with a moment of silence for Lisanti. “Florence was a very special person here in the village,” Mayor Lawrence Montreuil said. “Florence Lisanti loved New Hyde Park. She spent many, many countless hours in service to the Village of New Hyde Park.”
“She could really just connect easily with people,” Lisanti’s daughter Geri Lisanti-Levy said. “She had a warmth and an acceptance about her immediately.” Lisanti-Levy said that one might feel judged or labeled by a stranger, but with her mother, there was an innocence and comfort knowing her. However, Lisanti-Levy said, you wouldn’t want to cross her.
During her time in New Hyde Park Lisanti was a member of the PTA at Hillside Grade School and New Hyde Park Memorial High School and served on the Nassau County PTA Council. After her husband of 42 years, Gerald, died in the early 1990’s she eventually got into local politics.
In 1993 she was elected to the village Board of Trustees and during her second term served as deputy mayor. For her final role in local politics, she served as town historian where she preserved the history of New Hyde Park through historical photos, videos and clippings that are in the Village Hall and the New Hyde Park Museum.
Lisanti was also instrumental in starting New Hyde Park’s annual street fair on Jericho Turnpike. “I think it was Florence who organized the first street fair on Jericho Turnpike and did a phenomenal job. It astounded everyone on how we could have the New York State [Department of Transportation] close Jericho Turnpike for so many hours on a Saturday every year,” Montreuil said.
“I realized my mother was the best at being a politician,” Lisanti-Levy said. She said what makes a leader like her mother effective was having a “strong moral compass.” She said she recalls being told by representatives from community groups like the Chamber of Commerce, “Well you know when your mom asked me to do stuff I really couldn’t say no.”
Lisanti-Levy said her mother did not have much trouble fitting in with “the boy’s club” of politics. “I don’t think that to these guys they looked at her any differently. She just fit in.”
Lisanti was born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Nov. 4, 1927, and grew up in Queens Village.
Because of her work with the PTA, she was received its lifetime achievement award. She was named North Hempstead’s Woman of the Year in 2000 and named the 7th Senatorial District Woman of Distinction in 2010. She was also active in the Board of Elections and various organizations concerning noise abatement in New Hyde Park and water conservation.
In addition to her daughter, Lisanti is survived by two other daughters, Diane and Laura, and her grandchildren, Joshua and Andrea Yohe, and Alessandra and Paul Levy.
