Community Corner
Neighbors Offer Support for Japanese Relatives
Neighbors Offer Support for Japanese Relatives
As Japan struggles to deal with the horrific disaster brought on by last Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami, many of our neighbors are left worrying about relatives in the affected areas. The Daily News reports on some who have convinced their relatives to come to New York until the situation in Japan is better:
Brooklyn jewelry designer Tsumugi Sakamoto, 38, was at first unable to persuade her parents in Ibaraki Prefecture, south of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, to leave their country because they wanted to stay and help.
But as the situation worsened, the couple in their late 60s agreed to come to New York and stay here until they know it's safe to return.
"We started to realize that we should get them out," Sakamoto's husband, Joel Feinberg, 36, said Tuesday.
"Once that reactor hit yesterday, when we told them we were bumping their flight up, they didn't argue at all."
Earlier this week, Sakamoto asked the Kensington/Windsor Terrace listserv for help in finding a temporary sublet for her parents. Generous neighbors came through and "offered a rental apartment blocks away at a reduced by-the-day rate," says the News. The couple is now trying to persuade her two aunts to come, too.
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