Cory Puopolo, a physical education teacher in Port Jervis, told The Epoch Times that he ventured into building the tallest downtown hotel with charitable purposes in mind: to help young people in the community, especially those from challenging family backgrounds, while building a more promising city for them to grow up in.
The time is ripe for such a move, he said, as Port Jervis is experiencing an economic revival with a slew of new businesses moving in—and that momentum is soon to be multiplied by a historic $10 million downtown redevelopment grant from the state.
Though his seven-story hotel won’t be finished until next year, Mr. Puopolo already has ideas about a grand opening fundraising for new basketball courts at Church Street Park.
“We can redesign it and add courts so that more kids can hang out there,” he said. “I always encourage kids to do better in sports to keep them out of trouble.”
He also said he plans on rounding up at the checkout and monthly charity events to raise money for community causes, such as free pizza for kids on Friday nights to get them off the street.
He got Port Jervis high schoolers to design hotel rooms based on local themes and attractions, such as the Erie Railroad, Glennette Field, and famed author Stephen Crane.
“The more you get the kids involved, the more you get the kids to be on the right path, the more it is going to help your whole community going forward because kids are our future,” Mr. Puopolo said.
Helping Youth
His journey in helping young people started 12 years ago in a downtown Port Jervis gym, where he worked out next to a troubled seventh grader and encouraged him to do better at school.“He started to go back to school and do better,” Mr. Puopolo said. “Then the kid told me one day, ‘You are encouraging me to do well, but what are you doing with your life?’”
That question got to Mr. Puopolo, who was doing random jobs at the time after quitting schooling three times, first for a degree in business management, then to become a police officer, and the last to become a landscape architect.
“I was like: ‘You are right. I am not doing anything with my life,’” Mr. Puopolo said. He went back home that night and applied for a physical education degree at Stroudsburg University.
While studying, Mr. Puopolo started to get local at-risk teenagers to grow and sell pumpkins on a small family farm in Matamoras, Pennsylvania, just across the Delaware River from Port Jervis.
“These kids were considered bad kids in school, but when teachers came to this pumpkin farm, they found them amazing—they carried the pumpkins and greeted everyone; they were so respectful and so nice,” Mr. Puopolo said.
Proceeds from the pumpkin sales went to various community causes, including three basketball tournaments at Church Street Park.
Soon, he followed in several family members’ footsteps and became an educator at Port Jervis School District; now, he teaches physical education to kids, from kindergarten to sixth grade.
“It is the best job in the world,” Mr. Puopolo said. “A lot of these kids are from poor families, and they look forward to coming to school every day because things aren’t so great at home sometimes. They want to be here, they look up to a lot of teachers, and they appreciate you.”
Three students followed in his footsteps to study for physical education degrees, he said.
Port Jervis Revival
When he became a teacher, Mr. Puopolo bought an old house in Port Jervis against the advice of friends he grew up with in Matamoras.“They said: ‘Don’t go to Port. Stay over here on this side of the bridge,’” he said.
But Mr. Puololo liked the affordability of the city. Soon, he began to buy old houses, remodel them, and sell them for a premium, or in his words, he began to beautify Port Jervis one house at a time.
Meanwhile, the rundown downtown of this former railroad city began a slow upward transformation as new businesses such as Foundry42 and Fox N Hare Brewing replaced boarded-up storefronts one by one.
“For years, I was trying to get my business partner to invest in Port, but he was always like, ‘No, I don’t want to go to Port.' Port was so run down,” Mr. Puopolo said. “Finally, I got him to come to the Fall Foilage Festival, and we had a drink at Fox N Hare—it was packed.”
His business partner, Martin McDonough, was convinced by what he saw and agreed to pour money into the city. Mr. Puopolo bought a piece of property on Front Street in the heart of downtown, where the seven-story, 24-room boutique hotel is being built.
The ground floor will have a restaurant. Mr. Puopolo also plans for there to be rooftop bars on the sixth and seventh floors, which would be the first in the city and would be able to entertain about 300 guests.
Besides the hotel, he and Mr. McDonough are onto a second investment in the city: to tear down an old building on Front Street and construct a new seven-story, mixed-use apartment, for which he hopes to get funding support from the $10 million downtown revitalization grant.
With grant money, he said he could offer some units at more affordable prices.
“My partner keeps telling me, ‘You are going to quit your teaching soon, and you are going to run all these projects,’” Mr. Puopolo said. “I said: ‘No, I’m not quitting teaching. I love teaching; it is the best job in the world. I can make them both work.'”
