Remembering Pete Sobol, Inwood's unofficial mayor

There were solemnly bowed heads and tears, and handmade signs and spoken words of appreciation for Peter Vincent Sobol, the unofficial mayor of Inwood, who died on Feb. 3.

Sobol, 64, was honored by roughly 50 people last Saturday at the Five Towns Community Center in Lawrence, where he was a longtime board member and served as board president and interim executive director. A day earlier, many had attended his wake at Meserole Five Towns Funeral Home in Inwood. As of press time, the cause of Sobol’s death was unknown.

The youngest of Walter and Claire Sobol’s four children, born on July 18, 1956, Sobol began his life in Queens, and lived in Roosevelt and Bellmore as well, but Inwood was at the heart of his professional and personal life, and where he made his mark as a staunch community advocate.

“He is someone, as we say, someone who was running after kindness,” said Rabbi Pincus Weinberger, who leads Bais Tefila of Inwood. “He embodied that, and was not just a bystander. It was loving kindness, selfless, it was about everybody else.”

Pete and his brother Michael came to Inwood roughly 30 years ago, and opened Sobol Beverage Distributors on Sheridan Boulevard. Pete became an integral part of the community. Over those three decades, there has not been one program or event in Inwood or associated with the community center that he did not coordinate, organize or have a hand in.

Inwood native and Hewlett resident Christ McGrath noted that Sobol began the Christmas Dream 30 years ago. “It started with 20 local children getting toys during the holiday season,” McGrath wrote in an email, “and now it has grown to helping over 600 children and their families each year by providing such things as back packs with school supplies, underwear, socks, winter coats, food, blankets and the list goes on and on.”

McGrath added that Sobol thought of starting an English as a Second Language program at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Inwood, so parents who didn’t speak English could learn the language and be able to help their children with schoolwork.

“Pete met with the Lawrence School District, civic leaders and the local clergy to make that dream come true,” McGrath wrote. “The ESL program to date has helped numerous families and has resulted in over 20 residents become citizens of the USA.

Sobol was a longtime member of the Peninsula Kiwanis. “Pete believed that he was put on this earth to help those less fortunate,” McGrath continued. “The list of people that this man has helped is endless. Heaven just got one of the best people on this planet. May God bless our friend.”

A mentor, a doer

One of the people Sobol helped was Byron Alvarado Valiente, of Inwood, who met Sobol in 2012 at the community center, where they bonded over helping people, and Sobol learned that Valiente was sending items to his family in Guatemala. “We became like father and son,” Valiente said outside the funeral home on Feb. 5.

“We went on vacations together and he helped me a lot — He helped me to buy a house. I spent every day with Peter. We used to drink coffee together, and we used talk about how we are going to change the world.”

Imparting life wisdom, helping Valiente and many others, Sobol, though not Jewish, was surely a mensch, Yiddish for someone to admire and emulate, a person of noble character. “His mission was to help everybody,” said Valiente, who has four children. “Every Christmas, Peter made sure all my kids got gifts. I have no words for how Peter changed my life.”

In 1993, Sobol and Michael DeRose, a Lawrence chiropractor, established the Inwood 5K. Proceeds from the race have generated more than $110,000 in scholarships for Five Towns students.

“Pete was a great guy, always willing to give someone the shirt off his back,” said Cedarhurst native Mark Sarro, whose father, Frank, along with Junior Perez and John Suppa, helped organize the 5K.

“My father, Pete and Michael DeRosa would be at Pete’s beer distributorship from 7 to 10 p.m., giving out T-shirts and the numbers for the race, and the runners would get a pasta dinner from the pizza place next door when the race started out.”

About six years ago, Inwood resident Rosemarie Reo recalled in a Facebook post, she got a call from Sobol on a Saturday morning, inviting her to go on a ride with him. At the time, Reo was president of the Inwood Civic Association.

“He took me to [Route] 878,where he had volunteers all cleaning up, picking up trash, emptying cans etc.,” Reo wrote. “We stopped at each person there. He introduced me to each person so I could say thank you and we gave them water bottles (it was a hot summer morning). He wanted them all to know they were appreciated. I hope Pete realized how much he was appreciated and loved by so many. A huge loss for our town.”

“He was always working on something,” said Jim Vilardi, of Hewlett, who began a petition to rename the community center in Sobol’s honor, a campaign joined by County Legislator Carrié Solages, because the facility is leased from the county. Solages has submitted a resolution to the Legislature to rename the center, though the proposed title was unclear as the Herald went to press.

Vilardi noted that Sobol was working on making the center a Covid vaccination site. “Every single day he would do something for the Inwood community,” Vilardi said. “There was no issue too small to escape him. He had a vision to help people reach their goals and new levels of achievements.”

A tribute from Albany

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, who represents the Five Towns, said he was introducing a bill to rename an overpass that spans Route 878, the Nassau Expressway, in Sobol’s honor.

“Pete Sobol loved Inwood, and that love inspired a lifetime of work that bettered his neighborhood in countless ways,” Kaminsky said. “He dedicated every ounce of himself to make the Five Towns a better place, and his loss will be deeply felt by the community that he fed, clothed — and most of all, loved.”

State Assemblywoman Melissa Miller, of Atlantic Beach, is sponsoring the Assembly’s overpass legislation, and also suggested that the community center be renamed to honor Sobol. “He never wanted recognition,” Miller said. “He would make sure that the people were taken care of, and people who are never thought of are thought of. He was phenomenal to me, and opened my eyes to a lot of what I was living next door to.”

“The world really needs more people like Pete Sobol, and the world be a better place if there were more Pete Sobols,” Weinberger said. “We will miss him in the local Inwood community.”

Sobol is survived by his siblings, Patricia, Kathy and Michael, and their spouses and children. The family wrote a thank-you letter to all those who knew Pete. “His joy, his goals, his enjoyment in life were deeply rooted in the betterment of all,” it read. “Whoever needed a champion or helping hand, Pete was your man.”